FIW 2018 Acknowledgements

Donors

This report was made possible by the generous support of the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Lilly Endowment. Freedom House also gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the Reed Foundation, the Achelis & Bodman Foundation, David L. Fogel, and additional private contributors who wish to remain anonymous.

Research and Editorial Team

Elen Aghekyan, Research Analyst

Rukmani Bhatia, Research Coordinator

Jennifer Dunham, Director of Research

Shannon O’Toole, Editor

Sarah Repucci, Senior Director for Global Publications

Tyler Roylance, Staff Editor

Analysts

Aalaa Abuzaakouk manages a youth leadership and civic engagement program for Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) undergraduates. Previously, she worked on Libya and Tunisia programs at the National Endowment for Democracy, and served as a program officer with Freedom House’s MENA team. She has contributed to Freedom in the World, Freedom of the Press, and Voices in the Street, Freedom House’s special publication on social protests and freedom of assembly. She graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a bachelor’s degree in regional studies and a master’s degree in Arab Studies. She served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Aurora Almada e Santos is a researcher at the Contemporary History Institute of the New University of Lisbon, a leading institution in the study of the Portuguese contemporary history. Her main research interest is the Portuguese decolonization, namely the international dimension of the struggle for self-determination and independence of the Portuguese African colonies. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

David Angeles is a program officer for Southeast Asia at the National Endowment for Democracy, a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Previously, he worked in Thailand and Burma/Myanmar with various civil society and human rights groups. He received a master’s degree in international affairs from the American University of Paris and a bachelor’s degree in international studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was named a Truman Scholar. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Ignacio Arana Araya is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. His central line of research explores how the individual differences among presidents have an impact on relevant political phenomena, including institutional change and policy outcomes. His secondary line of research is the comparative study of institutions, with a focus on Latin America. His research has been published in the Journal of Law and Courts, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Latin American Perspectives, Revista de Ciencia Política, The Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, Bolivian Studies Journal and Política. He holds a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2002), a MA in Political Science from the University of Chile (2007), and a MA and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2015). He can be reached at www.ignacioarana.com. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Bojan Baća is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in Sociology and a research fellow at the Global Digital Citizenship Lab at York University, Canada. In 2015–16, he was a Swedish Institute Visiting Doctoral Fellow at the University of Gothenburg, specializing in post-socialist civil society and social movement research. His dissertation, based on extensive archival and ethnographic research in Montenegro, explores the relationship between socioeconomic and political transformation and civic engagement in postsocialist societies and, more broadly, the role of activist citizenship and contentious politics in democratization processes. His recent work on the topic was published in academic journals such as Antipode and Europe-Asia Studies, as well as in two edited volumes: Changing Youth Values in Southeast Europe: Beyond Ethnicity (Routledge, 2017) and the Democratic Potential of Emerging Social Movements in Southeastern Europe (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2017). Since 2009, he has worked as a researcher and a policy analyst at a number of Montenegrin NGOs, as a newspaper columnist, and a country expert for Montenegro on several international research projects. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Angelita Baeyens is a programs director at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. She previously served at the United Nations as a political affairs officer in the Americas division of the UN Department of Political Affairs in New York, covering the Caribbean region. Baeyens also worked at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington, D.C. in various capacities, including special assistant to the executive secretary and coordinator of the Rapporteurship on Human Rights Defenders of the IACHR. Ms. Baeyens has been an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center since 2012. A dual Belgian and Colombian citizen, she holds a law degree from the University of Ibague, in Colombia, and an LLM in international human rights law from the University of Notre Dame. She served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Laurence Blair is a journalist, writer, and researcher focusing on Latin America. He has reported principally from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, and Paraguay for outlets including the Economist, the Guardian, the Financial Times, and the BBC. Since 2014, he has contributed analysis on the politics and economics of Latin America to the Economist Intelligence Unit, where he was an in-house analyst in 2015–16. He studied history at the University of Oxford and holds an MA in International Law and International Relations. His first book, on South American history, is due to be published by Penguin Random House in 2020. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Katherine Blue Carroll is an assistant professor and the director of the program in public policy studies at Vanderbilt University. She received her master’s degree and PhD in politics from the University of Virginia. Her teaching and research interests include the comparative politics of the Middle East, political violence, and the U.S. military. Her work has appeared in Middle East Policy and the Middle East Journal. She served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Mamadou Bodian holds a PhD in political science from the University of Florida. He is also the project coordinator for the Trans-Saharan Elections Project and a founding member of the Sahel Research Group. He has also been a senior researcher with the Islam Research Programme at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Senegal, a project sponsored by Leiden University and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His current research focuses on a comparative examination of elections and democracy in the Sahel, with special attention to Senegal, Mali, and Niger. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Alex Brockwehl is an MPA student at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Previously, he managed Freedom House projects in Latin America, which aim to support local civil society leaders and organizations in defending human rights. Alex writes frequently for the Freedom House blog, Freedom at Issue, and has been interviewed by various media outlets on regional human rights challenges and U.S. foreign policy. In 2013 he contributed to Voices in the Streets, a Freedom House special report on freedom of assembly rights and police responses to massive social protests. Prior to joining Freedom House, Alex worked as a fellow at the Yanapuma Foundation in Estero de Plátano, Ecuador, where he managed projects focused on secondary education, community development, and women’s empowerment. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Union College. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Greg Brown is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies, and a senior analyst at CENTRA Technology, Inc., where he focuses on transnational and emerging national security issues. He has served as a consultant for the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation, as an editor for the Millennium Project’s Global Challenges Program, and as an Australian National University Parliamentary Fellow. Brown’s academic work in political demography, comparative migration policy, and diaspora politics has been highlighted in the Economist, the Australian, and the New Zealand Herald, and has been published in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Political Science, and Australia’s journal of demography, People and Place. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Nina Burbach is a former senior adviser to the Slovenian Ministry of Justice on international human rights issues. She holds a master’s degree in international humanitarian law and human rights from the University of Geneva and a bachelor’s degree in international law from the University of Ljubljana. She served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Kamissa Camara is an Africa political analyst with a concentration on West Africa and the Sahel region. She is the Africa Director at PartnersGlobal, where she oversees Partners’ programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining PartnersGlobal, she spent many years at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), where she developed an expertise in democracy assistance, elections, and security sector reform in Africa. A well published political commentator and television pundit, she is a nonresident fellow at the Center for African Studies of Harvard University, and a fellow with Foreign Policy Interrupted. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Nonhlanhla Chanza holds a social science master’s degree in political science from the University of Kwazulu-Natal. Over the years she has acquired extensive research and advocacy experience on governance systems, parliamentary democracy, party systems, and strengthening of democratic institutions. She is involved in various policy and advocacy initiatives involving access to information laws, internet freedom, surveillance and privacy laws, protest laws, and internet governance. She also has experience working on global reports assessing the state of democracy and governance. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Peter Clegg is Associate Professor in Politics and Head of the Department of Health and Social Sciences at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He was formerly Visiting Research Fellow at both KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of South East Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands, and at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), University of the West Indies, Jamaica. His main research interests focus on contemporary developments within the British Overseas Territories and the international political economy of the Caribbean. Recent publications include the books Post-colonial trajectories in the Caribbean: The Three Guianas (with R. Hoefte and M. Bishop) and Grenada: Revolution and Invasion (with P. Lewis and G. Williams) and articles in the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Contemporary Pacific, Third World Quarterly, and the Round Table. He is also co-editor of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Sarah Cook is a senior research analyst for East Asia at Freedom House. She directs the China Media Bulletin, a monthly digest in English and Chinese providing news and analysis on media freedom developments related to China. Cook is also the author of several Asian country reports for Freedom House’s annual publications, as well as three special reports about China: The Battle for China’s Spirit (2017), The Politburo’s Predicament (2015), and The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship (2013). Her comments and writings have appeared on CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China. She received a B.A. in International Relations from Pomona College and as a Marshall Scholar, completed Master’s degrees in Politics and International Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Jack Corbett is an associate professor in politics at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Democracy in Small States: Persisting Against all Odds (in press, Oxford University Press); Australia’s Foreign Aid Dilemma: Humanitarian Aspirations Confront Democratic Legitimacy (2017, Routledge); and Being Political: Leadership and Democracy in the Pacific Islands (2015, University of Hawaii Press); as well as numerous articles, edited books and book chapters. He holds honorary appointments at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, and the Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, and is the deputy editor of Small States and Territories Journal. He served as an Asia Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Julian Dierkes is an associate professor and the Keidanren Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research, where he coordinates the Program on Inner Asia. His research has focused on history education and supplementary education in Japan, as well as contemporary Mongolia. He is the editor of Change in Democratic Mongolia: Social Relations, Health, Mobile Pastoralism, and Mining. He received a PhD in sociology from Princeton University. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Jake Dizard is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Texas at Austin. He was previously the managing editor of Countries at the Crossroads, Freedom House’s annual survey of democratic governance. His area of focus is Latin America, with a specific emphasis on the Andean region and Mexico. He received a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Richard Downie is deputy director and a fellow of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Previously, he was a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He received a master’s degree in international public policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Maxim Edwards is a journalist and commissioning editor at oDR, openDemocracy’s section on Russia and the post-Soviet world. He has a particular interest in the politics and societies of post-socialist Europe and Eurasia, with a focus on the South Caucasus. Max recently graduated from the University of Glasgow with an MA in Russian, Central, and Eastern European studies. He also worked as a research fellow with ECMI-Caucasus and CRRC-Armenia, investigating ethnic minorities and inter-ethnic relations in Armenia and Georgia. His work has appeared in places including openDemocracy, Political Critique, Al-Jazeera, Al-Monitor, New Eastern Europe, and the Forward, and he is now working on a series of essays about memory and European responses to the refugee crisis. He served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Daniel Eizenga is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and a research associate with the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida. His area of focus is sub-Saharan Africa, specifically the Francophone African Sahel where he has conducted extensive research. He received a master’s degree in political science from the University of Florida in 2013. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Anthony Elghossain is a lawyer and writer based in Beirut. He is a program officer for the United States Institute of Peace and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Working as a pro bono counsel, Anthony still supports foundations and nongovernmental organizations trying to promote the rule of law in the Middle East and Africa. He is a recovering corporate lawyer and a relapsing-remitting humorist. He served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior correspondent with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Esfandiari’s work focuses on political and social developments in Iran, and ties between Iran and the United States. Her work has appeared in and has been cited by publications including the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy; she has also contributed to Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press report. She served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World. 

