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What leads individuals to be motivated to act for human rights causes? Human rights organizations (HROs) often use personal and emotional stories of the abused in order to gain the attention of individuals reading newspapers or emails directly from the organization. McEntire, Leiby, and Krain show that personal frames are most successful at increasing knowledge about a specific human rights situation and motivating individuals to act. However, HROs are not operating in a political vacuum; repressive governments often try to spin information about abuses and the abused to their advantage. This study uses an experimental approach to address how the discursive interactions between states and HROs influence individual-level support of HRO efforts. When governments respond to HRO claims by labeling the abused as a terrorist, individuals are much less likely to be spurred into certain types of action, like signing a petition, and feel differently about the specific case. Interestingly, we do not find that trust in the information provided by an HRO is harmed by being associated with someone labeled a terrorist.

Can human rights institutions influence individual behavior? This article tests the ground level effectiveness of two strategies that aim to eliminate discrimination: a powerful, top-down combination of incentives and norm promotion and a bottom-up NGO-based effort. The study uses a hard case, that of discrimination against the Roma (commonly known by the disfavored term “Gypsies”), spans three towns, Murska Sobota and Novo mesto in Slovenia and Čakovec in Croatia, and includes altogether 606 subjects. Levels of discrimination are estimated via trust games played with money, which are particularly appropriate because the Roma are widely stereotyped as cheaters and thieves. The findings suggest that the EU accession process, widely regarded as a strong incentive-based and norm promoting rights change mechanism, may not substantially reduce discrimination on the ground. Instead, they suggest that ground level organizing aimed at improving relations between Roma and non-Roma helps reduce discrimination.

This paper measures discrimination against the Roma (commonly known by the disfavored term "Gypsies") to test the ground level efficacy of two strategies of human rights improvement: top-down diffusion and bottom-up change. The study spans three towns, Murska Sobota and Novo mesto in Slovenia and Cakovec in Croatia, and includes over 600 subjects. Levels of discrimination were estimated via trust games played with money, which are particularly appropriate because the Roma are widely stereotyped as cheaters and thieves. The findings suggest that the EU accession process, widely regarded as an exceptionally strong incentive-based mechanism of rights diffusion, does not severely reduce discrimination on the ground. Instead, they suggest that ground level organizing aimed at improving relations between Roma and non-Roma helps reduce discrimination.