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Freedom in the World

Annual survey by Freedom House

Freedom in the World is a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based 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.

Critical assessments of the survey have highlighted potential biases stemming from its funding, methodology, ideological leanings and the subjective nature of the scoring. Freedom House has defended its ratings as independent and evidence-based.

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". 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.

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.

Country rankings

The rankings are from the Freedom in the World 2019, 2020, 2021, 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).

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

A competitive, multiparty political system;
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);
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
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.

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.

World

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

PR = political rights, CL = civil liberties

2025

Country (2025)	Electoral
democracy	PR rating	CL rating	Total	PR	CL	Overall
status
Afghanistan		7	7	6	1	5
Albania		3	3	68	28	40
Algeria		6	5	31	10	21
Andorra		1	1	93	38	55
Angola		6	5	28	10	18
Antigua and Barbuda		2	2	83	32	51
Argentina		2	2	85	35	50
Armenia		4	4	54	23	31
Australia		1	1	95	39	56
Austria		1	1	93	37	56
Azerbaijan		7	7	7	0	7
Bahamas		1	2	90	38	52
Bahrain		7	6	12	2	10
Bangladesh		5	4	45	16	29
Barbados		1	1	94	37	57
Belarus		7	7	7	1	6
Belgium		1	1	96	39	57
Belize		2	1	88	35	53
Benin		4	3	60	18	42
Bhutan		2	3	68	32	36
Bolivia		3	3	65	26	39
Bosnia and Herzegovina		5	3	52	17	35
Botswana		2	2	75	31	44
Brazil		2	3	72	30	42
Brunei		6	5	27	7	20
Bulgaria		2	2	77	32	45
Burkina Faso		7	5	25	3	22
Burundi		7	6	15	4	11
Cambodia		7	5	23	4	19
Cameroon		6	6	15	6	9
Canada		1	1	97	39	58
Cape Verde		1	1	92	38	54
Central African Republic		7	7	5	1	4
Chad		7	6	15	1	14
Chile		1	1	95	38	57
China		7	6	9	-2	11
Colombia		2	3	70	31	39
Comoros		5	4	42	16	26
Congo (Democratic Republic)		7	6	18	4	14
Congo (Republic)		7	6	17	2	15
Costa Rica		1	1	91	38	53
Croatia		2	2	82	34	48
Cuba		7	6	10	1	9
Cyprus		1	1	91	38	53
Czech Republic		1	1	95	37	58
Denmark		1	1	97	40	57
Djibouti		7	5	24	5	19
Dominica		1	1	92	37	55
Dominican Republic		3	3	68	27	41
Ecuador		3	3	65	28	37
Egypt		6	6	18	6	12
El Salvador		5	4	47	17	30
Equatorial Guinea		7	7	5	0	5
Eritrea		7	7	3	1	2
Estonia		1	1	96	39	57
Eswatini		7	6	17	1	16
Ethiopia		6	6	18	8	10
Fiji		3	3	69	28	41
Finland		1	1	100	40	60
France		1	2	89	38	51
Gabon		7	5	21	2	19
The Gambia		4	4	50	22	28
Georgia		4	4	55	21	34
Germany		1	1	95	40	55
Ghana		2	2	80	35	45
Greece		2	2	85	35	50
Grenada		1	2	89	37	52
Guatemala		4	4	48	19	29