Annabella España-Nájera is an assistant professor of Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno. Her research interests include democratic institutions and democratization, representation, and parties and party systems in Latin America, with a special focus on Central America. She served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Riccardo Fabiani is a Middle East and North Africa analyst and political economist with the risk consultancy Eurasia Group. Prior to joining Eurasia Group, he worked as a senior economist at D&B Country Risk Services and as a remote analyst on North Africa for Exclusive Analysis. He has also held positions at Reuters and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Riccardo, who earned a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from the University of RomaTre, has taught classes at Vesalius College in Brussels and SIT Graduate Institute in Rabat. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Jon Fraenkel is a professor of comparative politics in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He was formerly a senior research fellow based at the Australian National University and the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. He is the Pacific correspondent for the Economist. His research focuses the politics of the Pacific Islands region, institutional design in divided societies, electoral systems, political economy, and the economic history of Oceania. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Kathleen E. Frazier is a doctoral student in the Politics Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her area of focus is legal politics in sub-Saharan Africa, and she has worked and researched extensively in both East and West Africa. Her work includes projects with USAID, Open Society Foundations, the Fulbright Commission, and the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs. She received a dual master’s degree in international political economy and economics from Fordham University and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Virginia. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Julie George is an associate professor of political science at Queens College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her work addresses the intersection of state-building, democratization, and ethnic politics in postcommunist states. She is the author of The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia. Her work has appeared in Electoral Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, and Europe-Asia Studies and other outlets. She served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Ana Pastor Gonzalez holds a journalism degree from the University of Navarra, in Spain, and has worked as a local and cultural journalist for different media companies. In 2015, she completed a master’s degree in international relations from New York University. She served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Alyssa Maraj Grahame is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research focuses on the political economy of the 2008 financial crisis in Europe. Her work has been presented at conferences including American Political Science Association, Council for European Studies, and Western Political Science Association. She is presently completing a dissertation project titled “Democracy in Crisis: Social Mobilization against Financial Capital,” which will be the basis for her first book. She served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Shelby Grossman is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research focuses on the political economy of development. Her book project investigates the conditions under which private organizations will promote economic activity, focusing on informal markets in Lagos, Nigeria. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Liutauras Gudžinskas lectures on comparative politics at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University. His main research interests are postcommunist transformation, Europeanization, and politics of the Baltic countries. Since 2013, Gudžinskas is also the editor-in-chief of the Baltic Journal of Political Science, and the president of Lithuanian Political Science Association. In 2015, he was elected as General Secretary of Central European Political Science Association. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Ted Henken is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Baruch College, City University of New York. He holds a joint appointment in Baruch’s Black and Latino Studies department. He is president ex-officio of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy. He is the coauthor with Archibald Ritter of Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape, coeditor with Miriam Celaya and Dimas Castellanos of Cuba in Focus, and author of Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook. He has published articles about Cuba in the journals Human Geography, Current History, Nueva Sociedad, Cuban Studies, Latino Studies, and Latin American Research Review, as well as in the New York Times and the blog of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He writes about contemporary Cuba on his blog, El Yuma. He received a PhD in Latin American studies from Tulane University in 2002. He has served as a consultant on Cuba for the Department of State and the White House and was an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Franklin Hess is the coordinator of the Modern Greek Program at Indiana University and a senior lecturer at the Institute for European Studies. His scholarly work explores the economic, geopolitical, and geocultural contexts of modern Greece’s cultural production. His other research interests include immigration and the cinematic representation of violence. He received a PhD in American studies from the University of Iowa, focusing on the influence of American television programming on Greek culture. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Kate Hixon is an Africa specialist and human rights activist. Previously she managed Freedom House projects in Central and Southern Africa focused on supporting civil society. She has written frequently for the Freedom House blog, Freedom at Issue, and her writing has been picked up by regional news organizations such as the Daily Maverick. Previously she worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), focusing on improving governance in southern and eastern Africa. She has a master’s degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Human Rights Law. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Florida, where he is also a research associate with the Sahel Research Group. His dissertation focuses on political contestations and religious discourse in the Sahel, with a particularly emphasis on cases from Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. Ibrahim was a Fulbright grantee at the University of Florida from 2011 to 2013. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Rico Isaacs is a reader in politics at Oxford Brookes University. His research interests lay at the intersection of nation-building, democratization, and institutional development in post-Soviet states. He is the author of Party System Formation in Kazakhstan: Between Formal and Informal Politics (Routledge 2011) and has published on Central Asian politics in Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies, Nationalities Papers, Contemporary Politics, and Electoral Studies among many other scholarly journals. He is the co-editor of Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New tools and approaches (Routledge 2016) and has a further two books forthcoming: Film and Identity in Kazakhstan: Soviet and post-Soviet Culture (I.B. Tauris 2017) and Politics: an Introduction 3rd Edition (Routledge 2017). He served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Faysal Itani is a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, where he focuses primarily on the Syrian conflict and its regional impact. Itani has repeatedly briefed the U.S. government and its allies on the conflict in Syria and its effects on their interests. He has been widely published and quoted in prominent media outlets including the New York Times, TIME, Politico, and the Washington Post, among other places. Itani holds a master’s degree in strategic studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a certificate in public policy from Georgetown University, and a bachelor’s degree in business from the American University of Beirut. He served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Victoria Jennett is an independent consultant specializing in justice sector reform, anticorruption, and the promotion of human rights. She has worked previously as a human rights advisor, as the chief of property in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Mission in Kosovo, and as a research analyst for Transparency International. She received her PhD in constitutional law and conflict transformation from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and is a British qualified lawyer who gained her bachelor of laws from King’s College, London. She served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Toby Craig Jones is an associate professor of history and the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He is the author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia and of Running Dry: Essays on Energy and Environmental Crisis, and is currently writing a book entitled America’s Oil Wars. He is an editor of Middle East Report and has published widely, including in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He received a PhD from Stanford University. He served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Karin Deutsch Karlekar is the director of Free Expression at Risk Programs at PEN America. Prior to joining PEN, she served as director of Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press project. As well as acting as an expert spokesperson on press freedom issues, she has developed index methodologies and conducted training sessions on press freedom, internet freedom, freedom of expression, and monitoring of dangerous speech; authored a number of special reports and academic papers; and conducted research, assessment, and advocacy missions to Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. She has also worked as an editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit and as a consultant to Human Rights Watch, and is currently a member of the governing council of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) network. She holds a PhD in Indian history from Cambridge University and a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College. She served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Valery Kavaleuski holds a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University. As a former diplomat, he specialized in Belarus-U.S. political relations, as well as human rights and human trafficking issues with the UN agencies. He served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Catherine Kelly has a PhD in government from Harvard University and is a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellow at the American Bar Association-Rule of Law Initiative in Washington, D.C. Substantively, she specializes in democracy, rule of law, and governance, and in program design, monitoring, and evaluation. Fluent in French and proficient in Wolof, she has done several years of field research. A former Fulbright Scholar and Foreign Language and Area Studies fellow, her work has appeared in the Journal of Democracy and Electoral Studies, and on the blogs of the Washington Post, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Social Science Research Council. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World. The views expressed in the report are her personal views and not those of ABA ROLI.

