The Promise of Democratic Pacification: An Empirical Assessment

Abstract

Democracy and democratization have long been heralded as resolutions to coercive governance, but there are at least two ways in which they can influence state repressive activity. In one, both killing and restriction are reduced (i.e., behavior is “pacified”); in another, killing is diminished while political restrictions are continued (i.e., behavior is “tamed”). Much research has explored the first possibility, but none has addressed the second. Examining 137 countries from 1976 to 1996, I find that democracy generally pacifies state repression and that democratization tends to increase both forms of repressive behavior—especially political restrictions, which provides support for the taming argument. However, the impact of both variables is occasionally minimal, when compared against domestic and international conflict. Therefore, while one may look to democracy as a resolution to repression, it is clear that individuals must also consider the overarching political context when assessing relationships.

Do governments mean business when they derogate? Human rights violations during notified states of emergency

“…Political regime type is both theoretically conceptualized and empirically known to have a strong effect on human rights violations (Poe 2004;Davenport 2004Davenport , 2007aDavenport and Armstrong 2004;Simmons 2009). To be sure, while there is near consensus that democracy has a positive effect and autocracy a negative effect on human rights, there is controversy about whether the move from autocracy to democracy has a linear or non-linear effect and whether there is a threshold only above which democracy exerts its positive effect.…”

Torture Approval in Comparative Perspective

“…5 In sum, constraining the power of the executive within the government is one way to reduce violations of personal integrity. Davenport (2004Davenport ( , 1999 claims that democracy pacifies internal repression. Henderson (1991) finds democratic consolidation is related to less frequent violations of personal integrity rights.…”

Human Rights Violations, Weak States, and Civil War

“…Typically, the vast amount of these studies has tried to explain under what conditions human rights violations occur. Six factors have consistently been found to influence the level of violations of personal integrity rights (Poe and Tate 1994;Poe et al 1999): past repression (Davenport 1995;Richards et al 2001), democracy (Henderson 1991;Fein 1995;Rummel 1994Rummel , 1995Davenport 1995Davenport , 2004Zanger 2000;Regan and Henderson 2002;Harff 2003;Davenport and Armstrong 2004;Valentino et al 2004;Easterly et al 2006;Eck and Hultman 2007;Colaresi and Carey 2008), the level of economic development (Mitchell and McCormick 1988;Carey 2004;Besançon 2005), population size (Henderson 1993;Carey 2004), international war, and civil war (Krain 1997;Zanger 2000;Harff 2003;Wayman and Tago 2009).…”