Do Democratic Institutions Reduce Human Rights Violations or Just Prevent More Violations than Current Levels? An Exogenous Explanation of Human Rights Improvements in Democracies

This article argues that human rights improvements are hard to achieve even in democracies because elites and citizens may not want to sacrifice other policy goals for human rights reforms even though both elites and citizens are believed to prefer better human rights protections. Improving human rights is a costly job that requires capacity to deter or reconcile with opposition against reforms, rationales and incentives to break bureaucratic rigidity, and the people’s consent to use resources, as well as sound institutions and higher levels of economic development. Without changes in domestic preferences or resources that are exogenous to domestic institutions and somewhat susceptible to international factors—including changes in power structures, norm diffusion, transactions, and assistance—democratic leaders have little to do beyond supporting current practices in order not to be voted out. Using dynamic ordered probit models, this article assesses whether the democratic effect decreases human rights violations or prevents more violations than current levels. The results indicate that low levels of human rights violations are not more likely to emerge under democratic governments compared to other types of regimes, but low levels of violations are more likely to continue in democracies, which suggest that democratic institutions are effective in maintaining good practices rather than creating them. Demonstrating the limited nature of the democratic effect, this article also lends insight into the alternative causal routes involving international contexts for the improvement of human rights.