Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T16:27:57.143Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Human Rights Institutions, Sovereignty Costs and Democratization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

Abstract

Why do countries join international human rights institutions, when membership often yields few material gains and constrains state sovereignty? This article argues that entering a human rights institution can yield substantial benefits for democratizing states. Emerging democracies can use the ‘sovereignty costs’ associated with membership to lock in liberal policies and signal their intent to consolidate democracy. It also argues, however, that the magnitude of these costs varies across different human rights institutions, which include both treaties and international organizations. Consistent with this argument, the study finds that democratizing states tend to join human rights institutions that impose greater constraints on state sovereignty.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego (email: ehafner@ucsd.edu); Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania (email: emansfie@sas.upenn.edu); Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison (email: pevehouse@polisci.wisc.edu). Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto; the 2012 annual convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego; and colloquia at the University of Chicago Law School, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Virginia and University of Wisconsin. For helpful comments and suggestions, we are grateful to the participants in these conferences and seminars, in particular Alice Kang, Kal Raustiala, Peter Rosendorff, Jana von Stein and Erik Voeten. For research assistance, we thank Tana Johnson, Kathryn Chylla, Devra Cohen, and especially Felicity Vabulas. Data replication sets and online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123413000240.

References

Abbott, Kenneth, Keohane, Robert, Moravcsik, Andrew, Slaughter, Anne-Marie Snidal, Duncan. 2000. The Concept of Legalization. International Organization 54:401419.Google Scholar
Abbott, Kenneth Snidal, Duncan. 2000. Hard and Soft Law in International Governance. International Organization 54:421456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, Katz, Jonathan N. Tucker, Richard. 1998. Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable. American Journal of Political Science 42:12601288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burkhart, Ross Lewis-Beck, Michael. 1994. Comparative Democracy: The Economic Development Thesis. American Political Science Review 88:903910.Google Scholar
Carothers, Thomas. 1999. Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Cingranelli, David Richards, David. 2010. The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project. Human Rights Quarterly 32:395418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Wade M. 2005. Sovereignty Relinquished? Explaining Commitment to the International Human Rights Covenants, 1966–1999. American Sociological Review 70:472495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Wade M. 2009. Hard and Soft Commitments to Human Rights Treaties, 1966–2000. Sociological Forum 24:563588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedom House. 2012. Freedom in the World. Available from http://www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world, accessed 26 April 2013.Google Scholar
Ghosn, Faten, Palmer, Glenn. 2003. Codebook for the Militarized Interstate Dispute Data, Version 3.0. Available from http://www.correlatesofwar.org, accessed 26 April 2013.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian. 2004. Polity Data Archive. Available from http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/polity.html, accessed 24 April 2013.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian Ward, Michael. 1999. A Revised List of Independent States since the Congress of Vienna. International Interactions 25:393413.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Wallensteen, Peter, Eriksson, Mikael, Sollenberg, Margareta Strand, Håvard. 2002. Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset. Journal of Peace Research 39:615637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodliffe, Jay Hawkins, Darren. 2006. Explaining Commitment: States and the Convention Against Torture. Journal of Politics 68:358371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, Ernst. 1980. Why Collaborate? Issue Linkage and International Regimes. World Politics 32:357405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. 2005. Trading Human Rights: How Preferential Trade Arrangements Influence Government Repression. International Organization 59:593629.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. 2009. Forced to be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. 2012. International Human Rights Regimes. Annual Review of Political Science 15:265286.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. Tsutsui, Kiyoteru. 2005. Human Rights in a Globalizing World: The Paradox of Empty Promises. American Journal of Sociology 110:13731411.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A. 2002. Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference? The Yale Law Journal 111:19352042.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A. 2003. The Cost of Commitment. Stanford Law Review 55:18211862.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A.. 2007. Why Do Countries Commit to Human Rights Treaties? Journal of Conflict Resolution 51:588621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Darren. 1997. Domestic Responses to International Pressure: Human Rights in Authoritarian Chile. European Journal of International Relations 3:403434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Darren. 2004. Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms. International Studies Quarterly 48:779804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, Aten, Bettina. 2002. Penn World Table Version 6.1. Center for International Comparisons, University of Pennsylvania. Available from https://pwt.sas.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt_index.php, last accessed 18 June 2013.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Jaggers, Keith Gurr, Ted Robert. 1995. Tracking Democracy's Third Wave with the Regime Type III Data. Journal of Peace Research 32:469482.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret E. Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kelley, Judith. 2004. Ethnic Politics in Europe: The Power of Norms and Incentives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Klebes, Heinrich. 1999. The Quest for Democratic Security: The Role of the Council of Europe and U.S. Foreign Policy. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Koh, Harold Hongju. 1997. Why Do Nations Obey International Law? Yale Law Journal 106:25992659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landman, Todd. 2005. Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1992. Transitions to Democracy and Democratic Consolidation: Theoretical and Comparative Issues. In Issues in Democratic Consolidation, edited by Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell and Arturo Valenzuela, 294342. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D. Pevehouse, Jon C.. 2006. Democratization and International Organizations. International Organization 60:137167.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D. Pevehouse, Jon C.. 2008. Democratization and the Varieties of International Organizations. Journal of Conflict Resolution 52:269294.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D. Snyder, Jack. 2002. Incomplete Democratization and the Outbreak of Military Disputes. International Studies Quarterly 46:529549.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Edward D. Snyder, Jack. 2005. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Monty. 2004. Regime Type Polity 4 Data Set Codebook. Available from http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm, accessed 26 April 2013.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2000. The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in Postwar Europe. International Organization 54:217252.Google Scholar
Neumayer, Eric. 2005. Do International Human Rights Treaties Improve Respect for Human Rights? Journal of Conflict Resolution 49:925953.Google Scholar
Pevehouse, Jon. 2005. Democracy from Above? Regional Organizations and Democratization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pevehouse, Jon, Nordstrom, Timothy Warnke, Kevin. 2004. The Correlates of War 2 International Governmental Organizations Data Version 2.0. Conflict Management and Peace Science 21:101119.Google Scholar
Poe, Steven Tate, C. Neal. 1994. Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s: A Global Analysis. American Political Science Review 88:853872.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pridham, Geoffrey. 1994. The International Dimension of Democratization: Theory, Practice, and Inter-regional Comparisons. In Building Democracy? The International Dimension of Democratization in Eastern Europe, edited by Geoffrey Pridham, Eric Herring and George Sanford, 731. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Pridham, Geoffrey. 1995. The International Context of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective. In The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective, edited by Richard Gunther, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros and Hans-Jurgen Puhle, 166203. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas Sikkink, Kathryn. 1999. The Socialization of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Politics: Introduction. In The Power of Human Rights, edited by Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink, 138. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schimmelfennig, Frank. 2005. Strategic Calculation and International Socialization: Membership Incentives, Party Constellations, and Sustained Compliance in Central and Eastern Europe. International Organization 59:827860.Google Scholar
Shanks, Cheryl, Jacobson, Harold K. Kaplan, Jeffrey H.. 1996. Inertia and Change in the Constellation of International Governmental Organizations. International Organization 50:593627.Google Scholar
Sikkink, Kathryn. 1993. Human Rights, Principled Issue-Networks, and Sovereignty in Latin America. International Organization 47:411441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, Beth. 2009. Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J. David. 1987. Reconstructing the Correlates of War Dataset on Material Capabilities of States, 1816–1985. International Interactions 14:115132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J. David, Bremer, Stuart Stuckey, John. 1972. Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820–1965. In Peace, War, and Numbers, edited by Bruce Russett, 1948. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Singer, J. David Small, Melvin. 1994. Correlates of War Project: International and Civil War Data, 1816–1992. Study No. 9905. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.Google Scholar
Smith-Cannoy, Heather. 2012. Insincere Commitments: Human Rights Treaties, Abusive States, and Citizen Activism. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Tony. 1994. In Defense of Intervention. Foreign Affairs 73:3446.Google Scholar
von Stein, Jana. 2005. Do Treaties Constrain or Screen? Selection Bias and Treaty Compliance. American Political Science Review 99:611622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Stein, Jana. 2012. Database of Universal Human Rights Agreements. Available from http://www.isr.umich.edu/humanrights, accessed 18 June 2013.Google Scholar
Vreeland, James Raymond. 2008. Political Institutions and Human Rights: Why Dictatorships Enter into the United Nations Convention Against Torture. International Organization 62:65101.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2012. World Development Indicators. Available from http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators, accessed 18 June 2013.Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph. 2009. How Foreign Aid Can Foster Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes. American Journal of Political Science 53:552571.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Hafner-Burton Supplementary Material

Supplementary Materials

Download Hafner-Burton Supplementary Material(File)
File 24.6 KB
Supplementary material: File

Hafner-Burton Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Hafner-Burton Supplementary Material(File)
File 30.7 KB