Guinea		6	5	30	7	23
Guinea-Bissau		5	4	41	15	26
Guyana		2	2	74	30	44
Haiti		6	5	24	6	18
Honduras		4	4	48	22	26
Hungary		3	3	65	24	41
Iceland		1	1	95	38	57
India		2	4	63	31	32
Indonesia		3	4	56	28	28
Iran		7	7	11	4	7
Iraq		5	6	31	16	15
Ireland		1	1	97	39	58
Israel		2	3	73	34	39
Italy		1	1	89	36	53
Ivory Coast		4	4	49	19	30
Jamaica		2	2	80	33	47
Japan		1	1	96	40	56
Jordan		5	5	34	12	22
Kazakhstan		7	5	23	5	18
Kenya		4	4	51	22	29
Kiribati		1	1	89	36	53
Kuwait		6	5	31	7	14
Kyrgyzstan		7	5	26	4	22
Laos		7	6	13	2	11
Latvia		1	2	89	37	52
Lebanon		5	4	39	13	26
Lesotho		2	3	66	30	36
Liberia		2	4	64	30	34
Libya		7	6	10	2	8
Liechtenstein		2	1	90	33	57
Lithuania		1	2	89	38	51
Luxembourg		1	1	97	38	59
Madagascar		4	4	55	21	34
Malawi		3	3	65	28	37
Malaysia		4	4	53	22	31
Maldives		4	5	43	20	23
Mali		6	5	24	6	18
Malta		2	2	87	35	52
Marshall Islands		1	1	93	38	55
Mauritania		5	5	39	15	24
Mauritius		2	2	86	35	51
Mexico		3	4	59	26	33
Micronesia		1	1	92	37	55
Moldova		3	3	60	25	35
Monaco		3	1	82	25	57
Mongolia		1	2	84	36	48
Montenegro		3	3	69	27	42
Morocco		5	5	37	13	24
Mozambique		5	4	41	12	29
Myanmar		7	7	7	0	7
Namibia		3	2	73	28	45
Nauru		2	3	75	32	43
Nepal		3	4	62	28	34
Netherlands		1	1	97	39	58
New Zealand		1	1	99	40	59
Nicaragua		7	6	14	2	12
Niger		7	5	30	5	25
Nigeria		4	5	44	20	24
North Korea		7	7	3	0	3
North Macedonia		3	3	67	28	39
Norway		1	1	99	39	60
Oman		6	5	24	6	18
Pakistan		5	5	32	12	20
Palau		1	1	92	37	55
Panama		2	2	83	35	48
Papua New Guinea		4	3	61	22	39
Paraguay		3	3	63	26	37
Peru		3	3	67	28	39
Philippines		3	4	58	25	33
Poland		2	2	82	34	48
Portugal		1	1	96	39	57
Qatar		6	5	25	7	18
Romania		2	2	82	34	48
Russia		7	6	12	4	8
Rwanda		6	6	21	7	14
Samoa		2	2	84	32	52
San Marino		1	1	97	39	58
São Tomé and Príncipe		2	2	84	35	49
Saudi Arabia		7	6	9	1	8
Senegal		2	3	69	30	39
Serbia		4	3	56	18	38
Seychelles		2	2	80	34	46
Sierra Leone		4	3	59	23	36
Singapore		4	4	48	19	29
Slovakia		1	1	89	36	53
Slovenia		1	1	96	39	57
Solomon Islands		3	2	75	28	47
Somalia		7	7	8	2	6
South Africa		2	2	81	34	47
South Korea		2	2	81	32	49
South Sudan		7	7	1	-3	4
Spain		1	1	90	37	53
Sri Lanka		3	4	58	26	32
Saint Kitts and Nevis		2	1	89	35	54
Saint Lucia		1	1	91	38	53
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines		1	1	90	36	54
Sudan		7	7	2	-3	5
Suriname		2	2	80	34	46
Sweden		1	1	99	40	59
Switzerland		1	1	96	39	57
Syria		7	6	5	-3	8
Tajikistan		7	7	5	0	5
Tanzania		6	5	35	11	24
Thailand		6	5	34	11	23
Timor-Leste		2	3	72	33	39
Togo		5	4	41	14	27
Tonga		2	2	80	30	50
Trinidad and Tobago		2	2	82	33	49
Tunisia		6	4	44	11	33
Turkey		5	6	33	17	16
Turkmenistan		7	7	1	0	1
Tuvalu		1	1	93	37	56
Uganda		6	5	34	10	24
Ukraine		4	4	51	23	28
United Arab Emirates		7	6	18	5	13
United Kingdom		1	1	92	39	53
United States		2	2	84	34	50
Uruguay		1	1	96	40	56
Uzbekistan		7	6	12	2	10
Vanuatu		2	2	82	32	50
Venezuela		7	6	13	0	13
Vietnam		7	6	20	4	16
Yemen		7	6	10	1	9
Zambia		4	4	53	22	31
Zimbabwe		6	5	26	9	17

