Cross-National Measures of the Treatment of Animals

To conduct their work, Human-Animal Studies scholars, practitioners, and activists need to understand how different nations treat animals. Although extant cross-national measures of the treatment of animals are helpful, they are quantitatively unsophisti-cated, narrow in focus, and nontransparent This paper offers a sounder methodol-ogy for measuring how nations treat animals. Using polychoric factor analysis of nine indicators that capture the treatment of animals in 154 nations, this study creates three new Treatment -of-Animals measures: Political-Commitment, Animal-Use, and a Composite-Score (the average between the previous two measures). A construct valid-ity test demonstrates that all three measures are valid. The study then reports how dif-ferent nations and regions fare on each measure and discusses important trends that these outcomes reveal. The paper concludes by explaining how scholars, practitioners, and activists will benefit from these new Treatment -of-Animals variables, and it con-fronts some limitations with these measures.