Political Repression. Linda Camp Keith
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the transformative power of international normative discourse on human rights and on activism by transnational actors (international organizations and nongovernmental actors) who support local efforts to press for human rights commitment and who also, through repeated interactions with state actors, socialize states to accept new norms. Thus, constructivists would argue that international socialization changes both the menu of appropriate choices and the values through which the regime will evaluate the choices.
The opportunity and willingness framework is also appropriate for the public law perspective, which posits that a potentially repressive regime would be constrained by a written constitution with a bill of fundamental rights and freedoms that are protected by an independent judiciary empowered with judicial review (for example, Rosenthal 1990; Ramseyer 1994; Prillaman 2000; Mutua 2001). Written bills of rights greatly extend the reach of the rule of law and provide individual protection from the overextension of governmental power, providing new duties and standards of justice and fairness that both politicians and bureaucrats are now required to meet; and, more importantly, they represent “catalogues of very important interests and activities over which the individual rather than the state has been given final control” (Beatty 1994, 16). In addition, the law itself may serve as a socializing agent, and, coupled with a strong civil society and a judiciary that is at least somewhat independent, may cultivate a budding rights consciousness within the state (MacGuigan 1965; Martin 1991; Murphy 1993; Tate and Vallinder 1995; Epp 1998). Or, as James Madison (1788) stated, “political truths declared in that solemn manner … become incorporated with the national sentiment, and counteract the impulses of interest and passion” (297–300). Thus, bills of rights and a judiciary empowered with judicial review could potentially change the menu of appropriate choices, change the costs of inappropriate choices, and influence the values through which the regime will evaluate the choices.
The framework is also appropriate for the “domestic democratic peace” perspective in comparative politics. Opportunity is constrained because the structure and limited nature of democratic governments make extensive use of repression more difficult and costly to arrange. Willingness is dampened because democracy “provides citizens (at least those with political resources) the tools to oust potentially abusive leaders from office before they are able to become a serious threat” (Poe and Tate 1994, 855); thus the cost of repression is increased (Davenport 1999). Willingness is also lessened because strong democracies provide a variety of alternative mechanisms through which conflict can be channeled for possible resolution (Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999; Davenport 2007c), and it is also dampened by “the socialization processes that guide citizens of democratic polities toward the belief that nonviolent means of resolving conflicts are preferred over violence” (Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999, 293). As Davenport (1999) notes, it is not just the institutions of democracy but also “the norms (of compromise, toleration, and facilitation) accompanying these institutions” that influence the decisions of the rulers by “increasing the cost of human rights violations as well as decreasing the value to quiescence” (96). He also argues that these alternative mechanisms “weaken the justification for coercive activity by reducing the likelihood for human conflict and facilitating the conveyance of grievances” (Davenport 2007c, 11).
Here I have identified briefly some the core assumptions of the dominant theories that I believe share features that may be incorporated under Most and Starr’s “organizing concepts” of opportunity and willingness. Ultimately, I argue that state actors’ choices to employ the tools of repression are shaped by factors based in the agent (for example, democratic values, ideological preferences, and resources), structure (for example, competitive party system or independent judiciary), and environment (for example, domestic and external threats). These factors influence which options (tools of repression) are available or deemed appropriate as well as shape the consequences and the costs and benefits of employing the tools of repression. In Chapter 2 I address in more detail the theories of repression, and in the subsequent chapters I explore more fully specific hypotheses for the various forms of state commitment and repression.
Plan of the Book
In Chapter 2 I examine the dominant theories of political repression that span three subfields in political science, and place them within the opportunity and willingness framework. I then examine extant large-N cross-national empirical studies, place my results here within that literature, and identify their contribution to the development of that field. In Chapter 3 I address the “standard model” that has developed over time, expanding it to cover a much longer period and to reflect developments within the literature in regard to the influence of democracy and the availability of new measures of specific individual rights. Through these analyses I address more thoroughly the conflicting expectations regarding the effect of military regimes and Marxist/Marxist-Leninist regimes. I find that the standard model as a whole continues to perform in explaining a broad range of acts of political repression, and I use these base models as the foundation for analyses in the following chapters that examine that effect of the judiciary and the law on state repression. Throughout these models I control for fixed effects. In Chapter 4 I expand the standard model to account for state embeddedness in global society, examining the role of global and regional norms, the influence of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and memberships in international governmental organizations and human rights treaties. I also broaden my focus to liberal economic theory and examine the influence of World Trade Organization membership, trade, and foreign direct investment. This chapter presents a substantive examination of the role of judicial independence: why states commit formally to the norm of judicial independence, whether these formal commitments make a difference, and the circumstances that shape the actual achievement of judicial independence within the state. I believe these analyses are the first systematic cross-national empirical examinations of these questions. I also present a new measure of de facto judicial independence and examine its relationship with both categories of repression. Throughout these analyses, I control for fixed effects and selection effects. I also examine interactions between judicial independence and the transnational network and domestic circumstances. In Chapter 5 I examine state bills of rights, specifically, constitutional commitments to individual freedoms and due process rights, first examining factors that influence commitment, especially prior commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). I believe these analyses are the first large-N cross-national empirical examination of the question of why states adopt particular constitutional provisions. I then examine the influence of that commitment on repression of the specific rights promised in the provisions, controlling for selection effects, fixed effects, and examining interactions between these rights and judicial independence and the presence of INGOs. In Chapter 6 I examine thoroughly the influence of a variety of types and levels of threats to regimes on the repression of personal integrity rights and restriction of civil liberties. Ultimately, I examine the effectiveness of state of emergency provisions in models that are conditioned on the level and type of threat. Throughout these analyses I control for fixed effects as well as selection effects. Finally, in Chapter 7 I examine the implications of the research in terms of our theoretical and empirical understanding of state repression as well as the potential policy implications of protecting human rights. I discuss candidly the limitations of these analyses and point the way forward for future research.
Chapter 2
Empirical Theories and Studies of Political Repression
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