Nicholas Kerr is an assistant professor of comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alabama. His general research and teaching interests include African politics, democratization, electoral institutions, electoral integrity, and political corruption. In a current research project Nicholas explores the design and performance of electoral management bodies (EMBs) in Africa with emphasis on how political elites and citizens respond strategically to the autonomy and capacity of EMBs. Another research project examines the process through which citizens formulate their perceptions of election integrity. Specifically, he looks at how direct experiences with election management, electoral manipulation, and third-party actors influence citizens’ attitudes toward election integrity. Nicholas has experience conducting qualitative fieldwork and organizing surveys in several African countries and his published work has appeared in Electoral Studies, Governance, the Journal of Modern African Studies, and Political Research Quarterly. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Marko Kmezic is an assistant professor at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz. His previous work includes expert advice on rule of law and democratization for the European Commission, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe, and to governments and international organizations working on issues related to the Balkans. Marko is the author of several scientific monographs including EU Rule of Law Promotion: Judiciary Reform in the Western Balkans (Routledge: 2016), and coeditor of Stagnation and Drift in the Western Balkans (Peter Lang: 2013) and Europeanization of the Western Balkans: The Failure of Conditionality? (Palgrave: 2018). He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska is a political analyst and researcher specializing in postcommunist Europe. She has previously served as the director of Nations in Transit, Freedom House’s annual report on democratic governance from Central Europe to Eurasia, and as the managing editor of the Journal of Cold War Studies, a peer-reviewed quarterly. She received a master’s degree in Eastern European and Eurasian studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. She writes reports on Central Europe for Freedom of the Press and served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Niklas Kossow is a PhD candidate and communications officer at the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building in Berlin, focusing on the use of new media tools in anticorruption movements. He holds a bachelor’s degree in European social and political studies from University College London, and a master’s degree in public policy from the Hertie School of Governance. He previously worked as a volunteer fellow for Freedom House, an advisor for Transparency International, and a consultant for the UN Development Program and the World Wide Web Foundation. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focused on Southeast Asian politics and economics and China’s relations with Southeast Asia. He is a longtime journalist whose articles have appeared in Time, the New Republic, the Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, and the New Yorker, among others. He is the author of the recently released book State Capitalism: How the Return of Statism is Transforming the World. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Joey Lee is the Asia Law and Justice Program director at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School, where he leads research, advocacy, and capacity-building efforts to support strengthening of rule of law in Asia. He earned a juris doctor degree from Boston University and a master of laws degree from New York University. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Kelsey Lilley is associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, where she closely follows political, security, and economic developments on the continent. Kelsey was a Princeton in Africa Fellow with the International Rescue Committee, and she previously worked at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College and is pursuing a master’s in security studies from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Lone Lindholt holds a graduate degree in law and a PhD degree in international human rights law from the University of Copenhagen. She held for many years a position as senior analyst with the Danish Institute for Human Rights, and has authored and edited numerous publications in the field; undertaken teaching and lecturing in various human rights fields; and served as an expert in numerous development programs for the Institute in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In addition to serving an external examiner at several Danish universities, she is now an independent consultant and CEO of Lindholt Consult, as well as an internationally ICI-certified coach, specializing in human rights-related projects and program development and implementation, undertaking assignments in the field, and facilitating partner-driven processes relating to institutional and organizational development. She served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Philip Martin is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science and the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His dissertation research examines the organization of armed movements and state formation in sub-Saharan Africa. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

