Thursday, 26 March 2009
Freedom House and (un?)bias
The Freedom House criteria for defining democracy have been referred to several times during this course, especially when dealing with Venezuela. Some people in tutorials (my tutorial anyway) have pointed out that Freedom House is an American run organization and cannot be assumed to be unbiased on topics regarding countries the U.S. openly opposes. However, an article in The Economist from last year, reviews Freedom House's report on American democracy, reaching the conclusion that although "Freedom House bends over backwards to give the authorities the benefit of the doubt" and might even be "too soft" it criticizes both Bush administrations sharply, leaving no doubt that the U.S. is far from a saint in the world of democracies. I would think that this is not the kind of conclusion a heavily biased organization would come up with. But what do you think? Have you read any articles contradicting this or are there any countries on the Freedom House list that seem to have obvious wrong scores?
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I think that any organisation is at risk of appearing bias, however I don't think that there is any incentive especially for freedom house to be bias. I have read numerous articles in which freedom house have publically criticised the US aswell as countries like Venezuela. I do believe however that freedom house could do more in addressing the inequalities and human rights of much smaller countries such as those in the pacific or the Caribbean. I think sometimes freedom house can be bias when it comes larger states and smallers states.
ReplyDeleteIt all depends on one's perspective. If one disagrees with a particular judgment Freedom House gives a country, it is surely biased. However, if one agrees with a particular judgment, Freedom House is not biased.
ReplyDeleteOne way of approaching this question is to see how Freedom House's ratings compare with other ratings. One could compare them with the Polity IV data, or with the data of Alvarez et. al and see if there are any points at which they diverge substantially. (Of course, all of these data sources are produced by American institutions, but some of them are academic). Any takers for this project?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julian09 that almost all organizations are at risk of bias, and most of them probably are in some way. But what is an acceptable risk? I think it is generally accepted that none of us can be completely objective when considering, well, any sort of thing, because we all have our different views and opinions, and I do think this is considered an acceptable risk to take, as long as it is within reason. But where should the line between an acceptable and a non acceptable risk go. Should we allow one major investor provide an org. with most of its budget, even though we might risk a more serious bias? Is it even possible for an org. to not be sensitive to that contributor's needs in the future?
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