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Archive: On Human Rights
International Interactions Policy Blog
International Interactions is a peer-reviewed journal with direct relevance to a wide and interdisciplinary audience. Readers include political scientists, economists, historians, mathematicians, statisticians, anthropologists, sociologists, and other social science researchers with an interest in international relations, as well as informed professionals in business and government.
Launched in 2019, the International Interactions blog synthesizes scholarly findings for a practitioner audience. Each blog post describes the policy takeaways of a recent II article, in the authors' own words, for use by engaged policymakers who can apply this research to current issues and challenges.
Below, you'll find an archive of posts relating to Human Rights, plus links to the full journal articles. Access all categories alongside the latest post on the blog's main page.
The Ethnic Politics of Asylum | December 2020
Lamis Abdelaaty, Rivalry, ethnicity, and asylum admissions worldwide, International Interactions (2020). Free access until February 28, 2021 >>
In the US, asylum policies favor Cubans over Haitians. Jordanian borders were largely open to Syrians fleeing violence, but Palestinians were turned back. Rohingya refugees in India complain they are treated worse than other ethnic groups escaping Burma. Almost every country in the world hosts refugees – examples of bias, discrimination, and double standards abound.
In the era of globalized trade and investment, regulating migration is often portrayed as the last bastion of state sovereignty. But these instances show that countries do not always jealously guard their borders. While some forced migrants are shut out, others get a 'free pass.' Why do countries welcome some refugees and treat others poorly? More specifically, why do countries accept some asylum applications and reject others?
The existing literature suggests that the assistance refugees receive is a reflection of countries' wealth or compassion. Instead, I argue that states' approaches to refugees are shaped by foreign policy and ethnic politics. Although previous work has hinted at these dynamics separately, I combine them into a two-part framework and identify the specific incentives that operate at international and domestic levels. Interstate rivalry and affinity with co-ethnics lead to generous asylum policies, while refugees from allied nations who lack common ethnic ties receive harsh treatment. Going beyond the existing empirical literature's focus on the US and other Western countries, I find support for this theory, with statistical analyses showing that global asylum admissions are negatively correlated with the friendliness of interstate relations, and positively correlated with refugee ethnic affinity.
There were nearly 26 million refugees by the end of 2018, of which more than 6 million were stuck in protracted situations. At the time of writing, refugee crises in Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria, and elsewhere were ongoing. Exploring when and why the rights of these vulnerable populations are respected or abused has enormous normative and policy importance. Full article >>
The Arab Spring and the Barriers to Revolutionary Diffusion | December 2019
Ammar Shamaileh, Never out of Now: Preference Falsification, Social Capital and the Arab Spring, International Interactions, 45:6 (2019). Read now >>
In 2010, the self-immolation of a young Tunisian man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set in motion a series of events that fundamentally altered the way scholars and analysts discuss the Arab world. His actions led to protests that quickly toppled President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's government, and this appeared to increase protest activity in many other Arab states. Almost immediately after the Tunisian Revolution, discussions of the region's political order shifted away from explaining its authoritarian stability to predicting a democratic wave. Nearly a decade has passed since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and what has now become clear to most is that the region neither experienced a democratic wave nor was stably autocratic. This article seeks to help us understand the barriers to revolutionary diffusion by examining what diffuses across authoritarian borders during revolutionary waves, and how a recently-terminated civil war may influence the expression of political preferences during periods of regional instability.
Revolutions are often assumed to spark bandwagon effects in neighboring states, increasing regional expressions of dissent. As individuals observe the behavior of those residing in a neighboring state caught in the midst of a revolution, certain beliefs or sentiments that increase the willingness to protest may spread to these outside observers. In the case of the Arab Spring, this assumption has often been fundamental to analyses and discussions of the spread of revolutionary fervor in 2011. While this is a reasonable assumption, researchers and analysts who interacted with individuals in the Arab world were exposed to the nuances of how expressions of dissent shifted. Among my most interesting experiences in 2011 were the conversations I had with Syrians who, prior to the Arab Spring, had voiced dissatisfaction with the regime and conditions in Syria. While many of them saw the Arab Spring as an opportunity, others expressed concerns regarding the alternatives to Assad and toned down their criticisms of the regime. While Syria is not the focus of this piece, it was, in part, these conversations that motivated this article.
