A selective and instrumentalized democracy: the role of Freedom House in Venezuela (1999-2013)

While several studies have dealt with methodological aspects of measuring democracy, little attention has been devoted to the political and ideological issues that affect the construction and structure of these measuring instruments. The aim of this study is twofold: in analysing the cultural and economic dimensions of the Freedom House (FH) organization, it seeks to delineate the political background of FH, thus underlining its neoconservative bias. Secondly, by focusing on the changes over time in the checklists used by FH to measure democracy, this study aims to analyse to what extent these changes are ideologically driven, in particular, to what are they linked to the neoliberal paradigm. Indeed, the hypothesis is that the construction of FH's scales has been affected by the neoliberal climate in which they were conceived. In the first part, the work reconstructs the academic debate about FH's scales and the historical and political context which brought to the affirmation of neoliberal democracy. It also provides a discussion regarding the importance of measurement as a political tool. In the second part, the study provides an analysis of FH through the reconstruction of its political-ideological profile, beginning with the formation of FH to its current internal culture. The third part provides an analysis of the checklists used by FH for measuring democracy. Our findings show that because of the changes in methodology and the strict interconnection between methodological and political aspects, FH data do not offer an unbroken and politically neutral time series, such that their use for cross-time analyses both for research and policy is questionable.

Scholars have long attempted to make distinctions among states based on regime type. Two of the most commonly used measures by both scholars and policymakers are the Freedom House Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties measures. Despite their popularity, little is known about the measurement properties of these variables. In 2006, Freedom House began releasing the subcategory indicators used to generate the seven-point political rights and civil liberties scales as well as the freedom status indicator. I investigate the measurement properties of these scales using Bayesian measurement models (factor analysis and latent class analysis) that explicitly incorporate the goals of the Freedom House organization (which I argue are rigor, appropriate precision, and temporal stability). I find that (a) there is considerable variation hiding in the seven-point political rights and civil liberties classifications (e.g. many countries that are coded one by Freedom House are interestingly different from each other), (b) some countries coded in different categories by Freedom House are not interestingly different from each other (e.g. some twos are not different from some threes), and (c) the subindicators are all reliable indicators of political rights and civil liberties. I show that these differences can be substantively and statistically consequential when using the Freedom House data if the researcher’s goals include comparison across space, comparison over time or predictive statistical modeling.

The transnational repression (TNR) database, created by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Freedom House, has received wide attention in media and policy circles. In-depth reports on TNR published by the Washington Post and Time Magazine have cited the Freedom House database on how authoritarian governments operate in the West to silence their critics by engaging in violent physical attacks. Freedom House used this database to lobby Western governments to sign a policy pushing back against TNR. A notable moment in this campaign was when Freedom House participated in the Biden administration’s second Democracy Summit to raise its wider concerns with the international community about TNR. Apart from methodological limitations, the documenting of TNR cases has been vitally important. In this interview-based chapter, Nate Schenkkan, former Senior Director of Research at Freedom House, speaks frankly with the editors about the history, use, and challenges of documenting TNR.

Arch Puddington, in his interview with the SAIS Review of International Affairs, expresses a firm belief in the power of interpretation. “An over emphasis on data,” he says, “can distort an analyst’s efforts to understand the true quality of freedom as thoroughly as can outright bias.” Freedom House’s annual reports on freedom have made data on democracy accessible for millions of people in the diplomatic, academic, and wider communities. These analyses have criticized governments throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Asia for anti-democratic and autocratic methods. However, Freedom House’s important work researching authoritarianism and democracy throughout the world should start to focus once again on its birthplace—the Western world. Freedom House, based in the United States (and largely funded by government agencies such as the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development), could be—and has been—accused of having Western biases. A quick look at Freedom in the World 2014 shows that the United States and Canada, as well as the majority of European nations, are classified as “free” right up to the Ukrainian border. 1 However, several countries in Europe—as Freedom House rightly notes—have suffered democratic backsliding. France, Switzerland, and Hungary have all passed laws or gone through social movements seeking to limit the rights of migrants and ethnic minorities. These occurrences, though noted in Freedom House’s analysis, do not seriously affect the calculations within. Hungary itself is an excellent example of where this analysis has masked the more sinister undertones within an open democracy. Hungary’s recent re-election of Viktor Orban—in an election widely seen as free and fair—can be seen as a backwards turn for Hungarian democracy. As a member of the right-wing, nationalist Fidesz party, Orban will likely have to make concessions to the far-right, anti-Semitic, and anti-Roma Jobbik party, which

