Peer Reviewed Publications
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Open Science
Works in Progress
Unpacking the Role of In-Group Bias in Public Opinion on Human Rights Violations
Working paper
Pre-registration
Which social identities drive public opinion on human rights violations? While research indicates that in-group bias plays a crucial role in determining how the public responds to government abuses, the relative influence of different identity characteristics has not been directly tested. Using a conjoint survey experiment in the United States of 3,200 respondents, I compare the causal effects of in-group bias across multiple social divides (partisanship, race, religion, and citizenship) and actor identities (perpetrator, target, and elite cue giver). The findings reveal that party loyalty to the perpetrator dominates other group identities; as such, simply changing the perpetrator’s political identity determines whether respondents oppose the violation. Surprisingly, the target’s race, religion, citizenship, and partisan cues have little effect. These results provide new insights into when individuals prioritize group loyalty over human rights and where public demand for government accountability may be reduced.
Comparing State Repressive Actions: Classifying the Content of Physical Integrity Rights Abuse Allegations using Machine Learning Methods with K. Chad Clay, Christopher J. Fariss, Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright
Agents of the state choose from among a variety of repressive tactics, ranging from mildly coercive actions, such as detentions and arrests, to lethal tactics such as mass killings. Theorizing and modeling actors’ selection of coercive tactics is central concern of quantitative human rights and repression scholars. Previously, the labor-intensive nature of the data collection process has impeded scholars’ ability to investigate questions about repressive tactic selection. To help address
this challenge, we present and evaluate an automated coding process that produces categorical information about physical integrity rights violations described in annual human rights reports. The coding process builds on an existing corpus of human rights allegations. Allegations are sentences taken from country-year human rights reports published annually by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the US State Department. Each allegation sentence presents information about a specific type of physical integrity violation (disappearances, torture, killing and political imprisonment) and may also contain information about the actor type, location, and intensity. We provide several empirical assessments that showcase the relative validity improvements of the new allegations data and how to implement these data in applied analyses. We specifically extend two projects. The first analysis focuses on the use of extraordinary rendition and allegations of physical integrity abuse. The second analysis focuses on the relationship between human rights treaty ratification and allegations of physical integrity abuse.
Human Rights Violations in the Name of Countering Terrorism
Working paper
Why do some states abide by international law to counter terrorism, while others use broad definitions of terrorism to violate human rights? The lack of data differentiating human rights abuses in the name of counter-terrorism from other settings have impeded comparative investigations on this topic. I address this gap by creating the first annual global dataset of counter-terrorism human rights violations using a supervised machine learning method. I develop a new measure of counter-terrorism human rights abuses using a latent variable model to correct for bias in human rights reporting sources and use an instrumental variable analysis to control for endogeneity. I illustrate that countries are more likely to violate human rights in the context of counter-terrorism when there is greater political exclusion of ethnic groups. Framing out-groups as terrorists provides political cover for governments to stifle political dissent, provide legality for abuses, and avoid public backlash for violations.
Public Perception of Dissent and Repressive Response with Chelsea Estancona
Pre-registration
What factors drive variation in state responses to protesters and public support for a repressive response? The literature about repression and dissent suggests that given the costs of violence against civilians, states will reserve violent repression for particularly threatening groups. This assumes that states and their agents assess threat in a uniform manner and decide to limit their responses independently from the preferences of other groups outside of the principal-agent relationship. However, many contentious political events (protests, riots, and repressive state action) occur in locations where state agents are not only accountable to government principals, but also to members of the public. We argue that public perception of dissenters’ characteristics becomes particularly informative for state agents, especially in areas where law enforcement officials are elected. To test this, we conduct a conjoint survey experiment of 2,600 respondents in the U.S. where we present respondents with randomly generated profiles of social unrest events and ask them questions about their approval of the police tactics, including the use of force. We then pair the results from the survey experiment with machine coded ACLED data to evaluate whether public opinion impacts state responses more in areas with competitive elections for sheriff. This allows us to examine whether state agents respond differently in U.S. localities where law enforcement are more accountable to the public than areas where they are less accountable.
