To Err is Human Rights: Toward a Pragmatist Activism (abstract)

Human rights activists have often been criticized by political scientists for being “principled” rather than “pragmatic” actors. Rarely, though, is this criticism accompanied by a discussion of what pragmatism means, or what pragmatic action looks like. In this article, I conceptually trace and define three aspects of pragmatism: philosophical, methodological, and political. I then consider how these aspects of pragmatist thought can be applied in the world of human rights activism. Among other things, I argue that pragmatic activism should remain flexible about the foundations of human rights ideals, that it should accept and even encourage local bad-mouthing of global organizations, that it should embrace imperfect vernacularization of rights laws, that it should endorse activism through trial and error, and that it should move away from linking impact evaluation to funding. The paper then argues through examples that many human rights activists are already pragmatic political actors. The conclusion of this analysis is that the “pragmatist” critique deployed against human rights activists is at minimum underdeveloped, and at maximum coded discourse harboring conservative, anti-rights positions

The Origins of Gun Policy in U.S. States

This article examines gun regulation at the state level. It argues that, while federal gun regulation remains quite rare, the states frequently act in the gun regulation arena. From a political geography perspective, this article examines the attitudes underlying state-level gun regulation measures. To do so, the article draws on a dataset of over 4,700 gun-related bills introduced in state legislatures between 2011 and 2015. This analysis yields the conclusion that areas with higher crime rates are less likely to support gun rights legislation, while rural areas and those with a higher proportion of white residents, are more likely to support such bills

Retributive or Reparative Justice? Explaining Post-Conflict Preferences in Kenya

In states emerging from mass violence and human rights abuses, do individuals prefer retributive punishment of perpetrators through trials, or do they wish to be compensated with land or monetary reparations for their injuries? How does the concrete option of prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) moderate these preferences? Using unique survey data from 507 Kenyans collected in 2015, we build on and add nuance to the empirical literature that interrogates the link between exposure to mass violence and post-conflict justice preferences. We find that while some individuals prefer reparative justice, victims and witnesses generally want perpetrators to be prosecuted. Even for those who are co-ethnics of government leaders – who allegedly instigated widespread killing, sexual assaults and displacements – direct exposure to those acts leads to greater desire for prosecutions. We further find that one’s personal experience with violence also leads one to reject domestic justice in favor of international justice: victims and witnesses who favored retributive justice are highly likely to believe that the ICC is the best option for prosecuting perpetrators

Human Rights Enforcement from Below: Private Actors and Prosecutorial Momentum in Latin America and Europe

Over the last three decades, thousands of prosecutions for human rights abuses have progressed through domestic courts, a puzzling fact considering that state leaders have little incentive to punish their own agents. Previous studies have advanced rational-choice or sociological-institutionalist accounts of this phenomenon, emphasizing the role of political coalitions or regional cultures. Few, though, have recognized the local, private struggles that lie at the root of the trend toward domestic human rights enforcement. In this article, we develop a historical-institutionalist theory of normative change centered on the notion of “prosecutorial momentum.” We contend that the rise in domestic trials against rights-abusing state agents in Europe and Latin America results in large part from the cumulative efforts of victims and human rights lawyers utilizing their rights to private criminal prosecution. Using a new data set and mixed methods, we offer a systematic analysis of how rights to private criminal prosecution, when activated in response to a legacy of repression, helps set in motion sustained efforts to pursue domestic enforcement and compliance with international law

The Difference Law Makes: Domestic Atrocity Laws and Human Rights Prosecutions

This article offers the first systematic analysis of the effects of domestic atrocity laws on human rights prosecutions. Scholars have identified various political and sociological factors to explain the striking rise in human rights prosecutions over the past 30 years, yet the role of domestic criminal law in enabling such prosecutions has largely been unexamined. That is surprising given that international legal prohibitions against human rights atrocities are designed to be enforced by domestic courts applying domestic criminal law. We argue that domestic criminal laws against genocide and crimes against humanity facilitate human rights prosecutions in post-authoritarian states by helping to overcome formal legal roadblocks to prosecution, such as retroactivity, amnesties, immunities, and statutes of limitations. Using original data on domestic atrocity laws and human rights prosecutions in new democracies, we find that atrocity laws increase the speed with which new democracies pursue prosecutions, as well as the overall numbers of trials they initiate and complete