David McGrane is an associate professor of political studies at St. Thomas More College and the University of Saskatchewan. He is the former president of the Prairie Political Science Association and has published over 25 academic books, journal articles, and book chapters on public policy, Canadian political theory, political marketing, elections, and voter behavior. Dr. McGrane is active in his community as a member of the City of Saskatoon’s Environmental Advisory Committee, Chair of the Political Action Committee of the Saskatoon and District Labour Council, and president of the Saskatchewan NDP. He also sits on the board of directors of the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation and is Fellow of the Broadbent Institute. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Aurelien Mondon is a senior lecturer in French and comparative politics at the University of Bath. His research focuses predominantly on elite discourse analysis and the mainstreaming of far right politics, particularly through the use of populism and racism. His recent projects include work on Islamophobia and abstention. His first monograph A Populist Hegemony?:The mainstreaming of the extreme right in France and Australia was published in 2013. He is a regular contributor to the mainstream media and has written for CNN, Newsweek, openDemocracy, and the Independent amongst others. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Martijn Mos is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Government at Cornell University. His scholarly work focuses on the dynamics of shared understandings in international politics. He holds a master’s degree in European politics and society from the University of Oxford, a master’s degree in global history from the University of Vienna, and a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and sciences from Utrecht University. He served as a Europe and Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Jasmin Mujanović holds a PhD in political science from York University. His research focuses on postwar democratization processes in the former Yugoslavia and, more broadly, on the role of social movements as drivers of democratic reform in postwar and postauthoritarian states. His work has appeared in a number of scholarly publications, and he is a regular international affairs analyst whose commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and openDemocracy among other places. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Joachim Nahem is the director of the Governance Group and senior advisor with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). He has held multiple posts with the United Nations and has published broadly on governance metrics. He is a contributor to the recent publication External Powers and the Arab Spring, and is a board member for Care Norway. Nahem holds degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the London School of Economics. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Azra Naseem is a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. She is the author of Dhivehi Sitee, a website providing analysis and commentary on political and social affairs of the Maldives. She served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Gareth Nellis is the Evidence in Governance and Politics postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016, he received his PhD in political science from Yale University, where he specialized in comparative politics, political economy, and modern South Asia. His research focuses on political parties, the origins and persistence of weakly institutionalized party systems, and the extent to which parties matter for key development outcomes. A second strand of work addresses the drivers of discrimination against internal migrants in fast-urbanizing settings. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Mooya Lynn Nyaundi is a staff attorney with the Justice Defenders Program at the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, where she coordinates pro bono legal assistance for human rights defenders in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to this, she was a senior civil and criminal litigation associate with the law firm Scanlen and Holderness in Harare, Zimbabwe. She holds an LLB degree from the University of Zimbabwe and an LLM degree in international legal studies from Georgetown University. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Ken Opalo is an assistant professor at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. His research interests include the political economy of development, elections and accountability, and institutional development, with a focus on African legislatures. Ken has had extensive work and research experience in ten different countries in East, West, and Southern Africa. His work has been published in the Journal of Democracy and the Journal of East African Studies. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled Institutions and Political Change: The Case of African Legislatures, which examines the institutional development of African legislatures from the colonial period to the present. Ken holds a PhD degree in political science from Stanford University and a BA from Yale University. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Robert Orttung is research director at the George Washington University (GWU) Sustainability Collaborative and associate research professor of International Affairs at GWU’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is managing editor of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization and a coeditor of the Russian Analytical Digest. He received a PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Robert Pekkanen is a professor at the University of Washington (Seattle). His research has appeared in political science journals such as the American Political Science Review and the British Journal of Political Science, as well as Asian studies journals such as the Journal of Asian Studies. He has published 10 books, most of them on Japanese politics, and most recently coedited the Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems from Oxford University Press (2018). He received his PhD in political science from Harvard University. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Randy Pestana is a senior policy analyst at Florida International University’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, where he is tasked with coordinating the FIU-USSOUTHCOM Academic-Defense Partnership. He also serves as an adjunct professor at FIU’s Steven J. Green School for International and Public Affairs. He holds a Masters of Arts in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from FIU. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Nicole Phillips is an adjunct professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, a law professor at the Université de la Foundation Dr. Aristide in Port-au-Prince, and staff attorney with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. She serves as a member of the board of directors of Human Rights Advocates, a nongovernmental organization with consultative status to the United Nations, and has appeared before various UN bodies and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, in political science with a concentration in international relations, and her juris doctor degree from the University of San Francisco. She served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Melina Platas is an assistant professor of political science at New York University, Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on political accountability, the politics of service delivery, and the role of identity and culture in shaping economic and political outcomes. The regional focus of her research is sub-Saharan Africa, where she has worked and conducted fieldwork in eight countries since 2005. She holds a PhD in political science and BA in Human Biology from Stanford University. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Arch Puddington is the Distinguished Fellow for Democracy Studies at Freedom House and coeditor of Freedom in the World. He has written widely on American foreign policy, race relations, organized labor, and the history of the Cold War. He is the author of Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and Lane Kirkland: Champion of American Labor. He received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Tyson Roberts is a lecturer in political science and international relations at the University of Southern California. His research interests include authoritarian institutions, democratization, and international political economy. He has published in Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, the Journal of African Elections, and the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog. He received a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Eric Robinson is the associate director for Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). He has helped guide the NED’s work in East, Horn, and Southern Africa for the past eight years and his academic and professional work for the past 20 years has had a special focus on the Horn of Africa. He received a master’s degree in international relations, with a focus on conflict resolution, from Wayne State University, Detroit, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Marek Rybář is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science of Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University (Brno, the Czech Republic). His research focuses on political parties, party competition, and political institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. He has published numerous chapters in edited volumes and studies in several journals, including Communist and Post-Communist Studies, the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, and Electoral Studies. Currently he is working on a research project examining patterns of ministerial recruitment in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Mitchell A. Seligson is the Centennial Professor of Political Science, Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor, and Professor of Sociology (by courtesy) at Vanderbilt University, and the founder and a senior advisor of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), which conducts the AmericasBarometer surveys that cover over 30 countries in the Americas. Seligson has carried out hundreds of surveys of public opinion, mainly focused on democracy and governance. He has served on the editorial board of the Latin American Research Review and is currently on the editorial boards of the European Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Democracy en Español, ROP: Revista Opinião Pública, and Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe. His most recent book is The Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin America: Democracy and Political Support in Eight Nations (Cambridge University Press, 2009), co-authored with John Booth. He served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Michael Semple is a visiting research professor at the Queen’s University, Belfast Institute, for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice. He has practiced and written on humanitarian assistance and conflict resolution in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 2008 he has worked as a scholar and adviser on conflict resolution, with particular focus on the Afghan conflict. He has directly advised key policymakers concerning the conflict in Afghanistan, particularly with regard to political engagement with the Taliban. He is currently researching the evolving rhetoric of the Taliban’s armed struggle and the challenges facing militant jihadi groups evolving towards a political role. He served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Debbie Sharnak received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and teaches at New York University and Hunter College. Her research focuses on transitional justice and human rights discourse in the Southern Cone. She has worked at several organizations including the International Center for Transitional Justice, Public Action Research, and the New Media Advocacy Project. Her work has been published by Foreign Policy, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Latin Correspondent, Diplomacy & Statecraft, and in several edited volumes. Debbie was also a Fulbright Scholar in Uruguay. She served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Elton Skendaj is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami. His research focuses on how international and local actors can sustain peace and democracy in postwar societies. He has published a book with Cornell University Press and several articles in the Global Governance and Problems of Postcommunism journals. He has also worked professionally with international organizations and civil society organizations in Europe and the U.S. Skendaj holds a PhD in government from Cornell University, and has had research fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars and the University of Notre Dame. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Amanda Snellinger is an affiliate scholar and lecturer in University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies. She received her PhD in anthropology from Cornell University and did postdoctoral research at University of Oxford’s School for Geography and the Environment. Her teaching and research interests include social and political mobility in South Asia through the lens of democratic and post-conflict theory. Her work has appeared in Counter Punch, Critical Asian Studies, Constellations: International Journal of Critical Democratic Theory, Cultural Anthropology, Current History, Modern Asian Studies, and Political and Legal Anthropology Review. She served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Natasha Borges Sugiyama is an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her PhD in government from the University of Texas at Austin. Her teaching interests include democratization, governance, and public policy in Latin America. Her research focuses on the politics of poverty relief, social sector reform, and human development in Brazil. She is author of Diffusion of Good Government: Social Sector Reforms in Brazil (University of Notre Dame Press, 2013). Her research has also been published in American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, and Perspectives on Politics, among other journals. She served as an Americas analyst for Freedom in the World.

