Tricia D. Olsen

The Justice Balance: When Transitional Justice Improves Human Rights and Democracy

Evidence from the Transitional Justice Data Base reveals which transitional justice mechanisms and combinations of mechanisms positively or negatively affect human rights and democracy. This article demonstrates that specific combinations of mechanisms—trials and amnesties; and trials, amnesties, and truth commissions—generate improvements in those two political goals. The findings support a justice balance approach to transitional justice: trials provide accountability and amnesties provide stability, advancing democracy and respect for human rights. The project further illustrates that, all else being equal, truth commissions alone have a negative impact on the two political objectives, but contribute positively when combined with trials and amnesty.

Transitional justice in the world, 1970-2007: Insights from a new dataset

This article presents a new dataset of transitional justice mechanisms utilized worldwide from 1970—2007. These data complement the growing body of quantitative and comparative analyses of transitional justice. This article summarizes three important contributions made by the dataset. First, it includes five transitional justice mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration policies), allowing scholars to avoid many of the methodological errors committed by performing single-mechanism studies. Second, it provides an expanded sample, both temporally and geographically, to facilitate greater comparative and policy impact. Third, the dataset enables scholars to analyze transitional justice across a variety of political contexts, including democratic transitions and civil wars. These data illuminate a new set of general trends and patterns in the implementation of transitional justice worldwide. The findings show that countries adopt amnesties more often than other mechanisms. They predominantly grant them in the context of civil war and to opponents of the state, rather than state agents. Courts rarely prosecute those currently in power for human rights violations. In civil war settings, rebels, rather than state actors, face trials. In post-authoritarian settings, courts try former authoritarian actors, but do not address crimes committed by the opposition to authoritarian rule. The dataset also reveals regional patterns of mechanism usage. Trials, lustration policies, and reparations occur most often in Europe. Non-European countries more frequently adopt truth commissions and amnesties than do their European counterparts, with a particularly high number of amnesties granted in Latin America.

A Matter of Language or Culture: Coverage of the 2004 U.S. Elections on Spanish- and English-Language Television

This article fills a gap in the communication and political science literature by comparing how Spanish- and English-language television stations cover U.S. elections. A content analysis of more than 400 national network news stories and nearly 3,000 local news stories reveals that local and network Spanish-language stations provide less election coverage than their English-language counterparts. Although Spanish-language stations are more likely to focus election coverage on “Latino” issues or interests, the results indicate only moderate differences in how stations in each language frame their election stories, with stations in both languages concentrating more coverage around campaign strategy and the horse race than substantive issues.

Does Reform Prevent Rebellion? Evidence from Russia's Emancipation of the Serfs

Contemporary models of political economy suggest that reforms intended to reduce grievances should curtail unrest, a perspective at odds with many traditional accounts of reform and rebellion. We explore the impact of reform on rebellion with a new data set on peasant disturbances in 19th-century Russia. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits the timing of various peasant reforms, we document a large increase in disturbances among former serfs following the Emancipation Reform of 1861, a development counter to reformers’ intent. Our analysis suggests that this outcome was driven by peasants’ disappointment with the reform’s design and implementation—the consequence of elite capture in the context of a generally weak state—and heightened expectations of what could be achieved through coordinated action. Reform-related disturbances were most pronounced in provinces where commune organization facilitated collective action and where fertile soil provoked contestation over land.

“They have good devices”: trust, mining, and the microsociology of environmental decision-making

Since the 1990s, transnational mining firms have increasingly sought new deposits in the developing world. This shift in global patterns of mineral activity has led to contestation by mining host community residents and their activist allies. A swell of recent literature in the social sciences explores this phenomenon, largely accepting conventional wisdom about the causal forces behind individuals’ choices to contest mining. This article examines individual decision-making around mineral conflicts in an effort to bring the microsocial into focus. Trust is an essential and largely ignored dimension of mining conflicts. We argue that two trust types — institutional and relational trust — help explain how individuals form preferences about mining in their territory. We further argue that individuals’ sense of self-efficacy underlies their decisions about whom to trust or distrust. We also seek to deepen the social theorization of trust by challenging the common binary of affective and cognitive trust. To make this argument we draw from a mixed-methods study of responses to gold mining in Guatemala.

