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Livable Netherlands

Livable Netherlands (Leefbaar Nederland, LN) was a Dutch political party. Pim Fortuyn began his political career in the party.

History
Historically there have always been parties in States Provincial (provincial legislatures) and municipal councils that were independent from the national party system. In the predominantly Catholic south of the Netherlands during the 1950s, the Catholic People's Party gained eighty percent of the vote in national elections, local and provincial groups of independents were organised.

During the 1980s, independent parties began to spread to other parts of the Netherlands. Some successful groups like Independent Rijswijk began to move towards a national movement. A congress for this purpose held in 1989 did not result in much progress towards this goal, although independent parties were still very successful in municipal elections especially in Hilversum and Utrecht.

Some of them chose the name Leefbaar ("liveable"). It became a distinct political movement. It was not a party in itself but consisted of many municipal branches. These branches had no formal ties, and often had radically different programs, sharing only their disdain for the political establishment.

In 1999, prominent media personalities Henk Westbroek and Jan Nagel, chairs of the highly successful Leefbaar Utrecht and Leefbaar Hilversum parties respectively, founded Leefbaar Nederland as a spin-off from their local parties. Nagel became the party's chair. Nagel had previously been chair of the VARA, a broadcaster linked to the Labour Party.

In 2001, the party's support and visibility began to increase. They came to be seen as an opposition movement against the second Kok cabinet. In November 2001 Pim Fortuyn was elected as the party's lead candidate and LN saw rapid growth in opinion polls. On 10 February, a few months before the election, he was discharged because of a controversial interview published in the Volkskrant newspaper. Fortuyn subsequently organised his own party, the Pim Fortuyn List, taking several former LN parliamentary candidates and members with him. On 10 March the Amsterdam public prosecutor Fred Teeven was chosen as new lead candidate. In the election of May 2002, the party won only two seats in the House of Representatives while the Pim Fortuyn List polled in second place with 26 seats.

In the election of 2003, self-help guru Emile Ratelband was put forward by the party board as their candidate for the lead candidate position. Teeven, who had gained some recognition as MP, withdrew his candidacy for the position when a motion of no confidence was not supported by the party's congress. During a tumultuous congress, the 22-year-old Haitske van der Linde, the daughter of TV personality Wubbo van der Linde and candidate of the party's youth movement J@L, was elected lead candidate. She was unable to hold on to the two seats the party held, and the party left parliament. Ratelband, who had formed his own list, was still less successful in the polls. The party tried to dissolve itself, but there were not enough members present at the congress to do that, and the party left the public spotlight. In 2006, the party announced that it would disband itself: it owed a large debt to the Ministry of the Interior, who had lent them money for the 2003 election, and only a handful of paying members were left.

Name
The term "Leefbaar" was turned into a political brand by the Leefbaar Utrecht and Hilversum parties; the founders tried to reproduce this success by taking over the name.

Ideology and issues
The party was a populist party, oriented towards democratising society and solving several difficult political issues pragmatically. The party saw itself as a movement against the 'old parties' and especially those cooperating in the second Kok cabinet and sought not to characterize itself on the traditional left-right political spectrum. The core principles of the party included direct democracy, reliable government, downsizing state bureaucracy and law & order policies.

They had a ten-point plan which included:
 * implementing referendums
 * combatting bureaucracy
 * strengthening the citizen's say over their own life.
 * a just asylum seeker policy

Representation
This table shows the results of the LN in elections to the House of Representatives, Senate and European elections, as well as the party's political leadership: the fractievoorzitter, is the chair of the parliamentary party and the lead candidate is the party's top candidate in the general election. These posts are normally taken by the party's leader.

House of representatives
The party were unable to ever obtain any European Parliament or Senate seats. Their support came mostly from independent voters, who no longer felt connected to a particular party.

Municipal and Provincial Government
The municipal and local Leefbaar parties were not an official part of the party. Some of these parties, most notably Livable Rotterdam were however founded around the same time hoping to gain from the same momentum. Many of these parties are represented in provincial and municipal legislatures and cooperated in several municipal executives. They were highly successful in the 2002 municipal elections, but lost much of their support in the 2006 municipal elections.

Organisational structure
The highest organ of LN was the Congress in which every member could participate. It convened once every year. It appointed the party board and decided the order of the House of Representatives, Senate and European Parliament candidate lists and had the final say over the party program.

Linked organisations
The party's youth organisation was called Jong@Leefbaar.nl (Young@Livable.nl; J@L). The party published De Leefbaar Koerier (Livable Courier). The scientific institute of the party was called Foundation Scientific Bureau Livable Netherlands, which published De Fundering (The Foundation).

International comparison
Internationally, Leefbaar Nederland may be compared to Forza Italia, a populist party centered on a prominent media personality.

title: Livable Netherlands


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Freedom House

Freedom House is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons. Most of the organization's funding comes from the U.S. State Department and other government grants. It also receives funds from various semi-public and private foundations, as well as individual contributions.

The organization's annual Freedom in the World report assesses each country's degree of political freedoms and civil liberties. Another key annual report, Freedom on the Net, is Freedom House's annual survey and analysis of internet freedom around the world. While often cited by political scientists, journalists, and policymakers, the organization's democracy indices have received criticism.

Between the 1970s and 2000s, critics predominately alleged that the organization was biased towards American interests due to government funding; others criticized the organization's reliance on democratic indices created near-exclusively by Raymond Gastil. In 2018, the rankings were criticized by National Review, a conservative newspaper, for its perceptions of the NGO being "anti-conservative".

History
Freedom House was incorporated October 31, 1941. Among its founders were Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, Dorothy Thompson, George Field, Herbert Agar, Herbert Bayard Swope, Ralph Bunche, Father George B. Ford, Roscoe Drummond and Rex Stout. George Field (1904–2006) was executive director of the organization until his retirement in 1967.

According to its website, Freedom House was founded in 1941. Several groups were aggressively supporting U.S. entry into World War II and in early autumn 1941, when various group activities began to overlap, the Fight for Freedom Committee began exploring a mass merger. George Field then conceived the idea of all of the groups maintaining their separate identities under one roof—Freedom House—to promote the concrete application of the principles of freedom.

Freedom House had physical form in a New York City building that represented the organization's goals. A converted residence at 32 East 51st Street opened January 22, 1942, as a centre "where all who love liberty may meet, plan their programs and encourage one another". Furnished as a gift of the Allies, the 19-room building included a broadcasting facility. In January 1944, Freedom House moved to 5 West 54th Street, a former residence that Robert Lehman lent to the organization.

Freedom House sponsored influential radio programs including The Voice of Freedom (1942–43) and Our Secret Weapon (1942–43), a CBS radio series created to counter Axis shortwave radio propaganda broadcasts. Rex Stout, chairman of the Writers' War Board and representative of Freedom House, would rebut the most entertaining lies of the week. The series was produced by Paul White, founder of CBS News.

By November 1944, Freedom House was planning to raise money to acquire a building to be named after the recently deceased Wendell L. Willkie. In 1945 an elegant building at 20 West 40th Street was purchased to house the organization. It was named the Willkie Memorial Building.

After the war, as its website states, "Freedom House took up the struggle against the other twentieth century totalitarian threat, Communism ... The organization's leadership was convinced that the spread of democracy would be the best weapon against totalitarian ideologies." Freedom House supported the Marshall Plan and the establishment of NATO. Freedom House also supported the Johnson Administration's Vietnam War policies.

Freedom House was highly critical of McCarthyism. During the 1950s and 1960s, it supported the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and its leadership included several prominent civil rights activists – though it was sometimes critical of civil rights leaders for their anti-war activism, Freedom House awarded Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers its annual Freedom Award in 1963. It supported Andrei Sakharov, other Soviet dissidents, and the Solidarity movement in Poland. Freedom House assisted the post-Communist societies in the establishment of independent media, non-governmental think tanks, and the core institutions of electoral politics.