Rachel Sweet is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University, where her postdoctoral research focuses on the intersection between rebel taxation and state institutions. She has worked and with United Nations peacekeeping mission and the Congo Research Group. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim award and a Fulbright-Hays scholar. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University. She served as an Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Pierre Tantchou is a program officer for Central Africa at the National Endowment Democracy (NED), where he oversees a portfolio of grants to African civil society working to promote and advance democracy. Over the past six years, he has developed expertise on democratization and policy development in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Lusophone and French-speaking regions. Previously, he worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), honing his research skills and promoting trade and investment in central Africa. Pierre earned a master’s degree in international affairs from Pennsylvania State University with a focus on U.S.–Africa relations, and a bachelor’s degree in global affairs from George Mason University. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Paul Thissen is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include governance in weakly institutionalized states and civil conflict, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. He has conducted research in Chad and Cameroon. His research has received support from the National Science Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace. In the 2015-2016 academic year, he was a visiting researcher and instructor at the Université Adam Barka d’Abéché in Chad. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Luca Tomini is a lecturer in political science at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and guest professor at the University of Antwerpen (Belgium). His main research interests cover transitions to democracy and democratization processes in a comparative perspective, including autocratization and democratic backsliding. He also works on the role of the European Union and its influence on the democratization of Central and Eastern Europe. He has recently published the book Democratizing Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge), and he is currently working on a new book titled Why Democracies Collapse (Routledge). In addition, he published with Palgrave Macmillan, and articles in Comparative European Politics, Europe-Asia Studies, and Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Jenny Town is the assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Previously, she worked for the Human Rights in North Korea Project at Freedom House. She received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, with a concentration in human rights. She served as an Asia-Pacific analyst for Freedom in the World.

Noah Tucker is the senior editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Uzbek service, Ozodlik, and an associate at George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs Central Asia Program (CAP). He was previously the lead researcher for the Central Asian Digital Islam Project launched with the University of Michigan Islamic Studies Program and CAP to explore the way social media is expanding the Islamic marketplace of ideas in Central Asia, and was the managing editor at Registan.net. As a research consultant, Noah worked on collaborative projects with government agencies and NGOs to identify the way social and religious groups affect political and security outcomes, and headed a team that tracks social media use by Uzbek violent extremist organizations and their effect on the Uzbek-language internet. He has worked on Central Asian issues since 2002—specializing in religion, national identity, ethnic conflict and social media—and received an MA from Harvard’s Davis Center in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies in 2008. He has spent four and half years in the region, primarily in Uzbekistan, returned most recently for fieldwork on religious education and community-level antiviolence initiatives in southern Kyrgyzstan and the surrounding areas in 2016. He served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a Baker Institute fellow for the Middle East. Working across the disciplines of political science, international relations, and international political economy, his research examines the changing position of Persian Gulf states in the global order, as well as the emergence of longer-term, nonmilitary challenges to regional security. His books include Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era and Qatar and the Arab Spring. His most recent book is entitled The Gulf States in International Political Economy. Coates Ulrichsen’s articles have appeared in numerous academic journals, including Global Policy and the Journal of Arabian Studies, and he consults regularly on Gulf issues for the public and private sector around the world. Coates Ulrichsen holds a doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge. He served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Wouter Veenendaal is an assistant professor of political science at Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on politics and democracy in small states, and he has conducted field research in various microstates and small states around the world. Between 2014 and 2016 he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, where he studied politics in nonsovereign territories, with a particular focus on the Dutch Caribbean. In his current research project, which is funded by a grant of the Dutch National Science Foundation, he examines the causes of regime stability in small states. His research has been published in various journals in the field of comparative politics, and in 2017 his new book will be published with Oxford University Press. He served as a Europe analyst for Freedom in the World.

