№ 5 - 2006
Mironyuk M.G., Timofeyev I.N., Vaslavsky Ya.I.
Universal Comparisons, with Quantitative Methods of Analysis Applied (A Review of Precedents)

After the 1960s – decade which happened to be the peak period of social sciences’ keenness on quantitative methods, – universal comparisons sharply lost in popularity. Yet global researches were not brought to a stop with the end of the boom of the 1960s. The “Freedom House” which has behind it more than half a century of existence, annually works out countries’ ratings by the indices of political rights and civil liberties. The “Transparency International” has elaborated the index of perception of corruption, the “Reporters without Borders” – the Worldwide Press Freedom Index, the “Cato Institute” – the index of economic freedom, A.T.Kearney’s consulting company, in cooperation with the Foreign Policy journal, – the index of globalization, the “Bertelsmann Stiftung” – the Transformation Index, the United Nations Development Program – the human development index, T.R.Gurr and his colleagues – the polity index, T.Vanhanen – the index of democratization, and so on. In the review we are publishing here, brief information about these and some other projects of the kind is presented and their methodology characterized, with its advantages and weaknesses noted.