Freedom in the World

Freedom in the World is a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based[2] non-governmental organization Freedom House that measures the degree of civil liberties and political rights in every nation and significant related and disputed territories around the world.

For overview of democracy indices, see List of democracy indices.

2022[1]
1972
  Free   Partly Free   Not Free   Not Covered

Origin and use

Freedom in the World was launched in 1973 by Raymond Gastil. It produces annual scores representing the levels of political rights and civil liberties in each state and territory, on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free). Depending on the ratings, the nations are then classified as "Free", "Partly Free", or "Not Free".[3] The report is often used by researchers in order to measure democracy and correlates highly with several other measures of democracy such as the Polity data series.[4]

The Freedom House rankings are widely reported in the media and used as sources by political researchers. Their construction and use has been evaluated by critics and supporters.[5]

Country rankings
   Countries designated "electoral democracies" in Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2023 survey, covering the year 2022.[6]

The rankings are from the Freedom in the World 2019,[7] 2020,[8] 2021,[9] and 2022 surveys, each report covering the previous year. The average of each pair of ratings on political rights and civil liberties determines the overall status of "Free" (1.0–2.5), "Partly Free" (3.0–5.0), or "Not Free" (5.5–7.0).[10]

An asterisk (*) indicates countries which are "electoral democracies". To qualify as an "electoral democracy", a state must have satisfied the following criteria:

  1. A competitive, multiparty political system;
  2. Adult suffrage for all citizens without criminal convictions (some states may further punish and subjugate people with criminal convictions by disenfranchising them from the democratic process);
  3. Regularly contested elections conducted in conditions of ballot secrecy, reasonable ballot security, and the absence of massive voter fraud that yields results that are unrepresentative of the public will; and
  4. Significant public access of major political parties to the electorate through the media and through generally open political campaigning.

An electoral democracy must have a score of 7 or more out of 12 in political rights subcategory A (Electoral Progress), an overall aggregate score of 20 in their political rights rating and an overall aggregate score of 30 in their civil liberties rating.[11]

Freedom House's term "electoral democracy" differs from "liberal democracy" in that the latter also implies the presence of a substantial array of civil liberties. In the survey, all Free countries qualify as both electoral and liberal democracies. By contrast, some Partly Free countries qualify as electoral, but not liberal, democracies.[10]

World

* indicates "Civil liberties in country or territory" or "Human rights in country or territory" links.

PR = political rights, CL = civil liberties

Country Electoral democracy 2019 2020 2021 2022
PR CL Free Pts PR CL Free Pts PR CL Free Pts PR CL Free Pts
 