Before 2025

Country	Electoral democracy	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts
us*eft		5	6		27	5	6		27	5	6		27	7	7	2
us*eft		3	3		68	3	3		67	3	3		66	3	3	67
us*eft		6	5		34	6	5		34	6	5		32	6	5	32
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		94	1	1		93	1	1	93
us*eft		6	5		31	6	5		32	6	5		31	6	5	30
us*eft		2	2		84	2	2		85	2	2		85	2	2	85
us*eft		2	2		84	2	2		85	2	2		84	2	2	84
us*eft		4	4		51	4	4		53	4	4		55	4	4	55
us*eft		1	1		98	1	1		97	1	1		97	1	1	95
us*eft		1	1		93	1	1		93	1	1		93	1	1	93
us*eft		7	6		11	7	6		10	7	6		10	7	6	9
us*eft		1	1		91	1	1		91	1	1		91	1	1	91
us*eft		7	6		12	7	6		11	7	6		12	7	6	12
us*eft		5	5		41	5	5		39	5	5		39	5	5	39
us*eft		1	1		96	1	1		95	1	1		95	1	1	95
us*eft		7	6		19	7	6		19	7	6		11	7	7	8
us*eft		1	1		96	1	1		96	1	1		96	1	1	96
us*eft		1	2		86	2	2		86	2	1		87	2	1	87
us*eft		2	2		79	4	2		66	4	2		65	5	3	59
us*eft		3	4		59	3	4		59	2	4		61	3	4	61
us*eft		3	3		67	3	3		63	3	3		66	3	3	66
us*eft		4	4		53	4	4		53	4	4		53	4	4	53
us*eft		3	2		72	3	2		72	3	2		72	3	2	72
us*eft		2	2		75	2	2		75	2	3		74	2	3	73
us*eft		6	5		29	6	5		28	6	5		28	6	5	28
us*eft		2	2		80	2	2		80	2	2		78	2	2	79
us*eft		4	3		60	4	4		56	4	4		54	4	4	53
us*eft		7	6		14	7	6		13	7	6		14	7	6	14
us*eft		6	5		26	7	5		25	7	5		24	7	5	24
us*eft		6	6		19	6	6		18	6	6		16	6	6	15
us*eft		1	1		99	1	1		98	1	1		98	1	1	98
us*eft		1	1		90	1	1		92	1	1		92	1	1	92
us*eft		7	7		9	7	7		10	7	7		9	7	7	7
us*eft		7	6		17	7	6		17	7	6		17	7	6	15
us*eft		1	1		94	1	2		90	1	1		93	1	1	94
us*eft		7	6		11	7	6		10	7	6		9	7	6	9
us*eft		3	3		66	3	3		66	3	3		65	3	3	64
us*eft		4	4		50	4	4		44	5	4		42	5	4	42
us*eft		7	6		15	7	6		18	7	6		20
us*eft		7	5		21	7	5		20	7	5		20
us*eft		1	1		91	1	1		91	1	1		91
us*eft		1	2		85	1	2		85	1	2		85
us*eft		7	6		14	7	6		14	7	6		13
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		94	1	1		94
us*eft		1	1		91	1	1		91	1	1		91
us*eft		1	1		97	1	1		97	1	1		97
us*eft		6	5		26	7	5		24	7	5		24
us*eft		1	1		93	1	1		93	1	1		93
us*eft		3	3		67	3	3		67	3	3		67
us*eft		2	3		70	2	3		71	2	3		72
us*eft		3	3		63	3	3		65	3	3		67
us*eft		6	6		22	6	6		21	6	6		18
us*eft		2	3		67	2	4		66	2	4		63
us*eft		7	7		6	7	7		6	7	7		5
us*eft		7	7		2	7	7		2	7	7		2
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		94	1	1		94
us*eft		6	6		19	6	6		24	6	6		22
