New Index: Human Freedom Falls in More Countries than Not

Today, on Human Rights Day, we are pleased to release theHuman Freedom Index 2018. The report —copublished by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute in Canada, and the Liberales Institut at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Germany—measures a broad array of personal, civil and economic freedoms around the world and the extent to which basic rights are protected or violate d.New Zealand and Switzerland are the two freest countries on this year ’s index, while Venezuela and Syria rank last. The United States ranks 17. In 2008, it ranked 11, then fell notably until 2013, after which it rose through 2016, the latest year for which the index gathers sufficient data that is comparable globally.My coauthorTanja  Porčnik and I unfortunately find that, compared to 2008 or to last year’s report, more countries than not have seen their level of freedom decline. Over that longer period, notable deteriorations occurred in Russia, Hungary, Argentina, and, in more recent years, Turkey. Some of the largest drops in free dom in the world occurred in Greece and Egypt, further reflecting a strengthening of populism and authoritarianism that have afflicted countries on every continent in the past decade.Egypt!function(e,t,s,i){var n= " InfogramEmbeds " ,o=e.getElementsByTagName( " script " )[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)? " http: " : " https: " ;if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementBy...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs