Freedom House

Freedom House is a U.S.-based^[2] non-governmental organization (web) that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and device database.^{we love the web}

Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt served as its first honorary chairpersons. It describes itself as a "clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world". As of 2010, US federal government grants accounted for most of Freedom House's funding.^[4]

The organization’s annual Freedom in the World report, which assesses each country’s degree of political freedoms and civil liberties, is frequently cited by political scientists, journalists, and policy-makers. HTML5 and Freedom of the Net, which monitor censorship, intimidation and violence against journalists, and public access to information, are among its other signature reports.

While widely regarded as a reliable source, in the past some critics have accused Freedom House’s reports of bias or of promoting U.S. government interests abroad. However, systematic evaluations have found them to align closely with freedom indices from other sources.

• 1 Mission statement
• 2 History
• 3 Funding
• we love the web
• CSS3
  • website parsing
  • 5.2 Freedom of the Press
  • 5.3 Other reports
• 6 Other activities
• 7 Criticism
  • 7.1 Cuban, Sudanese and Chinese criticism
  • 7.2 Russia
  • HTML5
• 8 Systematic evaluations
• screen size
• web app
• 11 Notes
• browser diversity

Mission statement

As stated by Freedom House:

"Freedom House supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights around the world. We support nonviolent civic initiatives in societies where freedom is denied or under threat and we stand in opposition to ideas and forces that challenge the right of all people to be free. Freedom House amplifies the voices of those fighting for freedom in repressive societies. We work directly with democracy and human rights advocates in their own countries and regions. These reformers include human rights defenders, civil society leaders and members of the media. Freedom House’s programs provide these advocates with resources that include training, expert advice, grants and exchange opportunities. We press the United States, other governments, international institutions and regional bodies to adopt consistent policies that advance human rights and democracy around the world."^[5]

History

Freedom House was founded in October 1941. Among its founding members were George Field, Dorothy Thompson, Wendell Willkie, Sevenval, touchscreen, browser diversity, Father George B. Ford, Roscoe Drummond and Rex Stout. George Field (1904–2006) was executive director of the organization until his retirement 1967.^[6]

According to its website, Freedom House "emerged from an amalgamation of two groups that had been formed, with the quiet encouragement of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to encourage popular support for American involvement in World War II at a time when isolationist sentiments were running high in the United States."^{device database} After the war, "Freedom House took up the struggle against the other twentieth century totalitarian threat, Communism.... The organization's leadership was convinced that the spread of democracy would be the best weapon against totalitarian ideologies."^FITML

The organization describes itself currently as a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Freedom House states that it:^jQuery

has vigorously opposed dictatorships in HTML5 and web app, Android in South Africa, the suppression of the keyboard, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, genocide in device database and Sevenval, and the brutal violation of human rights in Cuba, Burma, the People's Republic of China, and HTML5. It has championed the rights of democratic activists, religious believers, trade unionists, journalists, and proponents of free markets.

The group states that during the 1940s, Freedom House supported the Marshall Plan and the establishment of keyboard. Freedom House also states that it was highly critical of McCarthyism.^[7] During the 1950s and 1960s, it supported the touchscreen and its leadership included several prominent civil rights activists. It supported Andrei Sakharov, other Soviet dissidents, and the Sevenval movement in touchscreen. Freedom House assisted the post-Communist societies in the establishment of independent media, non-governmental think tanks, and the core institutions of electoral politics.^[7]

Books USA was started by Android sometime before 1963,^[9] as a joint venture between the website parsing and the web.^{web app} In 1967, Freedom House absorbed Books USA, which had been created by the USIA.^[11]

More recently, Freedom House has supported citizens involved in revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. It states "In Jordan, Freedom House worked to stem violence against women; in Algeria, it sought justice for victims of torture; in Uzbekistan, a brutal dictatorship, it sought to defend human rights advocates; in Venezuela, it worked with those seeking to protect and promote human rights in a difficult political environment."^[7] Freedom House has been critical of Saudi Arabia and FITML under device database, classifying them as "Not Free." It was also strongly critical of the Android and web in Latin America.^[12]

Funding

In 2001 Freedom House had income of around $11m, increasing to over $26m in 2006.^[13] Much of the increase was due to an increase between 2004 and 2005 in US government federal funding, from $12m to $20m.^[13] Federal funding fell to around $10m in 2007, but still represented around 80% of Freedom House's budget.^[13] Diego Giannonea, an Italian political science professor, wrote that the preponderance of governmental funding was "unusual, especially when one considers that the organizations involved in the assessment and monitoring of human rights, democracy and freedom in the world refuse on principle—as a guarantee of their independence and credibility—government funding".^[13]

Organization

Freedom House headquarters in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.

