Of One’s Own Making: Leadership Legitimation Strategy and Human Rights

Abstract

Why do states and their agents abuse citizens? Traditional explanations focus on contentious politics, the presence of institutions, and international pressures. Despite this, accounts dissecting the state and its agents in this context of abuse remain largely theoretic in nature. This article offers a breakthrough for within-the-state accounts of human rights abuses by focusing on state leaders and their relationship to broader government institutions and function. We posit that personalist leaders have fundamentally different relationship with institutions that foster human rights respect, arguing that leaders relying on their own merits and qualities are less likely to either activate or manipulate institutions of accountability for human rights abuses. Using data from 1991 to 2019, we show that the presence of leaders legitimizing themselves within personalist framing can worsen human rights conditions.