us*eft		7	6		16	7	5		19	7	5		19
us*eft		3	3		61	3	3		60	3	3		60
us*eft		1	1		100	1	1		100	1	1		100
us*eft		1	2		90	1	2		90	1	2		90
us*eft		7	5		23	7	5		22	7	5		22
us*eft		4	5		45	4	4		46	4	4		46
us*eft		3	3		63	3	3		61	4	3		60
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		94	1	1		94
us*eft		1	2		83	2	2		82	2	2		82
us*eft		1	2		87	1	2		88	1	2		87
us*eft		1	2		89	1	2		89	1	2		89
us*eft		4	4		53	4	4		52	4	4		52
us*eft		5	4		43	5	5		40	5	5		38
us*eft		5	4		42	5	4		46	5	4		44
us*eft		2	3		75	2	3		74	2	3		73
us*eft		5	5		41	5	5		38	5	5		37
us*eft		4	4		46	4	4		45	4	5		44
us*eft		3	3		70	3	3		70	3	3		69
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		94	1	1		94
us*eft		2	3		75	2	3		71	2	4		67	2	4	66
us*eft		2	4		62	2	4		61	2	4		59
us*eft		6	6		18	6	6		17	6	6		16
us*eft		5	6		32	5	6		31	5	6		29
us*eft		1	1		97	1	1		97	1	1		97
us*eft		2	3		78	2	3		76	2	3		76
us*eft		1	1		89	1	1		89	1	1		90
us*eft		4	4		51	4	4		51	5	4		44
us*eft		2	2		78	2	2		78	2	2		80
us*eft		1	1		96	1	1		96	1	1		96
us*eft		5	5		37	5	5		37	6	5		34
us*eft		7	5		22		7	5		23	7	5		23
us*eft		4	4		48	4	4		48	4	4		48
us*eft		1	1		93	1	1		93	1	1		93
us*eft		3	4		54	3	4		56	4	4		54
us*eft		5	5		36	5	5		36	5	5		37
us*eft		5	4		38	5	4		39	7	5		28
us*eft		7	6		14	7	6		14	7	6		13
us*eft		2	2		87	1	2		89	1	2		89
us*eft		5	4		45	5	4		44	5	4		43
us*eft		3	3		63	3	3		63	3	3		63
us*eft		3	3		62	3	4		60	3	4		60
us*eft		7	6		9	7	6		9	7	6		9
us*eft		2	1		90	2	1		90	2	1		90
us*eft		1	1		91	1	1		91	1	2		90
us*eft		1	1		98	1	1		98	1	1		97
us*eft		3	4		56	3	3		61	3	4		60
us*eft		3	3		64	3	3		62	3	3		66
us*eft		4	4		52	4	4		52	4	4		51
us*eft		5	5		35	4	5		40	4	5		40
us*eft		4	4		44	5	5		41	6	5		33
us*eft		2	1		91	2	1		90	2	1		90
us*eft		1	1		93	1	1		93	1	1		93
us*eft		6	5		32	5	5		34	5	5		35
us*eft		1	2		89	1	2		89	1	2		87
us*eft		3	3		63	3	3		62	3	4		61
us*eft		1	1		92	1	1		92	1	1		92
us*eft		3	4		58	3	4		60	3	3		61
us*eft		3	1		82	3	1		83	3	1		83
us*eft		1	2		85	1	2		84	1	2		84
us*eft		4	3		65	4	3		62	3	3		63
us*eft		5	5		39	5	5		37	5	5		37
us*eft		4	4		51	5	4		45	5	4		43
us*eft		5	5		30	5	6		30	5	6		28
us*eft		3	2		75	2	2		77	2	2		77
us*eft		2	2		78	2	3		77	2	3		77
us*eft		3	4		54	3	4		56	3	4		56
us*eft		1	1		99	1	1		99	1	1		98
us*eft		1	1		98	1	1		97	1	1		99
us*eft		6	5		32	6	5		31	6	5		30
