Governance effects on Human rights

1. Traci Batla tb7150a@student.american.edu American University School of International Service Governance effects on Human rights

2. Research Question and Hypothesis • Does the quality of governance have an effect on human rights violations? • H0: Governance indicators and human rights violations are not associated

3. Literature Review • “Thinking inside the Box: A Closer Look at Democracy and Human Rights” • Theory: Democracy is reliable as a means of reducing human rights abuses only when institutional reforms pass thresholds that ensure accountability, thereby translating institutional changes into behavioral changes. • Findings: States with democracy levels below full democracy do not have a significant improvement in human rights, accountability was very important in respect for human rights, and human rights violations are not significantly reduced until the democracy transition is almost complete • “Determinants of Human Rights Attitudes and Behavior: A Comparison and Integration of Psychological Perspectives” • Theory: Political-psychological perspectives (social control, freedom and autonomy, and ideology) as determinants of orientations toward human rights, can account for individual differences in human rights orientations • Findings: People that support democratic values desire a decrease in human rights violations while people with a negative view of human rights prefer military intervention and the enforcement of human rights

4. Data • Unit of analysis : country • Sources • Freedom House • World Bank • The Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Project • Dependent variable • 2007physint (Level of Respect for Physical Human Rights) • Ordinal Variable • Measured on a scale from 0 – 8 with 0 being no government respect for physical human rights and 8 being high government respect for physical human rights as measured by number of disappearances, killings, imprisonment, and torture • Independent Variables • 2007Corrup (Control of Corruption Index) interval-ratio measured from -2.5 to 2.5 with higher values being higher control of corruption • 2007Freescore (Level of Freedom Score) Ordinal Free (0-30), Partly Free (31-60), Not Free (61-100) • 2007Gdppc (GDP Per Capita) interval-ratio measured in current USD$

5. Descriptive Statistics Table or/and Graphics • For level of respect for human rights (scale 0-8), the mean = 5.057592 and the mode = 7 • Range: 0 – 8 • Missing Data: • Majority: Small islands (i.e. Netherlands Antilles, Cook Islands, Virgin Islands, etc..) • Significant: North Korea, Somalia, Palestine, Kosovo

6. Descriptive Statistics (Cont.)

7. Bivariate analysis • Interpretation of reported statistics in these tables: • Control of Corruption: • i) Association, yes statistically significant • ii) Direction = positive • Freedom Score: • i) Association, yes statistically significant • ii) Direction = positive • GDP per Capita: • i) Association, yes statistically significant • ii) Direction = positive

8. Probit Results • All independent variables are significant at α=0.05 • Model 1: Control of Corruption – for every unit increase in control of corruption, the probability that a country respect human rights increases by 43.57%. • Model 2: Freedom Score - for each unit decrease in freedom score (i.e. more free), the probability that a country respect human rights increases by 1.61%. • Model 3: Control of Corruption – for every unit increase in control of corruption, the probability that a country respect human rights increases by 29.42%. Freedom score - for each unit decrease in freedom score (i.e. more free), the probability that a country respect human rights increases by 1.01. • Model 4: Control of Corruption – for every unit increase in control of corruption, the probability that a country respect human rights increases by 29.38%. Freedom score - for each unit decrease in freedom score (i.e. more free), the probability that a country respect human rights increases by 1.05% GDP per Capita– This variable is not statistically significant and therefore has no association. • Model 5: No statistically significant variables. Note the collinearity between control of corruption and government effectiveness and rule of law as seen through the changes in significance.

9. Probit: Model Choice • Model 3 is the BLUE model. With 188 observations and a pseudo r-squared of 0.3776 this model shows great explanatory power. • With every unit increase in control of corruption, the likelihood that governments will respect human rights will increase by 0.2942 or 29.42%. • With every unit decrease in level of freedom (lower values in freedom score means an increase in the level of freedom), the likelihood that governments will respect human rights will increase by 0.0102 or 1.02%. • As pseudo r-squared is a PRE measure, with a pseudo r-squared of 0.3776, there will be 37.76% fewer errors in predicting government respect for human rights by using Model 3.

10. Findings & Policy Implications of the research • Findings: Did you accept your research hypothesis? • Yes, accepted Ha. Governance indicators are associated with human rights violations • Control of corruption was the most effective in increasing the probability of respecting human rights. If a country is strong enough to control corruption then they are strong enough to respect human rights • What are the policy implications of your findings? • Focus on controlling corruption over creating a more free society and other governance initiatives.