Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T00:13:55.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Historicizing the comparative survey of freedom: tracing the social trajectory of an influential indicator

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2021

Emily Zerndt
Emily Zerndt*
Affiliation:
Grand Valley State University E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Argument

The Comparative Survey of Freedom, first published by Freedom House in 1973, is now the most widely used indicator of democracy by both academics and the U.S. government alike. However, literature examining the Survey’s origins is virtually nonexistent. In this article, I use archival records to challenge Freedom House’s retrospective account of the indicator’s creation. Rather than the outcome of a scientific methodology by multiple social scientists, the Survey was produced by a single political scientist, Raymond Gastil, according to his own hunches and impressions. How, then, did this indicator rise to such prominence? I argue that the Survey’s notoriety can be attributed to its early promotion in both political science and American foreign policy decision-making, as well as the fact that it fit the dominant scientific and political paradigms of the time.

Keywords

Freedom Housedemocracy promotionRaymond GastilAmerican foreign policy
Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 33 , Issue 2: Power, Politics, and the Development of Political Science in the Americas , June 2020 , pp. 121 - 144
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, David Keith. 1967. America in the 20th Century: A Study of the United States since 1917. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Adcock, Robert. 2007. “Interpreting behavioralism.” In Modern Political Science: Anglo-American Exchanges Since 1880, edited by Robert Adcock, M. Bevir & Stimson, S. C., 180–208). Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Adcock, Robert. 2014. Liberalism and the Emergence of American Political Science: A Transatlantic Tale. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth A. 1990. “Political Democracy: Conceptual and Measurement Traps.” Studies in Comparative International Development 25 (1):7–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth, and Pamela, Paxton. 2000. “Subjective Measures of Liberal Democracy.” Comparative Political Studies 33 (1):58–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam, and Herman, Edward S.. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael. 2002. “Democracy and Dimensions: Comments on Munck and Verkuilen.” Comparative Political Studies 35(1):35–39.Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael, et al. 2011. “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach.” Perspectives on Politics 9 (2):247–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crewdson, John M. 1976. “Group Led by C.I.A. Board Nominee Reportedly Got $15,000 From Agency.” New York Times.Google Scholar
Crewdson, John M. 1976. “C.I.A. Link to Cherne Unit Is Denied.” New York Times.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 2015. In Search of Democracy. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easton, David. 1953. The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Farr, James, and Raymond, Seidelman, eds. 1993. Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984. “Truth and Power.” In The Foucault Reader, edited by Rainbow, Paul, 51–75. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Freedom House. http://www.freedomhouse.org/Google Scholar
Frisch, Scott A., and Kelly, Sean Q.. 2003. “Don’t Have the Data? Make Them Up! Congressional Archives as Untapped Data Sources.” PS: Political Science and Politics 36 (2):221–224.Google Scholar
Gastil, Raymond D. 1978. Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties. New York: Freedom House, Inc.Google Scholar
Gastil, Raymond D. 1988. Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties. New York: Freedom House, Inc.Google Scholar
Gastil, Raymond D. 1990. “The Comparative Survey of Freedom: Experiences and Suggestions.” Studies in Comparative International Development 25 (1):25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giannone, Diego. 2010. “Political and Ideological Aspects in the Measurement of Democracy: The Freedom House Case.” Democratization 17 (1):68–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Ralph M. and Douglas, William A., eds. 1988. Promoting Democracy: Opportunities and Issues. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Guilhot, Nicolas. 2005. The Democracy Makers: Human Rights and International Order. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauptmann, Emily. 2012. “The Ford Foundation and the Rise of Behavioralism in Political Science.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 48 (2):154–173.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, Michael R. 1993. Archival Strategies and Techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. “Why International Primacy Matters.” International Security 17 (4):68–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian, Welzel. 2005. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa, Norris. 2011. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O., and Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levenstein, Aaron and William, Agar. 1965. Freedom’s Advocate: A Twenty-five Year Chronicle. New York: The Viking Press.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy,” American Political Science Review 53 (1):69–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lustick, Ian S. 1996. “History, Historiography, and Political Science: Multiple Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias.” American Political Science Review 90 (3):605–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mannheim, Karl. 1985. Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Inc.Google Scholar
Munck, Gerardo. 2009. Measuring Democracy: A Bridge between Scholarship and Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Oren, Ido. 2003. Our Enemies and US: America’s Rivalries and the Making of Political Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Oren, Ido. 2006. “Political Science as History: A Reflexive Approach.” In Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn, edited by Yanow, Dvora and Schwartz-Shea, Peregrine, 215–227. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, Inc.Google Scholar
Oren, Ido. 2016. “A Sociological Analysis of the Decline of American IR Theory.” International Studies Review 0:1–26.Google Scholar
Parmar, Inderjeet. 2004. Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of The Role and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939-1945. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parry, Robert. 2015. “CIA’s Hidden Hand in ‘Democracy’ Groups.” The Consortium for Independent News. https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/08/cias-hidden-hand-in-democracy-groups/ Google Scholar
Porter, Theodore M. 1995. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Prior, Lindsay. 2003. Using Documents in Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, William I. 1996. Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roelofs, Joan. 2003. Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Alexander. 2008. Philosophy of Social Science, 3rd edition. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Sussman, Leonard R. 2002. Democracy’s Advocate: The Story of Freedom House. New York: Freedom House Inc.Google Scholar
Sussman, Leonard R. 2004. A Passion for Freedom: My Encounters with Extraordinary People. Amherst: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Thies, Cameron G. 2002. “A Pragmatic Guide to Qualitative Historical Analysis in the Study of International Relations.” International Studies Perspectives 3 (4):351–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trachtenberg, Marc. 2006. The Craft of International History: A Guide to Method. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yanow, Dvora, and Peregrine, Schwartz-Shea, eds. 2006. Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, Inc.Google Scholar