With the spread of globalisation, there has been a rapid increase in the number of indexes measuring and ranking countries’ performances in certain political, economic and social issues. International institutions and transnational bodies, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), think tanks, consulting firms, and major media outlets started to issue dozens of indexes periodically.
This paper challenges the dominant perception of GPIs as a methodologically and contextually flawless source of information about a country with a particular focus on Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Index by combining these two strands of critique. A case study is presented through the periodical assessment of Türkiye’s performance in the sub-categories of the index in the main part of the discussion. Content-based and contextual critiques are explored by way of examples taken from Türkiye. The organisation of the paper is as follows: (I) The Global Context of Proliferation of GPIs, (II) Critical Approach to GPIs, (III) Türkiye and Freedom House, and (IV) Concluding Remarks.
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