 Afghanistan *No 56Not 27 56Not 27 56Not 27 77Not 2
 Albania *Yes 33Partly 68 33Partly 67 33Partly 66 33Partly 67
 Algeria *No 65Not 34 65Not 34 65Not 32 65Not 32
 Andorra *Yes 11Free 94 11Free 94 11Free 93 11Free 93
 Angola *No 65Not 31 65Not 32 65Not 31 65Not 30
 Antigua and BarbudaYes 22Free 84 22Free 85 22Free 85 22Free 85
 Argentina *Yes 22Free 84 22Free 85 22Free 84 22Free 84
 Armenia *No 44Partly 51 44Partly 53 44Partly 55 44Partly 55
 Australia *Yes 11Free 98 11Free 97 11Free 97 11Free 95
 Austria *Yes 11Free 93 11Free 93 11Free 93 11Free 93
 Azerbaijan *No 76Not 11 76Not 10 76Not 10 76Not 9
 BahamasYes 11Free 91 11Free 91 11Free 91 11Free 91
 Bahrain *No 76Not 12 76Not 11 76Not 12 76Not 12
 Bangladesh *No 55Partly 41 55Partly 39 55Partly 39 55Partly 39
 BarbadosYes 11Free 96 11Free 95 11Free 95 11Free 95
 Belarus *No 76Not 19 76Not 19 76Not 11 77Not 8
 Belgium *Yes 11Free 96 11Free 96 11Free 96 11Free 96
 BelizeYes 12Free 86 22Free 86 21Free 87 21Free 87
 Benin *No 22Free 79 42Partly 66 42Partly 65 53Partly 59
 Bhutan *Yes 34Partly 59 34Partly 59 24Partly 61 34Partly 61
 Bolivia *Yes 33Partly 67 33Partly 63 33Partly 66 33Partly 66
 Bosnia and Herzegovina *No 44Partly 53 44Partly 53 44Partly 53 44Partly 53
 Botswana *Yes 32Free 72 32Free 72 32Free 72 32Free 72
 Brazil *Yes 22Free 75 22Free 75 23Free 74 23Free 73
 Brunei *No 65Not 29 65Not 28 65Not 28 65Not 28
 Bulgaria *Yes 22Free 80 22Free 80 22Free 78 22Free 79
 Burkina Faso *Yes 43Partly 60 44Partly 56 44Partly 54 44Partly 53
 Burundi *No 76Not 14 76Not 13 76Not 14 76Not 14
 Cambodia *No 65Not 26 75Not 25 75Not 24 75Not 24
 Cameroon *No 66Not 19 66Not 18 66Not 16 66Not 15
 Canada *Yes 11Free 99 11Free 98 11Free 98 11Free 98
 Cape Verde *Yes 11Free 90 11Free 92 11Free 92 11Free 92
 Central African Republic *No 77Not 9 77Not 10 77Not 9 77Not 7
 Chad *No 76Not 17 76Not 17 76Not 17 76Not 15
 Chile *Yes 11Free 94 12Free 90 11Free 93 11Free 94
 China *No 76Not 11 76Not 10 76Not 9 76Not 9
 Colombia *Yes 33Partly 66 33Partly 66 33Partly 65 33Partly 64
 Comoros *No 44Partly 50 44Partly 44 54Partly 42 54Partly 42
 DR Congo *No 76Not 15 76Not 18 76Not 20
 Congo *No 75Not 21 75Not 20 75Not 20
 Costa Rica *Yes 11Free 91 11Free 91 11Free 91
 Croatia *Yes 12Free 85 12Free 85 12Free 85
 Cuba *No 76Not 14 76Not 14 76Not 13
 Cyprus *Yes 11Free 94 11Free 94 11Free 94
 Czech Republic *Yes 11Free 91 11Free 91 11Free 91
 Denmark *Yes 11Free 97 11Free 97 11Free 97
 Djibouti *No 65Not 26 75Not 24 75Not 24
 DominicaYes 11Free 93 11Free 93 11Free 93
 Dominican Republic *Yes 33Partly 67 33Partly 67 33Partly 67
 East Timor *Yes 23Free 70 23Free 71 23Free 72
 Ecuador *Yes 33Partly 63 33Partly 65 33Partly 67
 Egypt *No 66Not 22 66Not 21 66Not 18
 El Salvador *Yes 23Free 67 24Partly 66 24Partly 63
 Equatorial Guinea *No 77Not 6 77Not 6 77Not 5
 Eritrea *No 77Not 2 77Not 2 77Not 2
 Estonia *Yes 11Free 94 11Free 94 11Free 94
 Ethiopia *No 66Not 19 66Not 24 66Not 22
 Eswatini *No 76Not 16 75Not 19 75Not 19
 Fiji *Yes 33Partly 61 33Partly 60 33Partly 60
 Finland *Yes 11Free 100 11Free 100 11Free 100