us*eft		4	4		49	4	4		48	4	4		48
us*eft		3	5		50	4	5		47	4	5		45
us*eft		7	7		3	7	7		3	7	7		3
us*eft		4	3		59	3	3		63	3	3		66
us*eft		1	1		100	1	1		100	1	1		100
us*eft		6	5		23	6	5		23	6	5		23
us*eft		5	5		39	5	5		38	5	5		37
us*eft		1	1		92	1	1		92	1	1		92
us*eft		1	2		84	1	2		84	2	2		83
us*eft		4	3		64	4	3		62	4	3		62
us*eft		3	3		65	3	3		65	3	3		65
us*eft		2	3		73	2	3		72	3	3		71
us*eft		3	3		61	3	4		59	3	4		56
us*eft		2	2		84	2	2		84	2	2		82
us*eft		1	1		96	1	1		96	1	1		96
us*eft		6	5		25	6	5		25	6	5		25
us*eft		2	2		81	2	2		83	2	2		83
us*eft		7	6		20	7	6		20	7	6		20
us*eft		6	6		23	6	6		22	6	6		21
us*eft		1	1		89	1	1		89	2	1		89
us*eft		1	1		92	1	1		92	1	1		91
us*eft		1	1		91	1	1		91	1	1		91
us*eft		2	2		81	2	2		81	2	2		81
us*eft		1	1		95	1	1		95	1	1		93
us*eft		2	2		83	2	2		84	2	2		84
us*eft		7	7		7	7	7		7	7	7		7
us*eft		2	3		72	3	3		71	3	3		71
us*eft		3	3		67	4	3		66	4	3		64
us*eft		3	3		71	3	3		72	2	3		77
us*eft		3	3		65	3	3		65	3	3		65
us*eft		4	4		51	4	4		50	4	4		48
us*eft		1	2		88	1	2		88	1	1		90
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		94	1	1		95
us*eft		2	2		79	2	2		79	2	2		79
us*eft		7	7		7	7	7		7	7	7		7
us*eft		2	2		79	2	2		79	2	2		79
us*eft		2	2		83	2	2		83	2	2		83
us*eft		7	7		2	7	7		2	7	7		2
us*eft		1	1		94	1	1		92	1	1		90
us*eft		3	4		56	4	4		56	4	4		56
us*eft		7	7		7	7	6		12	7	6		17
us*eft		2	3		77	2	3		75	2	2		79
us*eft		1	1		100	1	1		100	1	1		100
us*eft		1	1		96	1	1		96	1	1		96
us*eft		7	7		0	7	7		0	7	7		1	7	7	1	7	7	1
us*eft		7	6		9	7	6		9	7	6		8	7	6	8	7	6	7
us*eft		4	5		45	5	5		40	5	5		34	5	5	34	5	5	36
us*eft		7	5		30	6	4		32	7	5		30	7	5	29	6	5	30
us*eft		5	4		43	5	4		44	5	4		43	5	4	42	5	4	42
us*eft		2	2		79	2	2		79	2	2		79	2	2	79	2	2	81
us*eft		2	2		82	2	2		82	2	2		82
us*eft		2	3		69	2	3		70	2	3		71
us*eft		5	6		31	5	6		32	5	6		32
us*eft		7	7		2	7	7		2	7	7		2
us*eft		1	1		93	1	1		93	1	1		93
us*eft		6	5		36	6	5		34	6	5		34
us*eft		3	4		60	3	3		62	3	4		60
us*eft		7	6		17	7	6		17	7	6		17
us*eft		1	1		93	1	1		94	1	1		93
us*eft		2	1		86	2	1		86	2	2		83	2	2	83
us*eft		1	1		98		1	1		98	1	1		98
us*eft		7	6		9		7	6		10	7	6		11
us*eft		2	2		82	2	2		82	2	2		82
us*eft		7	6		19	7	6		16	7	6		14
us*eft		7	5		20	7	5		20	7	6		19
us*eft		7	6		11	7	6		11	7	6		11
us*eft		4	4		54	4	4		54	4	4		52
us*eft		5	5		31	5	5		29	6	5		28