Assessing Refugee Rights: New Data and Analysis with Lamis Abdelaaty and Idean Salehyan
Why do some states abide by international laws and norms regarding refugee protection, while other routinely violate them? We argue that the rights afforded to refugees depends on not only the characteristics of the receiving country, but also on the sending country, and the relationship between states. Therefore, states may protect certain refugees, but violate the rights of others, depending on their nationality. However, systematic data on host country treatment of refugees by nationality has not been available. In this paper we present new data—based on a supervised machine learning automated coding method of annual reports of the US Committee for Refugees—on the refugee rights and physical integrity rights of refugees by sending-receiving country dyads for countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We present a preliminary analysis of several hypotheses assessing the role of normative commitments to human rights versus strategic state interests, and refugee ethnicity. We find strong evidence that host countries routinely discriminate between various refugee communities.
Measuring Sub-national Levels of Repression: A Latent Variable Model with K. Chad Clay, Christopher J. Fariss, Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright
We present a measurement model that aggregates human rights information from country-year allegation data taken directly from the human rights reports published annually from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the US State Department. First, we review categorized information about four specific types of physical integrity violations (disappearances, torture, killing and political imprisonment). In addition each allegation is coded for content that includes the date, actor type, location, scope, intensity, range, victim type, and whether or not the violator of the right was held accountable. This allegation dataset is generated from a supervised machine learning coding process and contains over 100,000 human rights allegation observations. Second, we develop latent variable models that aggregate this information. The measurement models are hierarchical because each version aggregates information from these allegation records into estimates that allow for the comparison of country-year and sub-national-year units. Because we have disaggregated the content of the annual human rights country reports, the measurement models are able to use any single piece of information or combination of information into estimates that are values for higher level country and sub-country units. We compare these new country-year latent variable estimates to existing ones and the new sub-country-year units to other disaggregated information related to human rights abuse.
All Repression Is Local: The Sub-national Determinants of Physical Integrity Rights Abuse with K. Chad Clay, Christopher J. Fariss, Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright
Why do we observe different levels of respect for human rights in different regions of the same country? Why are citizens’ human rights generally uniformly protected (or abused) within the borders of some countries while within other countries these rights are upheld in some locations and severely restricted in others? Prior research investigating patterns of human rights protection and violation has typically treated states as centralized decision-makers and examined state respect for human rights as a single, countrywide phenomenon. This approach masks important variations in the actors perpetrating abuses, motives for the abuse, targets of the abuse, and severity of abuse. We propose that cross-national human rights researchers must break their focus on the country as the unit of analysis and look at the sub-national characteristics of repressive behaviors. We argue that antigovernment dissent encourages government agents to respond with repression. However, this response is particularly likely when government power is highly decentralized, when the dissent takes place far from the national capital, and when the local government is largely incapable of controlling its repressive agents. We test this theory using an original dataset that represents the first attempt to document the level of repression at the subnational level for a global sample of countries over space and time.
Working paper
Pre-registration
Which social identities drive public opinion on human rights violations? While research indicates that in-group bias plays a crucial role in determining how the public responds to government abuses, the relative influence of different identity characteristics has not been directly tested. Using a conjoint survey experiment in the United States of 3,200 respondents, I compare the causal effects of in-group bias across multiple social divides (partisanship, race, religion, and citizenship) and actor identities (perpetrator, target, and elite cue giver). The findings reveal that party loyalty to the perpetrator dominates other group identities; as such, simply changing the perpetrator’s political identity determines whether respondents oppose the violation. Surprisingly, the target’s race, religion, citizenship, and partisan cues have little effect. These results provide new insights into when individuals prioritize group loyalty over human rights and where public demand for government accountability may be reduced.
