The purposes of this assignment are to demonstrate your understanding of different political systems and to acquaint you with an online resource for studying the political system

Chapter 1 Applied Activity

The purposes of this assignment are to demonstrate your understanding of different political systems and to acquaint you with an online resource for studying the political systems in various countries – Freedom House.

Go to the Freedom House website Links to an external site. . When viewing maps and country reports, make sure you have selected the " Global Freedom" scores and status to view, not "Internet Freedom" or "Democracy Status."

The organization's "Freedom in the World 2024" report classifies countries into three broad status categories (“free”, “partly free”, and “not free”). "Free" countries are those with nonauthoritarian (democratic) political systems, while "not free" countries are those with authoritarian political systems, to use the terminology from Chapter 1. "Partly free" countries fall in between on the continuum of political systems.

Each country's status and its total score on the 100-point scale are determined by scoring its political system in seven broad categories: (A) electoral process, (B) political pluralism and participation, (C) the functioning of the government, (D) freedom of expression and belief, (E) associational and organizational rights, (F) the rule of law, and (G) personal autonomy and individual rights. Each category is sub-divided with specific questions that experts use Links to an external site. to evaluate how well the country meets the conditions expected in a nonauthoritarian polity.

You will use the information in the Freedom House report to compare the US with TWO other countries: one other 'free' country with a higher total score than the US and one 'not free' country with a total score between 8 and 32 points.

Follow the steps below to collect the information about the three countries that you will need to write this paper:

1. Go to the Freedom House Countries menu (scroll down to the bottom of the home page

2. Links to an external site.

3. to find the Countries link) and click on the button for " Viewing: Global Freedom Scores." Notice that you can sort countries by their Global Freedom Total Score and Status, or by their Political Rights or Civil Liberties sub-scores. Sort the list of countries by their Total Score and Status (click that hyperlink), then click the arrow to point down, so the countries are sorted from the highest total score to the lowest.

4. Notice that nearly 60 countries scored higher in global freedom than the United States in 2024. Scroll down to the entry for the United States, click on its name, and read its full country report. Pay particular attention to the areas in which the US lost points. In what ways does the US political system provide insufficient protections for political rights and civil liberties in those areas, according to the report?

· Try to read the report with an open mind. It is easy to become defensive when reading criticisms of one's country, political party, or other source of important identity. But we do not have to believe that our country is perfect or even better than everyone else's in order to feel attachment and loyalty to it. Remember the Preamble to the US Constitution says it was established to "form a more perfect union." Put another way: the goal is to make our country better tomorrow than it is today. To do that, we must start with an honest evaluation of our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

5. Go back to the Countries menu. Pick ONE country with a higher global freedom total score than the US (make sure you are choosing an independent country, rather than a territory), click on its name, and read its full country report.

· Compare the two reports to identify THREE specific scoring criteria in different categories (for example, A3, D3, and F1) for which Freedom House rated the other country as more democratic than the US. That is, the other "free" country's score in that sub-section was higher than the US's score. Make note of why the two countries' scores were different — i.e., how or why does the US struggle to deliver those democratic outcomes? Why is the other country better able to do so?

6. Go back to the Countries menu. Pick ONE country that is rated as "not free" with a Total Score between 8 and 32 points (again, make sure you are choosing an independent country, not a territory). [Note that a number of countries have Total Scores of less than 8 points — you may not pick any of those countries for this assignment; they are not acceptable options.] Click on the selected country's name and read its full country report.

· Compare the "not free" country's scores on the same criteria that you choose for item 3 above (for example, A3, D3, and F1) to the scores for the two "free" countries. Make note of why the countries' scores were different. How or why does the "not free" country fail to meet democratic standards in those areas? Based on that information, what is life like for people who live in that country?

Write a three-paragraph (minimum 500 words) paper in which you report the information on these three countries from Freedom House and use it to illustrate the main differences between political systems as presented in Barbour & Wright’s Chapter 1.

Paragraph 1: Start with a substantial paragraph in which you explain the key differences between authoritarian systems and democratic systems of government, using the information from Chapter 1. Give particular attention to how the role of the people varies in these systems. (Demonstrate broad and detailed understanding of the information from the section of the chapter entitled "Political Systems and the Concept of Citizenship" for this part of your paper.)

Paragraphs 2-3: Then make specific connections between this textbook material and the new information that you gathered from Freedom House. That is, use the chapter information to explain and analyze the Freedom House global freedom ratings of the three countries you selected: the US, the "free" country with a higher total score, and the "not free" country with a total score between 8-32 points. Keep your focus on just these three countries, and be specific and detailed about which scoring criteria you are comparing (both identify the category designation and give a brief description of what it measures — e.g., category C2, safeguards against government corruption), why the countries' scores differed in those areas, and how those differences relate to the textbook information on political systems.

A useful way to organize this section of your paper would be to write one substantial paragraph contrasting the ratings of the "not free" country that you selected to the two "free" ones, showing how the Freedom House information relates to the generic characteristics of authoritarian versus democratic political systems as described in chapter 1.

Write another substantial paragraph in which you compare the ratings of the US to the other "free" country, explaining why the other country is more democratic than the US, again linking the differences in ratings to the chapter 1 explanation of the expected conditions in a democratic political system. You can organize these two paragraphs in whichever order seems best to you.

Reminders:

Be sure that your paper specifies each country's total score as well as the three specific scoring criteria that you are using to compare them (by letter/number and brief description).

Explain the differences between these countries and the two types of political systems in your own words, using quotations from the country reports or the textbook ONLY to support or illustrate points that you have made, not as a substitute for explaining them yourself. Remember to check the Turnitin score on your paper once you upload and submit it on Canvas; you want the score to fall in the 'green zone.'

Your References section must include an entry for Barbour & Wright's textbook and three entries for Freedom House — a separate entry for each country's report. The embedded notes in your paper need to differentiate among the three Freedom House entries; see the Applied Activity general instructions document

Download Applied Activity general instructions document

(page 4) for guidance on how to point your reader to the relevant bibliographic citation when multiple entries have the same author and same publication date.

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