Freedom is a fundamental element for achieving substantive goals such as a satisfactory quality of life or a higher income. In order to understand the implication of freedom in social and economic development, this should be conceptualised and quantified. As the conceptualisation is associated to the quantification and vice versa, many attempts have already been made to measure the nuances of freedom in a simple numerical figure.

However, according to Dr. Adam, Regional Director at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty in Bangkok, "the major weakness of [most existing indices] is that the only selected areas are covered. They only focus either on political freedom...or economic freedom."  A team of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, led by Dr. Rainer Adam and Dr. Sebastian Braun, devised a new index to measure freedom in Asia, called the "Freedom Barometer Asia". Recently this new tool was unofficially launched on YouTube. The Freedom Barometer Asia presents a fresh attempt to develop an index of "freedom as a whole".

"We do not want to reinvent the wheel", said Dr. Adam. The aim of the Freedom Barometer Asia is to rely on reliable data sources. This leads to the inclusion of some indicators, including Economic Freedom of the World of the Canadian Fraser Institute, World Survey of Economic Freedom of the American Freedom House, Worldwide Press Freedom Index of the French Reporters Without Borders and Corruption Perceptions Index of the German Transparency International. There are, of course, some limitations of each of the indicators employed. However, the authors believe that the new index provides a faithful picture of the relative freedom existing in countries examined.

Three main components are considered: political freedom, the rule of law and economic freedom. In his presentation, Dr. Adam elaborates that "in order to keep our barometer short and simple, we selected ten areas for analysis only." Political freedom includes three areas: 1) free and fair elections, 2) the absence of undemocratic veto players (for instance, military) and 3) press freedom. The rule of law includes 1) the independence of the courts and checks and balances, 2) corruption and 3) human rights protection. Economic freedom includes 1) security of property rights, 2) size of government - expenditures, taxes and enterprises, 3) regulation of credit, labour and business, and 4) freedom to trade internationally.

In order to measure freedom, each of the ten indictors is given a score of 0 to 10, where 10 represents the highest level of freedom. The ten component scores are then added to give an overall freedom score for each country. The maximum number of points is 100 (completely free) and the minimum 0 (completely unfree).

The preliminary result indicates that, for the ten countries that the research team has a completed dataset, Japan tops the list with a score of about 83 out of 100 possible points; Taiwan and South Korea score 77. Next come Singapore with 65. The three Southeast Asian countries - Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippine - are closed together with score of 58, 57, and 56 respectively. On the low end of the scale we find Vietnam with a 43 point in ninth, followed closely by China with 42 points in tenth position.

It is interesting to note that the two socialist countries get only half the level of the full democracy such as Japan. The result also reveals that countries are not homogenous within their own borders with respect to freedom. Singapore, for instance, ranks first in the areas of economic freedom, but quite low in the areas of political freedom and the rule of law (especially, the protection of human rights). Japan gets full scores of 10 in all areas of political freedom but it does relatively poorly in the economic realm.

The details on the new index are being worked out further. There is no doubt that a great deal can be done to improve the quality of the data and to refine the index. The authors would welcome any comments and suggestions. It is hoped that this preliminary attempt will be a further incentive to promote freedom in the region and the world as a whole.

Related content:

• The Freedom Barometer Asia 2009 (Hintergrundpapier, No. 5: February 2010)

• The Freedom Barometer 2009
• Freedom Barometer
• Indonesia Paling Bebas Kelima di Asia (Rakyat Merdeka, Indonesian Newspaper: 26 January 2010)
• Pemberantasan Korupsi Indonesia Gondol 2,6 (Rakyat Merdeka, Indonesian Newspaper: 26 January 2010)