Spanish- and English-language Local Television Coverage of Politics and the Tendency to Cater to Latino Audiences

Congressional mandates, federal regulatory policy, local broadcasters, and democratic ideals agree that local media should present local news in a way that adequately represents (and ideally unifies) local communities. But how do local broadcasters determine the composition of their local community? And is their portrayal of the community consistent with the ideals of representative democracy? Through one of the first systematic examinations of Spanish- and English-language local television newscasts, the authors find that general market media attention to Latino audiences is a function of the characteristics of the target audience, the size of the media market, the interaction of market size and market characteristics, and the degree of competition between local stations. The results, however, also indicate that even under the most optimal circumstances, general market outlets provide minimal coverage of minority interests. The implications for localism in broadcasting, democratic representation, and the nature and quality of political information reaching citizens and noncitizens alike are also discussed.

Taking Stock: Transitional Justice and Market Effects in Latin America

The relationship between transitional justice and economic development has recently attracted the attention of academics and policymakers. An emerging literature highlights the tension between the forward-looking economic goals of growth, development, and investment and backward-looking trials and truth commissions. Current research focuses on the impact transitional justice choices may have on a states ability to compete for international assistance or to embark on economic reconstruction following periods of civil war and authoritarianism. This article broadens the scope of the study of the political economy of transitional justice by examining the effect of transitional justice on the perceptions of private investors. Specifically, we articulate two competing theories of investor preferences toward transitional justice—“Development through Stability” and “Development though Justice”—and explore how stock markets in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil have responded to efforts to address past human rights abuses over time. The article argues that investor reaction is country specific: Investors in Argentina view trials as destabilizing and have reacted positively to amnesties; in Chile, investors view trials positively; and in Brazil, investors viewed early efforts to pursue the truth or grant reparations negatively, but these reactions have tempered over time. The article concludes by suggesting future avenues for research on the relationship between transitional justice and private investors.

Linkage Politics and the Persistence of National Policy Autonomy in Emerging Powers: Patents, Profits, and Patients in the Context of TRIPS Compliance

The Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) has had a profound effect on industrialization and innovation, as well as access to medicines in cases of public health crisis such as HIV/AIDS. However, compliance with TRIPS has varied in developing countries, despite heightened international pressure. For instance, Brazil has pursued a coherent approach to its HIV/AIDS health crisis, while India has failed to take care of its HIV patients despite late compliance with the TRIPS agreement and the presence of business firms that produce the generic medicines for HIV/AIDS. This article suggests that divergence in TRIPS compliance is the result of a linkage politics, in which global variables (global rules, global supply chains and global networks) reach into the domestic political economy to alter the interests and capabilities of domestic actors. Indian pharmaceutical firms have developed external and export interests that lower incentives for the Indian state to design a nationally relevant public health policy, while the Brazilian health movement with its societal and external linkages puts pressure on the Brazilian state to defend the interests of its HIV patients even at the cost of patents. We conclude by suggesting that linkage politics is better at helping us understand compliance with international agreements than existing explanations, with important consequences for the effectiveness of international institutions.

Is Insider Control Good for Environmental Performance? Evidence From Dual-Class Firms

Corporate environmental performance has become a key focus of business leaders, policy makers, and scholars alike. Today, scholarship on environmental practice increasingly highlights how various aspects of corporate governance can influence environmental performance. However, the prior literature is inconclusive as to whether ownership by insiders (officers and directors) will have positive or negative environmental effects and whether insider voting control or equity control is more salient to environmental outcomes. This article leverages a unique empirical data set of dual-class firms, where insiders have voting rights disproportionate to their equity rights, to shed light on this question. We find that, on average, dual-class firms underperform their single-class peers on environmental measures and that the discrepancy comes from dual-class firms where insiders have more voting control, relative to their equity stake. While small increases in voting control are associated with improved environmental performance, too much (relative to insiders’ equity stake) worsens firms’ environmental performance. Insider equity control alone has no impact on environmental outcomes. Our findings have important implications for agency theory and environmental scholarship by identifying contingencies on the impact of voting and equity-based incentives. This research casts doubt on the idea that providing insiders with significant voting control will aid environmental performance.

Allegations of Corporate Human Rights Abuse in Latin America, 2000-2014: Insights from a New Dataset

This article presents a new dataset of allegations of corporate human rights abuse in Latin America from 2000-2014. The dataset responds to growing interest in the role of businesses in human rights violations, accountability processes for corporate abuses, and possible remedies for victims. It is the first dataset of its kind that offers a tool for analyzing five types of allegations of corporate human rights abuse (physical violence, development and poverty, health, environment, and labor) and judicial or non-judicial remedy mechanisms associated with each allegation. Initial analysis of the data shows results that defy assumptions in the existing literature regarding which sectors are most likely to be targeted in allegations of abuse, who makes claims against companies, and the outcomes of those claims for victims of abuse.