Worrisome Signs, Modest Shifts

This essay presents the findings of the 2004 Freedom House survey of Freedom in the World. The essay examines broad trends in political rights and civil liberties and finds 19 Free countries, 54 states are rated as Partly Free and 49 are rated as Not Free, with the widespread absence of liberties. Also, 199 countries now qualify as electoral democracies, which is two more than in 2003. This essay correlates levels of freedom with economic development and examines the tenure of freedom in every state as reflected by the 31-year times-series record of the survey. Freedom in the World is an annual comparative global survey of political rights and civil liberties as reflected in assessments conducted by 22 analysts and reviewed by 17 senior academic scholars.