Territories and countries with limited recognition

Territory (2025)	Total	PR	CL
status
Abkhazia	39	17	22
Gaza Strip	2	-2	4
Hong Kong	40	9	31
Indian Kashmir	38	17	21
Northern Cyprus	76	27	49
Kosovo	60	28	32
Pakistani Kashmir	30	9	21
Russian-occupied Ukraine	2	-1	3
Somaliland	47	21	26
South Ossetia	12	3	9
Taiwan	94	38	56
Tibet	0	-2	2
Transnistria	17	5	12
West Bank	22	4	18
Western Sahara	4	-3	7

Country	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2021	PR	Overall
status	PR	CL	Overall
status	PR	CL	Overall
status	PR	CL	Overall
status	PR	CL	Overall
status	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts	PR	CL	Overall
status	Pts
us*eft	4	5		4	5	4	5	4	5	4	5	17	23	Partly	40	17	23	Partly	40
us*eft (disputed)	4	3		7	6	7	6	7	6	7	6	-2	10	Not	8	-2	9	Not	7
Donetsk PR and Luhansk PR (disputed)												-1	6	Not	5	-1	5	Not	4
Gaza Strip (Palestine)	7	6		7	6	7	6	7	6	7	6	3	8	Not	11	3	8	Not	11
us*eft (China)	5	2		5	2	5	2	5	2	5	2	16	39	Partly	55	15	37	Partly	52
Indian Kashmir (India)	4	4		4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	8	20	Not	28	7	20	Not	27
Azad Kashmir (Pakistan)	6	5		6	5	6	5	6	5	6	5	9	19	Not	28	9	19	Not	28
us*eft	2	2		2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	31	50	Free	81	28	50	Free	78
useft (United States)	1	2		1	2	1	1
us*eft	4	5		4	5	5	5	5	5	4	5	17	24	Partly	41	18	24	Partly	42
us*eft	7	6		7	6	7	6	7	6	7	6	2	8	Not	10	2	8	Not	10
us*eft												1	1		93	1	1		94
Tibet (China)	7	7		7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	-2	3	Not	1	-2	3	Not	1
us*eft	6	6		6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	9	13	Not	22	8	12	Not	20
West Bank (Palestine)	6	5		6	5	6	5	7	5	7	5	4	21	Not	25	4	21	Not	25
us*eft	7	7		7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	-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

Åland (1992–2000)
American Samoa
Anguilla
Aruba (1988–2000)
Azores
Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Canary Islands
Cayman Islands
Ceuta
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Cook Islands
Czechoslovakia (1972–1993)
Easter Island
Falkland Islands
Faroe Islands
French Guiana
French Polynesia
West Germany (1972–1990)
Gibraltar
Greenland
Guadeloupe
Guam
Guernsey
Isle of Man
Jersey
Madeira
Martinique
Mayotte
Melilla
Montserrat
Netherlands Antilles
New Caledonia
Niue
Norfolk Island
Northern Ireland (1991–2004)
Northern Mariana Islands
Pitcairn Islands
Puerto Rico (1977–2016)
Réunion
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Saint Martin
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Serbia and Montenegro (1992–2006)
Svalbard (1992–2000)
Tokelau
Turks and Caicos Islands
United States Virgin Islands
Wallis and Futuna

Partly Free

Republic of Artsakh (1991–2023)
Kurdistan Region (1992–2004)
Macau (1977–2004)
Panama Canal Zone (1977–1979)
Vatican City (1984–1988)
West Papua (1990–2003)
South Vietnam (1972–1976)
North Yemen (1972–1990)
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (1972–1992)

Not Free

Bophuthatswana (1977–1994)
Chechnya (1998–2009)
Ciskei (1981–1994)
Crimea (2014–2024)
Eastern Donbas (2020–2024)
East Germany (1972–1990)
Juan Fernández Islands (1977–1978)
[[File:Flag of Israel.svg|25px]] Occupied Territories (1977–2010)
State of Palestine Palestinian Territories (1997–2010)
Transkei (1988–1994)
Venda (1979–1994)
Soviet Union (1972–1990)
North Vietnam (1972–1976)
[[File:Tradicionalna zastava Vojvodine sa grbom.svg|25px]] Vojvodina (1992–1995)
South Yemen (1972–1990)

Evaluation

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. 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, . The neutrality and biases of human-rights indices have been discussed in several publications by Kenneth A. Bollen. 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). 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).