The organization describes itself currently as a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Freedom House states that it:

"has vigorously opposed dictatorships in Central America and Chile, apartheid in South Africa, the suppression of the Prague Spring, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, and the brutal violation of human rights in Cuba, Burma, the People's Republic of China, and Iraq. It has championed the rights of democratic activists, religious believers, trade unionists, journalists, and proponents of free markets."

In 1967, Freedom House absorbed Books USA, which had been created several years earlier by Edward R. Murrow, as a joint venture between the Peace Corps and the United States Information Service.

Since 2001, Freedom House has supported citizens involved in challenges to the existing regimes in Serbia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. The organization states, "From South Africa to Jordan, Kyrgyzstan to Indonesia, Freedom House has partnered with regional activists in bolstering civil society; worked to support women's rights; sought justice for victims of torture; defended journalists and free expression advocates; and assisted those struggling to promote human rights in challenging political environments." However, alternative classifications have produced significantly different results from those of the FH for Latin American countries.

Organization
Freedom House is a nonprofit organization with approximately 300 staff members worldwide. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has field offices in about a dozen countries, including Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Jordan, Mexico, and also countries in Central Asia.

Freedom House states that its board of trustees is composed of "business and labor leaders, former senior government officials, scholars, writers, and journalists". All board members are current residents of the United States. Past members of the organization's board of directors include Kenneth Adelman, Farooq Kathwari, Azar Nafisi, Mark Palmer, P. J. O'Rourke and Lawrence Lessig, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Samuel Huntington, Mara Liasson, Otto Reich, Donald Rumsfeld, Whitney North Seymour, Paul Wolfowitz, Steve Forbes and Bayard Rustin.

Funding
According to their 2022 financial statement and independent auditors' report, Freedom House reported $93,705,255 of total revenue:

 * Federal grants – $79,606,961
 * International public agencies – $1,055,339 ($3,826,812 with donor restrictions)
 * Corporations and foundations – $1,873,651 ($5,849,073 with donor restrictions)
 * Individual contributions – $1,487,190
 * Net assets released from restrictions – $2,901,964

Freedom House's total expenses in 2022 were $85,530,680.

Freedom in the World

Since 1973, Freedom House publishes an annual report, Freedom in the World, which it seeks to assess the current state of civil liberties and political rights in 195 countries and 15 territories.

The Freedom in the World report is composed of numerical ratings based on external analysts and using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources. Expert advisers and regional specialists then vet the analysts’ conclusions. The final product represents the consensus of the analysts, advisers, and Freedom House staff.

Freedom in the World uses a two-tiered system consisting of scores and statuses. Total scores across the various categories are based on a 100-point scale and correspond to statues of Free, Partly Free, and Not Free.

The survey's methodology is largely derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is reviewed periodically by an advisory committee of political scientists with expertise in methodological issues.

Freedom House's methods (around 1990) and other democracy-researchers were mentioned as examples of an expert-based evaluation by sociologist Kenneth A. Bollen, who is also an applied statistician. Bollen writes that expert-based evaluations are prone to statistical bias of an unknown direction, that is, not known either to agree with U.S. policy or to disagree with U.S. policy: "Regardless of the direction of distortions, it is highly likely that every set of indicators formed by a single author or organization contains systematic measurement error. The origin of this measure lies in the common methodology of forming measures.  Selectivity of information and various traits of the judges fuse into a distinct form of bias that is likely to characterize all indicators from a common publication."

Freedom of the Press

The Freedom of the Press index was an annual survey of media independence, published between 1980 and 2017. It assesses the degree of print, broadcast, and internet freedom throughout the world. It provides numerical rankings and rates each country's media as "Free", "Partly Free", or "Not Free". Individual country narratives examine the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influence reporting, and economic factors that affect access to information.

An independent review of press freedom studies, commissioned by the Knight Foundation in 2006, found that FOP is the best in its class of Press Freedom Indicators.

Freedom on the Net
The Freedom on the Net reports provide analytical reports and numerical ratings regarding the state of Internet freedom for countries worldwide. The countries surveyed represent a sample with a broad range of geographical diversity and levels of economic development, as well as varying levels of political and media freedom. The surveys ask a set of questions designed to measure each country's level of Internet and digital media freedom, as well as the access and openness of other digital means of transmitting information, particularly mobile phones and text messaging services. Results are presented for three areas: The results from the three areas are combined into a total score for a country (from 0 for best to 100 for worst) and countries are rated as "Free" (0 to 30), "Partly Free" (31 to 60), or "Not Free" (61 to 100) based on the totals.
 * Obstacles to Access: infrastructural and economic barriers to access; governmental efforts to block specific applications or technologies; legal and ownership control over internet and mobile phone access providers.
 * Limits on Content: filtering and blocking of websites; other forms of censorship and self-censorship; manipulation of content; the diversity of online news media; and usage of digital media for social and political activism.
 * Violations of User Rights: legal protections and restrictions on online activity; surveillance and limits on privacy; and repercussions for online activity, such as legal prosecution, imprisonment, physical attacks, or other forms of harassment.

Other reports

 * Nations in Transit published its 25th edition in May 2023.
 * Political Prisoners Initiative: Launched in 2022, Free Them All: A Political Prisoners Initiative examines and tracks restrictions on the liberty of human rights defenders and prodemocracy activists. Its website features emblematic cases of political imprisonment worldwide.
 * Transnational Repression: Freedom House's reports on transnational repression examine what is being done to protect exiles and diaspora members who are being intimidated and threatened by the governments from which they fled. The reports assess the responses put forward by the governments of countries where exiles and diasporas reside, by international organizations, and by technology companies.
 * China Dissent Monitor: Published since 2022, this database tracks and documents instances of dissent by Chinese citizens against the Chinese government. The initiative includes quarterly reports with data analysis.
 * China Media Bulletin: A monthly report that includes data and analysis on censorship, media freedom, and internet freedom issues related to the Chinese government.
 * Hong Kong Media Bulletin: A monthly email newsletter that provides unique insight into media freedom and freedom of expression issues in Hong Kong.
 * Beijing's Global Media Influence: A special report issued in 2022 measuring the extent of media influence leveraged by the Chinese Communist Party within mostly Free countries worldwide.
 * Election Watch for the Digital Age: A data-driven project that launched in 2020 which helps technology companies, policymakers, and civil society forecast the risk of human rights violations and digital interference ahead of significant elections around the world.

Special reports
Freedom House has produced more than 85 special reports since 2002, including:

 * Reviving News Media in an Embattled Europe: In 2023, Freedom House published a report on media freedom across Europe. Reviving News Media in an Embattled Europe features in-depth research and interviews with nearly 40 media professionals and experts in six countries (Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland), examining the playing field for free and independent news media within those countries.
 * How Civic Mobilizations Grow in Authoritarian Contexts: A 2022 report that analyzes how civic movements organize and expand in countries governed by authoritarian regimes. It examines 21 recent examples of these movements in authoritarian countries to determine the factors that helped or hindered their growth. It includes case studies from Belarus, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Vietnam.
 * Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies: This was an annual report of extracts from Freedom in the World covering countries that receive the lowest possible combined average score for political rights and civil liberties, as well as countries "on the threshold", falling just short of the lowest possible rating.
 * A New Multilateralism for Atrocities Prevention (2015)
 * Voices in the Streets: Mass Social Protests and the Right to Peaceful Assembly
 * Today's American: How Free?: A special report which examined whether Americans in 2008 were sacrificing essential values in the war against terror, and scrutinizes other critical issues such as the political process, criminal justice system, racial inequality and immigration.
 * Freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa 2009
 * Freedom of Association Under Threat: The New Authoritarians' Offensive Against Civil Society (2007)

Other activities
In addition to these reports, Freedom House participates in advocacy initiatives, and global democracy and human rights programming. It has offices in a number of countries, where it promotes and assists local human rights workers and non-government organizations.

