Sovereignty, State Failure and Human Rights

Englehart, Neil A.

doi:10.4324/9781315408224

Cited by 6 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…No matter how economically developed or democratic a country is, or how well international and domestic laws articulate provisions for protecting human rights, citizens could still remain prone to violence if the state cannot enforce rules. Despite global economic growth, the spread of democracy and the large amount of human rights legislation created since the end of World War II, neither of the two main human rights indices (PTS scores and the CIRI physical integrity index) improved over time (Englehart, 2017). While Fariss (2014) argues that this apparent stagnation in human rights progress is actually due to a ‘systematic change’ in the way human rights indicators are measured, a large body of cross-national studies maintain that the spread of international human rights treaties and legislation alone has not been effective at improving human rights worldwide (Keith, 1999; Hathaway, 2002; Neumeyer, 2005; Hafner-Burton & Tsutsui, 2007; Englehart, 2009; Hill, 2010).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Englehart (2017) makes a good example of the state of the literature. The author argues that, controlling for other structural factors like economic development and the level of democracy, state capacity can positively affect human rights, because many human rights violations are committed by ‘petty despots’ rather than ‘exemplary villains’.…”

Section: Exemplary Villains and Petty Despots: Authorized Vs Unauthorized Rights Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The author argues that, controlling for other structural factors like economic development and the level of democracy, state capacity can positively affect human rights, because many human rights violations are committed by ‘petty despots’ rather than ‘exemplary villains’. ‘Much of the human rights abuse’, Englehart argues, ‘is committed not by exemplary villains but by petty despots, including grasping landlords, corrupt minor officials, local party bosses, gangs of armed thugs and bigoted individuals’ (Englehart, 2017: 3). A stronger modern state, with tighter control over its bureaucracy and a monopolization of violence, can thus significantly improve human rights by policing these unauthorized acts of abuse.…”

Section: Exemplary Villains and Petty Despots: Authorized Vs Unauthorized Rights Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A stronger modern state, with tighter control over its bureaucracy and a monopolization of violence, can thus significantly improve human rights by policing these unauthorized acts of abuse. Consequently, Englehart (2017) places great emphasis on a state’s ability to police its agents and enforce its laws. A state that fails to effectively keep petty despots in check ends up having high levels of abuse.…”

Section: Exemplary Villains and Petty Despots: Authorized Vs Unauthorized Rights Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Without the right amount of state capacity then, protecting human rights can be a greater challenge. Variations in state capacity could lead to meaningful differences among states in their protection of human rights, since legal and political commitments cannot be taken seriously in states with low capabilities (Englehart, 2017: 16).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Are stronger states more humane? A re-evaluation of ‘exemplary villains’

Chae

2020

Journal of Peace Research

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In general, the human rights scholarship finds stronger states to be more humane. In particular, Englehart’s recent book and article assert that ‘petty despots’, rather than ‘exemplary villains’, are the real culprits behind the abuse of human rights. However, some exemplary villains are truly exemplary; providing them with greater powers will only intensify human rights abuses. Indeed, the idea that even dictatorships would better protect rights when stronger contradicts some of the most well-known cases of mass-murder that occurred in powerful authoritarian states. In an attempt to resolve this puzzle, this article argues that, while state capacity does matter, it matters differently for dictatorships and democracies. In both regimes, there are certain types of human rights violations that, from the government’s perspective, happen unwittingly. These unauthorized human rights violations are perpetrated by petty despots trying to benefit from the state’s principal–agent problems. Yet, unlike a democracy, a dictatorship can authorize the violation of certain types of human rights to accomplish its objectives. Whereas state capacity can reduce ‘unauthorized’ types of abuses, it would not necessarily diminish such abuses that are ‘authorized’ by the state. The net effects of state capacity, therefore, will not be as positive for autocracies as they are for democracies. To validate this argument, this article conducts 18 ordered logistic regressions with a time-series cross-sectional dataset that encompasses no less than 142 countries from the period of 1981 to 2002. The empirical analysis provides solid support for the theorized relationship among human rights, state capacity and regime type. As predicted, state capacity improves human rights in democracies but not necessarily in autocracies.

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