#Factor rating method map series

#Factor rating method map series

Freedom in the World first appeared in book form in 1978 and included short narratives for each country and territory rated in the study, as well as a series of essays by leading scholars on related issues. The findings appeared each year in Freedom House’s bimonthly journal Freedom at Issue (later titled Freedom Review). Raymond Gastil, a Harvard-trained specialist in regional studies from the University of Washington in Seattle, developed the methodology, which assigned political rights and civil liberties ratings to 151 countries and 45 territories and categorized them as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free. In 1972, Freedom House launched a new, more comprehensive annual study called The Comparative Study of Freedom.

This modest report provided assessments of political trends and their implications for individual freedom. Freedom House typically takes no position on territorial or separatist disputes as such, focusing instead on the level of political rights and civil liberties in a given geographical area.įreedom House’s first year-end reviews of freedom began in the 1950s as the Balance Sheet of Freedom. Territories are selected for assessment in Freedom in the World based on the following criteria: whether the area is governed separately from the rest of the relevant country or countries, either de jure or de facto whether conditions on the ground for political rights and civil liberties are significantly different from those in the rest of the relevant country or countries, meaning a separate assessment is likely to yield different ratings whether the territory is the subject of enduring popular or diplomatic pressure for autonomy, independence, or incorporation into another country whether the territory’s boundaries are sufficiently stable to allow an assessment of conditions for the year under review, and whether they can be expected to remain stable in future years so that year-on-year comparisons are possible and whether the territory is large and/or politically significant. While both laws and actual practices are factored into scoring decisions, greater emphasis is placed on implementation. Political rights and civil liberties can be affected by both state and nonstate actors, including insurgents and other armed groups.įreedom House does not believe that legal guarantees of rights are sufficient for on-the-ground fulfillment of those rights. Freedom in the World operates from the assumption that freedom for all people is best achieved in liberal democratic societies.įreedom in the World assesses the real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals, rather than governments or government performance per se. Freedom in the World is based on the premise that these standards apply to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development. The report’s methodology is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. The 2022 edition covers developments in 195 countries and 15 territories from January 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021. Freedom in the World is an annual global report on political rights and civil liberties, composed of numerical ratings and descriptive texts for each country and a select group of territories.