On January 12, 2006, as part of a crackdown on unauthorized nongovernmental organizations, the Uzbek government ordered Freedom House to suspend operations in Uzbekistan. Resource and Information Centers managed by Freedom House in Tashkent, Namangan, and Samarkand offered access to materials and books on human rights, as well as technical equipment, such as computers, copiers and Internet access. The government warned that criminal proceedings could be brought against Uzbek staff members and visitors following recent amendments to the criminal code and Code on Administrative Liability of Uzbekistan. Other human rights groups have been similarly threatened and obliged to suspend operations.

Freedom House is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of more than 80 non-governmental organizations that monitors free expression violations around the world and defends journalists, writers and others who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Freedom House also publishes the China Media Bulletin, a weekly analysis on press freedom in and related to the People's Republic of China.

Relationship with the U.S. government
In 2006, the Financial Times reported that Freedom House had received funding by the State Department for "clandestine activities" inside Iran. According to the Financial Times, "Some academics, activists and those involved in the growing US business of spreading freedom and democracy are alarmed that such semi-covert activities risk damaging the public and transparent work of other organisations, and will backfire inside Iran."

On December 7, 2004, former U.S. House Representative and Libertarian politician Ron Paul criticized Freedom House for allegedly administering a U.S.-funded program in Ukraine where "much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate." Paul said "one part that we do know thus far is that the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House. PAUCI then sent U.S. Government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko."

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman have criticized the organization for excessively criticizing states opposed to US interests while being unduly sympathetic to regimes supportive of US interests. Most notably, Freedom House described the 1979 Rhodesian general election as "fair", but described the 1980 Southern Rhodesian general election as "dubious", and found the 1982 Salvadoran presidential election to be "admirable".

Cuban, Sudanese, and Chinese criticism
In May 2001, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations of the United Nations heard arguments for and against Freedom House. Representatives of Cuba said that the organization is a U.S. foreign policy instrument linked to the CIA and "submitted proof of the politically motivated, interventionist activities the NGO (Freedom House) carried out against their Government". They also claimed a lack of criticism of U.S. human rights violations in the annual reports. Cuba also stated that these violations are well documented by other reports, such as those of Human Rights Watch. Other countries such as China and Sudan also gave criticism. The Russian representative inquired "why this organization, an NGO which defended human rights, was against the creation of the International Criminal Court?"

The U.S. representative stated that alleged links between Freedom House and the CIA were "simply not true". The representative said he agreed that the NGO receives funds from the United States Government, but said this is disclosed in its reports. The representative said the funds were from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was not a branch of the CIA. The representative said his country had a law prohibiting the government from engaging in the activities of organizations seeking to change public policy, such as Freedom House. The representative said his country was not immune from criticism from Freedom House, which he said was well documented. The U.S. representative further argued that Freedom House was a human rights organization which sought to represent those who did not have a voice. The representative said he would continue to support NGOs who criticized his government and those of others.

In August 2020, Freedom House president Michael Abramowitz was sanctioned – together with the heads of four other U.S.-based democracy and human rights organizations and six U.S. Republican lawmakers – by the Chinese government for supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. The leaders of the five organizations saw the sanctioning, whose details were unspecified, as a tit-for-tat measure in response to the earlier sanctioning by the U.S. of 11 Hong Kong officials. The latter step had in turn been a reaction to the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law at the end of June.

Russia
Russia, identified by Freedom House as "Not Free", called Freedom House biased and accused the group of serving U.S. interests. Sergei Markov, an MP from the ruling United Russia party, called Freedom House a "Russophobic" organization, commenting: "You can listen to everything they say, except when it comes to Russia ... There are many Russophobes there." Christopher Walker, director of studies at Freedom House, posited that Freedom House made its evaluations based on objective criteria explained on the organization's website, and denied that it had a pro-U.S. agenda, saying: "If you look closely at the 193 countries that we evaluate, you'll find that we criticize what are often considered strategic allies of the United States."

UCLA political scientist Daniel Treisman has criticized Freedom House's assessment of Russia. Treisman cited that Freedom House ranks Russia's political rights on the same level as the United Arab Emirates, which is a federation of absolute monarchies with no element of democracy within the system. Freedom House also ranks Russia's civil liberties on the same scale as those of Yemen, where criticism of the president was illegal. Treisman contrasts Freedom House's ranking with the Polity IV scale used by academics, in which Russia has a much better score. In 2018, the Polity IV scale scored the United Arab Emirates at -8, Russia at +4, and the United States at +8.

In May 2024, Russian authorities declared Freedom House an “undesirable organization”.

Alleged partiality toward Uzbekistan
Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, wrote that the executive director of Freedom House told him in 2003 that the group decided to back off from its efforts to spotlight human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, because some Republican board members (in Murray's words) "expressed concern that Freedom House was failing to keep in sight the need to promote freedom in the widest sense, by giving full support to U.S. and coalition forces". Human rights abuses in Uzbekistan at the time included the killing of prisoners by "immersion in boiling liquid", and by strapping on a gas mask and blocking the filters, Murray reported. Jennifer Windsor, the executive director of Freedom House in 2003, replied that Murray's "characterization of our conversation is an inexplicable misrepresentation not only of what was said at that meeting, but of Freedom House's record in Uzbekistan ... Freedom House has been a consistent and harsh critic of the human rights situation in Uzbekistan, as clearly demonstrated in press releases and in our annual assessments of that country".

Overemphasis on formal aspects of democracy
According to one study, Freedom House's rankings "overemphasize the more formal aspects of democracy while failing to capture the informal but real power relations and pathways of influence ... and frequently lead to de facto deviations from democracy." States can therefore "look formally liberal-democratic but might be rather illiberal in their actual workings"

Criticism from American conservatives
In the 2010s, a number of American conservative institutions have criticized Freedom House for what they see as an anti-conservative shift in the organization; the organization has been criticized as being biased against conservative governments and the policies they enact, and has also been accused of favoring progressive and left-wing ideas in its ranking system. It has also been criticized for a perceived shift to an activist mindset; a 2018 article in the National Review described it as having "changed dramatically since its anti-Communist days during the Cold War" and having "become simply another progressive, anti-conservative (and overwhelmingly government-dependent) NGO". Another article criticized Freedom House for characterizing differences in policy as anti-democratic and for using what it regarded as partisan rather than objective measures of democracy.

Chronology of systematic evaluations
From the 1970s until 1990, Raymond Gastil practically produced the reports on his own, though sometimes with help from his wife. Gastil himself described it in 1990 as "a loose, intuitive rating system for levels of freedom or democracy, as defined by the traditional political rights and civil liberties of the Western democracies." Regarding criticisms of his reports, he said: "generally such criticism is based on opinions about Freedom House rather than detailed examination of survey ratings".

In a 1986 report on the methodology used by Gastil and others to create Freedom in the World report, Kenneth A. Bollen noted some bias but found that "no criticisms of which I am aware have demonstrated a systematic bias in all the ratings. Most of the evidence consists of anecdotal evidence of relatively few cases. Whether there is a systematic or sporadic slant in Gastil's ratings is an open question". In a later report by Bollen and Pamela Paxton in 2000, they concluded that from 1972 to 1988 (a specific period they observed), there was "unambiguous evidence of judge-specific measurement errors, which are related to traits of the countries." They estimated that Gastil's method produced a bias of 0.38 standard deviations (s.d.) against Communist countries and a larger bias, 0.5 s.d., favoring Christian countries.

