Clarion Content

The Clarion has two maps for you. The one shown above, which is called the map of freedom. (close-up) It is published by the Freedom House. It is a color coded map indicating the relative freedom of all of 193 states and 15 territories. Green is free, yellow is partially free and purple is not free. The gages of freedom that Freedom House uses are based on a comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties through survey ratings and narrative reports. While not perfect, it is widely used and respected. It presents a bleak assessment when one considers how little of the global is assessed as free (green.)

It would have been interesting to see the Freedom House map done as a choropleth map like these showing a fascinating remapping of the 2000 American Presidential election. (Sorry the picture was not movable so you have to follow the link.) The shape of choropleth map is transformed to emphasize the variable that carries the crucial information. In the case of the the linked example, it is electoral votes. The Freedom House map could have been choroplethed by population to better visually indicate how much of the world's population is living free. As you can see from the examples at the link the perceptual difference is immense.

Labels: Politics, thought