"The Freedom House Survey is the most systematic, most comprehensive and most reliable survey of the individual's status in the world's political systems. Freedom in the World provides an invaluable baseline in assessing the significance of the world events."-Robert L. Bartley, editor, Wall Street Journal

Freedom in the World is an institutional effort by Freedom House to monitor the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in 192 nations and 60 related and disputed territories. These year-end reviews of freedom began in 1955, when they were called the Balance Sheet of Freedom and, still later, the Annual Survey of the Progress of Freedom. This program was expanded in the early 1970s, and has been issued in a more developed context as a yearbook since 1978.

Since 1989, the Survey project has been a year-long effort produced by regional experts, consultants, and human rights specialists. It derives its information from a wide range of sources. Most valued of these are the many human rights activists, journalists, editors, and political figures who keep the world informed of the human rights situation in their own countries. This edition of the Survey contains a special, end-of-the-century feature, a study of democracy's progress during the twentieth century entitled, Democracy's Century.

Throughout the year, Freedom House personnel regularly conduct fact-finding missions to gain in-depth knowledge of the vast political transformations affecting our world. These investigations make every effort to meet a cross-section of political parties and associations, human rights monitors, religious figures, representatives of both the private sector and trade union movement, academics and journalists.

This year's survey team includes: Adrian Karatnycky, Martin Edwin Anderson, Kristen Guida, Aili Piano, Arch Puddington, Leonard R. Sussman, Sabirzyan Badertinov, Edward R. McMahon, Cindy Shiner, and Amy Wong.