Table 3 shows the number of country-years sanctions of each level of severity described here have been applied by the US and the UN.
Table 3: Sanctions Events 1976-2001 (by country year)
Severity of Sanctions Event US UN Total
Level 1: Diplomatic or Mild Economic Sanctions 224 16 240 Level 2: Moderate Economic or Trade Sanctions 150 66 216
Level 3: Comprehensive Sanctions 129 26 155
Total 503 104 607
Though an imperfect measure of the severity of sanctions, these categories provide some information as to the severity of the impact of sanctions on a target state. As the severity of the sanctions regime increases, the level of physical integrity abuse is expected increase accordingly. That is, the retraction of expected US foreign aid should result in a smaller increase in political repression compared to the imposition of comprehensive sanctions or a total US trade embargo. Similarly, while the “sting” resulting from the UN’s imposition of travel restrictions or other primarily diplomatic sanctions on a nation’s
leadership is unlikely to provoke it to severe increases in human rights abuses, imposing comprehensive sanctions and virtually closing a state out of the global economic community is likely to produce a severe response from political elites as they attempt to shift the costs to citizens and ratchet up levels of repression in order to maintain control. Finally, because the negative impact of sanctions on an economy is not generally immediately visible, any
adverse effects resulting from sanctions imposed at t-1 are likely to produce changes in human rights violations at t or later. Both sanctions variables are therefore lagged for one- year to account for this delay and to control for endogeneity.
Control Variables
The control variables included in this model are international conflict, civil war, democracy, level of economic development, economic growth, and population size. Each of these variables, in some similar form, has previously been employed in models in which human rights or physical integrity was the dependent variable, and each is shown to exert a statistically significant effect on changes in human rights conditions.
Previous studies of the predictors of human rights abuses have found a strong positive relationship between involvement in international conflict and human rights abuse (Poe and Tate, 1994; Poe et al., 1999). Because of national security concerns and the danger posed by internal political division, regimes often employ more severe or repressive security measures than they would during peacetime; moreover, the greater the threat and the longer the
duration of the war, the more repression is likely to increase. International conflict is a dummy variable determined here by a score of 5 in the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MIDs)
data set, representing involvement in a conflict that has produced over 1000 battlefield deaths.
Similarly, the presence of civil conflict has consistently demonstrated a strong negative impact on human rights conditions. During a civil conflict, governments place additional restrictions on civil and human rights (Poe and Tate, 1994; Poe et al., 1999). Human rights violations may increase during civil conflicts as governments resort to more severe means in order to secure stability, combat internal dissent, and retaliate against political violence. Consequently, I hypothesize that state repression of physical integrity rights will increase during periods of civil conflict. Civil war is coded as a dummy variable and is taken from the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) conflict dataset and reflects the existence of a conflict that produces1000 battlefield deaths per annum.
Democracy has proven to be among the most significant predictors of respect for physical integrity rights within a nation (Davenport and Armstrong, 2004; Poe and Tate 1994; Poe et al., 1999). In brief, owing to restraints on government authority and the ability of citizens to sanction government leaders that employ abuses tactics, higher levels of democracies should correlate to lower levels physical integrity abuse. Countries whose institutions provide for popular participation in government, frequent turnover in executive and representative bodies, separation of powers, and the just rule of law typically exhibit a high level of respect for fundamental human rights and only infrequently the rights of their citizens. Most previous quantitative studies of human rights have upheld this proposition. However, Christian Davenport and David Armstrong (2004) demonstrate that the
relationship between levels of democracy and violations of physical integrity rights (a subset of human rights) is not linear. Changes in respect for physical integrity do not incrementally
increase in tandem with movements toward democracy; rather, only states that have achieved a high level of democracy (greater than 7 on the Polity scale) show significant differences in their respect for these rights.
I operationalize democracy as a binary variable coded as 0 (non-democratic) for countries scoring 6 and below and 1 (democratic) for countries scoring 7 or higher on the –10 to 10 Polity2 score of the Polity IV dataset (Jaggers and Gurr).10 This simplifies
interpretation of the effect of the variable and follows the recommendations of Jaggers and Gurr (1995, 479) and Alvarez et al. (1996). In line with past research, I hypothesize that coded in this manner democracy will have a positive impact on human rights practices. Several studies have identified a relationship between economic development and human rights standards (Henderson, 1991; Poe and Tate, 1994; Poe et al., 1999). These studies suggest that higher levels of economic development, measured in GDP or GDP per capita, produce lower levels of physical repression. Economic growth likewise positively affects state respect for human rights (Olson, 1963; Poe et al., 1999). Specifically, as the “pie” increases and citizens have greater access to resources and wealth, instability decreases. As internal threats from disaffected factions of the population decrease, governments reduce repression. Conversely, when GDP per capita falls and the pie shrinks—as is the case in sanctioned nations—instability and internal threat rise, and regimes tend toward greater repression. Economic decline should correlate to an increase in state repression. I log GDP per capita in order to standardize it across the sample. Economic growth is the percent
10 I choose to operationalize democracy as 7 or higher on the Polity2 scale rather than using the more
restrictive 8 demonstrated by Davenport and Armstrong to affect human rights condition. I choose this measure because it is the standard practice in the discipline. However, tests using democracy operationalized as Polity2 > 7 show similar results.
change in the per capita GDP from year to year. Both measures come from the United Nations Common statistics database.
Past studies of human rights and state repression have found that population size contributes to higher levels of state violence and human rights abuses (Poe et al., 1999). This hypothesis is based on the notion that large populations absorb economic growth and
increase stress on the government in their demands for public goods. When a government cannot meet these demands civil unrest often occurs. Faced with growing dissent and civil turbulence, governments are likely to resort to measures that are more repressive. Increases in violations of physical integrity rights thus may occur as state security forces attempt to subdue opposition and restore order. Larger populations may also simply provide more opportunities for state security forces or other government agents to repress the citizens of a country.
Finally, human rights reports and indices relying raw events data or failing to control for population may capture total violations rather than risk to an individual. States with large populations such as China, India, or Russia may therefore appear more systematic in their violations than states with smaller populations when in fact the per capita rate of violations is similar. Based on previous research, I include an estimate of population size taken from the United Sanctions common statistics database. I log this estimate in order to standardize it across the sample. I hypothesize that larger populations will promote the use of physical repression in a developing country.