In 2011, Sudan was transitioning toward peace in the aftermath of a long and devastating civil war. I argue that, in such an environment, individuals are more likely to temper their criticisms of a government due to their fear of the consequences of instability. In an environment where the perceived possibility of a revolutionary bandwagon occurring is low, communicating political and policy preferences may serve to spur limited or gradual change. If the risk of regime change is heightened, however, individuals may temper their criticisms in order to avoid the costs of instability. Where a previous negative experience with instability is fresh in the minds of individuals, as in the case of Sudan, the country may experience decreased rather than increased expressions of political dissent. Thus, a revolutionary wave may precipitate more or less criticism of a regime, and pre-revolutionary regime critics may not necessarily be dependable allies in revolutionary movements.
This article examines Arab Barometer data from Sudan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. While the article's focus is on Sudan, each of these states' survey respondents exhibited unique patterns during the Arab Spring that help highlight the potential barriers to revolutionary diffusion. In Lebanon, where there are few restrictions on speech and political mobilization, the Arab Spring offered little new salient information regarding the probability of successful political mobilization. In Saudi Arabia, where the authoritarian state's coercive capacity is high, the increased scrutiny that accompanied rising regional instability meant greater fear among the general population. Finally, in Sudan, a weak state with autocratic restrictions on speech that had recently experienced a long civil war, there was a decrease in speech critical of the government, and it is argued this was likely due to a fear of the costs of instability rather than the costs of protest.
For policy analysts and actors concerned with political stability and democratization, several important implications are associated with these findings. First, for better or worse, a recent civil war may lead to an increased preference for stability, which should reduce civil unrest. While this may reduce the likelihood of mass civil unrest, it also potentially reduces the probability of democratization in the short term. Second, a number of barriers to revolutionary waves exist, and not all of them relate to structural conditions, foreign actors, or the strength of political entities. A regime that has recently experienced a civil war may be more likely to stay in power in the immediate aftermath if militias are disarmed. Thus, for example, were the Syrian Civil War to wind down, war-weary Syrian citizens may be hesitant to initiate regime change upon the war's conclusion. While non-state armed groups, if they persist, may still plunge the country back into war, the civilian population may prefer to maintain even a repressive peace. To some degree, this implies that the bargain struck to end the war is paramount in determining the course the country will follow in subsequent years, since the population may be less willing to mobilize to renegotiate the terms of the agreement until the collective memory of the consequences of war have faded. It should be noted, however, the experiences of both Algeria and Sudan this year have reminded us that an increase in stability in the short-term does not necessarily imply increased stability in the long-term. Finally, the preferences that individuals communicate in authoritarian settings, both for and against regimes, are not stable and cannot be taken at face value. Those who express discontent prior to a revolutionary wave may not be the individuals joining or organizing protests when the possibility of a revolutionary bandwagon increases. Full article >>
Reconsidering Humanitarian Military Intervention | September 2019
Thorsten Gromes & Matthias Dembinski, Practices and outcomes of humanitarian military interventions: a new data set, International Interactions, 45:6 (2019). Read now >>
Do humanitarian military interventions decrease or escalate levels of deadly violence? Do they tend to shorten or prolong violent conflicts and mass atrocities? Under which conditions do humanitarian military interventions succeed or fail in stopping or reducing the killing? When answering these highly relevant questions, scholars have mainly referred to single case studies, and therefore comparative research on these issues is rare. A new data set promises academic relief by establishing a basis for such much-needed comparative analyses. It covers all humanitarian military interventions since the Second World War and presents information on target countries prior to, during, and after interventions. The data set also includes information on the interventions themselves, including their mandates, aims, activities, and aftermath.
