Keith E. Schnakenberg

Dynamic Patterns of Human Rights Practices

A science of human rights requires valid comparisons of repression levels across time and space. Though extensive data collection efforts have made such comparisons possible in principle, statistical measures based on simple additive scales have made them rare in practice. This article uses a dynamic measurement model that contrasts with current approaches by (1) accounting for the fact that human rights indicators can be more or less informative about the latent level of repression, (2) allowing realistic descriptions of measurement uncertainty in the form of credible intervals, and (3) providing a theoretical motivation for modeling temporal dependence in human rights levels. We present several techniques, which demonstrate that the dynamic ordinal IRT model outperforms the static version of the model.

Measuring Mutual Dependence between State Repressive Actions

This study explores the relationships between state violations of different human rights. Though most quantitative studies in international relations treat different types of repressive behaviors as either independent or arising from the same underlying process, significant insights are gained by conceptualizing different human rights violations as separate but dependent processes. We present a theoretical framework for conceptualizing the mechanisms relating human rights practices and produce a novel measurement strategy based on network analysis for exploring these relationships. We illustrate high levels of complementarity between most human rights practices. Substitution effects, in contrast, are occasionally substantial but relatively rare. Finally, using empirically informed Monte Carlo analyses, we present predictions regarding likely sequences of rights violations resulting in extreme violations of different physical integrity rights.

Measuring the Latent Quality of Precedent: Scoring Vertices in a Network

In this chapter, we consider the problem of estimating the latent influence of vertices of a network in which some edges are unobserved for known reasons. We present and employ a quantitative scoring method that incorporates differences in “potential influence” between vertices. As an example, we apply the method to rank Supreme Court majority opinions in terms of their “citability,” measured as the likelihood the opinion will be cited in future opinions. Our method incorporates the fact that future opinions cannot be cited in a present-day opinion. In addition, the method is consistent with the fact that a judicial opinion can cite multiple previous opinions.

Scoring from Contests

This article presents a new model for scoring alternatives from “contest” outcomes. The model is a generalization of the method of paired comparison to accommodate comparisons between arbitrarily sized sets of alternatives in which outcomes are any division of a fixed prize. Our approach is also applicable to contests between varying quantities of alternatives. We prove that under a reasonable condition on the comparability of alternatives, there exists a unique collection of scores that produces accurate estimates of the overall performance of each alternative and satisfies a well-known axiom regarding choice probabilities. We apply the method to several problems in which varying choice sets and continuous outcomes may create problems for standard scoring methods. These problems include measuring centrality in network data and the scoring of political candidates via a “feeling thermometer.” In the latter case, we also use the method to uncover and solve a potential difficulty with common methods of rescaling thermometer data to account for issues of interpersonal comparability.

Two-Cultures? Latino and Asian Language Assimilation along the U.S.-Mexico Border

THE CALIFORNIA Journal of Politics & Policy Volume 3, Issue 1 Two-Cultures? Latino and Asian Language Assimilation Along the U.S.-Mexico Border Antonio Ugues, Jr, University of California, Riverside Keith E. Schnakenberg, Washington University in St. Louis Bohdah Kolody, San Diego State University Richard Hofstetter, San Diego State University John W. Ayers, Johns Hopkins University Abstract The assimilation of recent immigrants to the United States has been a topic of con- siderable debate. Conservative scholars argue that Latinos are developing a Spanish monolingual society on the United States-Mexico border. More progressive schol- ars maintain that Latinos assimilate at rates similar to other immigrant groups. This study evaluates these claims using responses from a large-representative survey in San Diego, California. We find that Latinos are much less linguistically assimi- lated than Asians and characteristics negatively associated with assimilation are more prevalent among Latinos than Asians. While social-environmental predictors suggest that Latinos are assimilating at slower rates than Asians, Latinos appear to be making steady ground in their assimilation patterns. The findings provide a nuanced perspective falling between disparate accounts of language assimilation. Keywords: language assimilation, immigration, two-cultures www.bepress.com/cjpp

Signaling with Reform: How the Threat of Corruption Prevents Informed Policymaking

Lobbying is a potential source of corruption but is also a valuable source of information for policy-makers. We analyze a game-theoretic model that shows how the threat of corruption affects the incentives of noncorrupt politicians to enlist the help of lobbyists to make more informed decisions. Politicians face a dilemma because voters cannot always tell whether a politician allows access to lobbyists to solicit corruption or to seek information. Thus, a noncorrupt politician may deny access to lobbyists to signal that she is noncorrupt even though doing so impedes her ability to make good policy. This signaling may decrease the welfare of the voters depending on the value of the lost policy information relative to the value of screening out corrupt politicians.

Helping Friends or Influencing Foes: Electoral and Policy Effects of Campaign Finance Contributions

Campaign finance contributions may influence policy by affecting elections or influencing the choices of politicians once in office. To study the trade-offs between these two paths to influence, we use a game in which contributions may affect electoral outcomes and signal policy-relevant information to politicians. In the model, a campaign donor and two politicians each possess private information correlated with a policy-relevant state of the world. The donor may allocate his budget to either an ally candidate who has relatively similar preferences or a moderate candidate whose preferences are relatively divergent from the donor’s preferred policy. Contributions that increase the likelihood of the moderate being elected can signal good news about the donor’s preferred policy and influence the moderate’s policy choice. However, when the electoral effect of contributions is too small to demand sufficiently high costs to deter imitation by groups with negative information, this informational effect breaks down.