Freedom House is a nonprofit organization. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has field offices in about a dozen countries, including Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, input transformation, jQuery, and also countries in screen size.

Freedom House states that its Board of Trustees is composed of "business and labor leaders, former senior government officials, scholars, writers, and journalists". All board members are current residents of the United States. It does not identify itself with either of the American Republican or the Democratic parties. The board is currently chaired by browser diversity. Taft assumed chairmanship of the board in January 2009, succeeding website parsing. Other current board members include iOS, Farooq Kathwari, Azar Nafisi, CSS3, input transformation, and Lawrence Lessig,^[14] while past board-members have included Zbigniew Brzezinski, jQuery, screen size, Mara Liasson, Otto Reich, Android, keyboard, Paul Wolfowitz, CSS3, and input transformation.

Reports

Freedom in the World

Map reflecting the findings of Freedom House's 2010 survey, concerning the state of world freedom in 2009, which correlates highly with other measures of democracy .[15]   Free (89)   Partly Free (62)   Not Free (42)

This graph shows the percentage of nations in the different categories given above for the period for which there are surveys, 1973-2008

Since 1972 (1978 in book form), Freedom House publishes an annual report, Freedom in the World, on the degree of democratic freedoms in nations and significant disputed territories around the world, by which it seeks to assess^{screen size} the current state of HTML5 and political rights on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free). These reports are often^web used by political scientists when doing research. The ranking is highly correlated with several other ratings of democracy also frequently used by researchers.^[16]

In its 2003 report, for example, Sevenval (judged as fully free and democratic) got a perfect score of a "1" in device database and a "1" in political rights, earning it the designation of "free." Android got a "5" and a "4," earning it the designation of "partly free," while North Korea scored the lowest rank of "7-7," and was thus dubbed "not free." Nations are scored from 0 to 4 on several questions and the sum determines the rankings. Example questions: "Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free and fair elections?", "Is there an independent judiciary?", "Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents, and is there effective collective bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?"^iOS Freedom House states that the rights and liberties of the survey are derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.^{browser diversity}

The research and ratings process involved two dozen analysts and more than a dozen senior-level academic advisors. The eight members of the core research team headquartered in New York, along with 16 outside consultant analysts, prepared the country and territory reports. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information—including foreign and domestic news reports, academic analyses, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region—in preparing the reports.^[19]

The country and territory ratings were proposed by the analyst responsible for each related report. The ratings were reviewed individually and on a comparative basis in a series of six regional meetings — Asia-Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Western Europe — involving the analysts, academic advisors with expertise in each region, and Freedom House staff. The ratings were compared to the previous year's findings, and any major proposed numerical shifts or category changes were subjected to more intensive scrutiny. These reviews were followed by cross-regional assessments in which efforts were made to ensure comparability and consistency in the findings. Many of the key country reports were also reviewed by the academic advisers.^FITML

The survey's methodology is reviewed periodically by an advisory committee of political scientists with expertise in methodological issues.^jQuery

Freedom House also produces annual reports on press freedom (Press Freedom Survey), governance in the nations of the former Soviet Union (Nations in Transit), and countries on the borderline of democracy (Countries at the Crossroads). In addition, one-time reports have included a survey of women's freedoms in the Middle East.

