Honors Program Theses

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Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

Evan Renfro

Abstract

Data from Reporters Without Borders and the World Bank was used in this small case study to assess correlations between economic dispersion, freedom of the press, and measures of gender equality in eight countries. These countries were selected from two regions, with four from both Africa and the Balkans to total eight: Angola, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Zimbabwe. The regions were selected to account for any regional trends affecting the data. These countries were selected based on their Gini Coefficients with the hopes of identifying correlations between economic distribution and their measures of human rights. By doing research into how Gini Coefficients are correlated with measures of 3 human rights, we can more fully understand how economic conditions impact an individual’s personal freedoms on a macro level. In other words, understanding how a country’s economic distribution directly impacts its citizens’ abilities to exist with freedom and dignity is important, and this research hopes to examine this issue. This research produced statistically significant research showing correlations between economic dispersion within a state and that state’s human rights measures. This shows that the economic distribution within a country has a direct impact on how protected their human rights are, which is a finding relevant to everyone participating in a capitalist state. This could be used as the foundation for further research with a larger sample size to apply this regional analysis to the global scale.

Year of Submission

2023

Department

Department of Political Science

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Date Original

5-2023

Object Description

1 PDF file (28 pages)

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