Applying a widely-shared definition, we understand humanitarian military intervention as the threat or use of force, with the declared intention of protecting citizens in the targeted country from widespread violence. Defining this concept—recently also discussed under the label of the Responsibility to Protect—can be a contentious issue. Taking this into consideration, our data set includes information covering further aspects of humanitarian military interventions. This allows users to adapt our data set to their favored definition. The compilation consists of data matrices and structured case descriptions that document all coding decisions.
The data set allows us to reconsider certain commonly-held assumptions. For instance, the claim that humanitarian military interventions are on the wane is refuted by the number of ongoing operations and of violent conflicts that might trigger further humanitarian military interventions. Many commentators stress the dominant role of Western states and organizations. Our data set demonstrates that humanitarian military interventions are not a Western monopoly, as evidenced by interventions carried out by Russia, India, and African organizations.
The data set documents death rates caused by violent conflicts prior to and during interventions. This could be used to investigate the accuracy of further assumptions surrounding humanitarian military interventions, such as that most humanitarian military interventions worsen the situation in the target country, reduce the extent of organized violence, or have no impact at all.
The data set could also be used to explore the average effect of humanitarian military interventions by comparing crisis-ridden countries that experienced an intervention with a matched group of cases that exhibited the same relevant properties but in which no humanitarian military intervention occurred. Cases with humanitarian military interventions could also be compared with each other to identify conditions under which they are associated with either an escalation or a de-escalation of deadly violence. The Peace Research Institute Frankfurt's 'Data Set on Humanitarian Military Interventions since the Second World War' paves the way for these and other politically relevant analyses. Full article >>
Human Rights: International Norms, International Shaming | Summer 2019
Zhanna Terechshenko, Charles Crabtree, Kristine Eck & Christopher J. Fariss, Evaluating the influence of international norms and shaming on state respect for rights: an audit experiment with foreign embassies, International Interactions, 45:4 (2019). Read now >>
How do international norms affect respect for human rights? A large and lively literature debates the extent to which and why states comply with international norms. Perhaps the dominant view in this literature is that states abide by international law to placate other important global actors, such as human rights organizations. According to this view, adherence with international norms should be highest when external actors have the power to sanction states for noncompliance.
We conducted an audit experiment with foreign missions to investigate the extent to which state agents observe international norms and react to the prospect of international shaming. Following a common audit study design, our experiment involved emailing 669 foreign diplomatic missions in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom with requests to contact domestic prisoners. According to the United Nations, prisoners have the right for individuals to contact them. We randomly varied two aspect of our request: (1) whether we reminded embassies about the existence of an international norm permitting prisoner contact and (2) whether the putative email sender is associated with a fictitious human rights organization and, thereby, has the capacity to shame missions through naming and shaming for violating this norm. We found strong evidence for the positive effect of international norms on state respect for human rights. Contra to the literature's expectations, though, we found that the potential of international shaming does not increase the probability of state compliance. The positive effect of the norms cue disappears when it is coupled with the shaming cue, suggesting that shaming might have a 'backfire' effect. We speculate that when bureaucrats at foreign missions receive both cues, they might prefer not to respond than to reply in a way that might be unsatisfying to an individual with potential shaming power. Avoidance might be seen as a better option than an unsuccessful attempt at compliance.
These findings have clear policy implications for human rights organizations (HROs) and states seeking to enforce human rights norms. In particular, our finding on the joint effect on norms and shaming highlights an important proviso for human rights advocates that there may be unintended and deleterious consequences to efforts aimed at inducing compliance if they increase the risk to individual agents. This finding can possibly explain why some HROs prefer to use soft tactics over hard pressure on states and their agents in order to change their behavior. While our explanation of this finding remains speculative, it suggests that future research should investigate the parameters under which state agents are willing and able to respect rights. In addition, the empirical evidence for the effect of international norms suggests the importance of addressing human rights issues through international law and international community pressure in improving human rights practices across states. Full article >>
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