**Civil Rights and Civil Liberties** 1.     What are civil liberties? Individual rights protected by the law 2.     What is a linkage institution?  Explain how the media serves as a linkage institution. A linkage institution is a structure or institution that links the people to the government or central authority. 3.     What is a hybrid regime?  Why can Russia be considered a hybrid regime? Hybrid regimes are regimes that have contested elections, but there isn't much competitiveness. Russia shows this, and also with the return of Putin back in office multiple times leans more toward authoritarian and less democratic. 4.     Go to the Freedom House Global Freedom Map ([https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2020](https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2020)) Look up each of the Big 6 nations.  **For each nation**, do the following: a.     record the overall global freedom score, the civil liberties score, the political rights score, and the trend.  Russia: 20/100, 15/60, 5/40, declining Iran: 17/100, 10/60, 7/40, declined Mexico: 62/100, 35/60, 27/40, declined Nigeria: 47/100, 25/60, 22/40, declined UK: 94/100, 55/60, 39/40, improved China: 10/100, 11/60, -1/40, declined b.     Click on “view report” and read the reasons for the scores.  For each score, explain why the nation earned the score that it received and then explain what this tells you about the degree of democracy found in the nation. Russia: Not free because of a largely authoritarian system with power concentrated in Putin's hands, controlled media, loyal security and corruption shows this score. Also the lack of liberties and the concentration of power shows the lack of democracy in the state. Iran: Has elections, but falls short of democracy because of the unelected Guardian Council and the strict hand it has. Also having a state religion brings down the tolerance for those of other religions. Supreme Leader that is unelected and oversees many different areas with little to no oversight makes it not a very democratic nation. Mexico: Electoral democracy with changes in political party in power. Drug cartels and criminal activity leads to corruption in the government. They also have severe rule of law deficits that limit the citizens' ability to fully enjoy their political rights and liberties. These changes in office and ability to have rights makes it an emerging democracy, the key piece being that there is not a full enjoyment of civil liberties. Nigeria: Improvement of the quality of elections, yet there are still inconsistencies in the elections for the leaders. Corruption and ethnic violence also runs rampant, as does discrimination of women and LGBT people. Journalists can be targeted for covering politically sensitive topics. With the elections it is somewhat democratic, but there is still great restrictions on civil liberties. UK: Regularly fair and competitive elections, with a free media sector. Government strongly protects the rights and liberties of the people. Definitely seen that it's strong democracy. China: Very oppressive authoritarian regime. The Chines Communist party controls media, religious groups, education, business, and has undermined whatever rule of law reforms they had. This shows that the nation has a very low degree of democracy, because of the great power the government has in the lives of the people, and the lack of free, fair and competitive elections.