Collaborative Research: An Organizational Approach to State Repression

本项目旨在提高我们对国家镇压、侵犯人权行为及其使用情况的了解。近50年来，政治学和社会学的研究一直试图理解政府为何压制公民。尽管作出了这些努力，但人们对下令镇压行为的人(“委托人”)和从事这种活动的个人(“代理人”)之间的关系知之甚少。这项研究汇集了文献中的不同方法，以发展一种包罗万象的压制性组织理论。私人投资机构以北爱尔兰为相关案例，生成关于侵犯人权行为的新数据。PIs测试了有关何时何地可以预期镇压以及如何遏制镇压的理论预测。这项研究对理解和最终防止美国和世界各地的侵犯人权行为具有重要意义。技术综述为了解释压制的使用在时间和空间上的差异，PI开发了一种专注于三个因素的理论：委托人和代理人如何解释挑战者威胁；事件报道如何确定委托人及其代理人可以获得的信息；以及压制机构是如何组织的。他们研究了跨空间、时间和组织单位的高度分类的威胁、报告、组织和镇压数据。特别是，私人投资机构收集关于1968年至1998年期间联合王国和北爱尔兰政府镇压活动的新的微观事件数据。该数据集使用来自旅、营和英国内阁级别的英国陆军文件来确定这些级别的知识和报告程度，并评估委托人和特工在这场冲突中的作用，包括时间(按天)、空间(按社区)和行动者(按营)。

General Summary This project seeks to improve our understanding of state repression, human rights violation and the circumstances involved with their use. For nearly 50 years, research in political science and sociology has attempted to understand why governments repress their citizens. Despite these efforts little is known about the relationship between those who order repressive acts ("principals") and the individuals committing such activities ("agents"). The research draws together different approaches in the literature to develop an encompassing theory of repressive organizations. The PIs generate new data on human rights violations, using Northern Ireland as the case of interest. The PIs test theoretical predictions regarding when and where repression can be expected as well as how it may be contained. This study has implications for understanding and ultimately preventing human rights violations within the United States and around the world. Technical Summary To account for variation in the use of repression across time and space, the PIs develop a theory focusing on three factors: how principals and agents interpret challenger threats; how event reporting determines the information available to principals and their agents; and how the repressive apparatus is organized. They examine highly disaggregated data on threat, reporting, organization, and repression across space, time, and organizational unit. In particular, the PIs collect new micro-level event data on the repressive activity of the United Kingdom and Northern Irish governments that took place from 1968 through 1998. This dataset uses British Army files from the Brigade, Battalion and British Cabinet levels to determine the degree of knowledge and reporting across these levels and to assess the role of principals and agents in this conflict across time (by day), space (by neighborhood) and actor (by battalion).