Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time: Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability
Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time: Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability
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DOI：
10.1017/s0003055414000070
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发表时间：
2014-05-01
影响因子：
6.8
通讯作者：
Fariss, Christopher J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fariss, Christopher J.
根据学者们目前使用的政治镇压指标，尽管人权规范得到了传播，监督得到了加强，选举民主日益普及，但在过去35年里，人权实践并没有得到改善。我认为，这种经验模式并不表明人权实践停滞不前。相反，它反映了像国际特赦组织和美国国务院这样的监督机构在遇到和解释有关虐待的信息时方式的系统性变化。用于评估国家行为的问责标准变得更加严格，因为监督人员更努力地寻找滥用行为，在更多的地方寻找滥用行为，并将更多的行为归类为滥用行为。在本文中，我提出了一个新的，理论上知情的测量模型，它使用现有数据产生无偏估计的抑制。然后我表明，随着时间的推移，对人权的尊重有所改善，尊重人权与批准《联合国禁止酷刑公约》之间的关系是积极的，这与现有研究的结果相矛盾。
According to indicators of political repression currently used by scholars, human rights practices have not improved over the past 35 years, despite the spread of human rights norms, better monitoring, and the increasing prevalence of electoral democracy. I argue that this empirical pattern is not an indication of stagnating human rights practices. Instead, it reflects a systematic change in the way monitors, like Amnesty International and the U. S. State Department, encounter and interpret information about abuses. The standard of accountability used to assess state behaviors becomes more stringent as monitors look harder for abuse, look in more places for abuse, and classify more acts as abuse. In this article, I present a new, theoretically informed measurement model, which generates unbiased estimates of repression using existing data. I then show that respect for human rights has improved over time and that the relationship between human rights respect and ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture is positive, which contradicts findings from existing research.