Arch Puddington is director of research at Freedom House and
the author of the recently released biography, Lane Kirkland: Champion of American Labor (Wiley).

Freedom House both monitors the state of global freedom and advocates for U.S. policies that promote democracy abroad.  Each year it publishes Freedom in the World,  a survey of political rights and civil liberties around the world that is used by the United States government in determining foreign aid priorities and widely cited by scholars who write about the state of global democracy.