Freedom in the World Freedom in the World Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1988-1989 Raymond D. Gastil With contributions by Stephen Earl Bennett Richard Jensen Paul Kleppner FREEDOM HOUSE Copyright © 1989 by Freedom House Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For permission, write to Freedom House, 48 East 21st Street, New York, N.Y. 10010. The Library of Congress has cataloged this serial title as follows: Freedom in the world / Raymond D. Gastil.—1978- — New York : Freedom House, 1978- v. : map ; 25 cm.-(Freedom House Book) Annual. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISSN 0732-6610=Freedom in the world. 1. Civil rights—Periodicals. I. Gastil, Raymond D. II. Series. JC571.F66 323.4'05-dc 19 82-642048 AACR 2 MARC-S Library of Congress [8410] ISBN 0-932088-32-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 0-932088-33-3 (alk. paper) Distributed by arrangement with University Press of America, Inc. 4720 Boston Way Lanham, MD 20706 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU England CONTENTS Tables vii Preface ix PART I. THE SURVEY IN 1988 Freedom in the Comparative Survey: 3 Definitions and Criteria Survey Ratings and Tables for 1988 31 PART II. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN AMERICA: A Report of a Freedom House Conference Introductory Note 89 Opening Remarks 90 Who Has Been Eligible to Vote? 93 An Historical Review of Suffrage Requirements in the U.S. Paul Kleppner Discussion after Professor Kleppner's Paper 129 Party Systems and Democracy: 153 The American Experience Richard Jensen Contents Discussion after Professor Jensen's Paper 165 The Withered Roots: 187 The Impact of Declining Turnout on Democracy in America Stephen Earl Bennett Discussion after Professor Bennett's Paper 227 Discussion of Comparative Participation 243 Discussion of Actions That Might Increase Voting 259 Discussion of Participation in Government Service 279 Conclusionary Discussion of General Issues 305 PART III. COUNTRY SUMMARIES Introduction 337 Summaries 342 PART IV. RELATED TERRITORY SUMMARIES Summaries 491 INDEX 513 vi TABLES 1. Checklist for Political Rights 9 2. Checklist for Civil Liberties 17 3. Independent States: Comparative Freedoms 32 4. Related Territories: Comparative Freedoms 41 5. Countries by Freedom Ratings 45 6. Country Ratings since 1972 50 7. National Elections and Referendums 64 8. Political-Economic Systems 70 9. Social and Economic Comparisons 74 10. Human Suffering, Women's Equality, and Freedom 79 11. The Six Party System 155 12. The Times of Trouble 155 13. Dominant Party's Issues 156 14. Multiple Discriminant Analyses of Validated Vote, 200 1964 and 1984 15. Trends in American Political Participation, 208 1967-1987 PREFACE The Comparative Survey of Freedom was created in 1972 to provide an additional perspective on world events. It was felt that interpre- tations of international events in terms of the critical geopolitical struggle between "East" and "West" too often obscured those finer distinctions between societies that lay along the continuum between absolute repression and full freedom, regardless of the power blocs to which these societies might belong. Unavoidably, the Survey has recently come to be seen as a monitor of the movement toward more democratic systems evident in so much of the world. This yearbook marks the seventeenth year of the Comparative Survey and the eleventh edition in this series of annual publications. Previous yearbooks, in addition to focusing on the Comparative Survey, have emphasized different aspects of freedom and human rights. The first yearbook, the 1978 edition, examined basic theoret- ical issues of freedom and democracy and assessed the record of the Year of Human Rights. The second yearbook reported extensively on a conference devoted to the possibilities of expanding freedom in the Soviet Union. The 1980 yearbook considered international issues in press freedom, aspects of trade union freedom, the struggle for democracy in Iran, elections in Zimbabwe, and the relationship between human rights policy and morality. The 1981 yearbook con- tained essays and discussions from a Freedom House conference on the prospects for freedom in Muslim Central Asia. The 1982 yearbook emphasized a variety of approaches to eco- nomic freedom and its relation to political and civil freedom. The 1983-84 yearbook addressed the problems of corporatism, and the health of democracy in the third world. It also incorporated the papers and discussions of a conference held at Freedom House on supporting democracy in mainland China and Taiwan. We returned in the 1984-85 yearbook to the themes of the definition of freedom and the conditions for the development of freedom that were first addressed in the 1978 yearbook. It also looked at the particular problem of developing democracy in Central America. The 1985-86 yearbook considered America's