Gregory White is a professor of government at Smith College. Recently he is the author of Climate Change and Migration: Borders and Security in a Warming World and a coedited volume North African Politics: Change and Continuity. He is the recipient of a Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship, as well as Fulbright-IIE and Fulbright-Hays scholarships to Tunisia and Morocco, respectively. He is a co-editor of the Journal of North African Studies. He received a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World.

Mikayel Zolyan is a historian and political analyst. His interests include the South Caucasus and former USSR region, with a focus on such issues as democratization and nation-building in political movements and social activism, as well as issues of ethnicity, nationalism, and conflict. He served as a Eurasia analyst for Freedom in the World.

Academic Advisers

Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz is a professor and researcher at the Department of Social, Political and Legal Studies at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO). He holds a doctorate in government and a master’s in theory and practice of human rights from the University of Essex, England. Anaya-Muñoz has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Human Rights Program of the University of Minnesota and a Mexico Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. He is the author of three books and dozens of journal articles and book chapters. Anaya-Muñoz’s research is focused on the interaction between Mexico and its international critics and on the influences of international organs and norms over domestic processes in the area of human rights. He is the associate editor of the International Journal of Human Rights, and founder of the database International Human Rights Recommendations to Mexico. Anaya-Muñoz served as an Americas adviser for Freedom in the World.

David Bernstein is a University Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School in Arlington, Virginia, where he has been teaching since 1995. He teaches courses in product liability, constitutional law, and scientific and expert evidence. Bernstein is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy. Bernstein is the author of over sixty frequently-cited scholarly articles, book chapters, and think tank studies. His most recent book is Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law (Encounter Books, 2015). Bernstein served as a Europe adviser for Freedom in the World.

Florian Bieber is a professor of Southeast European history and politics and the director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He studied political science and history at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna, and Central European University (Budapest). Bieber is the Balkans coordinator of the Europe Policy Advisory Group and provides policy advice to international organizations, foreign ministries, donors, and private investors. His research interests include power sharing, interethnic relations, and political systems. Bieber has expertise in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Kosovo. He served as a Europe adviser for Freedom in the World.

Julio F. Carrión is an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware. He holds a degree in sociology from the University of San Marcos (Lima-Peru) and a doctorate in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Carrión has been a researcher at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (Lima-Peru), a research professor at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Ecuador (FLACSO-Ecuador), and an assistant professor at Troy State University in Alabama. He specializes in Latin American and comparative politics. Carrión is currently conducting research on mass support for authoritarian alternatives in Latin America and teaches courses in Latin American politics and data analysis for political science. He served as an Americas adviser for Freedom in the World.

Sarah Chayes is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy and Rule of Law program and is the author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. She is internationally recognized for her innovative thinking on corruption and its implications. Chayes’ work explores how severe corruption can help prompt crises such as terrorism, revolutions and their violent aftermaths, and environmental degradation. Chayes has also served as special assistant to the top U.S. military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. In that role, she focused on governance issues, participating in cabinet-level decision-making on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring, and travelling with Mullen frequently to these regions. Chayes served as a U.S. adviser for Freedom in the World.

Kathleen Collins is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Her interests include political transition and democratization, Islam and politics, civil and ethnic conflict, clan politics, informal institutions, and Soviet and post-Soviet political development. Collins has conducted extensive field research in Central Asia and has consulted with groups including the National Bureau of Asian Research, the United Nations Development Program, and the United States Agency for International Development. She authored Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia (2006), which won the Central Eurasian Studies Society Award for the best book in the social sciences on Central Eurasia. Collins has published articles in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, Political Research Quarterly, Europe-Asia Studies, Asia Policy, and the Brown Journal of International Affairs. She served as a Eurasia adviser for Freedom in the World.

Javier Corrales is the Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. He obtained his PhD in government from Harvard University in 1996. Corrales’ forthcoming book, Fixing Democracy (Oxford University Press) focuses on constituent assemblies and presidential powers in Latin America. He co-authored several books: Dragon in the Tropics: Venezuela and the Legacy of Hugo Chávez (Brookings Institution Press, 2015) with Michael Penfold, The Promise of Participation: Experiments in Participatory Governance in Honduras and Guatemala (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) with Daniel Altschuler, and U.S.-Venezuela Relations since the 1990s: Coping with Midlevel Security Threats (Routledge, 2013) with Carlos Romero. Corrales is also the co-editor of The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America (University of Pittsburgh Press 2010) with Mario Pecheny. Corrales served as an Americas adviser for Freedom in the World.

Leonard Downie Jr., the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the Cronkite School, is the former executive editor and vice president of The Washington Post. During his 44 years in the Post newsroom, he was also an investigative reporter, editor on the local and national news staffs, London correspondent, and, from 1984 to 1991, managing editor under then-executive editor Ben Bradlee. As deputy metro editor from 1972 to 1974, Downie helped supervise the Post’s Watergate coverage. He also oversaw the newspaper’s coverage of every national election from 1984 through 2008. During his 17 years as executive editor, The Washington Post won 25 Pulitzer prizes. Downie received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, from Ohio State University. He is the author of six books, including The New Muckrakers, about investigative reporting; The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril (with Robert G. Kaiser); and The Rules of the Game, a novel about journalism and politics in Washington. Downie served as a U.S. adviser for Freedom in the World.

Sumit Ganguly is a professor of political science, holds the rank of Distinguished Professor, and is the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. Professor Ganguly is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book (with William R. Thompson) is Ascending India and Its State Capacity (Yale University Press, 2017). A specialist on the contemporary politics of South Asia, Ganguly’s research spans security, ethnic conflict, democratization, foreign policy, and international politics of that region. He served as an Asia-Pacific adviser for Freedom in the World.