In 2001, a study by Mainwaring, Brink, and Perez-Linanhe found the Freedom Index of Freedom in the World to have a strong positive correlation (at least 80%) with three other democracy indices. Mainwaring et al. wrote that Freedom House's index had "two systematic biases: scores for leftist were tainted by political considerations, and changes in scores are sometimes driven by changes in their criteria rather than changes in real conditions". Nonetheless, when evaluated on Latin American countries yearly, Freedom House's index was positively correlated with the index of Adam Przeworski and with the index of the authors themselves. However, according to Przeworski in 2003, the definition of freedom in Gastil (1982) and Freedom House (1990) emphasized liberties rather than the exercise of freedom. He gave the following example: In the United States, citizens are free to form political parties and to vote, yet even in presidential elections only half of U.S. citizens vote; in the U.S., "the same two parties speak in a commercially sponsored unison".

A 2014 report by comparative politics researcher Nils D. Steiner found "strong and consistent evidence of a substantial bias in the FH ratings" before 1988, with bias being reflected by the relationships between the U.S. and the countries under investigation. He writes that after 1989 the findings were not as strong but still hinted at political bias. In 2017, Sarah Sunn Bush wrote that many critics found the original pre-1990 methodology lacking. While this improved after a team was hired in 1990, she says some criticism remains. As for why the Freedom House index is most often quoted in the United States, she notes that its definition of democracy is closely aligned with US foreign policy. US-allied countries tend to get better scores than in other reports. However, because the report is important to US lawmakers and politicians, weaker states seeking US aid or favor are forced to respond to the reports, giving the Freedom House significant influence in those places.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Freedom House


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Multichannel

Multichannel or multi-channel may refer to:

 * Multichannel audio, i.e.
 * Stereophonic sound, namely two channel audio
 * Surround sound, more than two channel audio
 * Ambisonics, a studio or live way of recording with many channels
 * Offering multiple audio tracks on a broadcast channel: see Sound multiplex in broadcasting
 * Multichannel television sound, an American standard for analogue television
 * Having or offering multiple television channels: see Multichannel television
 * Digital multicast television network
 * Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS), a standard for analogue television
 * Multichannel television in Canada
 * Multichannel television in the United States
 * Multichannel marketing
 * Multi-channel network, a YouTube classification of for-profit channels
 * Multichannel News
 * MPEG Multichannel
 * MADI, Multichannel Audio Digital Interface
 * McASP, Multichannel Audio Serial Port
 * Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer
 * Joint multichannel trunking and switching system
 * Multibus, Multichannel I/O Bus
 * MVDDS, Multichannel Video and Data Distribution Service
 * MMDF, Multichannel Memorandum Distribution Facility

title: Multichannel


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Non-departmental public body

In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of national government but are not part of a government department. NDPBs carry out their work largely independently from ministers and are accountable to the public through Parliament; however, ministers are responsible for the independence, effectiveness, and efficiency of non-departmental public bodies in their portfolio.

The term includes the four types of NDPB (executive, advisory, tribunal, and independent monitoring boards) but excludes public corporations and public broadcasters (BBC, Channel 4, and S4C).

Types of body
The UK Government classifies bodies into four main types. The Scottish Government also has a fifth category: NHS bodies.

Advisory NDPBs
These bodies consist of boards which advise ministers on particular policy areas. They are often supported by a small secretariat from the parent department, and any expenditure is paid for by that department.

Executive NDPBs
These bodies usually deliver a particular public service and are overseen by a board rather than ministers. Appointments are made by ministers following the Code of Practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. They employ their own staff and allocate their own budgets.

Tribunal NDPBs
These bodies have jurisdiction over an area of the law. They are coordinated by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice, and supervised by the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, itself an NDPB sponsored by the Ministry of Justice.

Independent monitoring boards
These bodies were formerly known as "boards of visitors" and are responsible for the state of prisons, their administration, and the treatment of prisoners. The Home Office is responsible for their costs and has to note all expenses.

Contrast with executive agencies, non-ministerial departments and quangos
NDPB differ from executive agencies as they are not created to carry out ministerial orders or policy, instead they are more or less self-determining and enjoy greater independence. They are also not directly part of government like a non-ministerial government department being at a remove from both ministers and any elected assembly or parliament. Typically an NDPB would be established under statute and be accountable to Parliament rather than to His Majesty's Government. This arrangement allows more financial independence since the government is obliged to provide funding to meet statutory obligations.

NDPBs are sometimes referred to as quangos. However, this term originally referred to quasi-NGOs bodies that are, at least ostensibly, non-government organisations, but nonetheless perform governmental functions. The backronym "quasi-autonomous national government organization" is used in this usage which is normally pejorative.

History, numbers and powers
In March 2009 there were nearly 800 public bodies that were sponsored by the UK Government. This total included 198 executive NDPBs, 410 advisory bodies, 33 tribunals, 21 public corporations, the Bank of England, 2 public broadcasting authorities and 23 NHS bodies. However, the classification is conservative and does not include bodies that are the responsibility of devolved government, various lower tier boards (including a considerable number within the NHS), and also other boards operating in the public sector (e.g. school governors and police authorities).

These appointed bodies performed a large variety of tasks, for example health trusts, or the Welsh Development Agency, and by 1992 were responsible for some 25% of all government expenditure in the UK. According to the Cabinet Office their total expenditure for the financial year 2005–06 was £167 billion.

Criticism
Critics argued that the system was open to abuse as most NDPBs had their members directly appointed by government ministers without an election or consultation with the people. The press, critical of what was perceived as the Conservatives' complacency in power in the 1990s, presented much material interpreted as evidence of questionable government practices.

This concern led to the formation of a Committee on Standards in Public Life (the Nolan Committee) which first reported in 1995 and recommended the creation of a "public appointments commissioner" to make sure that appropriate standards were met in the appointment of members of NDPBs. The Government accepted the recommendation, and the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments was established in November 1995.

While in opposition, the Labour Party promised to reduce the number and power of NDPBs. The use of NDPBs continued under the Labour government in office from 1997 to 2010, though the political controversy associated with NDPBs in the mid-1990s for the most part died away.

In 2010 the UK's Conservative-Liberal coalition published a review of NDPBs recommending closure or merger of nearly two hundred bodies, and the transfer of others to the private sector. This process was colloquially termed the "bonfire of the quangos".

Classification in national accounts
NDPBs are classified under code S.13112 of the European System of Accounts (ESA.95). However, Statistics UK does not break out the detail for these bodies and they are consolidated into General Government (S.1311).

title: Non-departmental public body


text:
Talk:Quango

ICANN
ICANN is not a quango.

It is not funded by the Government: it is entirely self-funding.

Its Board Members are not appointed by the Government. Indeed, public servants are constitutionally barred (by ICANN's by-laws) from appointment as Board Members.

The government cannot appoint Board Members.

Whilst a representative of the Governmental Advisory Committee (a UN-style body comprising delegates from each of the world's governments who choose to participate and which is just one of the many Advisory Committees and Supporting Organisations within ICANN), normally the Chair for the time being, (who has never been connected to the US government --- the current incumbent being from Egypt) has no vote.

The US Government has no special powers that are any different from any other country's government, and has no veto over its policies

Accordingly, it is a shockingly bad choice to use as an example of a quango.

Deleted expected roles because of copy right violation
I removed the section on 'expected roles' because it was copied out of a report (Julie Macleavy, The Quango Debate, 2005, page 8 )! Cypers (talk) 15:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Bonfire of the Quangos
I've seen the expression "bonfire of the Quangos" several places but no definition or clear first use. Any help? --Phil Wolff (talk) 01:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

 * According to Radio 4 this morning, the phrase was coined by Gordon Brown fifteen years ago. Ausseagull (talk) 08:50, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Source question
Removed from article, as not sourced, and can't find it via Google:

 * Amongst those QUANGOs investigated, it was found that in London hospital trusts, over 70% of the members had direct family links ministers and MPs in the Conservative party.

