The Comparative Survey of Freedom is an institutional effort by Freedom House to monitor the progress and decline of political rights and civil lib-erties in 191 nations and 59 related territories. These year-end reviews of freedom began in 1955, when they were called the Balance Sheet of Free-dom and, still later, the Annual Sur-vey of the Progress of Freedom. This program was expanded in the early 1970s, and has appeared in Freedom Review since 1973. It has also been issued in a more developed context as a yearbook since 1978.
Since 1989, the Survey project has been a year-long effort produced by regional experts, consultants and hu-man rights specialists. The Survey derives its information from a wide range of sources. Most valued of these are the many human rights activists, journalists, editors and political fig-ures around the world who keep us informed of the human rights situa-tion in their countries.
Throughout the year. Freedom House personnel regularly conduct fact-finding missions to gain more in-depth knowledge of the vast political transformations affecting our world. During these week-to-month-long in-vestigations, we make every effort to meet a cross-section of political par-ties and associations, human rights monitors, religious figures, represen-tatives of both the private sector and trade union movement, academics and journalists. During the past year. Free-dom House staff traveled to numerous countries throughout most of the world’s geographical and political re-gions. The Survey project team also consults a vast array of published source materials, ranging from the reports of other human rights organi-zations to often rare, regional news-papers and magazines.
This year’s Survey team includes: Adrian Karatnycky, Martin Edwin Anderson, Kristen Guida, Marshall Freeman Harris, Thomas R. Lansner, Arch Puddington, Leonard R. Sussman, and George Zarycky. The general edi-tor of Freedom in the World is Roger Kaplan; the managing editor is Tara Kelly. This year’s research coordinator was Charles Graybow.