 France *Yes 12Free 90 12Free 90 12Free 90
 Gabon *No 75Not 23 75Not 22 75Not 22
 GambiaNo 45Partly 45 44Partly 46 44Partly 46
 Georgia *Yes 33Partly 63 33Partly 61 43Partly 60
 Germany *Yes 11Free 94 11Free 94 11Free 94
 Ghana *Yes 12Free 83 22Free 82 22Free 82
 Greece *Yes 12Free 87 12Free 88 12Free 87
 GrenadaYes 12Free 89 12Free 89 12Free 89
 Guatemala *No 44Partly 53 44Partly 52 44Partly 52
 Guinea *No 54Partly 43 55Partly 40 55Partly 38
 Guinea-BissauNo 54Partly 42 54Partly 46 54Partly 44
 Guyana *Yes 23Free 75 23Free 74 23Free 73
 Haiti *No 55Partly 41 55Partly 38 55Partly 37
 Honduras *No 44Partly 46 44Partly 45 45Partly 44
 Hungary *Yes 33Partly 70 33Partly 70 33Partly 69
 Iceland *Yes 11Free 94 11Free 94 11Free 94
 India *Yes 23Free 75 23Free 71 24Partly 67
 Indonesia *No 24Partly 62 24Partly 61 24Partly 59
 Iran *No 66Not 18 66Not 17 66Not 16
 Iraq *No 56Not 32 56Not 31 56Not 29
 Ireland *Yes 11Free 97 11Free 97 11Free 97
 Israel *Yes 23Free 78 23Free 76 23Free 76
 Italy *Yes 11Free 89 11Free 89 11Free 90
 Ivory Coast *No 44Partly 51 44Partly 51 54Partly 44
 Jamaica *Yes 22Free 78 22Free 78 22Free 80
 Japan *Yes 11Free 96 11Free 96 11Free 96
 Jordan *No 55Partly 37 55Partly 37 65Not 34
 Kazakhstan *No 75Not 75Not 23 75Not 23
 Kenya *No 44Partly 48 44Partly 48 44Partly 48
 Kiribati *Yes 11Free 93 11Free 93 11Free 93
 KosovoYes 34Partly 54 34Partly 56 44Partly 54
 Kuwait *No 55Partly 36 55Partly 36 55Partly 37
 Kyrgyzstan *No 54Partly 38 54Partly 39 75Not 28
 Laos *No 76Not 14 76Not 14 76Not 13
 Latvia *Yes 22Free 87 12Free 89 12Free 89
 Lebanon *No 54Partly 45 54Partly 44 54Partly 43
 Lesotho *Yes 33Partly 63 33Partly 63 33Partly 63
 Liberia *Yes 33Partly 62 34Partly 60 34Partly 60
 Libya *No 76Not 9 76Not 9 76Not 9
 Liechtenstein *Yes 21Free 90 21Free 90 21Free 90
 Lithuania *Yes 11Free 91 11Free 91 12Free 90
 LuxembourgYes 11Free 98 11Free 98 11Free 97
 Madagascar *Yes 34Partly 56 33Partly 61 34Partly 60
 Malawi *Yes 33Partly 64 33Partly 62 33Partly 66
 Malaysia *No 44Partly 52 44Partly 52 44Partly 51
 Maldives *No 55Partly 35 45Partly 40 45Partly 40
 Mali *No 44Partly 44 55Partly 41 65Not 33
 Malta *Yes 21Free 91 21Free 90 21Free 90
 Marshall Islands *Yes 11Free 93 11Free 93 11Free 93
 Mauritania *No 65Not 32 55Partly 34 55Partly 35
 MauritiusYes 12Free 89 12Free 89 12Free 87
 Mexico *Yes 33Partly 63 33Partly 62 34Partly 61
 Micronesia *Yes 11Free 92 11Free 92 11Free 92
 Moldova *Yes 34Partly 58 34Partly 60 33Partly 61
 Monaco *Yes 31Free 82 31Free 83 31Free 83
 Mongolia *Yes 12Free 85 12Free 84 12Free 84
 MontenegroYes 43Partly 65 43Partly 62 33Partly 63
 Morocco *No 55Partly 39 55Partly 37 55Partly 37
 Mozambique *No 44Partly 51 54Partly 45 54Partly 43
 Myanmar *No 55Partly 30 56Not 30 56Not 28
 Namibia *Yes 32Free 75 22Free 77 22Free 77
 Nauru *Yes 22Free 78 23Free 77 23Free 77
 Nepal *Yes 34Partly 54 34Partly 56 34Partly 56
 Netherlands *Yes 11Free 99 11Free 99 11Free 98
 New Zealand *Yes 11Free 98 11Free 97 11Free 99
 Nicaragua *No 65Not 32 65Not 31 65Not 30
 Niger *No 44Partly 49 44Partly 48 44Partly 48
