Peer Reviewed Publications
Security-civil liberties trade-offs: International cooperation in extraordinary rendition Rebecca Cordell 2018 International Interactions Forthcoming Following the launch of the War on Terror, the US established a global rendition network that saw the transfer of Central Intelligence Agency terrorist suspects to secret detention sites across the world. Conventional accounts of foreign complicity show that 54 diverse countries were involved, including many established democracies. What determined more than a quarter of the world’s countries to participate in Rendition Detention and Interrogation operations during the post-9/11 period? Given the sensitive nature of cooperation required, I argue that the US screened countries according to their preferences on security-civil liberties trade-offs. Countries with similar preferences to the US on human rights were cheaper to buy off and would have required less persuasion to cooperate. This theory is consistent with the existing claim that cooperation is more likely between countries with similar preferences as both actors are better off when the partnership increases. I test this hypothesis on global data using United Nations General Assembly voting data as a proxy for common interest and develop a spatial variable that models a country’s logistical utility during the transfer of a detainee based on their distance to a central rendition transit corridor between the US and Afghanistan. The analysis provides robust empirical support for my theoretical argument. Measuring extraordinary rendition and international cooperation: A response to Blakeley and Raphael Rebecca Cordell 2018 International Area Studies Review 21(2): 179-187 In my article, “Measuring extraordinary rendition and international cooperation” I present a model that can be used to measure extraordinary rendition and identify international cooperation in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program using public flight data and information on rendition flight characteristics. My analysis identifies 307 new likely rendition flights and 15 previously unidentified countries potentially involved. In response, Blakeley and Raphael argue that these results do not move beyond what they have already published, and also challenge the claim that these flights are “likely rendition flights” as they have not been triangulated by further evidence. However, it seems inconsistent to claim both that: (a) the findings are not new; and (b) the findings are wrong. I respond to their concerns by providing a detailed evaluation of my results in relation to their own findings. I demonstrate that there are important differences between the results in Blakeley and Raphael’s previous work and my own. I reinforce my earlier claim that triangulating these new results with reliable qualitative evidence is a crucial step. Measuring extraordinary rendition and international cooperation Rebecca Cordell 2017 International Area Studies Review 20(2): 179-197 Replication Data Following the launch of the War on Terror, the United States of America established a global rendition network that saw the transfer of US Central Intelligence Agency terrorist suspects to secret detention sites across the world. There has been considerable debate over how many countries participated in rendition, secret detention and interrogation during the post-9/11 period, and conventional accounts of foreign complicity suggest that diverse countries were involved, including many established democracies. However, research on rendition has continually suffered from uncertainty, a lack of data, and systematic empirical evidence due to the secret nature of counter-terrorism cooperation. In this article, I argue that it is possible to study the practice of rendition, unlike many other forms of clandestine security cooperation, as it is partially observable. Specifically, suspected extraordinary rendition flight paths can be tracked using publicly available flight data. This article uses the world’s largest set of public flight data relating to rendition to estimate cross-country collaboration in rendition, secret detention and interrogation. The result suggests 307 likely rendition flights and 15 new participating countries beyond the 54 known cases, with cross validation tests demonstrating high levels of model accuracy. Under review/working papersThe political costs of abusing human rights: International cooperation in extraordinary rendition
Rebecca Cordell International relations and conflict scholars continue to debate the political cost of abusing human rights for the governments that perpetrate them but are hindered by data availability given the secret nature of repression. Unlike many instances of repression, international cooperation in extraordinary rendition has the advantage of being observable (ex-post) as we can analyze detainee testimony and suspected extraordinary rendition flight paths using publicly available data. We now know that more than a quarter of all countries in the world cooperated in this secret rendition network that enabled the transfer of US Central Intelligence Agency terrorist suspects to secret detention sites after the launch of the War on Terror in 2001. While governments and leaders in some states have not been punished for participating, others have incurred several political costs, including electoral defeats. What explains the variation in the political costs of participation in the post-9/11 Rendition Detention and Interrogation program? I argue that left of center governments suffered greater political costs from being caught because of the perception that they should be more concerned about protecting civil liberties in the context of national security. I test the effect of party orientation on electoral defeat at the election following the revelation of cooperation in extraordinary rendition using a sample of all democracies where the party in office at the time of cooperation remained the same. The analysis provides empirical support for my theoretical argument. Machine and human coding approaches to measuring sub-national variation of repression with K Chad Clay, Chris J Fariss, Reed M Wood, Thorin M Wright Human Rights Reporting in Transition: Comparing US State Department Human Rights Reports Across Presidential Administrations with K Chad Clay, Chris J Fariss, Reed M Wood, Thorin M Wright An examination of the decline of conflict's impact on human rights with K Chad Clay, Chris J Fariss, Reed M Wood, Thorin M Wright Institutions and violent crime across American Indian nations with Florian G Kern and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch Federal versus indigenous constitution-making: Constitutional texts and governance outcomes in American Indian and Alaska Native nations with Florian G Kern and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch Introducing the Tribal Leaders Survey with Florian G Kern and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch Other Publications
How does the Trump administration think about human rights? Evidence from the State Department country reports
with K Chad Clay, Chris J Fariss, Reed M Wood, Thorin M Wright 2018 Political Violence @ a Glance The U.S. carried out extraordinary renditions from 2001-2005. Here are 15 countries that helped Rebecca Cordell 2017 Monkey Cage, Washington Post CIA torture is out in the open – but Guantanamo Bay detainees are still going nowhere Rebecca Cordell 2014 The Conversation |