This paper historicizes "deserving" citizenship of South Korea by tracing spatial changes and meanings of two places: Seoul Train Station Square and a former textile factory renovated to a homeless shelter. Both have been emblematic space where the most homeless people were populated since the break of the Asian Debt Crisis. However, each place embodies different history of "deserving" citizenship in a complementary way. The square, a politically charged literary and physical topography, became a location of protecting "normal" citizen from potentially violent homeless people. The factory, a spatial marker for the state regulation of laborer, became a site to promote the benevolent image of welfare state for protecting homeless people through a demarcation of short-term street living people—as "deserving" homeless citizens—from long term street living people. The embedded history in two places would be the transition of developmental state towards the welfare state that shifted its capitalist state focus from labor/economic policies to welfare policy: neoliberalization of state governance in South Korea. In concrete, this paper examines how homeless people emerged as new welfare subjects in an urban landscape; how only short-term street living people were selected as proper; how various social agents were involved in the process of implementing homeless policies; and how dualistic capitalist control over labor power, such as regular workers and surplus laborer, was imposed.

Southeast Asia After the CrisisA Tale of Three Countries Donald K. Emmerson (bio) First came the boom. For at least three of the six years from 1991 through 1996, each of Southeast Asia’s “tiger” economies—Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand—enjoyed a rate of economic growth of 8 percent or faster. Each year during this period, the pace of the slowest tiger in the GDP race substantially exceeded the world’s rate of growth. Then came the bust. It began in mid-1997, when persisting signs of weakness in the Thai economy caused a massive lack of confidence in its currency, the baht. Soon the other tigers stumbled too. In 1998 Singapore’s economy slowed dramatically. The economies of Indonesia and Malaysia (and the Philippines) contracted. The decline of the Thai economy, which had begun in 1997, accelerated. By mid-1999 the worst was apparently over for these economies; all four (and the Philippines) are expected to grow again in 2000. But the downturn had been all too real. Much has been written about the causes of the Asian economic crisis. 1 Less has been ventured about its political implications. I want to begin to redress this imbalance by exploring what the economic downturn has meant for democracy: Did the economic shocks that rippled through Southeast Asia in 1997–98 promote, retard, or have no effect on the region’s democratization—and why? As is shown by the first column of figures in the Table on the following page, between 1996 and 1998 all the economies of Southeast Asia either lost speed or actually lost ground. One might have expected that this economic crisis, which had dramatic political repercussions in Indonesia, would also have led to significant changes in levels of political freedom throughout the region. By the imperfect but useful [End Page 35] standards of Freedom House, however, this did not happen: As can be seen in the Table, most Southeast Asian countries became neither more nor less free in 1998, retaining the scores they had received in 1997. Table 1. Economic Shock & Political Freedom in Southeast Asis, 1996–1998 Country Shock Net Fluctuation in Rates of Change in Real GDP, 1996–98 (% points) Freedom Change in Freedom Rating 1997–98 (scale points and categories) Indonesia −21.7 +1.0 (from Not to Partly Free) Malaysia −15.4 −0.5 (still Partly Free) Thailand −13.5 +0.5 (from Partly Free to Free) Cambodia −7.0 no change (still Not Free) Philippines −6.3 no change (still Free) Singapore −6.0 no change (still Partly Free) Vietnam −5.8 no change (still Not Free) Burma −4.0 no change (still Not Free) Brunei −2.6 no change (still Not Free) Laos −1.9 no change (still Not Free) Notes: “Shock” = the difference between the rates of real GDP growth in 1996 and in 1997 + the difference between such rates in 1997 and 1998. As of the end of each year, Freedom House rates countries on a scale from 1.0 (most free) to 7.0 (least free) and classifies them as “Free,” “Partly Free,” and “Not Free.” “Freedom” = the difference between the ratings as of the end of 1997 and the end of 1998. Sources: Asia Yearbook 1999 (Hong Kong: Review, 1999), 88; International Monetary Fund, IMF Economic Reviews: January–April 1999 (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund), 27; International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook: May 1999 (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1999), 140, 147; Freedom House, Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1997–1998 (New York: Freedom House, 1999), 13. This impression of political continuity despite economic change is reinforced by comparing the ratings for Southeast Asian jurisdictions issued by Freedom House for 1972 (when it first began rating countries and territories in terms of political rights and civil liberties) and 1998. Although Singapore and Vietnam (North Vietnam) received the same scores on both occasions on both variables, the combined totals earned by the ten Southeast Asian states in 1998 for political rights and civil liberties were exactly the same as the totals awarded to the region’s members in these regards 26 years before. 2 As for...