 Nigeria *No 35Partly 50 45Partly 47 45Partly 45
 North Korea *No 77Not 3 77Not 3 77Not 3
 North Macedonia *Yes 43Partly 59 33Partly 63 33Partly 66
 Norway *Yes 11Free 100 11Free 100 11Free 100
 Oman *No 65Not 23 65Not 23 65Not 23
 Pakistan *No 55Partly 39 55Partly 38 55Partly 37
 Palau *Yes 11Free 92 11Free 92 11Free 92
 PanamaYes 12Free 84 12Free 84 22Free 83
 Papua New Guinea *Yes 43Partly 64 43Partly 62 43Partly 62
 Paraguay *Yes 33Partly 65 33Partly 65 33Partly 65
 Peru *Yes 23Free 73 23Free 72 33Partly 71
 Philippines *Yes 33Partly 61 34Partly 59 34Partly 56
 Poland *Yes 22Free 84 22Free 84 22Free 82
 Portugal *Yes 11Free 96 11Free 96 11Free 96
 Qatar *No 65Not 25 65Not 25 65Not 25
 Romania *Yes 22Free 81 22Free 83 22Free 83
 Russia *No 76Not 20 76Not 20 76Not 20
 Rwanda *No 66Not 23 66Not 22 66Not 21
 Saint Kitts and NevisYes 11Free 89 11Free 89 21Free 89
 Saint LuciaYes 11Free 92 11Free 92 11Free 91
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines *Yes 11Free 91 11Free 91 11Free 91
 Samoa *Yes 22Free 81 22Free 81 22Free 81
 San MarinoYes 11Free 95 11Free 95 11Free 93
 São Tomé and Príncipe *Yes 22Free 83 22Free 84 22Free 84
 Saudi Arabia *No 77Not 7 77Not 7 77Not 7
 Senegal *Yes 23Free 72 33Partly 71 33Partly 71
 Serbia *Yes 33Partly 67 43Partly 66 43Partly 64
 SeychellesYes 33Partly 71 33Partly 72 23Free 77
 Sierra Leone *Yes 33Partly 65 33Partly 65 33Partly 65
 Singapore *No 44Partly 51 44Partly 50 44Partly 48
 Slovakia *Yes 12Free 88 12Free 88 11Free 90
 SloveniaYes 11Free 94 11Free 94 11Free 95
 Solomon Islands *Yes 22Free 79 22Free 79 22Free 79
 Somalia *No 77Not 7 77Not 7 77Not 7
 South Africa *Yes 22Free 79 22Free 79 22Free 79
 South Korea *Yes 22Free 83 22Free 83 22Free 83
 South Sudan *No 77Not 2 77Not 2 77Not 2
 Spain *Yes 11Free 94 11Free 92 11Free 90
 Sri Lanka *Yes 34Partly 56 44Partly 56 44Partly 56
 Sudan *No 77Not 7 76Not 12 76Not 17
 Suriname *Yes 23Free 77 23Free 75 22Free 79
 Sweden *Yes 11Free 100 11Free 100 11Free 100
 Switzerland *Yes 11Free 96 11Free 96 11Free 96
 Syria *No 77Not 0 77Not 0 77Not 1
 Tajikistan *No 76Not 9 76Not 9 76Not 8
 Tanzania *No 45Partly 45 55Partly 40 55Partly 34
 Thailand *No 75Not 30 64Partly 32 75Not 30
 Togo *No 54Partly 43 54Partly 44 54Partly 43
 Tonga *Yes 22Free 79 22Free 79 22Free 79
 Trinidad and Tobago *Yes 22Free 82 22Free 82 22Free 82
 Tunisia *Yes 23Free 69 23Free 70 23Free 71
 Turkey *No 56Not 31 56Not 32 56Not 32
 Turkmenistan *No 77Not 2 77Not 2 77Not 2
 Tuvalu *Yes 11Free 93 11Free 93 11Free 93
 Uganda *No 65Not 36 65Not 34 65Not 34
 Ukraine *No 34Partly 60 33Partly 62 34Partly 60
 United Arab Emirates *No 76Not 17 76Not 17 76Not 17
 United Kingdom *Yes 11Free 93 11Free 94 11Free 93
 United States *Yes 21Free 86 21Free 86 22Free 83
 Uruguay *Yes 11Free 11Free 98 11Free 98
 Uzbekistan *No 76Not 76Not 10 76Not 11
 Vanuatu *Yes 22Free 82 22Free 82 22Free 82
 Venezuela *No 76Not 19 76Not 16 76Not 14
 Vietnam *No 75Not 20 75Not 20 76Not 19
 Yemen *No 76Not 11 76Not 11 76Not 11
 Zambia *No 44Partly 54 44Partly 54 44Partly 52
 Zimbabwe *No 55Partly 31 55Partly 29 65Not 28

