A Measure of Freedom - Essay Example

Can freedom be measured? Introduction The question has been proposed as to whether freedom can actually be measured. Before this question can be competently answered, it is necessary to define freedom from a practical perspective. Many practitioners in the domain of political science consider freedom to be closely associated with liberty, in which individuals can unreservedly assert their free will whilst enjoying the political and socially-based self-determination that should be guaranteed to all members of a society (McLean and McMillan 2009). Freedom is a construct of a democratic state in which individuals should be completely devoid of oppression, political domination or coercion by other members of society. Can freedom be measured? In some fashion, it would appear so, as many organisations and institutions attempt to quantify freedom utilising various matrices founded on specific criteria which is intended to define freedom. However, the operational definition of what legitimately constitutes freedom, in a fashion that would satisfy the majority, has yet to be developed which makes freedom measurement difficult to justify using existing criteria in various quantitative or qualitative measurement instruments. Can freedom be measured? Hanke and Walters (1997) sees freedom as being invariably linked with political factors, such as the presence of democratic systems within a state and individual wealth. With this in mind, in democratic structures, many nation states attempt to create capitalistic systems, an economic and social system where various economic assets are owned and managed by private individuals, where capital gains are allocated to private ownership, and where pricing is determined by private business with very limited regulation of these capital assets by dominating or oppressive political actors (Degen 2008). If we are to view freedom from an economic perspective, then freedom can most assuredly be measured statistically. An individual attempting to measure freedom could potentially examine the distribution of wealth within a nation and determine whether the majority of wealth is held within elite ruling regimes with considerable power and authority or whether these assets are controlled by the majority of a citizenry. Utilising graphic representations, it would illustrate whether this economy being evaluated maintains significant capitalistic tendencies, as compared to other nations where assets are controlled by government, to determine whether this society is freer than another. Of course, such a statistical measurement would be dependent on wealth as a measurement criterion. If we are to view freedom from an economic perspective, then this information can be quantified to determine the level of freedom or liberty within this state. From a different perspective, Sen (1999) sees freedom as the volume of activities that an individual in society is free to pursue in pursuit of the specific objectives that a person values and believes important for their personal utility. From this perspective, freedom can indeed be measured utilising quantitative measurement instruments. A practitioner in the domain of political or social science can construct a survey instrument targeting a large population of a society, with ranked criteria regarding individual perceptions of their freedom to achieve their goals without oppression or coercion. Upon return of these surveys, an individual can utilise traditional market research methods to determine a mean average, based on all responses per question, to determine the level of freedom that is perceived to be present within a nation state. After conducting similar surveys throughout the world, comparisons can be made to determine which state is freer and which is more oppressive and this would be based on solid empirical results with statistically-significant findings. Graeff (2012) supports the aforementioned assertion that quantitative surveys can be utilised to pursue measurement of individual freedoms and liberties. This author proposes that questions in such an instrument such as “do you believe that you are a person who is free” or “are you free from oppression in your nation” would provide the statistical information required to make an empirically-sound determination about the level of freedom within a nation. Other methodologies to measure freedom can be utilised, qualitative methods, such as performing in-depth interviews with disparate demographics of citizens within a nation. This would provide the capability to analyse whether there are correlations with responses from interview participants recruited for such a study. If questions such as “do you feel free” provide congruent responses from a large cross-section of a nation’s population, then the level of freedom within the nation, as compared to other nations where interviews were conducted in a longitudinal study, can be determined. Carter (1999) proposes a similar methodology using qualitative research methods, with a real-world sample of a nation’s citizens, to determine the socially-motivated and politically-motivated perceptions of citizenry as it relates to individual views and perspectives on the level of freedom provided within a state. Though the aforementioned survey and interview methods would provide positive empirical results that can successfully measure freedom, it must also be recognised that citizenry perspectives are, indeed, driven by personal value judgments. For example, Alkire (2002) points out that poor people within a society often feel significantly deprived and will generally assert that they have little voice in social and political matters and feel disadvantaged in terms of autonomous living and general independence. Even in countries in which freedom is considered to be available to citizens in substantial proportions (such as the UK and the United States), there are individuals who live in poverty. Whilst these countries consider themselves highly-free, granting significant liberties to their people, the poor and needy rarely have voice in political matters and are considered a subset of the population with little social reverence. Their existing poverty often limits their ability to achieve goals in a capitalistic-based system, impacting their level of autonomy to pursue their most valuable goals. In such a situation, utilising qualitative or quantitative measurement methods to gain perspectives of society members might impose a type of bias and lack of reliability of results achieved through such studies. The more wealthy within the UK or the United States might assert that they have considerable autonomy and liberty, whilst their more poor counterparts might have considerable prejudice which suggests they are oppressed and afflicted both socially and politically. In such a situation, the results of a quantitative survey might be slanted toward the wealthy, creating data findings that are not wholly accurate. Even though these nations create government and corporate policies that emphasise production of liberty, if there is a large subsection of the population living in poverty under this liberty-focused system, it could suggest that the country is, indeed, not as free as anticipated; even though it is, in fact, a free nation. In such a situation, empirical results