Freedom in the World: 1996-1997 : The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Since 1989, this distinguished Survey project has been a yearlongeffort produced by regional experts, consultants, and humanrights specialists. It derives its information from a widerange of authoritative sources. Most valued of these are the manyhuman rights activists, journalists, editors, and political figureswho keep the world informed of the human rights situation intheir own countries.

Throughout the year, Freedom House personnel regularly conductfact-finding missions to gain in-depth knowledge of the vastpolitical transformations affecting our world,. These investigationsmake every effort to include meetings with a cross-sectionof political parties and associations, human rights monitors, religiousfigures, representatives of both the private sector and tradeunion movement, academics, and journalists. Freedom in theWorld is now the standard reference work for measuring progress,or the lack thereof, in the process of regime democratization andpolitical maturity.

Adrian Karatnycky is the president of Freedom House. AiliPiano is a senior researcher at Freedom House. This year''s surveyteam includes: Martin Edwin Andersen, Gordon Bardos,Michael Goldfarb, Charles Graybow, Kristen Guida, Karin DeutschKarlekar, Edward R. McMahon, Aili Piano, Arch Puddington,Amanda Schnetzer, Cindy Shiner, Leonard R. Sussman, and KendraZaharescu.