Bruce George
in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon. Freedom of expression says that citizens have a right to express themselves without danger of severe punishment on political matters broadly defined, including criticism of officials, the government, the regime, the socioeconomic order, and the prevailing ideology. Access to alternative sources of information allows citizens to have a right to seek out alternative and independent sources of information from other citizens, experts, newspapers, magazines, books, telecommunications, etc. Moreover, alternative sources of information actually exist that are not under the control of the government or any other single political group attempting to influence public political beliefs and attitudes, and these alternative sources are effectively protected by law. Associational autonomy states that citizens also have a right to form relatively independent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groups. Inclusive citizenship states that no adult permanently residing in the country and subject to its laws can be denied the rights that are available to others. The factors that Dahl listed are the factors that determine whether that country is a democracy. To provide an example, the United States classifies as a democracy and a country such as Iran does not based on the factors that Dahl mentioned. In addition, those factors all have to be in place for a country to be a democracy. Dahl (1998, 95) provides a a reason why democracy requires free, fair, and frequent elections. He notes, “If we accept the desirability of political equality, then every citizen must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal. If equality in voting is to be implemented, then clearly elections must be free and fair.� Countries aside from the United States may not fit the factor of having free, fair, and frequent elections. An example is Saudi Arabia. Freedom House.org provides information about countries that are free and they have their own factors as well. According to Freedom House, Saudi Arabia is not an electoral democracy. The 1992 Law declares that the Koran and the Sunna are the country’s constitution. Limited elections for advisory councils at the municipal level were introduced in 2005, but women were excluded. The next round of municipal elections was postponed by two years in May 2009, having initially been scheduled for that year (Freedom House.org). Evidently, Saudi Arabia is not free due to the limitation of elections. In addition, Saudi Arabia does not have the political freedom nor civil liberties in comparison to a country that is a democracy. If Saudi Arabia was free,
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