might not be as reliable or valid as anticipated which would challenge the ability to legitimately measure freedom within a nation. Przeworski and Limongi (1993) support that assertion, suggesting that a liberty-focused nation (or democratic nation) might have considerable civil liberties, but little economic freedoms. For instance, a democratic nation may attempt to oppress religious liberty or forbid rights of ensuring free assembly or protest by the people, yet take measures to ensure private ownership and control of capital assets in private ownership or allow free financial transactions between national borders. In such a country where there is low civil liberty, yet substantial economic liberty, how citizenry within that nation perceive freedom would be considerably different than other nations where there is a blend of civil and economic freedom. In such a situation where there is civil and economic liberty disparity, citizens without high volume of capital assets may see very little freedom whilst their more wealthy counterparts see that the country is considerably free. Measurement using quantitative surveys could not necessarily be dependable as the empirical data would be based, largely, on value judgements of the citizenry. In order to effectively measure freedom, it is very critical to, first, operationalise what legitimately constitutes freedom and liberty (Goodin, et al. 2008; Carter 2004). Some members of a nation’s society might see economic liberty as the most paramount measure of freedom, whilst others may see socially-based autonomy and lack of social coercion as the most vital components of legitimate freedom and liberty. Without a solid operational definition of what actually constitutes freedom, it would be quite difficult to ensure that findings gleaned through statistical measurement were accurate and could be relied upon to fully understand whether a nation or state is freer than other societies throughout the world. Rosenbaum (2000) supports this, stating that freedom is actually a conceptualisation which he calls freedom’s axiom, in which there is such disparity of criteria that entails freedom that they cannot all be measured congruently. Hence, when determining whether freedom can actually be measured effectively, one must remember that what dictates and underpins the definition and foundation of legitimate freedom has not yet been established in a method that is universally accepted. Individuals in one nation may see freedom and liberty as substantially- different than another nation with radically disparate political and social influences, hence conflicting the ability to effectively measure freedom from an empirical perspective. Freedom, therefore, should be seen as being highly subjective, founded often on value judgments, which makes the process of establishing a universal measurement tool significantly difficult. Even though organisations such as Freedom House attempt to create indices that measure the comparative freedoms between nations throughout the world, whether we, as a society, can rely on these findings and reports is highly questionable. Elite members of global society have been influential in determining the specific criteria that should be utilised for these measurement tools without, necessarily, consultation with less-politically and less-socially influential members of different nations. Therefore, elitist regimes construct the criteria which is to be utilised that is not going to necessarily be congruent with the different values and opinions of a broader segment of international society. Whilst Freedom House’s measurement criteria might be inclusive of economic and political liberty, other proletariat groups (non-elites) might see freedom as actually being a measure of physical mobility, social freedom and autonomy, or even freedom of media to report on national scenarios and human rights stories. Hence, the Freedom House indices of freedom measurement might not be representative of the majority throughout international society, hence making their relevance a subject of speculation and criticism. Conclusion If an individual is to refute the validity of the criteria used, today, to measure freedom from a local or international perspective, then freedom cannot be measured competently without creating a universally-acceptable set of operational criteria and definitions to conduct empirical investigation. However, at the same time, survey and interview instruments do provide opportunities to engage a broad section of international society to gain their perspectives on freedom within their respective states if we are to not criticise that such perceptions are built on personal value judgements. If society is to assume that the criteria utilised to measure freedom is valid and reliable, then freedom can absolutely be measured competently and with a high degree of reliance and soundness that would have benefit for practitioners in the domains of social and political science research. This essay, therefore, based on all research findings and theoretical perspectives identified in the review of literature, concludes that valid and reliable measurement of freedom throughout the world is a very subjective concept that is justifiably open to speculation and criticism. There are many personalised definitions of what might constitute legitimate freedom within a nation or globally, making freedom relevant to the individual and not necessarily reflective of other human perspectives on what constitutes legitimate freedom. Until criteria can be created that is accepted and embraced by the majority of society, then reliance on findings from measurements in contemporary society can easily be refuted and challenged. What underpins true freedom and liberty are based on values, beliefs and perceptions and in such a situation, as justified by literature in the domain of social and political research methodologies, these are highly difficult to quantify from a statistical perspective. 69. References Alkire, S. (2002). Valuing freedoms: Sen’s capability approach and poverty reduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, I. (2004). A measure of freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, I. (1999). A measure of freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Degen, R. (2008). The triumph of capitalism. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Goodin, R.E., Rice, J.M., Parpo, A. and Eriksson, L. (2008). Discretionary time: a new measure of freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graeff, P. (2012). Measuring individual freedom: actions and rights as indicators of individual liberty, in F. McMahon (ed.), Towards a worldwide index of human freedom. Fraser Institute. Hanke, S. and Walters, S. (1997). Economic freedom, prosperity and equality: a survey, Cato Journal, 17(Fall), pp.117-146. McLean, I. and McMillan, A. (2009). Concise Oxford dictionary of politics, 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Przeworski, A. and Limongi, F. (1993). Political regimes and economic growth, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7, pp.51-69. Rosenbaum, E.F. (2000). On measuring freedom, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 12(2), pp.205-227. Sen, A.K. (2009). Democracy as a universal value, Journal of Democracy, 10(3), pp.3-17. Read More