Can anyone find a source for this assertion? The Anome

Quango, QUANGO or QuANGO?
I'm not sure which of these we should use. The last is the most logical (IMO) and the first is the most commonly used (c.f. Google). What do you think, Anome? Why did you go for the middle one? Mr. Jones 18:04, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's ok to use the first one, the easiest one, as it is in common use everywhere.

 * The Cabinet Office website refers to Quango. AMe 20:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Request for Cleanup
Propose

Though some parts of this article are useful, the correct terminology of Executive Agency or Non-Departmental Public Body should be prefered. All three need to be sorted out as there is a lot of re-directing going on and a fair degree of confusion. Davidkinnen 17:46, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I've done a fairly substantial cleanup of the main body, but the UK section still needs work JQ 06:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The lists on this page are inaccurate and confusing, in that quite a few of them are NOT quangos or NDPBs. Guineveretoo 10:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for retitle
The article should be under QUANGO or QANGO, not under its present title which is one of a number of ex post rationalisations of the acronym. Historically QUANGO for Quasi-NGO came first and that should be the heading, although other uses such as that described here were more important in the end.JQ 22:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

 * This change has now been implemented, thanks to User:William_M._Connolley

Good call -- most people wanting to look up Quango spell it this way. Also, it would be foolish to merge this with the NDPB entry, since those interested can follow the links, as did I.

US
The sentence on Fanny Mae has been removed, since this is a US organization, and the term is not used in that country. DGG 05:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a request to add something on Quango as expressed in popular culture. As a non-Briton, I wouldn't be able to contribute anything to that, but I would like to know more of the cultural views of it. For example, there is a song off Blur's album The Great Escape, called "Mr. Robinson's Quango" and I dont have a clue what it means...

Proposed merge
I've proposed that this page be merged with Non-departmental public body. I don't believe they are sufficiently different things to merit separate articles, if indeed they are different at all.

I don't know which title the resulting page should have - my impression is that "Quango" is more widely used and understood, but that "NDPB" is now the legal term for such a body. However, having worked in one, I suspect that "NDPB" may have been invented to avoid the negative connotations of "Quango"... and will therefore prove less lasting. Mswake 21:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Oppose NDBP is a UK-specific term. Quango is used in other countries and to cover a variety of organisations that do not fit the NDBP definition. Also, as you indicate, Quango is clearly a pejorative and should be discussed as such, not as the encyclopedic term. JQ 07:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Strongly Oppose NDBPs are, by definition, government bodies. When used correctly quangos are NON-government organisations (although frequently in receipt of government funding). Very different animals. Sceptic 12:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Strongly Oppose because the Quango term is used in literature and commentary and so is articleworthy. Sceptic distinguishes the two saying "quangos are non-government organizations" but I believe the better explanation is that they are non-governing organizations. They are indeed creatures of governments and funded by the taxpayers, but do not exercise first level civil authority such as police protection. Their directors are appointed and not elected, so they are unaccountable. Such creatures should be dealt with in their own article, which this one does. --StanZegel  (talk) 07:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose quangos are non governmental organisations, NDBPs are governmental bodies. Secretlondon 10:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Strongly Oppose as the term Quango is used in the UK press and in parliament  BRIANTIST  (talk) 10:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Strongly Oppose the reason they call them quangos is because this gives for a government the freedom to exert its political and social agenda cunningly disguise behind what looks like a mainstream NGO that are accepted world wide for their charity and philanthropic activities.Davedawit (talk) 09:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Davedawit (talk) 09:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Needs bold update
I think we need a bold update here to restrict this article to a discussion of the history and use of an ill-defined, and rather perjorative term.

The article should then provide a proper navigation aid to the intitutions of the UK government to which it has variously and inconsistently been applied (classification from Bradley & Ewing Constitutional and Administrative Law 13th ed):
 * Cabinet and Government departments:
 * of which include executive agencies
 * Public corporations, e.g. BBC
 * NHS bodies
 * NDPBs
 * Executive NDPBs
 * Advisory NDPBs
 * Tribunals
 * IMBs

Also nagivation aid to other nations who use the term.

The list of executive agencies should be in that article and looks wrong in any case. Surely the Council on Tribunals is a NDPB. Cutler (talk) 20:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

 * Absolutely; the list of executive agencies does not belong here, but, if it is accurate, somewhere in the series on UK government. The term quango was rapidly falling out of use when the UK formed executive agencies, but I agree that some people use the term for them, as well as for the many other bodies that Cutler mentions. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 00:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I've deleted the list which was replicated where it belongs in Executive agency.JQ (talk) 09:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Quasi-governmental
Quasi-governmental is a very brief article on a distinct but closely related topic. That article would make a good section in Quango, if it had better references. This was proposed in December, so I suggest that some just does it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 00:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This article admits that this term is not used in the UK to describe various independent governmental agencies due to the ambiguity about whether Quango means quasi- NGOS. The term describes an indistinct concept, and so a proper encyclopedic treatment would tease out the distinct concepts and vector users to articles on those distinct concepts.  So for no other reason, merging is not in order here.  Rather the opposite.

 * Clearly, as "Quasi-NGO", the two sets have some intersection but are not identical.  The distinctions can be seen in the members of the set of quasi governmental entities that are not Quangos.  The US Federal reserve cannot be described as a "Quasi" NGO, or anything similar to it, but it is correctly listed in the quasi-governmental article.  From the article on the Fed:

 * So the Fed is not in the least "non governmental", and cannot be described as quasi NGO. The "Quasi" does not necessarily describe something that is private, or otherwise partly outside of government.  Quango does.

 * Unless there are objections, after two weeks I shall remove the suggested merge notices, and add a description of the distinction to the quasi-governmental article. I do agree that the sets have significant overlap, because the US Post or Amtrak do fit the description of Quango. Mak (talk) 17:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I agree that the meaning of Quasi-governmental differs greatly from the first meaning of QUANGO; it also differs subtly from the second. For example, if the Library of Congress was in the UK, it would definitely be a QUANGO, but Amtrak would be in a grey area, where some would call it a nationalised industry, and others a QUANGO.  I just don't think that is a strong enough reason for us not to merge the articles, given the benefits of a merge.  You are mistaken to say that "this term is not used in the UK to describe various independent governmental agencies".  Not only is it used exactly this way by UK newspapers, but also by some civil servants, for example the remarkable introduction to "Public Bodies 1997" cited by the article: http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/caboff/bodies97/intro-1.htm .  The Quasi-NGO meaning could be considered archaic.
 * I think the international perspective a merged article could offer to readers interested in either Quasi-autonomous National Government Organization, or in Quasi-governmental Agency, would enrich their experience of reading the article and increase comprehensiveness. Anyway, I am not sure I can convince you by just describing my vision.  Perhaps a mock-up of a merged article in a sandbox would enlighten the discussion. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 19:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I support the merge and I also think that the Federal Reserve does fit the definition of a Quango. It has powers granted by Congress, but in formal terms it is a set of privately owned corporations. I don't want to insist on this too much, just to make the point that the boundary is not clear, and that a merged article would incorporate all the cases.JQ (talk) 19:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ''This thread continues below, at
 * Hroðulf- thank you for the clarification on usage. There are some important issues that are described with the terms "quango", "quasi governmental" entities, and "independent governmental agencies".  I think it is a very good idea that WP have an article on the concept of "a range of organisations to which governments have devolved power".
 * Living in the US, I had never heard the term. I was proceeding on my reading of the meaning in this article, and missed the nuances.  Living in NZ recently for 4 years- I didn't hear it there either.  With just 600 google hits in the NZ domain, and 49,000 in the UK domain, I suppose that WP has the opportunity here to influence the dominant meaning as not being "Quasi"- NGO which is the common sense naive reading of the term.  Original research and advancement of new concepts is not what WP is supposed to do, but since "Quasi-autonomous National Government Organization" does appear in the literature, perhaps it would be possible to highlight that sense as the only useful application of the term.
 * The proposed predication hiearchy is somewhat murky though. The first difficulty with "national" is that in the US there are many independent agencies at the local level- innumerable Public Utility Commissions for each locality with regulated electricity generation, and at the state level- eg the California Power Authority that Enron was making a mockery of during the California electricity crisis.  I'd look forward to reading your proposed article.  Possibly put it on a user subpage eg --User:Hro%C3%B0ulf/Quango proposal and give vistors the permission to fiddle with it to illustrate their proposed alternatives? Mak (talk) 17:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Dmhalko wrote: ''Quango .. is meaningless to American culture, and only the long form of quasi-governmental used. I would be against a merge that would shoot the reader off into an unfamiliar cultural background which would have no application in their everyday living. ''

 * I think one of the benefits of an encyclopedia is to learn the global implications and interrelationships of a concept that, at first sight, is local to the reader's own country.