Comparing State Repressive Actions: Classifying the Content of Physical Integrity Rights Abuse Allegations using Machine Learning Methods with K. Chad Clay, Christopher J. Fariss, Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright
Agents of the state choose from among a variety of repressive tactics, ranging from mildly coercive actions, such as detentions and arrests, to lethal tactics such as mass killings. Theorizing and modeling actors’ selection of coercive tactics is central concern of quantitative human rights and repression scholars. Previously, the labor-intensive nature of the data collection process has impeded scholars’ ability to investigate questions about repressive tactic selection. To help address
this challenge, we present and evaluate an automated coding process that produces categorical information about physical integrity rights violations described in annual human rights reports. The coding process builds on an existing corpus of human rights allegations. Allegations are sentences taken from country-year human rights reports published annually by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the US State Department. Each allegation sentence presents information about a specific type of physical integrity violation (disappearances, torture, killing and political imprisonment) and may also contain information about the actor type, location, and intensity. We provide several empirical assessments that showcase the relative validity improvements of the new allegations data and how to implement these data in applied analyses. We specifically extend two projects. The first analysis focuses on the use of extraordinary rendition and allegations of physical integrity abuse. The second analysis focuses on the relationship between human rights treaty ratification and allegations of physical integrity abuse.
Human Rights Violations in the Name of Countering Terrorism
Working paper
Why do some states abide by international law to counter terrorism, while others use broad definitions of terrorism to violate human rights? The lack of data differentiating human rights abuses in the name of counter-terrorism from other settings have impeded comparative investigations on this topic. I address this gap by creating the first annual global dataset of counter-terrorism human rights violations using a supervised machine learning method. I develop a new measure of counter-terrorism human rights abuses using a latent variable model to correct for bias in human rights reporting sources and use an instrumental variable analysis to control for endogeneity. I illustrate that countries are more likely to violate human rights in the context of counter-terrorism when there is greater political exclusion of ethnic groups. Framing out-groups as terrorists provides political cover for governments to stifle political dissent, provide legality for abuses, and avoid public backlash for violations.
Public Perception of Dissent and Repressive Response with Chelsea Estancona
Pre-registration
What factors drive variation in state responses to protesters and public support for a repressive response? The literature about repression and dissent suggests that given the costs of violence against civilians, states will reserve violent repression for particularly threatening groups. This assumes that states and their agents assess threat in a uniform manner and decide to limit their responses independently from the preferences of other groups outside of the principal-agent relationship. However, many contentious political events (protests, riots, and repressive state action) occur in locations where state agents are not only accountable to government principals, but also to members of the public. We argue that public perception of dissenters’ characteristics becomes particularly informative for state agents, especially in areas where law enforcement officials are elected. To test this, we conduct a conjoint survey experiment of 2,600 respondents in the U.S. where we present respondents with randomly generated profiles of social unrest events and ask them questions about their approval of the police tactics, including the use of force. We then pair the results from the survey experiment with machine coded ACLED data to evaluate whether public opinion impacts state responses more in areas with competitive elections for sheriff. This allows us to examine whether state agents respond differently in U.S. localities where law enforcement are more accountable to the public than areas where they are less accountable.
Assessing Refugee Rights: New Data and Analysis with Lamis Abdelaaty and Idean Salehyan
Why do some states abide by international laws and norms regarding refugee protection, while other routinely violate them? We argue that the rights afforded to refugees depends on not only the characteristics of the receiving country, but also on the sending country, and the relationship between states. Therefore, states may protect certain refugees, but violate the rights of others, depending on their nationality. However, systematic data on host country treatment of refugees by nationality has not been available. In this paper we present new data—based on a supervised machine learning automated coding method of annual reports of the US Committee for Refugees—on the refugee rights and physical integrity rights of refugees by sending-receiving country dyads for countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We present a preliminary analysis of several hypotheses assessing the role of normative commitments to human rights versus strategic state interests, and refugee ethnicity. We find strong evidence that host countries routinely discriminate between various refugee communities.
