Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Organizing Oppression: Government, Politics and the Violation of Human Rights

尽管围绕人权的重要性正在形成共识，但政治压迫仍然是一个永远存在的现实。在过去的几十年里，一个科学研究项目已经发展起来，以解释为什么国家滥用其公民的人权。但是，尽管该模型具有解释力，但它在预测未来滥用行为方面的效用仍然有限。因此，政策干预基本上是被动的，决策者对观察到的侵犯人权行为作出反应，而不是采取措施主动预防未来可能发生的侵犯人权行为。开发一个能够更好地预测未来侵犯人权行为的模型，需要深入研究对侵犯人权行为负责的组织，并直接调查最终导致政治镇压的决策过程。为此，本项目调查了危地马拉安全机构的内部运作和该国内战期间发生的侵犯人权的事件。该研究提供了理论和方法上的改进，在抑制研究的领先研究。该理论确定了镇压性官僚机构，如警察、军队或特种部队，如何产生和更新对镇压行动潜在成功或失败的预期。这些理论上的主张是用关于危地马拉安全机构内部运作的独特数据来评估的。这项研究的基础是危地马拉国家警察档案，这是一个由警察在内战期间收集和编纂的超过800万份未经审查的记录的宝库。档案馆的藏品包含了前所未有的细节，包括潜在的和实际的政治镇压目标，导致侵犯人权。就更广泛的影响而言，这项研究将产生可用于限制冲突和防止政治暴力的实用知识。

In spite of an emerging consensus around the significance of human rights, political repression remains an ever-present reality. Over the past few decades, a scientific research program has developed to explain why states abuse their citizens' human rights. But despite the explanatory power of this model, its utility for predicting future abuses remains limited. As a result, policy interventions are essentially reactive, with policy makers responding to observed violations of human rights rather than taking steps to proactively prevent human rights abuses anticipated in the future.Developling a model that is better able to forecast future violations of human rights requires delving deeper into the organizations responsible for human rights violations and directly investigating the decision-making processes that ultimately produce political repression. To do so, this project investigates the internal workings of the Guatemalan security apparatus and the violation of human rights that took place during the country's civil war. The study provides both theoretical and methodological improvements over the leading studies in repression research. The theory identifies how repressive bureaucracies, such as the police, military, or special forces, generate and update expectations of the potential success or failure of repressive actions.These theoretical claims are evaluated using unique data on the inner workings of the Guatemalan security apparatus. The Guatemalan National Police Archive, upon which this research is based, is a trove of more than eight million uncensored records collected and composed by the police during the civil war. The Archive's collection contains unprecedented detail on both potential and actual targets of political repression leading to violations of human rights.With regards to broader impacts, this study will generate practical knowledge that can be applied to limit conflict and prevent political violence.