Dmhalko continued: Personally I find the quango form to be a slang wordform which does not readily reveal its meaning to the reader.

 * It is certainly a term of art that is as opaque as any acronym. A merged article would require careful and bold explanation of the concepts, their differences and similarities, so that a reader from any country is out of their comfort zone for as short a time as possible.

 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

 * It appears there are actually two word forms here and it is not clear to me if there is any actual difference in meaning: quasi-governmental and quasi-nongovernmental. Is there a term called Quago? DMahalko (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Very good question. There are 3 forms:
 * 1) Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization
 * 2) Quasi-Autonomous National Government Organization
 * 3) Quasi-governmental organization

2 and 3 overlap greatly in meaning, but are from different countries. 2 and 3 are arms-length boards, committees and corporations created by government for some public purpose.

1 refers to independent organizations like the Red Cross that in some circumstances appear to operate under government control.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 00:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This article should be named Quasi-Non-Governmental Organization
In regards to this merge proposal in general, it is my belief that this article has the wrong name and if anything the merge should be going the other direction towards the other article, or even a new name. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to reveal and expose information in a clear and direct manner, rather than to hide and obscure meaning by using lingo or regional slang.

The word quango definitely hides meaning, because the word itself is neither an abbreviation nor a fully proper word in and of itself. It is really just a bastardized half-abbreviation created so as to make the phrase easily roll off the tongue. A proper abbreviation would be QNGO which might be pronounced Kango or Kengo rather than cwango. The 'ua' as in qUAngo means nothing, if all the letters are treated as an abbreviation.

For people who throw this word around all the time they may not be looking at how ridiculous this word is, a piece of jargon that has managed to become popular enough that being illegible and neither a phrase or abbreviation still renders it acceptable as a common word.

So, I would like to see this article renamed, since a formal encyclopedia should use this format:

DMahalko (talk) 18:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

 * I think the ridiculous nature of the word was part of the appeal, at least to the writers of Yes, Minister. By the 1990s, most dictionaries were listing it, whether as a word, an acronym, or a backronym.   I don't have strong feelings about which direction the merge should go, but I must admit that my instinct is that all long forms should be mentioned in the opening sentence, and the title of the article be Quango. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 01:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Federal reserve system
''in response to JQ's comment above Your statement that it is a set of privately owned corporations does not square with the statement in the federal reserve article that "it is not a private, profit-making institution." Either you are wrong or the Fed article is wrong. The confusion probably has to do with the nature of the involvement of member banks, being described as holding "stock" in a Federal Reserve Bank. However- note that this stock does not confer rights of part ownership- The "stock" may not be traded privately or publically, nor do they have the ability to directly control the applicable federal reserve bank as a result of owning the stock. It is more like owning a Bond that pays 6% interest and comes along with right to vote for governors. It is a governmental representational system that allows voting rights to a narrow group of bankers who are required to take a substantial financial stake in the success of the banking system. Mak (talk) 16:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The statement you refer to (quoted from a Fed Reserve FAQ) is in fact somewhat misleading, since it blurs the issues of ownership and for-profit status. The Wiki article itself is correct in stating that the Fed is a mixture of public and (at least nominally) private components. Of course, it's not appropriate for the article to point out that the Fed is fudging here, but that's the case. It's very typical of talk about quangos.JQ (talk) 20:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Do I understand correctly? Are we being asked accept unsupported assertion that we are being misled by an authoritative statement from an official entity concerning it's own nature?  Mak (talk) 06:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This is getting well off-topic, so if you want to discuss it further, maybe you should comment on my talk page. Obviously the article does not say to the readers that the FAQ is incorrect, despite the well-sourced facts in the article contradicting it. That would be WP:SYN. But I'm happy to say it here in the talk page - an authorative statement from an official entity is, in this case, misleading at best. Before you write to suggest I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll exercise an advantage of non-pseudonymity and suggest you check my wiki article. JQ (talk) 07:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Use "Elsewhere"
"Elsewhere" is vague - where else is the term used other than the UK and Ireland?Gymnophoria (talk) 12:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Arm's length
In order to grasp the meaning of the term "arm's-length bodies" as a non-native speaker, an explanation of the etymology and sense would be helpful. As far as I understand, "keeping somebody at arm's length" means "avoiding too close relations", but what is this term meant to say about quangos? Is ist positive in the sense of "avoiding too much influence of politicians and government on bodies which probably work better independently"?--Quinbus Flestrin (talk) 15:14, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Unelected
I learnt, many years ago, that there was a difference between QUANGO and QANGO - the U standing for Unelected, whihc was ladded later. The obvious question of what quasi qualifies was never really answered "Quasi- unelected -autonomous non-governmental organisation". I can find no references but will keep looking... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:4E:EF1E:FC00:F5F8:6517:E8F5:5540 (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Requested move 28 July 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved, clear consensus to keep as is, no votes of support. (non-admin closure) Sir Joseph (talk) 18:34, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Quango → Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation – Full name, meaningful and easy to understand (see also Talk:GONGO). Gotea Teago (talk) 15:26, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Every time the term is used in a news story, it's Quango, not the full title. I disagree that's "easy to understand". Ask the average person if they've heard of the term Quango and then ask the same person to say what the acronym stands for. Compare FIFA and not Fédération Internationale de Football Association as the article title, for example.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 18:22, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Clear common usage per Lugnuts, the full name will be obscure to most people. PC78 (talk) 20:44, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Thanks to Lugnuts for locating the appropriate rationale at WP:COMMONNAME. This is exactly parallel to the example given for FIFA. Outside the UK, neither version will be familiar; inside the UK, quango is used without clarification. Rupert Clayton (talk) 00:30, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Autonomy
I just undid a revision that removed the word "autonomous" from the initialism in the lede. It is clear that the "autonomous" was backronymed in somewhere, but it is a real part of the phenomenon, as attested by searching for "quango is short for"—9/10 of the top results include the "autonomous". It's also a key part of the quango mythos—the purported lack of accountability.

It would perhaps be best to restructure the article such that it adequately describes the history of the term and where each version is emphasized, as well as how it's been used over the years. I do not have bandwidth for such an undertaking at this time, however. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ctbeiser (talk • contribs) 05:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at doing the history as you suggest. It's a pejorative backronym of an originally neutral term JQ (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Quango


text:
Cyclic group

In abstract algebra, a cyclic group or monogenous group is a group, denoted Cn (also frequently $$\Z$$n or Zn, not to be confused with the commutative ring of $p$-adic numbers), that is generated by a single element. That is, it is a set of invertible elements with a single associative binary operation, and it contains an element g such that every other element of the group may be obtained by repeatedly applying the group operation to g or its inverse. Each element can be written as an integer power of g in multiplicative notation, or as an integer multiple of g in additive notation. This element g is called a generator of the group.