Territories and countries with limited recognition
Country 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2020 2021[12]
PR CL Free PR CL Free PR CL Free PR CL Free PR CL Free PR CL Free Pts PR CL Free Pts
 
 Abkhazia * (Georgia) 4 5 Partly 4 5 Partly 4 5 Partly 4 5 Partly 4 5 Partly 17 23 Partly 40 17 23 Partly 40
 Crimea (Ukraine) 4 3 Partly 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not -2 10 Not 8 -2 9 Not 7
 Donetsk People's Republic and  Luhansk People's Republic (Ukraine) -1 6 Not 5 -1 5 Not 4
 Gaza Strip * (PA) 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 3 8 Not 11 3 8 Not 11
 Hong Kong * (China) 5 2 Partly 5 2 Partly 5 2 Partly 5 2 Partly 5 2 Partly 16 39 Partly 55 15 37 Partly 52
 Jammu and Kashmir (India) 4 4 Partly 4 4 Partly 4 4 Partly 4 4 Partly 4 4 Partly 8 20 Not 28 7 20 Not 27
 Azad Kashmir * (Pakistan) 6 5 Not 6 5 Not 6 5 Not 6 5 Not 6 5 Not 9 19 Not 28 9 19 Not 28
 Republic of Artsakh (Azerbaijan) 5 5 Partly 5 5 Partly 5 5 Partly 5 5 Partly 5 5 Partly 13 21 Partly 34 16 19 Partly 35
 Northern Cyprus * (Cyprus)* 2 2 Free 2 2 Free 2 2 Free 2 2 Free 2 2 Free 31 50 Free 81 28 50 Free 78
 Puerto Rico (United States)* 1 2 Free 1 2 Free 1 1 Free[13]
 Somaliland * (Somalia) 4 5 Partly 4 5 Partly 5 5 Partly 5 5 Partly 4 5 Partly 17 24 Partly 41 18 24 Partly 42
 South Ossetia * (Georgia) 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 7 6 Not 2 8 Not 10 2 8 Not 10
 Taiwan * (China, ROC) 1 1 Free 93 1 1 Free 94
 Tibet * (China, PRC) 7 7 Not 7 7 Not 7 7 Not 7 7 Not 7 7 Not -2 3 Not 1 -2 3 Not 1
 Transnistria * (Moldova) 6 6 Not 6 6 Not 6 6 Not 6 6 Not 6 6 Not 9 13 Not 22 8 12 Not 20
 West Bank (PA) 6 5 Not 6 5 Not 6 5 Not 7 5 Not 7 5 Not 4 21 Not 25 4 21 Not 25
 Western Sahara * (Morocco) 7 7 Not 7 7 Not 7 7 Not 7 7 Not 7 7 Not -3 7 Not 4 -3 7 Not 4

