Matthew Krain

State-Sponsored Mass Murder

The author argues that openings in the political opportunity structure, rather than the levels of concentration of power, best predict the onset of genocides or politicides and which states will engage in the most severe state-sponsored mass murder. These and other hypotheses are tested. Analysis of logit models reveals that civil war involvement is the most consistent predictor of the onset of genocides or politicides, and other political opportunity structure variables have some effects, especially when in combination with at least one of the other political opportunity structure variables. Analysis of negative binomial event-count models also reveals that political opportunity structure variables best account for the degree of severity of a given genocide or politicide. In sum, openings in the political opportunity structure are more important in understanding what affects the onset and degree of severity of genocides and politicides than other more static variables.

Democracy and civil war: A note on the democratic peace proposition

Democracies may not fight each other, but do they fight themselves? Despite the need to better understand internal wars, empirical investigations of the democratic peace have focused on international war between democracies. We test the effect of regime type on civil wars, a class of events that is widely overlooked in the study of conflict. We find that regime type strongly affects civil war participation.

Teaching Human Rights Through Service Learning

This article describes an innovative service learning project designed for undergraduate courses examining human rights. The project vividly illustrated the role of dehumanization in affecting human rights. Within the broader context of discussions about human rights issues writ large, it forced students to reconsider questions about rights not accorded to those on the fringes of society. We discuss the project in detail, including its planning, implementation, and pedagogical value. The article begins with an overview of human rights education, followed by thoughts on the benefits and challenges of a service learning approach. It concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of our activity.

Contemporary Democracies Revisited Democracy, Political Violence, and Event Count Models

Few have questioned how democracies as a group differ within and among themselves. The most important study in this area of inquiry is Powells (1982) Contemporary Democracies. Unfortunately, some of his results may be both inefficient and biased due to the use of what we now understand to be an inappropriate method. This study applies more appropriate event count models to Powells data in hopes of gaining new insights into the relationship between political violence and elements of democracy. Evidence to support Collective Action explanations of political violence was found. Strong support for the argument that presidencies can be detrimental to the state and that representational electoral systems and constitutions, especially consociational constitutions, outperform majoritarian systems was also supported. Environmental factors are important, but constitutional variables, discounted to some degree by Powell, were also found to have extremely important and significant effects on the degrees of violence in democracies.

Human Rights Organizations as Agents of Change: An Experimental Examination of Framing and Micromobilization

Human Right Organizations (HROs) attempt to shape individuals’ values and mobilize them to act. Yet little systematic research has been done to evaluate the efficacy of these efforts. We identified the three most common messaging techniques: (1) informational frames; (2) personal frames; and (3) motivational frames. We tested their efficacy using an experimental research design in which participants were randomly assigned to the control group (shown no campaign materials) or one of the treatment groups shown a campaign against sleep deprivation featuring one of these framing strategies. We then surveyed participants regarding their attitudes and their willingness to act. Results demonstrate that all three framing strategies are more effective at mobilizing consensus than action. Personal narratives are the most consistently successful, increasing individuals’ sense of knowledge on the issue and their emotional reaction to the issue, leading them to reject the practice and participate in a campaign to demand its cessation.

The effects of diplomatic sanctions and engagement on the severity of ongoing genocides or politicides

This study tests the effects of diplomatic sanctions and engagement on reducing the severity of ongoing instances of genocide or politicide. I argue that neither diplomatic measure will be effective in slowing or stopping the killing. I argue that diplomatic sanctions merely reduce the flow of information without credibly signalling intent or commitment, while diplomatic engagement does not challenge perpetrators. Neither policy raises the costs of perpetrating genocide or politicide. Therefore, neither is expected to be useful in mitigating ongoing atrocities. Ordered logit analyses of ongoing genocides and politicides from 1976 to 2008 confirm these assumptions, and demonstrate that changing levels of diplomatic representation with atrocity perpetrators may make policymakers feel like they are ‘doing something’, but does little to reduce the lethality of ongoing mass killing. Under one set of circumstances, increased engagement even exacerbates the atrocities.

The effect of economic sanctions on the severity of genocides or politicides

ABSTRACT This study examines the effect of economic sanctions on the severity of ongoing instances of genocide or politicide. Research suggests that sanctions exacerbate human rights conditions, yet influential policymakers, human rights advocates and some scholars continue to call for economic sanctions to mitigate ongoing atrocities. Ordered logit analyses of genocides and politicides from 1976 to 2008 reveal that sanctions neither aggravate atrocities, as some of the academic literature expects, nor alleviate them, as assumed by many policymakers and advocates (and some researchers). These findings hold regardless of whether they are measured as the number or presence of sanctions, cost, level of comprehensiveness, duration or whether imposed or administered by an international organization. Threats of sanctions also have no effect on atrocity severity, either on their own or combined with other policy options.

How to Ask People for Change: Examining Peoples’ Willingness to Donate to Human Rights Campaigns

Imagine that Amnesty International, or any other large global human rights organization (HRO) has decided to start a campaign. Perhaps the issue is marriage equality, or stopping sleep deprivation during interrogation. These types of issues may be less widely accepted by the general public as human rights issues, requiring that the HRO first change minds, and only then try to mobilize their effort or resources on that campaign’s behalf. Raising money for such a campaign would be very challenging but doable, assuming that the organization knows how best to frame their appeals when they ask people to support the initiative.

How combining framing strategies affects human rights micromobilization

Human rights organizations (HROs) frame advocacy campaigns in order to shape individuals’ values and mobilize them to act. While previous work has examined some commonly used HRO frames, we know little about how they work as most often utilized—in combination. In this experiment, participants were randomly assigned either to a control group or to treatment groups shown campaigns against sleep deprivation during interrogation featuring frames used alone or in combination. We find that effects of personal frames on action mobilization are not mitigated by the inclusion of other frames, and that human rights campaigns with multiple frames yield outcomes that are neither better nor worse than a single personal narrative of human suffering. HROs should be able to use multiple frames in combination as needed without concern.

The Effects of Human Rights on the Success of Microcredit Lending Institutions

This study explores the relationship between human rights and the success of microfinance institutions (MFIs). Microfinance emphasizes the empowerment of women, yet no study has examined whether the existing human rights environment, or the rights environment for women specifically, helps or hinders the effectiveness of this grassroots development approach. We test competing hypotheses, including the possibility that the rights environment affects MFI success, the possibility of an inverse relationship between levels of womens political or economic oppression and MFI success, and the expectation of no relationship. Our quantitative analysis of MFIs in the Opportunity International Network suggests that the overall human rights environment in which they operate has significant effects on repayment rates, while womens economic rights affect the operational self-sufficiency of MFIs. This has important implications for our understanding of the factors that make microfinance institutions viable, and for the degree of access that underserved communities have to credit.