Every infinite cyclic group is isomorphic to the additive group of Z, the integers. Every finite cyclic group of order n is isomorphic to the additive group of Z/nZ, the integers modulo n. Every cyclic group is an abelian group (meaning that its group operation is commutative), and every finitely generated abelian group is a direct product of cyclic groups.

Every cyclic group of prime order is a simple group, which cannot be broken down into smaller groups. In the classification of finite simple groups, one of the three infinite classes consists of the cyclic groups of prime order. The cyclic groups of prime order are thus among the building blocks from which all groups can be built.

Definition and notation

For any element g in any group G, one can form the subgroup that consists of all its integer powers: ⟨g⟩ = $\{ g^{k} | k ∈ Z \}$, called the cyclic subgroup generated by g. The order of g is |⟨g⟩|, the number of elements in ⟨g⟩, conventionally abbreviated as |g|, as ord(g), or as o(g). That is, the order of an element is equal to the order of the cyclic subgroup that it generates.

A cyclic group is a group which is equal to one of its cyclic subgroups: G = ⟨g⟩ for some element g, called a generator of G.

For a finite cyclic group G of order n we have G = $\{e, g, g^{2}, ... , g^{n−1}\}$, where e is the identity element and gi = gj whenever i ≡ j (mod n); in particular gn = g0 = e, and g−1 = gn−1. An abstract group defined by this multiplication is often denoted Cn, and we say that G is isomorphic to the standard cyclic group Cn. Such a group is also isomorphic to Z/nZ, the group of integers modulo n with the addition operation, which is the standard cyclic group in additive notation. Under the isomorphism χ defined by χ(gi) = i the identity element e corresponds to 0, products correspond to sums, and powers correspond to multiples.

For example, the set of complex 6th roots of unity: $$G = \left\{\pm 1, \pm{ \left(\tfrac 1 2 + \tfrac{\sqrt 3}{2}i\right)}, \pm{\left(\tfrac 1 2 - \tfrac{\sqrt 3}{2}i\right)}\right\}$$ forms a group under multiplication. It is cyclic, since it is generated by the primitive root $$z = \tfrac 1 2 + \tfrac{\sqrt 3}{2}i=e^{2\pi i/6}:$$ that is, G = ⟨z⟩ = { 1, z, z2, z3, z4, z5 } with z6 = 1. Under a change of letters, this is isomorphic to (structurally the same as) the standard cyclic group of order 6, defined as C6 = ⟨g⟩ = $\{ e, g, g^{2}, g^{3}, g^{4}, g^{5} \}$ with multiplication gj · gk = gj+k (mod 6), so that g6 = g0 = e. These groups are also isomorphic to Z/6Z = $\{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5\}$ with the operation of addition modulo 6, with zk and gk corresponding to k. For example, 1 + 2 ≡ 3 (mod 6) corresponds to z1 · z2 = z3, and 2 + 5 ≡ 1 (mod 6) corresponds to z2 · z5 = z7 = z1, and so on. Any element generates its own cyclic subgroup, such as ⟨z2⟩ = $\{ e, z^{2}, z^{4} \}$ of order 3, isomorphic to C3 and Z/3Z; and ⟨z5⟩ = { e, z5, z10 = z4, z15 = z3, z20 = z2, z25 = z } = G, so that z5 has order 6 and is an alternative generator of G.

Instead of the quotient notations Z/nZ, Z/(n), or Z/n, some authors denote a finite cyclic group as Zn, but this clashes with the notation of number theory, where Zp denotes a p-adic number ring, or localization at a prime ideal.

On the other hand, in an infinite cyclic group G = ⟨g⟩, the powers gk give distinct elements for all integers k, so that G = $\{ ..., g^{−2}, g^{−1}, e, g, g^{2}, ... \}$, and G is isomorphic to the standard group C = C∞ and to Z, the additive group of the integers. An example is the first frieze group. Here there are no finite cycles, and the name "cyclic" may be misleading.

To avoid this confusion, Bourbaki introduced the term monogenous group for a group with a single generator and restricted "cyclic group" to mean a finite monogenous group, avoiding the term "infinite cyclic group".

Integer and modular addition
The set of integers Z, with the operation of addition, forms a group. It is an infinite cyclic group, because all integers can be written by repeatedly adding or subtracting the single number 1. In this group, 1 and −1 are the only generators. Every infinite cyclic group is isomorphic to Z.

For every positive integer n, the set of integers modulo n, again with the operation of addition, forms a finite cyclic group, denoted Z/nZ. A modular integer i is a generator of this group if i is relatively prime to n, because these elements can generate all other elements of the group through integer addition. (The number of such generators is φ(n), where φ is the Euler totient function.) Every finite cyclic group G is isomorphic to Z/nZ, where n = $|G|$ is the order of the group.

The addition operations on integers and modular integers, used to define the cyclic groups, are the addition operations of commutative rings, also denoted Z and Z/nZ or Z/(n). If p is a prime, then Z/pZ is a finite field, and is usually denoted Fp or GF(p) for Galois field.

Modular multiplication
For every positive integer n, the set of the integers modulo n that are relatively prime to n is written as (Z/nZ)×; it forms a group under the operation of multiplication. This group is not always cyclic, but is so whenever n is 1, 2, 4, a power of an odd prime, or twice a power of an odd prime. This is the multiplicative group of units of the ring Z/nZ; there are φ(n) of them, where again φ is the Euler totient function. For example, (Z/6Z)× = $\{1, 5\}$, and since 6 is twice an odd prime this is a cyclic group. In contrast, (Z/8Z)× = $\{1, 3, 5, 7\}$ is a Klein 4-group and is not cyclic. When (Z/nZ)× is cyclic, its generators are called primitive roots modulo n.

For a prime number p, the group (Z/pZ)× is always cyclic, consisting of the non-zero elements of the finite field of order p. More generally, every finite subgroup of the multiplicative group of any field is cyclic.

Rotational symmetries
The set of rotational symmetries of a polygon forms a finite cyclic group. If there are n different ways of moving the polygon to itself by a rotation (including the null rotation) then this symmetry group is isomorphic to Z/nZ. In three or higher dimensions there exist other finite symmetry groups that are cyclic, but which are not all rotations around an axis, but instead rotoreflections.

The group of all rotations of a circle (the circle group, also denoted S1) is not cyclic, because there is no single rotation whose integer powers generate all rotations. In fact, the infinite cyclic group C∞ is countable, while S1 is not. The group of rotations by rational angles is countable, but still not cyclic.

Galois theory
An nth root of unity is a complex number whose nth power is 1, a root of the polynomial xn − 1. The set of all nth roots of unity forms a cyclic group of order n under multiplication. The generators of this cyclic group are the nth primitive roots of unity; they are the roots of the nth cyclotomic polynomial. For example, the polynomial z3 − 1 factors as (z − 1)(z − ω)(z − ω2), where ω = e2πi/3; the set $\{1, ω, ω^{2}\}$ = $\{ω^{0}, ω^{1}, ω^{2}\}$ forms a cyclic group under multiplication. The Galois group of the field extension of the rational numbers generated by the nth roots of unity forms a different group, isomorphic to the multiplicative group (Z/nZ)× of order φ(n), which is cyclic for some but not all n (see above).

A field extension is called a cyclic extension if its Galois group is cyclic. For fields of characteristic zero, such extensions are the subject of Kummer theory, and are intimately related to solvability by radicals. For an extension of finite fields of characteristic p, its Galois group is always finite and cyclic, generated by a power of the Frobenius mapping. Conversely, given a finite field F and a finite cyclic group G, there is a finite field extension of F whose Galois group is G.

