Why do states violate human rights (Final)

Question 1

Rational explanations

Answer 1

Willingness –> Cost-benefit calculation –> Main goal?. Typical goal that a political leader has in most rationalist models: To stay in power. All this with respect to the willingness of states to violate or not.

Question 2

Rational explanations: Capacity (The Managerial School)

Answer 2

Why can states violate their legal obligations even when they’re willing to comply?
1. Capacity in terms of material capacity: Compliance with their obligations requires certain resources that the state may be lacking. As a result of scarcity of resources, they may only be able to partially comply with obligations. What the violators need is more resources and help in this situation.
2. State’s capacity to understand the extend of their obligations. What exactly do the provisions contained in this treaty imply for you? You may be misunderstanding what is expected of you.
For the cases in which the issue is not lack of willingness but lack of capacity, this school of thought has a lot to offer. m

Question 3

Violating physical integrity rights –> Repression: Perceived threats

Answer 3

Resort to repression is going to be more likely the greater the threat is. Two kinds:
1. Reactive repression: Some kind of protests going on, and the govt perceives that as a three t(doesn’t matter if the threat is objectively real or not, it matters how the govt perceives it) and reacts tot it, but putting in some sort of repression.
2. Preventative repression: Govt thinks that a group will try to undermine or overthrow them. Instead of waiting for actors to organize themselves, they act preemptively and start persecuting these people. Govts who enjoy abundance of legitimacy will tend to not feel threatened by protests, whereas govts undergoing a legitimacy process can perceive them as much more threatening.

Question 4

Violating physical integrity rights –> Repression: Why choose violence to neutralize the threat?

Answer 4

1. Because they can –> capacity: Technically all govts have the capacity to use violence against citizens protesting on the street. Question is more in terms of how costly it is for the govt to engage in this. Some states have more capacity to engage in that kind of violence, but for other leaders it’s more costly.
2. Because repression is more convenient (net benefits) than its alternatives (less violent and more friendly). Net benefits (benefits - costs) is greater when engaging in violence than alternative.

Question 5

What facilitates the violation of physical integrity rights? Political Regime: Democratic rule

Answer 5

The stakes: Leader’s perception of threat (legitimacy platform). Whether a state is democratic or autocratic matters. A riot in an autocratic regime is more threatening to that government than a similar riot in a democratic regime. Typically their legitimacy depends on their environment (how satisfied the people are with their regime - subjective measure). The costs: Accountability. In democracies the can raise issues against the government for violation of human rights, legislature can have a vote of non-confidence, free press. These costs of engaging repression exist to a much lesser extent in autocratic regimes. The norms in democracies is an expectation to never use violence, and engage in negotiations etc. These norms don’t exist in autocracies. The benefits tend to be less in democracies because the states are less, and the costs tend to be more because of the accountability mechanisms.

Question 6

What facilitates the violation of physical integrity rights? Political Regime: Semi-democracies

Answer 6

Tend to be problematic when it comes to engaging in repression. The highest average of political terror comes from semi-democracies. Explanation: the accountability and cultural norms that work well in well-established democracies to raise the costs are still very weak in semi-democracies. On top of that, the semi-democracies are much more vulnerable than autocracies, because given the repressive prestige that autocracies have, it’s unlikely for people to protest in the first place. In semi-democracies, people are going to be less deterred from engaging in these kinds of protests. As a result, the likelihood in engaging in repression should be higher.

Question 7

What facilitates the violation of physical integrity rights? Economic development

Answer 7

Poverty undermines legitimacy

Question 8

What facilitates violation of physical integrity rights? Intensity of the manifested opposition

Answer 8

Violence begets violence