WHY ARE INDICATORS PRODUCED? Global indicators, which purport to render characteristics of states measurable and comparable across national borders, have become ubiquitous in news reports and public policy discussions. Global indicators assess and rank states on every basis: medical care, education, and business regulatory environment, as well as more abstract concepts such as “freedom.” Some indicators, for instance, gross domestic product, have long served as foundations of policy analysis (despite known limitations; see Stiglitz et al. 2009a, 21–40, 85–142), while newer indicators, such as “state fragility,” have achieved prominence only recently (Bhuta 2012). Initially, scholarly attention lagged behind the policy influence and public prominence of indicators, but research into indicators has developed significantly in recent years, including in the form of numerous books, articles, and policy reports (e.g., Morse 2004; Arndt 2008; Davis et al. 2012b; Cooley and Snyder, forthcoming). Nonetheless, as the editors of this volume observed in a previous article (Davis et al. 2012a, 4), “little attention has been paid to questions such as: What social processes surround the creation and use of indicators? How do the conditions of production influence the kinds of knowledge that indicators provide?” They noted that “the answers to these questions all have significant normative, theoretical and practical implications” (Davis et al. 2012a, 4; see also Halliday 2012; Pistor 2012). Using the prominent indicator producer Freedom House as a case study, this chapter proposes some answers to these questions and sketches some normative, theoretical, and practical implications. The historical evidence from Freedom House's archives suggests that its indicator production was motivated predominately by the goal of strengthening Freedom House's own institutional identity and reputation. Among other things, the indicator appealingly defined Freedom House's “brand,” which in turn enhanced its ability to raise funds (including most importantly from the United States government), which in turn allowed the organization to engage in widespread “pro-freedom” activist efforts around the world.

This article investigates whether two different measures of democracy generate the same empirical results. The Freedom House and Polity IV measures are used as the dependent variables. The result shows that statistical significance and explanatory power for different independent variables differ greatly, depending on which democracy index is used as the dependent variable. The results also indicate that Freedom House and Polity IV rate many countries’ levels of democracy differently. It is worrying and problematic for comparative studies of democracy that empirical results differ so much according to which measure of democracy is used.

The Relationship between Economic Growth and Transformation of Democracy of Bangladesh (A Historical and Strategic Analysis)

The role of human, social, built, and natural capital in explaining life satisfaction at the country level: Toward a National Well-Being Index (NWI)

Similar to various other disciplines, there have been significant changes and developments in the communication domain during the first quarter of the 21st century. The use of the Internet, which is considered as a vital communication tool in modern times, and often referred to as the “digital information communication era/digital era”, has become increasingly popular and has experienced significant development and change. Such change has led to a transformation in the concept of “new media” and has extended its scope to include the concept of social media; thus, the Internet has become an essential aspect of life due to its characteristics of facilitating information access and socialization. The “Internet” can be interpreted in different ways, including an important mass communication tool that serves the purposes of globalization (within McLuhan’s Global Village Theory); or an important tool in the simulation universe (within Bourdieu’s Simulation Universe Theory); or a new public sphere (within Habermas’s Public Sphere Theory). However, in addition to its benefits, the “harm” has also become an issue that is subject to analysis as much as the legal responsibility dimension of the concept. From this perspective, various countries around the world have started to use different practices in relation to the access and use of terms in political and legal aspects. In particular, “the Internet censorship” has become vital in the determination of limits, since crossing such lines could damage the fundamental principles of human rights and democracy. The American organization, Freedom House, which conducts regular studies to identify the status of relevant limitations as well Internet freedoms and publishes reports accordingly, is a leading supervisory body when it comes to “the freedoms” on a global scale. Based on the independence of analysis conducted in various countries by Freedom House on the practices of those countries from an international political and economic perspective based on political rights and human rights; at the specific level, this study assesses the analysis of Freedom House conducted on the USA in different periods within the framework of decisions made by American courts and statements from politicians. In general, this study aims to discuss the possibility of Freedom House maintaining its activities in an independent structure. This study has a multi-disciplinary nature, with communication science focusing on the concept of the Internet as a basic communication tool; with the jurisprudence due to the assessment of legal arrangements used for internet censorship, given by other geographical example, with a particular focus on the example of the USA and related court decisions; and political science due to the regulation of the subject and the preparation of related laws by the government and interpretation of the matter by politicians. Additionally, pursuant to the data collected in relation with all disciplines, the status of Internet freedom in the USA, which is indicated in the reports of Freedom House to be one of the countries with the most freedom, and objectivity analysis of Freedom House will be performed through the content analysis (legal analysis and comparative analysis) method.