Former entries

Former entries from Freedom in the World. Most are territories added in the 1978 report for 1977 and received their last coverage in the 2000 report of the same year. Other territories with differing dates are noted below. Their placements are based on their final rankings before ceasing coverage.

Free

Partly Free

Not Free

According to Freedom House, a quarter of all declines of freedom in the world in 2016 took place in Europe.[14]

Percentage of countries in each category, from the 1973 through 2021 reports:

1973–2021

  Not Free
  Partly Free
  Free

  Electoral Democracies
Year
 Free
 Partly
Free
 Not
Free
 Electoral
Democracies
197541 (27%)48 (32%)63 (41%)—
198051 (32%)54 (33%)56 (35%)—
198553 (32%)59 (35%)55 (33%)—
199061 (37%)44 (26%)62 (37%)69 (41%)
199576 (40%)61 (32%)54 (28%)113 (59%)
200085 (44%)60 (31%)47 (25%)120 (63%)
200589 (46%)54 (28%)49 (26%)119 (62%)
201089 (46%)58 (30%)47 (24%)116 (60%)
201187 (45%)60 (31%)47 (24%)115 (59%)
201287 (45%)60 (31%)48 (25%)117 (60%)
201390 (46%)58 (30%)47 (24%)117 (60%)
201488 (45%)59 (30%)48 (25%)122 (63%)
201589 (46%)55 (28%)51 (26%)125 (64%)
201686 (44%)59 (30%)50 (26%)125 (64%)
201787 (45%)59 (30%)49 (25%)123 (63%)
201888 (45%)58 (30%)49 (25%)116 (59%)
201986 (44%)59 (30%)50 (26%)115 (59%)
202083 (43%)63 (32%)49 (25%)115 (59%)
202182 (42%)59 (30%)54 (28%)114 (58%)
202283 (43%)56 (29%)56 (29%)115 (59%)
202384 (43%)54 (28%)57 (29%)110 (56%)

Sources: Country Status and ratings overview 1973–2016,[15] Number and percentages of electoral democracies 1989–2016,[16] Freedom in the World 2018 report covering 2017.[17]

Notes:

  • The years shown in the map and table above are the year the survey was released, the data shown covers the prior calendar year.
  • The chart and table above do not include data for related/disputed territories.

Evaluation
See also: Freedom House § Criticism

There is some debate over the neutrality of Freedom House and the methodology used for the Freedom in the World report, which has been written by Raymond Gastil and his colleagues.[3] The neutrality and biases of human-rights indices have been discussed in several publications by Kenneth A. Bollen.[18] Bollen wrote that "Considered together these criticisms suggest that some nations may have been incorrectly rated on Gastil's measures. However, none of the criticisms have demonstrated a systematic bias in all the ratings. Most of the evidence consists of anecdotal evidence of relatively few cases. Whether there is a systematic or sporadic slant in Gastil's ratings is an open question" (Bollen, 1986, p. 586).[3] The freedom index of Freedom in the World has a very strong and positive (at least an 80%) correlation with three other democracy-indices studied in Mainwaring (2001, p. 53).[19]

Ideological bias or neutrality

In his 1986 study, Bollen discussed reviews of measurements of human rights, including the index reported in Freedom in the World (Bollen, 1986, p. 585). Criticisms of Freedom in the World during the 1980s were discussed by Gastil (1990), who stated that "generally such criticism is based on opinions about Freedom House rather than detailed examination of survey ratings", a conclusion disputed by Giannone.[20] The definition of Freedom in Gastil (1982) and Freedom House (1990) emphasized liberties rather than the exercise of freedom, according to Adam Przeworski, who gave the following example: In the United States, citizens are free to form political parties and to vote, yet even in presidential elections only half of U.S. "citizens" vote; in the U.S., "the same two parties speak in a commercially sponsored unison", wrote Przeworski (2003, p. 277).[5]

More recent charges of ideological bias prompted Freedom House to issue this 2010 statement:

Freedom House does not maintain a culture-bound view of freedom. The methodology of the survey is grounded in basic standards of political rights and civil liberties, derived in large measure from relevant portions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These standards apply to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.[10]

Mainwaring et alia (2001, p. 52)[19] wrote that Freedom House's index had "two systematic biases: scores for leftist were tainted by political considerations, and changes in scores are sometimes driven by changes in their criteria rather than changes in real conditions." Nonetheless, when evaluated in Latin American countries yearly, Freedom House's index was very strongly and positively correlated with the index of Adam Przeworski and with the index of the authors themselves: They evaluated Pearson's coefficient of linear correlation between their index and Freedom House's index, which was 0.82; among these indices and the two others studied, the correlations were all between 0.80 and 0.86 (Mainwaring et alia, 2001, p. 53).[19]