Subgroups
All subgroups and quotient groups of cyclic groups are cyclic. Specifically, all subgroups of Z are of the form ⟨m⟩ = mZ, with m a positive integer. All of these subgroups are distinct from each other, and apart from the trivial group {0} = 0Z, they all are isomorphic to Z. The lattice of subgroups of Z is isomorphic to the dual of the lattice of natural numbers ordered by divisibility. Thus, since a prime number p has no nontrivial divisors, pZ is a maximal proper subgroup, and the quotient group Z/pZ is simple; in fact, a cyclic group is simple if and only if its order is prime.

All quotient groups Z/nZ are finite, with the exception Z/0Z = Z/{0}. For every positive divisor d of n, the quotient group Z/nZ has precisely one subgroup of order d, generated by the residue class of n/d. There are no other subgroups.

Additional properties
Every cyclic group is abelian. That is, its group operation is commutative: gh = hg (for all g and h in G). This is clear for the groups of integer and modular addition since r + s ≡ s + r (mod n), and it follows for all cyclic groups since they are all isomorphic to these standard groups. For a finite cyclic group of order n, gn is the identity element for any element g. This again follows by using the isomorphism to modular addition, since kn ≡ 0 (mod n) for every integer k. (This is also true for a general group of order n, due to Lagrange's theorem.)

For a prime power $$p^k$$, the group $$Z/p^k Z$$ is called a primary cyclic group. The fundamental theorem of abelian groups states that every finitely generated abelian group is a finite direct product of primary cyclic and infinite cyclic groups.

Because a cyclic group is abelian, each of its conjugacy classes consists of a single element. A cyclic group of order n therefore has n conjugacy classes.

If d is a divisor of n, then the number of elements in Z/nZ which have order d is φ(d), and the number of elements whose order divides d is exactly d. If G is a finite group in which, for each n > 0, G contains at most n elements of order dividing n, then G must be cyclic. The order of an element m in Z/nZ is n/gcd(n,m).

If n and m are coprime, then the direct product of two cyclic groups Z/nZ and Z/mZ is isomorphic to the cyclic group Z/nmZ, and the converse also holds: this is one form of the Chinese remainder theorem. For example, Z/12Z is isomorphic to the direct product Z/3Z × Z/4Z under the isomorphism (k mod 12) → (k mod 3, k mod 4); but it is not isomorphic to Z/6Z × Z/2Z, in which every element has order at most 6.

If p is a prime number, then any group with p elements is isomorphic to the simple group Z/pZ. A number n is called a cyclic number if Z/nZ is the only group of order n, which is true exactly when gcd(n, φ(n)) = 1. The sequence of cyclic numbers include all primes, but some are composite such as 15. However, all cyclic numbers are odd except 2. The cyclic numbers are:

 * 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 41, 43, 47, 51, 53, 59, 61, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 77, 79, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 95, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 115, 119, 123, 127, 131, 133, 137, 139, 141, 143, ...

The definition immediately implies that cyclic groups have group presentation ⟩ and xn⟩ for finite n.

Representations
The representation theory of the cyclic group is a critical base case for the representation theory of more general finite groups. In the complex case, a representation of a cyclic group decomposes into a direct sum of linear characters, making the connection between character theory and representation theory transparent. In the positive characteristic case, the indecomposable representations of the cyclic group form a model and inductive basis for the representation theory of groups with cyclic Sylow subgroups and more generally the representation theory of blocks of cyclic defect.

Cycle graph
A cycle graph illustrates the various cycles of a group and is particularly useful in visualizing the structure of small finite groups. A cycle graph for a cyclic group is simply a circular graph, where the group order is equal to the number of nodes. A single generator defines the group as a directional path on the graph, and the inverse generator defines a backwards path. A trivial path (identity) can be drawn as a loop but is usually suppressed. Z2 is sometimes drawn with two curved edges as a multigraph.

A cyclic group Zn, with order n, corresponds to a single cycle graphed simply as an n-sided polygon with the elements at the vertices.

Cayley graph
A Cayley graph is a graph defined from a pair (G,S) where G is a group and S is a set of generators for the group; it has a vertex for each group element, and an edge for each product of an element with a generator. In the case of a finite cyclic group, with its single generator, the Cayley graph is a cycle graph, and for an infinite cyclic group with its generator the Cayley graph is a doubly infinite path graph. However, Cayley graphs can be defined from other sets of generators as well. The Cayley graphs of cyclic groups with arbitrary generator sets are called circulant graphs. These graphs may be represented geometrically as a set of equally spaced points on a circle or on a line, with each point connected to neighbors with the same set of distances as each other point. They are exactly the vertex-transitive graphs whose symmetry group includes a transitive cyclic group.

Endomorphisms
The endomorphism ring of the abelian group Z/nZ is isomorphic to Z/nZ itself as a ring. Under this isomorphism, the number r corresponds to the endomorphism of Z/nZ that maps each element to the sum of r copies of it. This is a bijection if and only if r is coprime with n, so the automorphism group of Z/nZ is isomorphic to the unit group (Z/nZ)×.

Similarly, the endomorphism ring of the additive group of Z is isomorphic to the ring Z. Its automorphism group is isomorphic to the group of units of the ring Z, which is ({−1, +1}, ×) ≅ C2.

Tensor product and Hom of cyclic groups
The tensor product Z/mZ ⊗ Z/nZ can be shown to be isomorphic to Z / gcd(m, n)Z. So we can form the collection of group homomorphisms from Z/mZ to Z/nZ, denoted hom(Z/mZ, Z/nZ), which is itself a group.

For the tensor product, this is a consequence of the general fact that R/I ⊗R R/J ≅ R/(I + J), where R is a commutative ring with unit and I and J are ideals of the ring. For the Hom group, recall that it is isomorphic to the subgroup of Z / nZ consisting of the elements of order dividing m. That subgroup is cyclic of order gcd(m, n), which completes the proof.

Related classes of groups
Several other classes of groups have been defined by their relation to the cyclic groups:

Virtually cyclic groups
A group is called virtually cyclic if it contains a cyclic subgroup of finite index (the number of cosets that the subgroup has). In other words, any element in a virtually cyclic group can be arrived at by multiplying a member of the cyclic subgroup and a member of a certain finite set. Every cyclic group is virtually cyclic, as is every finite group. An infinite group is virtually cyclic if and only if it is finitely generated and has exactly two ends; an example of such a group is the direct product of Z/nZ and Z, in which the factor Z has finite index n. Every abelian subgroup of a Gromov hyperbolic group is virtually cyclic.

Procyclic groups
A profinite group is called procyclic if it can be topologically generated by a single element. Examples of profinite groups include the profinite integers $$\widehat{\Z}$$ or the p-adic integers $$\Z_p$$ for a prime number p.

Locally cyclic groups
A locally cyclic group is a group in which each finitely generated subgroup is cyclic. An example is the additive group of the rational numbers: every finite set of rational numbers is a set of integer multiples of a single unit fraction, the inverse of their lowest common denominator, and generates as a subgroup a cyclic group of integer multiples of this unit fraction. A group is locally cyclic if and only if its lattice of subgroups is a distributive lattice.

Cyclically ordered groups
A cyclically ordered group is a group together with a cyclic order preserved by the group structure. Every cyclic group can be given a structure as a cyclically ordered group, consistent with the ordering of the integers (or the integers modulo the order of the group). Every finite subgroup of a cyclically ordered group is cyclic.

Metacyclic and polycyclic groups
A metacyclic group is a group containing a cyclic normal subgroup whose quotient is also cyclic. These groups include the cyclic groups, the dicyclic groups, and the direct products of two cyclic groups. The polycyclic groups generalize metacyclic groups by allowing more than one level of group extension. A group is polycyclic if it has a finite descending sequence of subgroups, each of which is normal in the previous subgroup with a cyclic quotient, ending in the trivial group. Every finitely generated abelian group or nilpotent group is polycyclic.

title: Cyclic group