Each question gets an answer from
1-5. 1 being least democratic/free, and 5 being the most. To account for
difference in judgement of people, each country at each time period should be
researched by 4 people rather than 2 to get a more general overview.
Time periods:
·
1980
·
2000
Therefore this will give each country a total of 8 reviews, 4 from each
time period.
From the results, an average of each section will be recorded and
graphed. The overall results of all four sections will be calculated and then
graphed separately, this will show the correlation between the freedoms in each
section and the overall freedom of the country.
Media
·
How censored is the media
(1= complete government control, 5=range of independent media, mostly
independent)
·
Are journalists allowed
in the country to report world news without facing government oppression? (1=
Foreign media not allowed to report,3=Faces some restrictions,. 5= Journalists
allowed to freely report)
·
How readily available is
the free media to the people? (access to various types of media) (1=Not
available at all,5=completely available).
·
Is there opportunity for
all parties/political agents to publicise their different views in the media?(1=
Completely censored to the leading party,5=Freely able to publicise differing
views)
Elections
·
Is there universal
suffrage for citizens to vote and be politically active? (1= No Universal
suffrage, 3= Selective Suffrage, 5= Complete universal suffrage)
·
Are elections held
regularly? (1= No, 3=Leader defined, 5=Yes)
·
Are the votes counted by
a separate body to the government? (1= Controlled by leader, 5=Yes)
·
Do citizens have the
freedom to create opposition parties, which are seen as being a valid
opposition in elections? (1=No they are controlled by the ruling party, 3= Yes,
but with limitations,5= Yes)
Individual Freedoms
·
Do citizens have freedom
to publically worship whoever they want?(1=No,5=Yes)
·
Are people allowed to run
private businesses?(1=No,5=Yes)
·
Do all people enjoy
public access to uncensored education?(1=No,5=Yes)
·
Are access to public
resources controlled and limited by the state? (1=limited, 5=free)
Executive and Judiciary
·
Does the leader have the
power to influence areas of the state ( e.g. the police force, army) through
manipulation and intimidation? (1=Yes they exercise arbitrary power,5= No they
are limited in their control over the state through checks and balances)
·
Is the judiciary
independent from the Executive and Legislature and unable to be coerced? (1=No
they are not independent, 5= Yes they are completely separate)
·
Are there checks and
balances in place to ensure that no one branch exercises arbitrary power? (1=
No checks and balances exist, 5= Yes checks and balances exist and are used)
·
Is a multi-party
legislature in place? (1= No one single party rules, 5= Many parties make up
the legislature)
Melissa Peters, Ella Jones, Jason Jina, Tim Gibbs, Steph Jones, Alex Lewin (Monday 10am Tutorial)
Is there a question you can answer by using these particular set of of criteria? Or is the question "how correlated are these various freedoms"? (Do they all go together, or not?).
ReplyDeleteAlso 165 countries (with pop > 500,000) reviewed by four people each mean something like each person in the class gets to do about 7 countries (100*7/4 = 175). Should the system look at a random sample of countries to ensure the desired degree of objectivity without overwhelming people? Or is there some other way of dividing the work?
Should there be restrictions regarding the sources to be used? Or does everything go?
I think the idea of this clasificion is on the idea that freedoms is a key factor in showing if a country is good or bad (althogh i know thats good and bad is very simplistic in a sense) e.g. You could have a dictatorship, that in general opinion is bad straight away, however if we look at the country interms of personal/the governments freedoms maybe it isnt as bad as we assume and could have similar freedoms as a democratic regime. So i think the main question we could answer with this clasification is " How does the freedoms of a country relate to its regime type? and does it follow a set path?"
DeleteAnother couple of questions: what indicators (look in the Coppedge reading for a definition) could we use to measure judicial independence or separation of powers? What evidence should we look at to figure that out? (The constitution? Other sources?)
ReplyDeleteIs there a particular reason why you chose these four sets of freedoms and political institutions?
This is a good one, but the media section confuses me a bit. I would consider New Zealand a free country, yet in the Paul Henry saga on Breakfast he was saying his political views and was punished by the government for it, making the number on that question in relation to New Zealand to be less free
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DeleteThat assumes that NZ is completely free, I'm not saying that it's not, but it seems a bit bias to change a question just because it makes a country we assume is wholly democratic get a not wholly democratic score...
DeleteThe media section also confuses me. I am unsure of the depth to which this must go. Other than that minor issue it is good.
ReplyDeleteI think the aim of the media section is to get a 'general view' of whether the media is free or not. It is clear this section is subject to bias, but taking into how you would rank the other countries (relativity), may help you decide whether NZ is a 1,2,3 etc. I know the system is meant to be universal no matter what countries are assessed, but this may be a way to "in general" make distinctions on media freedom,ie. if China is on one end, is NZ on the other?
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ReplyDeletePerhaps there could be definitions or explanations of what you are wanting in the answer of each question? For example an explanation of the meaning of censored media. I think that this would make the questions easier to answer and you will get the answers you actually want.
ReplyDeleteI can understand why you would want 4 people to review each country since your system leaves for a lot of subjective judgements which would undoubtedly not be the same from person to person. It seems a bit to vaguely defined in some questions...
ReplyDeleteI like the categories in this one, especially the focus on the executive and judiciary which is not as present in other systems. However would it get a bit confusing when it came to grading each country? As for the majority of the categories there is only a guideline for one and five, but not for in-between, which leaves it up to people to perceive how they wish. This could result in inconsistent results possibly?
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