role in the worldwide struggle for Preface democracy, and reported the results of a conference on supporting liberalization in Eastern Europe. The 1986-87 yearbook offered a number of essays on the nature and value of liberal democracy, as well as comparative discussions of democracy in several countries. These discussions should be seen as a supplement to the theoretical essays in the 1978 yearbook. Last year we brought to our readers' attention something of the variety and scope of work of researchers outside Freedom House that is closely related to the Survey or its themes. These included other surveys of political and civil rights, attempts to find the relationship between development and Survey ratings, and a discussion of factors in democratic development. A major change this year in the Comparative Survey is the drop- ping of the "free, partly free, not free" status of freedom ratings, replacing these with a simple summation of the political and civil rights ratings, labeled the "freedom rating". The director of the survey felt that too much emphasis had come to be placed on wheth- er a country fell on one or the other side of the rather artificial lines between these three over-general statuses. The new system should allow readers or analysts to more flexibly group countries for different purposes. This year the ratings and tables produced by the Survey are augmented by an additional table of social comparisons, one empha- sizing the relative position of women. The discussion of criteria and definitions at the beginning of the 1988-89 yearbook now includes the checklists for political rights and civil liberties separately. The reader should also note some revamping of Table 6, the historical record of the Survey. This year, for the first time, the Survey focuses on an aspect of political rights in the United States. The 1988-89 yearbook reports in full a small discussion held at Freedom House during the year on the continuing and deepening problem of political participation in the United States. Held just before the November 1988 elections, this material should provide useful background, and we hope a basis for action, for all those concerned about the low participation rates of the American voter that were once again emphasized in that election. We acknowledge, more than ever, the contribution made by the advisory panel for the Comparative Survey. The panel consists of: Robert J. Alexander, Richard W. Cottam, Herbert J. Ellison, Sey- mour Martin Lipset, Lucian W. Pye, Robert Scalapino, and Paul Seabury. We also express our appreciation to those foundations x Preface whose grants have made the Survey and the publication of this year- book possible. Substantial support has again been given by the Pew Charitable Trust; their continuing confidence has been a key factor in achieving the Survey's goal of raising the level of understanding of freedom in the world. All Freedom House activities are also assist- ed by the generous support of individual members of the organiza- tion as well as trade unions, corporations, and public foundations that contribute to our general budget. No financial support from any government—now or in the past—has been either solicited or accepted. We gratefully acknowledge the research and editorial assistance of Jeannette C. Gastil in producing this yearbook. xi PARTI The Survey in 1988 FREEDOM IN THE COMPARATIVE SURVEY: DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA Understanding freedom is not a simple task. To attempt to under- stand its many meanings would carry us far beyond the discussion of political systems with which the Comparative Survey of Freedom has been principally concerned. Yet in common parlance the mean- ings of freedom infect one another, so that a "free society" may be taken to be a society with no rules at all, or a free man may be taken to be an individual with no obligations to society, or even another individual. This global sense of individual freedom leads many Americans to scoff at the idea that theirs is a free society. Not primarily concerned with politics, most Americans apply the word "free" to their personal relationships, sensing correctly, but for our purposes irrelevantly, the necessity to work at a job, or to drive at a certain speed on the highway. To these individuals, "freedom" sounds like a wonderful goal, but hardly a goal that their society has achieved. Yet freedom, when addressed in a narrow political sense, is the basic value, goal, and, to a remarkable degree, attainment of successful democratic regimes. Freedom as independence is important to the Survey, but this too is not a primary basis of judgment. When the primary issue for so many countries in the colonial era was to become free from a colonial or occupying power, "freedom" meant that a country had emerged from control by another state, much as the United States had achieved freedom in the 1780s.