Does increased militarization of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) lead to an increase in violent behavior among officers? We theorize that the receipt of military equipment increases multiple dimensions of LEA militarization (material, cultural, organizational, and operational) and that such increases lead to more violent behavior. The US Department of Defense 1033 program makes excess military equipment, including weapons and vehicles, available to local LEAs. The variation in the amount of transferred equipment allows us to probe the relationship between military transfers and police violence. We estimate a series of regressions that test the effect of 1033 transfers on three dependent variables meant to capture police violence: the number of civilian casualties; the change in the number of civilian casualties; and the number of dogs killed by police. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between 1033 transfers and fatalities from officer-involved shootings across all models.

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How can information campaigns of nongovernmental human rights organizations (HROs) to “name and shame” human rights violators improve human rights conditions? Is the effect direct—does HRO targeting induce violating states to change their behavior? Or is the effect indirect—does pressure by third parties mediate the relationship between HRO actions and changes in human rights practices? The boomerang and spiral models suggest HRO activity provokes third parties, such as other states and international organizations, to pressure violating states. This pressure, in turn, drives violating states to improve human rights conditions. On the other hand, recent empirical work finds third-party pressure can further degrade human rights conditions. In this paper we provide a comprehensive analysis of how these individual factors—HRO activities and pressure from third parties—work together in the larger chain of causal events influencing human rights conditions. Using a causal mediation model, we examine whether HRO campaigning improves human rights directly or if the effect is mediated by costs imposed by powerful actors through sanctions and military interventions. We find that, although HRO activities have an overall positive effect on human rights conditions, the negative effects of third-party pressure somewhat diminish the positive effects.

A wealth of literature argues that domestic institutions can sometimes restrain government repression. In this article, we highlight an institution tasked specifically with protecting and promoting human rights: the National Human Rights Institution (NHRI). Although common international standards exist, NHRIs exhibit substantial variation in their organization, the rights that they protect, the activities they permit, and the manner in which they appoint their members. Scholarship to date has conceptualized and measured NHRIs dichotomously; an NHRI either exists or it does not. We present data that highlights NHRI heterogeneity collected via content analysis of NHRI annual reports, NHRI websites, national constitutions, government legislation, and other sources. Using these data, we show NHRIs that can publish their findings and NHRIs that can punish offenders are each associated with less state torture. These data will allow future researchers to better explore important questions regarding NHRI origins, design, processes, and effectiveness.

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