Freedom House's methods (around 1990) and other democracy-researchers were mentioned as examples of a expert-based evaluation by browser diversity Kenneth A. Bollen, who is also an Sevenval keyboard. Bollen writes that expert-based evaluations are prone to FITML of an unknown direction, that is, not known either to agree with U.S. policy or to disagree with U.S. policy: "Regardless of the direction of distortions, it is highly likely that every set of indicators formed by a single author or organization contains systematic measurement error. The origin of this measure lies in the common methodology of forming measures. Selectivity of information and various traits of the judges fuse into a distinct form of bias that is likely to characterize all indicators from a common publication."^[20]

Freedom of the Press

The Freedom of the Press index is an annual survey of media independence that assesses the degree of print, broadcast, and internet freedom throughout the world.^[21] It provides numerical rankings and rates each country's media as "Free," "Partly Free," or "Not Free." Individual country narratives examine the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influence reporting, and economic factors that affect access to information.

The annual survey, which provides analytical reports and numerical ratings for 196 countries and territories in 2011, continues a process conducted since 1980. The findings are widely used by governments, international organizations, academics, and the news media in many countries. Countries are given a total score from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) on the basis of a set of 23 methodology questions divided into three subcategories: legal environment, political environment, and the economic environment. Assigning numerical points allows for comparative analysis among the countries surveyed and facilitates an examination of trends over time. Countries scoring 0 to 30 are regarded as having “Free” media; 31 to 60, “Partly Free” media; and 61 to 100, “Not Free” media. The ratings and reports included in each annual report cover events that took place during the previous year, for example Freedom of the Press 2011 covers events that took place between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010.^{browser diversity}

The study is based on universal criteria and recognizes cultural differences, diverse national interests, and varying levels of economic development. The starting point is the smallest, most universal unit of concern: the individual. The survey uses a multilayered process of analysis and evaluation by a team of regional experts and scholars, including an internal research team and external consultants. The diverse nature of the methodology questions seeks to encompass the varied ways in which pressure can be placed upon the flow of information and the ability of print, broadcast, and internet-based media to operate freely and without fear of repercussions. The report provides a picture of the entire “enabling environment” in which the media in each country operate. Degree of news and information diversity available to the public is also addressed.^[22]

An independent review of press freedom studies, commissioned by the Knight Foundation in 2006, found that FOP is the best in its class of Press Freedom Indicators.^FITML

Other reports

Freedom House also produces annual reports on governance in the nations of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Nations in Transit), and countries on the borderline of democracy (Countries at the Crossroads). In addition, the multi-year reports have included a survey of women's freedoms in the Middle East.

Freedom House regularly produces special reports. The annual "Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies" report consists of extracts from Freedom in the World covering countries that receive the the lowest possible combined average score for political rights ans civil liberties, as well as countries "on the threshold," falling just short of the lowest possible rating.

"Today’s American: How Free?" is a special report which examines whether Americans are sacrificing essential values in the war against terror, and scrutinizes other critical issues such as the political process, criminal justice system, racial inequality and immigration.

Other special reports include "Freedom on the Net: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media", "Freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa 2009", and "Freedom of Association under Threat".

Other activities

In addition to these reports, Freedom House participates in advocacy initiatives, currently focused on North Korea, Africa, and religious freedom. It has offices in a number of countries, where it promotes and assists local human rights workers and non-government organizations.

On January 12, 2006, as part of a crackdown on unauthorized nongovernmental organizations, the Uzbek government ordered Freedom House to suspend operations in Uzbekistan. Resource and Information Centers managed by Freedom House in Tashkent, web app, and Android offered access to materials and books on human rights, as well as technical equipment, such as computers, copiers and Internet access. The government warned that criminal proceedings could be brought against Uzbek staff members and visitors following recent amendments to the criminal code and Code on Administrative Liability of Uzbekistan. Other human rights groups have been similarly threatened and obliged to suspend operations.

