Do Transnational Advocacy Networks Matter? Protecting Citizens’ Rights in Democratic Argentina and Chile.

This paper examines the influence of human rights advocacy networks in post authoritarian countries, focusing on Argentina and Chile. I specifically study the role of advocacy networks that seek to protect individuals’ physical integrity from police abuse. This includes studying groups’ influence on legal reforms to guarantee a fair treatment at the moment of a citizen’s arrest and groups’ influence in reducing practices of police violence. The case studies reveals two findings: first, because most analyses have studied the influence of human rights groups on authoritarian regimes, the conclusions have tended to overemphasize their importance. When facing fragile established democratic regimes, advocacy networks confront new strategic challenges that have not been explored properly. The case studies prove that even if alliances between domestic and international advocacy networks work, the domestic configuration of power and the way the topic of citizens’ rights is framed strongly determine whether incumbents are willing to address the issue of police reforms and police brutality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]