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| Sun Apr 13 22:38:47 2008 Other Freedom Rankings |
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| Sun Apr 13 22:38:47 2008 Other Freedom Rankings Comparing countries' various rankings. |
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| I was thinking of other country rankings. I quote the Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking below, but there are other rankings! There is the index of economic freedom from the Heritage Foundation. I have no idea what the Heritage Foundation stands for, but some quick surfing on their site indicates it is a right-wing think tank. Check out some of their positions listed here. So take their biases into account, but their ranking methodology isn't bad. That's just economic freedom. There is a basic freedom ranking published by Freedom House, which is a nonprofit organization (founded by Eleanor Roosevelt!) which promotes freedom around the world (take a look at their mission statement). Their freedom ranking focuses on political rights (electoral process and government), and civil liberties (freedom of expression, rule of law, individual rights). They combine those subscores into an average per-country rating, with the summary listed here. What is the most free country in the world? No one seems to agree. Hong Kong tops the Heritage Foundation's ranking for Economic Freedom, but Freedom House lists it as only "Partly Free" (in the "Territories" section, sincie it isn't an independent country). China, to which Hong Kong belongs, is counted "Not Free" by Freedom House. Iceland and Norway are tied for the top spot in RSF's ranking of Press Freedoms, and both are in the top grouping for Freedom House's combined rankings. However, the Heritage Foundation says Iceland is only "Mostly Free" economically, while Norway is just "Moderately Free." So there is no one country that aces all the rankings. How does the United States rank? Economic Freedom: number 5 in the world, although we barely qualify as free (Heritage Foundation counts you as free if you rank from 80-100 on their scale, and only 7 countries qualified). Political and Civil freedoms: we are in the top group with a ranking of 1. Press freedoms: number 48 in the world. So we are at least in the better half of the world. Canada does well: it is ranked as Free by the Heritage Foundation, in the top group of Free countries from Freedom House, and is 18th on RSF's very tough press freedoms ranking. Russia does poorly: Heritage Foundation ranks it as economically repressed, Freedom House ranks it as "Not Free" (although in a group above China), and it is near the bottom of RSF's list at 144. China does even worse: although only "Mostly Unfree" from an economic perspective, it is "Not Free" from a political and civil perspective, and is a bottom-dweller of RSF's list at number 163. The United Kingdom? It is "Mostly Free" from an economic perspectve (just 0.5 short of "Free"!), in the top "Free" group from a political and civil perspective, and is a respectible 24th on the RSF list. As I mentioned below, I am a big fan of Tunisia, but it does poorly in these rankings. It is "Mostly Unfree" from an economic perspective, "Not Free" from a political/civil perspective (same ranking as Russia), and it ranks below Russia on the press freedoms index. Another country I've visited a few times is Chile. Chile ranks fairly well: it tops the list of "Mostly Free" countries from an economic perspective, is in the top grouping for political and civil freedoms, and is number 39 on the press freedoms ranking, ahead of the US, Israel, and South Africa, just to name a few. Comments |
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