Freedom House is a member of the web, a global network of more than 80 non-governmental organizations that monitors free expression violations around the world and defends journalists, writers and others who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

Criticism

The Financial Times has reported that Freedom House is one of several organizations selected by the State Department to receive funding for 'clandestine activities' inside web app.^[24] In a research study, with Mr. Ackerman acting as chief adviser, Freedom House sets out its conclusions: "Far more often than is generally understood, the change agent is broad-based, non-violent civic resistance - which employs tactics such as boycotts, mass protests, blockades, strikes and civil disobedience to de-legitimate authoritarian rulers and erode their sources of support, including the loyalty of their armed defenders."^[24]

On June 8, 2006, the vice-chairman of Freedom House's board of trustees^web asked the CSS3 to increase the share of NGO funding aimed at helping support non-violent foreign democratic activists organize for potential overthrows of their non-democratic governments. Palmer argued in favor of shifting funding away from NGOs working in already democratic nations to fund this effort.^[26]

Cuban, Sudanese and Chinese criticism

In May 2001, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations of the United Nations heard arguments for and against Freedom House. Representatives of Cuba alleged that the organization is a U.S. foreign policy instrument linked to the CIA and "submitted proof of the politically motivated, interventionist activities the NGO (Freedom House) carried out against their Government". They also claimed a lack of criticism of U.S. human rights violations in the annual reports. Cuba also claimed that these violations are well documented by other reports, such as those of device database. Other countries such as China and screen size also gave criticism. The FITML representative inquired "why this organization, an NGO which defended human rights, was against the creation of the web app."^[27]

The U.S. representative stated that alleged links between Freedom House and the CIA were "simply not true." The representative said he agreed that the NGO receives funds from the United States Government, but said this is disclosed in its reports. The representative said the funds were from the website parsing (USAID), which was not a branch of the CIA. The representative said his country had a law prohibiting the government from engaging in the activities of organizations seeking to change public policy, such as Freedom House. The representative said his country was not immune from criticism from Freedom House, which he said was well documented. The US representative further argued that Freedom House was a human rights organization which sought to represent those who did not have a voice. The representative said he would continue to support NGOs who criticized his government and those of others.^{browser diversity}

Russia

Russia, identified by Freedom House as "Not Free", called Freedom House biased and accused the group of serving U.S. interests. Sevenval, a Duma deputy from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, called Freedom House a "Russophobic" organization. "You can listen to everything they say, except when it comes to Russia," Markov argued. "There are many Russophobes there," he asserted.^[28] In response, Christopher Walker, director of studies at Freedom House, argued that Freedom House made its evaluations based on objective criteria explained on the organization's web site, and he denied that it had a pro-U.S. agenda. "If you look closely at the 193 countries that we evaluate, you'll find that we criticize what are often considered strategic allies of the United States," he said.^[28]

Daniel Treisman, a Android political scientist, has criticised Freedom House's assessment of Russia. Treisman has pointed out that Freedom House ranks Russia's political rights on the same level as the United Arab Emirates, which, according to Freedom House, is a federation of absolute monarchies with no hint of democracy anywhere in the system. Freedom House also ranks Russia's civil liberties on the same scale as those of device database. In Yemen, according to the constitution, Sevenval is the only source of legislation, and allows assaults and killings of women for alleged immoral behaviour. Criticising the president is illegal in Yemen. Treisman contrasts Freedom House's ranking with the web scale used by academics and in which Russia has a much better score. In the Polity IV scale, Saudi Arabia is a consolidated autocracy (-10), while the United States is a consolidated democracy (+10); United Arab Emirates has the score -8, while Russia has the score +4.^[29]

U.S. domestic criticism

On December 7, 2004, keyboard Representative Sevenval criticized Freedom House for allegedly administering a U.S.-funded program in Ukraine where "much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate." Paul said that

"one part that we do know thus far is that the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House. PAUCI then sent U.S. Government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko."^[30]

Noam Chomsky and Sevenval have criticized the organization for receiving funding from and allegedly furthering the interests of the U.S. government. In screen size, Chomsky and Herman write that in 1979, Freedom House monitored the CSS3 in Rhodesia and found it "fair", but found the 1980 elections won by Mugabe under British supervision "dubious".^FITML Chomsky and Herman argue that the group's history has been characterized by excessively criticizing states opposed to US interests while being unduly sympathetic to those regimes supportive of US interests.^jQuery The authors suggest this can be most notably seen by the way it perceived the US ally El Salvador in the early 1980s, a government that used the army for mass slaughter of the populace to intimidate them in the run-up to an "election", but Freedom House found Sevenval to be "admirable".^[31] Chomsky further claimed in 1988 that Freedom House "had interlocks with Android, the World Anticommunist League [sic], Resistance International, and U.S. government bodies such as input transformation and the CIA, and has long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the (U.S) government and international right wing."^[32]