As previously quoted, Bollen criticized previous studies of Freedom in the World as anecdotal and inconclusive; they raised issues needing further study by scientific methods rather than anecdotes.[3] Bollen studied the question of ideological bias using multivariate statistics. Using their factor-analytic model for human-rights measurements, Bollen and Paxton estimate that Gastil's method produces a bias of -0.38 standard deviations (s.d.) against Marxist–Leninist countries and a larger bias, +0.5 s.d., favoring Christian countries; similar results held for the methodology of Sussman (Bollen and Paxton, 2000, p. 585).[21] In contrast, another method by a critic of Freedom in the World produced a bias for Leftist countries during the 1980s of at least +0.8 s.d., a bias that is "consistent with the general finding that political scientists are more favorable to leftist politics than is the general population" (Bollen and Paxton, p. 585).[21]

Coder bias

Political scientists Andrew T. Little and Anne Meng argued that the data produced by Freedom House and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project relies heavily on subjective, as opposed to objective, measures and thus are tained by coder bias.[22]

Use and conceptual analysis

Criticisms of the reception and uses of the Freedom in the World report have been noted by Diego Giannone:[23]

  • "Conceptual stretching", Giovanni Sartori's critical term for a methodological shortcoming common in social studies.[24] Giannone reports as an example that, according to Landman and Hausermann (2003), "the index by FH has been used as a tool for measuring democracy, good governance, and human rights, thus producing a conceptual stretching which is a major cause of 'losses in connotative precision': in short, an instrument used to measure everything, in the end, is not able to discriminate against anything."[25]
  • Issues with aggregation. Giannone quotes Scoble and Wiseberg's conclusion (1981) that "the sum of a civil liberty score of 4 and a political liberty score of 2 is the same as the sum of a civil liberty score of 2 and a political liberty score of 4 even though the substantive interpretation of these different combinations is different."[26]
  • "Lack of specificity and rigorousness in construction" and "inadequate level of transparency and replicability of the scales", the first referencing to Scoble et alie (1981) and the latter to Hadenius and Teorell (2005).[27] In support of the latter, he also quotes the conclusion of Munck and Verkuilen (2002) that "the aggregate data offered by Freedom House has to be accepted largely on faith",[28] due to the factors that "no set of coding rules is provided, and the sources of information are not identified with enough precision, and because disaggregated data have not been made available to independent scholars".[27]

Time series
See also: Panel study and Time series

In "Political and ideological aspects in the measurement of democracy: the Freedom House case" (2010) which reviewed changes to the methodology since 1990, Diego Giannone concluded that "because of the changes in methodology over time and the strict interconnection between methodological and political aspects, the FH data do not offer an unbroken and politically neutral time series, such that they should not be used for cross-time analyses even for the development of first hypotheses. The internal consistency of the data series is open to question."[29]

On this topic, the Freedom House website replies that they have "made a number of modest methodological changes to adapt to evolving ideas about political rights and civil liberties. At the same time, the time series data are not revised retroactively, and any changes to the methodology are introduced incrementally in order to ensure the comparability of the ratings from year to year."[10]

