State Repression Human Rights Midterm

Rights-in-Principle (De Jure)

The formal, legal protection of rights as codified in treaties, constitutions, and legislation.

Rights-in-Practice (De Facto)

The actual enjoyment and exercise of rights by individuals on the ground.

Implementation Gap

The disparity between de jure and de facto rights. A negative gap indicates that the actual enjoyment of rights is worse than the legal framework suggests.

Fundamental Problem of Unobservability

The core challenge is that much human rights abuse is hidden, underreported, or biased, making the true extent of violations difficult to measure.

Events-Based Data

Data generated by coding specific, individual instances of violations (e.g., "who did what to whom"). It offers high detail but faces challenges with underreporting.

Standards-Based Data

Quantitative scales derived from qualitative reports (e.g., Amnesty International, U.S. State Department) that rate countries on their overall human rights performance (e.g., Political Terror Scale). It is better for comparison but can lose nuance.

Survey-Based Data

Data collected from individuals about their experiences and values. It is valuable but often expensive.

Socio-Economic/Administrative Data

Using development statistics (e.g., literacy rates, poverty levels) as indirect indicators of rights enjoyment.

New Forms of Data / Big Data

Innovative sources like satellite imagery, social media analysis, and AI used to detect issues like modern slavery or mass graves.

Multiple Systems Estimation (MSE)

A statistical technique that uses overlapping lists of victims to estimate the total number of victims, including the unknown "dark figure."

Political Terror Scale (PTS)

Only measures state-led violence through the U.S. State Department Report, Amnesty International report, Human Rights Watch report.

CIRI

Same sources as the PTS but disaggragates data depending on torture, summary executions, political imprisonment, and disappearances. Also provides a single aggregated score.

Sources and Methods

Freedom House, Amnesty International, V-Dem, CIRI, Human RIghts Watch, U.S. State Department.

Civil and Political Rights

Freedoms such as speech, association, voting, and a fair trial.

Physical Integrity Rights

Rights protecting individuals from state-sponsored physical harm, including torture, extrajudicial killing, political imprisonment, and disappearance.

Economic and Social Rights

Rights ensuring basic living conditions, such as access to food, housing, healthcare, and education.

Changing Standard of Accountability

The idea that human rights monitors have become more rigorous and critical over time. This creates an instrumentation bias, making it seem like rights have not improved when they may have.

Source Selection Bias

The tendency for different data sources (e.g., newspapers, NGOs, eyewitnesses) to capture different types of events based on their location (urban vs. rural), focus (killings vs. disappearances), and institutional goals.

Bias in Reporting

Systematic error, such as the alleged political bias in the U.S. State Department reports, where violations are exaggerated in hostile countries (negative bias) or downplayed in allied countries (positive bias).

Law of Coercive Responsiveness

The principle that when a government faces challenges or threats to its power, it generally responds with repressive action.

Domestic Democratic Peace

The empirical pattern that democracies generally use less internal violence and repression than non-democracies. This is theorized to be due to voice, values, and veto.

Voice

Opportunities for political participation.

Values

Individuals in democracies generally accept specific values regarding passivity, toleration, communication, and deliberation.

Veto Points/Constraints

Institutional checks on executive power.

Principal-Agent Model

A framework explaining how leaders (principals) delegate repression to subordinates (agents).

Preference Asymmetry

Agents may have different motives for or against repression than the leader.

Information Asymmetry

Leaders cannot perfectly monitor their agents.

State Actors

Military, police.

State-Sponsored Actors

Pro-Government Militias (PGMs), paramilitaries, vigilante groups.

Non-State Actors

Rebel groups, terrorist organizations, criminal organizations, Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs).

Threat

The primary motivator, often from civil war, protests, or dissent.

Regime Type

Democracies are generally less repressive, but this effect can be "swamped" during high-threat situations like civil war. Hybrid regimes can be particularly repressive.

Opportunity & Willingness

Repression occurs when the state has the capacity (resources, personnel) and low accountability.

Contextual Factors influencing repression

Neighborhood Effects, repression may increase if a nearby country is in conflict due to fear of contagion. Demography, Youth bulges can lead to preemptive repression. Economic Development, poorer countries tend to be more repressive. Historical Legacies, Colonial history can create a path dependence toward repression.

Evasion Strategies (The 4 Ds)

Denial, claiming the event never happened. Delay, postponing investigations or consequences. Delegation, shifting blame to subordinates ("can't control" vs. "won't control"). Diversion, justifying repression as a necessary "tragic choice" (e.g., security vs. rights).