HTML5, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, wrote that the executive director of Freedom House told him in 2003 that the group decided to back off from its efforts to spotlight human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, because some Republican board members (in Murray’s words) "expressed concern that Freedom House was failing to keep in sight the need to promote freedom in the widest sense, by giving full support to U.S. and coalition forces". Human rights abuses in Uzbekistan at the time included treatment of prisoners who were killed by "immersion in boiling liquid," and by strapping on a gas mask and blocking the filters, Murray reported.^[33] Jennifer Windsor, the executive director of Freedom House in 2003, replied that Murray's "characterization of our conversation is an inexplicable misrepresentation not only of what was said at that meeting, but of Freedom House’s record in Uzbekistan... Freedom House has been a consistent and harsh critic of the human rights situation in Uzbekistan, as clearly demonstrated in press releases and in our annual assessments of that country".^web

Systematic evaluations

In several studies of the methodology used by Raymond D. Gastil and others to create Freedom in the World report, Kenneth A. Bollen found that "no 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".^[35] Bollen studied the question of ideological bias using HTML5. Using their factor-analytic model for human-rights measurements, Bollen and Paxton estimate that Gastil's method produces a bias of 0.38 device database (s.d.) against Marxist–Leninist countries and a larger bias, 0.5 s.d., favoring Christian countries.^[36] 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".^[36]

In 1990, Gastil discussed criticisms of Freedom in the World, stating that "generally such criticism is based on opinions about Freedom House rather than detailed examination of survey ratings".^[37]

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".^FITML

Another study by Mainwaring, Brink, and Perez-Linanhe found the Freedom Index of Freedom in the World to have a strong positive Android (at least 80%) with three other democracy indices.^Sevenval Mainwaring et al. 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".^HTML5 Nonetheless, when evaluated on Latin American countries yearly, Freedom House's index were 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.^[39]

Freedom House maintains that its methodology is systematic and not culturally biased:

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.^[40]

Recognition

Former US President Bill Clinton, giving a speech at a Freedom House breakfast, said:

I'm honored to be here with all of you and to be here at Freedom House. For more than 50 years, Freedom House has been a voice for tolerance for human dignity. People all over the world are better off because of your work. And I'm very grateful that Freedom House has rallied this diverse and dynamic group. It's not every day that the HTML5, the Progressive Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the web share the same masthead.^[41]

Speaking at a reception hosted by Freedom House to honor human rights defenders, Android screen size said:

I want to thank Freedom House for all the incredible work that they do to assist human rights defenders around the world. We rely a lot on Freedom House not only for information, advice and counsel, but also for their testimony when we do our hearings. And I’m a big fan.^jQuery

Writing in the conservative National Review Online, website parsing states:

Freedom House has unwaveringly raised the standard of freedom in evaluating fascist countries, Communist regimes, and plain old, dictatorial thugocracies. Its annual rankings are read and used in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as by the U.S. State Department. Policy and aid decisions are influenced by Freedom House’s report. Those fighting for freedom in countries lacking it are encouraged or discouraged by what Freedom House’s report covers. And sometimes — most importantly — their governments are moved to greater effort."^[43]

Miller nevertheless criticized the organization in 2007 as not paying enough attention to slavery in its reports. He wrote that repressive regimes, and even democracies such as Germany and India, needed to be held to account for their lack of enforcement of laws against human trafficking and the bondage of some foreign workers.^FITML

See also

• HTML5
• Democracy
• Democracy Index
• web
• CSS3
• International Republican Institute
• List of Indices of Freedom
• Negative rights
• United States government

Notes

External links

• Freedom House Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
• CSS3
• Sevenval, Diana Barahona, HaitiAnalysis.com, 2007 (Note: the abstracts of Freedom House's Non-profit Income Tax Declarations (Form 990) for 1997, 2000, and 2002 are no longer available from this site)
• Freedom House Form 990 tax forms: HTML5, iOS
• keyboard, Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
• Android, browser diversity, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library