See also

Notes
  1. Gorokhovskaia, Yana; Shahbaz, Adrian; Slipowitz, Amy (9 March 2023). "Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy". Freedom House. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  2. William Ide (11 January 2000). "Freedom House Report: Asia Sees Some Significant Progress". Voice of America. Archived from the original on 4 December 2013. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  3. Bollen, K.A., "Political Rights and Political Liberties in Nations: An Evaluation of Human Rights Measures, 1950 to 1984", Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 4 (November 1986), pp.567–591. Also in: Jabine, T.B. and Pierre Claude, R. (Eds.), Human Rights and Statistics, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992, pp. 188–215, ISBN 0-8122-3108-2.
  4. “Correlation Versus Interchangeability: the Limited Robustness of Empirical Finding on Democracy Using Highly Correlated Data Sets" Archived 20 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Gretchen Casper and Claudiu Tufis, Political Analysis, 11:2 (2003), pp. 196–203, Society for Political Methodology
  5. Przeworski, Adam (2003). "Freedom to choose and democracy". Economics and Philosophy. 19 (2): 265–279. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.570.736. doi:10.1017/S0266267103001159. S2CID 38812895.
  6. List of Electoral Democracies FIW23 (.XLSX), by Freedom House
  7. "Freedom in the World 2019" (PDF). Freedom House. 5 February 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
  8. "Freedom in the World 2020" (PDF). Freedom House. 4 March 2020. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  9. "Freedom in the World 2021" (PDF). Freedom House. 3 March 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  10. "Freedom in the World 2010: Methodology" Archived 23 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Freedom in the World 2010, Freedom house
  11. "Methodology: Freedom in the World 2018". freedomhouse.org. 13 January 2018. Archived from the original on 24 February 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  12. "Countries and Territories". Freedom House. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  13. Puerto Rico *. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/puerto-rico Archived 18 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  14. Freedom House (2017). Freedom in the World, 2017 (PDF). Freedom House. p. 1. Archived from the original on 27 July 2017. Retrieved 27 July 2017. [N]early one-quarter of the countries registering declines in 2016 were in Europe.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  15. Status %26 Ratings Overview, 1973-2016.pdf "Country Status and ratings overview", Freedom In the World 1973–2016, Freedom House. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  16. Democracy Numbers, FIW 1989-2016.pdf "Number and percentages of electoral democracies", Freedom In the World 1973–2016, Freedom House. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  17. Freedom In the World 2018, Freedom House.
  18. Bollen has held chairs as a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Also serving as an Adjunct Professor of Statistics at UNC-CH, Bollen wrote the leading graduate textbook in structural equation models (SEM), often called LISREL models; SEM modeling allows the summary of a large number of measurements using a small number of meaningful factors. SEM was used by Bollen in the studies reported hereafter.
  19. Mainwaring, S.; Brinks, D.; Pérez-Liñán, A.B. (2001). "Classifying Political Regimes in Latin". Studies in Comparative International Development. 36 (1): 37–65. doi:10.1007/BF02687584. S2CID 155047996.
  20. Gastil, R.D. (1990). "The Comparative Survey of Freedom: Experiences and Suggestions". Studies in Comparative International Development. 25 (1): 25–50. doi:10.1007/BF02716904. S2CID 144099626.
  21. Bollen, Kenneth A. and Paxton, Pamela, "Subjective Measures of Liberal Democracy", Comparative Political Studies, vol. 33, no. 1 (February 2000), pp. 58–86
  22. Andrew Little and Anne Meng,“Measuring Democratic Backsliding.“ PS: Political Science & Politics (forthcoming). https://osf.io/n32zk/
  23. Giannone, Diego, "Political and ideological aspects in the measurement of democracy: the Freedom House case", Democratization, vol. 17, no. 1 (February 2010), pp. 68–97.
  24. "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics." The American Political Science Review 64 (4): 1033–1053.
  25. Giannone (2010), p. 69. Quoting Landman, Tod, and Julia Hausermann, indicators/GovIndicatorsEssex2003.pdf Map-Making and Analysis of the Main International Initiatives on Developing Indicators on Democracy and Good Governance , Final Report, University of Essex – Human Rights Centre, July 2003, 98 pp.
  26. Scoble, Harry and Laurie Wiseberg, Ved Nanda, Ved, James Scarritt, and George Shepherd (eds) (1981), "Problems of Comparative Research in Human Rights", Global Human Rights: Public Policies, Comparative Measures and NGO Strategies, pp. 147–171, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, ISBN 978-0-89158-858-0. Cited in Giannone (2010), p. 69.
  27. Giannone (2010), p. 69, citing Scoble, et al. (1981) and Axel Hadenius and Jan Teorell. "Assessing Alternative Indices of Democracy", Political Concepts, Committee on Concepts and Methods, Working Paper Series, August 2005, 47 pp.
  28. Munck, Gerardo L. and Verkuilen, Jay, CPS 2002.pdf "Conceptualising and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices" , Comparative Political Studies, vol. 35, no. 1 (February 2002), pp. 5–34. Cited in Giannone (2010), p. 69.
  29. Giannone (2010), p. 68.

References
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