Technology and Freedom Joshua Muravchik (bio) Power, the Press and the Technology of Freedom: The Coming Age of ISDN by Leonard R. Sussman. Freedom House, 1989. 496 pp. One of the single most valuable resources in the study of international politics is the annual survey of freedom published by Freedom House in New York. It allows discussions of democracy and human rights in world politics to be anchored in a base of data that is rigorous, comparative, and as objective as humanly possible. Now, Leonard Sussman, who served for 21 years as the executive director of Freedom House, has brought us a cognate data base—a world survey of press freedom. Consisting of discursive sketches of the relations between the media and the government in 88 countries—with details about censorship, intimidation, and subornation—this survey will provide a useful referent, especially if it is periodically updated. (The current survey was conducted in 1987 and 1988.) It surprised and interested me to learn that despite its civil war and rampant political violence, Peru enjoys more press freedom than Italy; and that the military dictatorship in Nigeria allows more press freedom than the democratically elected government of Guatemala. Unfortunately, the survey covers only half the number of countries included in Freedom House's annual surveys of freedom. And in lieu of the latter's handy (albeit necessarily simplifying) numerical scale of freedom, Sussman offers only a visual bar-graph representation, without numeration, of each country's degree of press freedom. Sussman's survey forms part of a book that also contains a variety of other elements. A separate survey, for instance, is devoted to the largely [End Page 128] tautological revelation that, on the whole, there is more press freedom in free countries than in unfree ones. There is also an extended essay (from which the book derives its title) on future developments in information and communications technology and their likely political impact. For good measure, the author has thrown in miscellaneous essays on such topics as censorship, the fallacy of moral equivalency between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the testy relations between Ronald Reagan and the news media. Sussman is a man with some interesting things to say, but they are not best delivered all lumped together. The most important of these essays is Sussman's argument about technology and politics: "The Coming Age of ISDN." "ISDN," we learn, stands for "integrated systems of digital networks." In this age, all the world's data bases, as well as its various channels of audiovisual communication, will be instantly accessible to every human through a personal computer and telephone hook-up in his home, neighborhood, or workplace: [ISDN] is the ultimate network. It is global in scope. It is virtually all-inclusive. On line would be news from everywhere . . . [including] instantaneous monetary, banking and business news . . . data flows carrying new messages as well as archival material; myriad encyclopedic information; and libraries of information on the natural sciences, social sciences, literature, history, and "practical" guides . . . . Through ISDN, two network users may not only speak to one another and see themselves as they converse, but exchange video pictures and text while editing them on the same screen. Together or separately they can call up today's news or century-old history, program a telephone to take or refuse calls or bills, receive a burglary warning from a distant point, market, settle accounts, make travel reservations, or pursue other activities. Much in this image is easy enough to extrapolate from current technology. Indeed anyone possessing a computer, a modem, some interactive software, and an up-to-date telephone can do today most of the things that Sussman describes. Perhaps technological and economic developments in the coming years will make it possible to overcome present obstacles to "interfacing" between different computers and different software. It seems less likely, however, that mankind will make enough economic progress to allow most citizens of the poorer countries to be included in the loop. Accordingly, in his discussion of the "ISDN age," Sussman sometimes slides from prediction to entreaty, appealing for "massive assistance. . to Third World communications and information systems." He goes so far as to suggest...

Is There a Relationship between Guns and Freedom? Comparative Results from 59 Nations

Government Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on Social and Mobile Media: The Case of Iran (2009)

The former socialist countries of Central/Southeastern Europe and the Soviet Union share many commonalities, while forming an increasingly diverse region of the world in terms of sociopolitical development. Among the most striking commonalities are the shared socialist past, as well as the sheer scale and signifi cance of the political, economic, and social transformation since the collapse of socialism in 1989. Although all countries of the region have declared their aspiration to embrace the new values of democracy, capitalism, and market economies, the transformation process has been uneven across the region. By 2007, ten countries became new member states of the European Union (EU) ‐ Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia ‐ signaling the emergence of open, liberal societies at least partially rooted in respect for the rule of law, human rights, and economic freedom. In some countries of Southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, however, democratic and free-market characteristics have shared the stage with “a high degree of authoritarianism, corporatism, cronyism, and state involvement in economic life” (Freedom House, 2005). This region also includes repressive autocracies, such as Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, in which there is “little or no space for opposition political groupings and independent civic activism” (Freedom House, 2005). Approximately one third of all countries have experienced armed confl icts during the transformation period, resulting in devastating effects in all spheres of life. 1 Given the diversity of these sociopolitical contexts, it is diffi cult to talk about the countries of Central/Southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as one homogeneous region. Nevertheless, these countries share several educational characteristics, as refl ected in a number of educational legacies inherited from the socialist regime and a proclaimed aspiration to embrace Western educational values. Among the positive socialist legacies are solid infrastructures for educational provision and administration, fee-free education for all children, nearly universal general education enrolments, and high literacy rates. For all the concerns about its quality and comprehensiveness, the mass provision of socialist education undeniably helped to create a level of social cohesion (Heyneman, 1997, 2000), as well as very real compensatory legitimacy for the regime. During the socialist period, education also established a widely shared