Visualize the World

The World Freedom Atlas is a nice interactive online tool for visualizing a lot of measures relevant to social scientists, students, and journalists. It includes common variables used in Poli Sci research like Polity IV, Freedom House, UNDP Development Report, and World Bank measures, as well as measures from influential research like BdM et al's selectorate theory, Henisz's political constraints, Fearon's ethnic fractionalization, Easterly and Levine's ethnolinguistic fractionalization, and many others. It covers 1990-2006, and the interface is quick and easy. Apparently it was created by a student as part of a project for a geography class at the University of Wisconsin. I'd recommend playing around with it for a bit. It's really cool.

(via Ali Stoyan)