Robert Lane Greene, based in London, is the deputy editor of Books & Arts at The Economist and writes the “Johnson” column on language for the publication. Prior to this role, he was based in Berlin as a business and finance correspondent for The Economist. You Are What You Speak, his book on the politics of language around the world, was published by Random House in spring 2011. Greene contributed a chapter on culture to The Economist book Megachange, and his writing has also appeared in many other publications. He was an adjunct professor in the Center for Global Affairs in New York University from 2005 to 2009. Greene served as a Europe adviser for Freedom in the World.

Seán Hanley is senior lecturer in comparative Central and Eastern Europe politics at the School of Slavonic Studies, University College London. His research interests include party government and its alternatives, the rise of anti-establishment parties, and democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe. He has a special interest in Czech politics and is author of The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-Wing Politics (Routledge, 2007). Hanley served as a Europe adviser for Freedom in the World.

Steven Heydemann is the Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 Chair in Middle East Studies at Smith College, where he directs the Middle East Studies Program. He is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Prior to joining the faculty of Smith College, Heydemann served as vice president at the US Institute of Peace, where he directed the Center for Applied Research on Conflict. He is a specialist on authoritarianism in the Middle East and on the politics and political economy of the Arab world. Heydemann has authored and edited numerous books, articles, book chapters, and op-ed pieces on subjects including war making and state formation in the Middle East, the political economy of economic liberalization, comparative authoritarianism, and the political economy of civil war. He served as a Middle East and North Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Idrees Ilham worked as the director of governance and law programs at The Asia Foundation. Ilham has managed a portfolio of projects on developing leadership, promoting civil society organizations and citizen engagement, strengthening access to justice and increasing accountability of judicial institutions at national and subnational levels. A specialist in topics of local governance, elections, justice, and research and development, Ilham brings experience as a former producer for CNN, a senior adviser for various donor agencies, and a democracy expert for USAID/Afghanistan. Ilham has studied political science, public administration, law, anthropology, sociology, epistemology and hermeneutics. He served as an Asia-Pacific adviser for Freedom in the World.

Melissa Labonte is the associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. She earned her PhD in political science from Brown University; her research and teaching interests include peacebuilding and democratization, humanitarian politics, multilateral peace operations, conflict resolution, human rights, and West African politics. Labonte is the author of numerous books and articles, and her research has appeared in leading international relations journals, including African Affairs, Disasters, Global Governance, International Journal of Human Rights, International Studies Perspectives, and Third World Quarterly. Labonte currently serves as a UN Liaison for the International Studies Association and is a past board member and vice chair of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). She served as a sub-Saharan Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Adrienne LeBas (PhD, Columbia University) joined the department of government at the American University (AU) Washington, DC in the fall of 2009. Prior to joining AU, LeBas was a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and an assistant professor of political science and African studies at Michigan State University. Her research interests include social movements, democratization, and political violence. LeBas is the author of the award-winning book, From Protest to Parties: Party-Building and Democratization in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2011), and articles in the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Democracy, and Comparative Politics. She is currently working on her second book, which investigates the reasons for persistent election violence in some democratizing countries, and she also continues her research on attitudes toward taxation in urban Nigeria. LeBas worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch in Zimbabwe, where she lived from 2002 to 2003. She served as a sub-Saharan Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Peter Lewis is the vice dean of academic and faculty affairs and a professor of the African studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. His research and teaching focus on economic reform and political transitions in developing countries, with particular emphasis on governance and development in sub-Saharan Africa. He has written extensively on questions of economic adjustment, democratization, and civil society in Africa; democratic reform and political economy in Nigeria; public attitudes toward reform and democracy in West Africa; and the comparative politics of economic change in Africa and Southeast Asia. Lewis received a bachelor’s from the University of California, Berkeley, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Princeton University. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Adam Luedtke is an assistant professor of political science at City University of New York, Queensborough Community College. Previously, he has held posts at Washington State University, Princeton University, and the University of Utah. Luedtke’s research explains how political and economic factors affect immigrant rights and freedoms, particularly as policy regulation shifts between different levels of authority (ranging from global to local). He demonstrates how political institutions mediate public xenophobia and how public opinion interacts with the political economy to shape parties’ incentives on immigration. Luedtke’s work has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, State Politics & Policy Quarterly, Governance, European Politics, and the Policy Studies Journal. He served as a Europe adviser for Freedom in the World.

Noam Lupu is an associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and associate director of the Latin American Public Opinion Project. He studies comparative political behavior and representation. Lupu’s book, Party Brands in Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2016), explores how diluting party brands eroded partisan attachments in Latin America and facilitated the collapse of established parties. His research has also appeared in American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and World Politics, among other outlets. Lupu holds a PhD from Princeton University. He served as an Americas adviser for Freedom in the World.

Michael Malbin is a professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY and the executive director of The Campaign Finance Institute. His teaching has emphasized legislative politics and elections. One of his main research interests is the dynamics of institutional change and reform. His books include The Election after Reform: Money, Politics and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (editor and co-author, 2005), Life after Reform: When the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act Meets Politics (editor and co-author, 2003), and The Day after Reform: Sobering Campaign Finance Lessons from the American States (co-authored by Thomas L. Gais, 1998). He is also the co-author with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann of the award-winning biennial book, Vital Statistics on Congress. Malbin served as a U.S. adviser for Freedom in the World.

Peter Mandaville is professor of international affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2011 to 2012 and again from 2015 to 2016 he served as a member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and as Senior Advisor in the Secretary of State’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs, respectively. Mandaville is the author of the books Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (2001) and Islam and Politics (2nd edition, 2014). He served as a Middle East and North Africa advisor for Freedom in the World.

Richard R. Marcus is professor and director of The Global Studies Institute and the International Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of The Politics of Institutional Failure in Madagascar's Third Republic (New York: Rowman Littlefield/Lexington, 2016) and more than two dozen articles on Malagasy politics published in such journals as African Studies Review, Jane’s Intelligence, Journal of Human Development, and Party Politics. His research focuses on the impact of political change on diverse political economic sectors with a particular interest in water and other natural resources. Marcus has also worked in Kenya, Israel, Uganda, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, and Ecuador. He served as a sub-Saharan Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Thomas O. Melia is an adjunct professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, a fellow at the George W. Bush Institute, and a columnist for The American Interest. Melia is also chair of the board of directors of the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED). Melia recently served in two senior positions in the Barack Obama Administration. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 2010 to 2015, he was responsible for the bureau’s work in Europe & Eurasia, south and central Asia, and the Middle East. He served as a Eurasia adviser for Freedom in the World.