Measuring Sub-national Levels of Repression: A Latent Variable Model with K. Chad Clay, Christopher J. Fariss, Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright
We present a measurement model that aggregates human rights information from country-year allegation data taken directly from the human rights reports published annually from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the US State Department. First, we review categorized information about four specific types of physical integrity violations (disappearances, torture, killing and political imprisonment). In addition each allegation is coded for content that includes the date, actor type, location, scope, intensity, range, victim type, and whether or not the violator of the right was held accountable. This allegation dataset is generated from a supervised machine learning coding process and contains over 100,000 human rights allegation observations. Second, we develop latent variable models that aggregate this information. The measurement models are hierarchical because each version aggregates information from these allegation records into estimates that allow for the comparison of country-year and sub-national-year units. Because we have disaggregated the content of the annual human rights country reports, the measurement models are able to use any single piece of information or combination of information into estimates that are values for higher level country and sub-country units. We compare these new country-year latent variable estimates to existing ones and the new sub-country-year units to other disaggregated information related to human rights abuse.
All Repression Is Local: The Sub-national Determinants of Physical Integrity Rights Abuse with K. Chad Clay, Christopher J. Fariss, Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright
Why do we observe different levels of respect for human rights in different regions of the same country? Why are citizens’ human rights generally uniformly protected (or abused) within the borders of some countries while within other countries these rights are upheld in some locations and severely restricted in others? Prior research investigating patterns of human rights protection and violation has typically treated states as centralized decision-makers and examined state respect for human rights as a single, countrywide phenomenon. This approach masks important variations in the actors perpetrating abuses, motives for the abuse, targets of the abuse, and severity of abuse. We propose that cross-national human rights researchers must break their focus on the country as the unit of analysis and look at the sub-national characteristics of repressive behaviors. We argue that antigovernment dissent encourages government agents to respond with repression. However, this response is particularly likely when government power is highly decentralized, when the dissent takes place far from the national capital, and when the local government is largely incapable of controlling its repressive agents. We test this theory using an original dataset that represents the first attempt to document the level of repression at the subnational level for a global sample of countries over space and time.
Book Reviews
Kathryn Sikkink. 2017. “Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century”. Journal of Peace Research. 2021.
Public Scholarship
Foreign countries are helping autocracies repress exiled dissidents in return for economic gain with Kashmiri Medhi. The Conversation. 2024.
Social Unrest During Epidemics with Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright. Science Node. 2021.
The Political Costs of Abusing Human Rights. Political Violence @ a Glance. 2021.
Do Pandemics Contribute to Social Unrest? with Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright. Indiana University IT News and Events. 2021.
Human Rights Has Made Giant Strides, Philanthropy Can Help Drive Movement through Transition. Alliance Magazine. 2019.
Security-Civil Liberties Trade-offs: International Cooperation in Extraordinary Rendition. Political Violence @ a Glance. 2018.
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 and Thorin M. Wright. Political Violence @ a Glance. 2018.
The U.S. Carried Out Extraordinary Renditions From 2001-2005. Here Are 15 Countries That Helped. Monkey Cage, Washington Post. 2017.
Nepal Earthquake: Fears that relief efforts could exasperate poor political record Human Rights Centre Blog, University of Essex. 2016.
CIA Torture Is Out in the Open – But Guantanamo Bay Detainees Are Still Going Nowhere. The Conversation. 2014.
Social Unrest During Epidemics with Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright. Science Node. 2021.
The Political Costs of Abusing Human Rights. Political Violence @ a Glance. 2021.
Do Pandemics Contribute to Social Unrest? with Reed M. Wood and Thorin M. Wright. Indiana University IT News and Events. 2021.
Human Rights Has Made Giant Strides, Philanthropy Can Help Drive Movement through Transition. Alliance Magazine. 2019.
Security-Civil Liberties Trade-offs: International Cooperation in Extraordinary Rendition. Political Violence @ a Glance. 2018.
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 and Thorin M. Wright. Political Violence @ a Glance. 2018.
The U.S. Carried Out Extraordinary Renditions From 2001-2005. Here Are 15 Countries That Helped. Monkey Cage, Washington Post. 2017.
Nepal Earthquake: Fears that relief efforts could exasperate poor political record Human Rights Centre Blog, University of Essex. 2016.
CIA Torture Is Out in the Open – But Guantanamo Bay Detainees Are Still Going Nowhere. The Conversation. 2014.
