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What is the link between democratic backsliding and human rights? Existing literature has focused almost exclusively on the effect of increasing democratic features on improvements in human rights. In contrast, we know less regarding the impact of decreasing democracy (i.e., democratic backsliding) on a state's human rights conditions. With the growing influence of antidemocratic movements in many democracies recently, it is imperative that we explore the relationship between democratic backsliding and human rights conditions. We suspect that democratic backsliding has a substantial negative impact on human rights conditions. We posit that countries experiencing a period of democratic backsliding will also experience human rights violations to a greater degree. Additionally, we maintain that the scale of the backsliding matters, wherein states experiencing more democratic backsliding also experience more substantial reductions in human rights conditions. In testing these assertions, we find strong empirical support using a range of data sources and model specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When are human rights defenders at risk of being killed? Echoing research on journalist killings, we argue that a democratic context makes it easier for human rights defenders to operate and incentivizes them to continue activities and to pursue information that puts them at risk. De jure protections that defenders have may not be enforced or may not protect defenders from bad actors engaging in politically motivated murder. These factors make human rights defenders more likely to be killed by actors trying to avoid the spotlight and exposure in democratic systems than in other types of regimes. Autocratic regimes provide fewer opportunities to freely advocate for human rights and to pursue or disseminate information about human rights violations by state or non-state actors, reducing the likelihood of defender mortality. Using two new sets of cross-national data on the number of killings of human rights defenders between 1997 and 2010 and from 2014 to 2020, we find that these arguments are generally supported when controlling for other factors that affect the killing of human rights defenders, particularly in democracies with lower state capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crackdown on the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has recently swept the globe. When faced with increased restrictions, how do NGOs respond? We argue there is a curvilinear relationship between increases in NGO repression and the conflict-to-cooperative nature of NGO interactions with a government. On one end of the spectrum, when civil society repression is limited or nonexistent, NGOs have many reasons to be cooperative with the government. As NGO repression increases, we should see NGOs take more of a conflictual stance, publicly voicing their displeasure and bringing attention to the abuses and deficiencies they see within the regime. As NGO repression continues to increase, however, there will be a tipping point at which the NGOs that remain in the country will once again take a more cooperative tack with the government. We use a quantitative event data approach to examine the implications of our arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors shape support for the human rights of prisoners and asylum seekers at the individual level? Although the human rights literature has expanded greatly in the last 30 years, comparatively little attention has been paid to (a) the many human rights outside of a very small set of physical or bodily integrity rights and (b) the role of public opinion. We build a theoretical model of various human rights as public opinion-related policy choices, developing the micro-foundations of public support for the human rights of vulnerable subpopulations. Drawing on the broader literature on public policy and international norms, we use experimental methods to test whether calls to rational effectiveness or international norm cascades improve support for the rights of prisoners and asylum seekers. Although we find baseline support for these rights in the United States and Canada, our findings also imply that rhetoric on the potential costs of human rights policy could reduce popular support, even when such policy is consistent with international norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]