Martha Minow has taught at Harvard Law School since 1981, where her courses include civil procedure, constitutional law, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop. An expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, Minow also writes and teaches about privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict. She is the vice chair of the Legal Services Corporation, the bi-partisan, government-sponsored organization that provides civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. Minow has served on the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Countering Violent Extremism and on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. Minow currently is a member of the boards of the Advantage Testing Foundation, CBS, the MacArthur Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the SCE Foundation. She served as a U.S. adviser for Freedom in the World.

Alexander J. Motyl (PhD, Columbia University, 1984) is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. He served as associate director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University from 1992 to 1998. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, as well as on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author ten books, the most recent of which, Pidsumky imperii, was published in 2009. Motyl is the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2002) and The Holomodor Reader (2012), and a contributor of dozen of articles to academic and policy journals, newspapers op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.” Motyl served as a Eurasia adviser for Freedom in the World.

Andrew J. Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He studies the politics and foreign policy of China, political participation and political culture in Asia, and the international human rights regime. Nathan’s books include Chinese Democracy (1985), The Tiananmen Papers (2001), China’s Search for Security (2012), and Will China Democratize? (2013). He has served at Columbia as director of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and as chair of the political science department. Nathan is chair of the Morningside Institutional Review Board. Off campus, he is a member of the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy and Human Rights in China. Nathan is a regular Asia and Pacific book reviewer for Foreign Affairs. He served as an Asia-Pacific adviser for Freedom in the World.

Orlando J. Pérez is the associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He has carried out field research in Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, and Venezuela. As a consultant, Pérez has worked on public opinion surveys, democratization, civil-military relations, and anti-corruption issues for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UN Development Program. He is the author of Civil-Military Relations in Post-Conflict Societies: Transforming the Role of the Military in Central America; The Historical Dictionary of El Salvador; Political Culture in Panama: Democracy after Invasion; and is the co-editor of Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? Pérez received his MA and PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a country expert for Honduras and Panama for the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University.  Pérez served as an Americas adviser for Freedom in the World.

Avner Pinchuk is a senior attorney and the head of Civil and Political Rights Unit at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). He received his bachelor's degree in Political Science and Psychology, and holds Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws in society, politics, and law from Tel Aviv University. Since 2002, Pinchuk has been responsible for litigation in principled cases, parliamentary advocacy, and public outreach campaigns to promote human rights and civil liberties. He was appointed by the Minister of Justice to the Public Council for Privacy Protection, and served in various official committees. Pinchuk served as a Middle East and North Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Samer S. Shehata is an associate professor of Middle East politics in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He previously taught at Georgetown University, New York University, Columbia University, and the American University in Cairo. He received a bachelor’s from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the Politics Department at Princeton University in 2000. Shehata’s research interests include Middle East politics, Islamist politics and movements, U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, the political economy of the Middle east, social class and labor, “development,” elections, Egyptian politics, ethnography, and the Hajj. He served as a Middle East and North Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Scott Taylor is a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service and director of the African Studies Program at Georgetown University. Taylor’s research and teaching interests lie in the areas of African politics and political economy, with a particular emphasis on business-state relations, private sector development, governance, and political and economic reform. His articles have appeared in a number of political science and area studies journals. He is also the author of four books: Politics in Southern Africa: Transition and Transformation (with Gretchen Bauer); Culture and Customs of Zambia; Business and the State in Southern Africa: The Politics of Economic Reform; and Globalization and the Cultures of Business in Africa: From Patrimonialism to Profit. He has served as consultant for numerous organizations, including USAID, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Carter Center. Taylor served as a sub-Saharan Africa adviser for Freedom in the World.

Bridget Welsh is an associate professor of political science at John Cabot University, a senior research associate at the Center for East Asia Democratic Studies of the National Taiwan University, a senior associate fellow of The Habibie Center and a University Fellow of Charles Darwin University. She analyzes Southeast Asian politics, especially Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, and Indonesia. She is committed to engagement, fostering mutual understanding, and empowerment. Her most recent book is entitled The End of UMNO: Essays on Malaysia’s Dominant Party (2016). Welsh served as an Asia-Pacific adviser for Freedom in the World.

Susanna Wing is an associate professor of political science at Haverford College. Her research interests include the rule of law, women's rights, constitutionalism and military intervention in Africa. She is author of the award winning book Constructing Democracy in Transitioning Societies in Africa. Her work has appeared in various journals including Journal of Modern African Studies, Polity, Democratization, and Foreign Affairs. She has appeared on BBC, France 24, Al-Jazeera, and NPR among others. She holds a PhD in Political Science and an MA in African studies from University of California, Los Angeles. Wing served as a sub-Saharan Africa advisor for Freedom in the World.

Methodology Reviewers

In 2016-17, Freedom House engaged a team of external experts to assist the staff in a thorough review of the Freedom in the World methodology. This represented the first such review since 2002. The following experts with global, regional, and issue-based expertise participated in the exercise.

Dodi Ambardi is the executive director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI).

David Armstrong is the Canada Research Chair in Political Methodology, an associate professor of political science, and an associate professor of statistics (by courtesy) at the University of Western Ontario.

Kojo Pumpuni Asante is a senior research fellow at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development.

Johanna Birnir is an associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.

Andras Bozoki is a professor of political science at Central European University.

Alex Cooley is the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, the director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, and the coeditor of Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy.

Boniface Dulani is a senior lecturer and the social science faculty postgraduate coordinator at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College.

Laza Kekic is an independent consultant, and both the former regional director for Europe and the director for country forecasting services at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Adrienne LeBas is an associate professor of government at American University’s School of Public Affairs.

Juan Pablo Luna is a professor of political science at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. 

Marc Lynch is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

Alicia Phillips Mandaville is the vice president of global development at InterAction, and previously served as chief strategy officer at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Peter Mandaville is a professor of international affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Winnie Mitullah is director of the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi; and core partner director at Afrobarometer.

Joachim Nahem is managing director of the Governance Group, and is affiliated with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

Sameena Nazir is a strategic program advisor at Networks of Change.

Melina Ramirez is a researcher at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO).

Niranjan Sahoo is a senior fellow with the Governance and Politics Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India.

Saloua Zerhouni is an associate professor at the Faculty of Juridical, Economic and Social Sciences-souissi, at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco.

Ethan Zuckerman is the director of the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).