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. 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 .

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.

Mainwaring et alia (2001, p. 52) 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).

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. 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). 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).

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 tainted by coder bias.

Use and conceptual analysis

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

"Conceptual stretching", Giovanni Sartori's critical term for a methodological shortcoming common in social studies. 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."
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."
"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). 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", 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".

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."

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."

Notes

References

{{cite journal
Individuals can download the complete report (pdf format) for private use.

References

(9 March 2023). "Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy".
William Ide. (January 11, 2000). "Freedom House Report: Asia Sees Some Significant Progress". Voice of America.
[http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/g/g/ggc3/caspertufisPAweb.pdf “Correlation Versus Interchangeability: the Limited Robustness of Empirical Finding on Democracy Using Highly Correlated Data Sets"] {{Webarchive. link. (20 October 2017 , Gretchen Casper and Claudiu Tufis, ''Political Analysis'', 11:2 (2003), pp. 196–203, Society for Political Methodology)
(5 February 2019). "Freedom in the World 2019". Freedom House.
(4 March 2020). "Freedom in the World 2020". Freedom House.
(3 March 2021). "Freedom in the World 2021". Freedom House.
link. (23 December 2011 , ''Freedom in the World 2010'', Freedom house)
(13 January 2018). "Methodology: Freedom in the World 2018".
[https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world All Data, FIW 2013-2024 (Excel Download)], ''Freedom In the World'', All Data, 2013-2024 (Excel Download), Freedom House.
"Countries and Territories".
Puerto Rico *. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/puerto-rico {{Webarchive. link. (18 July 2019)
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 model]]s (SEM), often called [[LISREL]] models; SEM modeling allows the summary of a large number of measurements using a small number of meaningful [[factor analysis. factors]]. SEM was used by Bollen in the studies reported hereafter.
(2001). "Classifying Political Regimes in Latin". Studies in Comparative International Development.
(1990). "The Comparative Survey of Freedom: Experiences and Suggestions". Studies in Comparative International Development.
Bollen, Kenneth A. and Paxton, Pamela, [https://web.archive.org/web/20100610012101/http://www.odum.unc.edu/odum/content/pdf/Bollen_Paxton_2000.pdf "Subjective Measures of Liberal Democracy"], ''Comparative Political Studies'', vol. 33, no. 1 (February 2000), pp. 58–86
Andrew Little and Anne Meng,“Measuring Democratic Backsliding.“ ''PS: Political Science & Politics'' (forthcoming). https://osf.io/n32zk/
"Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics." ''The American Political Science Review'' 64 (4): 1033–1053.
Giannone (2010), p. 69. Quoting Landman, Tod, and Julia Hausermann, [http://chenry.webhost.utexas.edu/global/coursemats/2006/about indicators/GovIndicatorsEssex2003.pdf ''Map-Making and Analysis of the Main International Initiatives on Developing Indicators on Democracy and Good Governance''] {{dead link. (June 2022)
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.
Giannone (2010), p. 69, citing Scoble, et al. (1981) and Axel Hadenius and Jan Teorell. [https://www.concepts-methods.org/WorkingPapers/PDF/1045 "Assessing Alternative Indices of Democracy"], Political Concepts, Committee on Concepts and Methods, Working Paper Series, August 2005, 47 pp.
Munck, Gerardo L. and Verkuilen, Jay, [http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~munck/pdf/Munck_Verkuilen CPS 2002.pdf "Conceptualising and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices"] {{dead link. (June 2022)
Giannone (2010), p. 68.

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