Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T11:37:54.272Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An Empirical Evaluation of Explanations for State Repression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2014

DANIEL W. HILL JR.*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
ZACHARY M. JONES*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
*
Daniel W. Hill, Jr. is Assistant Professor, Department of International Affairs, University of Georgia (dwhill@uga.edu), and is responsible for the research question, design of the cross-validation analysis, selection of the data, and the majority of the writing.
Zachary M. Jones is Ph.D. student, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University (zmj@zmjones.com), and is responsible for design of the random forest analysis and multiple imputation, all data analysis and visualization, and description of the methods.

Abstract

The empirical literature that examines cross-national patterns of state repression seeks to discover a set of political, economic, and social conditions that are consistently associated with government violations of human rights. Null hypothesis significance testing is the most common way of examining the relationship between repression and concepts of interest, but we argue that it is inadequate for this goal, and has produced potentially misleading results. To remedy this deficiency in the literature we use cross-validation and random forests to determine the predictive power of measures of concepts the literature identifies as important causes of repression. We find that few of these measures are able to substantially improve the predictive power of statistical models of repression. Further, the most studied concept in the literature, democratic political institutions, predicts certain kinds of repression much more accurately than others. We argue that this is due to conceptual and operational overlap between democracy and certain kinds of state repression. Finally, we argue that the impressive performance of certain features of domestic legal systems, as well as some economic and demographic factors, justifies a stronger focus on these concepts in future studies of repression.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abouharb, M. Rodwan, and Cingranelli, David L.. 2006. “The Human Rights Effects of World Bank Structural Adjustment, 1981–2000.International Studies Quarterly 50 (2): 233–62.Google Scholar
Abouharb, M. Rodwan, and Cingranelli, David. 2007. Human Rights and Structural Adjustment. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2005. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apodaca, Clair. 2001. “Global Economic Patterns and Personal Integrity Rights after the Cold War.International Studies Quarterly 45 (4): 587602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagozzi, Benjamin. 2013. “Forecasting Civil Conflict with Zero-Inflated Count Models.” Working Paper, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Bagozzi, Benjamin, Hill, Daniel W. Jr., Moore, Will H., and Mukherjee, Bumba. Forthcoming. “Modeling Two Types of Peace: The Zero-Inflated Ordered Probit Model in Conflict Studies.” Journal of Conflict Resolution.Google Scholar
Bank, World. 2012. “World Bank Development Indicators.”Google Scholar
Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, Keefer, Philip, and Walsh, Patrick. 2001. “New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions.The World Bank Economic Review 15 (1): 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel, King, Gary, and Zeng, Langche. 2000. “Improving Quantitative Studies of International Conflict: A Conjecture.” American Political Science Review 94 (1): 2135.Google Scholar
Bell, Sam R., Clay, K. Chad, Flynn, Michael E., and Murdie, Amanda. 2013. “Now You See It, Now You Don’t? Transparency and Change in Government Respect for Physical Integrity Rights.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association.Google Scholar
Berk, Richard A. 2008. Statistical Learning from a Regression Perspective. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Biau, Gérard, Devroye, Luc, and Lugosi, Gábor. 2008. “Consistency of Random Forests and other Averaging Classifiers.The Journal of Machine Learning Research 9: 2015–33.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boykoff, Jules. 2007. “Limiting Dissent: The Mechanisms of State Repression in the USA.Social Movement Studies 6 (3): 281310.Google Scholar
Brandt, Patrick T., Freeman, John R., and Schrodt, Philip A.. 2011. “Real Time, Time Series Forecasting of Inter-and Intra-state Political Conflict.Conflict Management and Peace Science 28 (1): 4164.Google Scholar
Breiman, Leo. 2001. “Random forests.Machine Learning 45 (1): 532.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, and Alastair Smith. 2009. “Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change.Comparative Political Studies 42 (2): 167–97.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Downs, George W., Smith, Alastair, and Cherif, Feryal Marie. 2005. “Thinking Inside the Box: A Closer Look at Democracy and Human Rights.International Studies Quarterly 49: 439–57.Google Scholar
Carey, John M. 2000. “Parchment, Equilibria, and Institutions.Comparative Political Studies 33 (6/7): 735–61.Google Scholar
Carrubba, Clifford J. 2009. “A Model of the Endogenous Development of Judicial Institutions in Federal and International Systems.Journal of Politics 71 (1): 115.Google Scholar
Cingranelli, David L., and Richards, David L.. 1999. “Measuring the Level, Pattern and Sequence of Government Respect for Physical Integrity Rights.International Studies Quarterly 43 (2): 407–18.Google Scholar
Cingranelli, David, and Filippov, Mikhail. 2010. “Electoral Rules and Incentives to Protect Human Rights.Journal of Politics 72 (1): 243–57.Google Scholar
Cingranelli, David L., and Richards, David L.. 2010 a. “The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project.” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2): 401–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cingranelli, David L., and Richards, David L.. 2010 b. “The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset.” http://www.humanrightsdata.org Google Scholar
Clark, William Roberts, Golder, Matt, and Golder, Sona N.. 2013. “Power and Politics: Insights from an Exit, Voice, and Loyalty Game.” Working paper, University of Michigan and Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Conrad, Courtenay R. 2012. “Divergent Incentives for Dictators: Domestic Institutions and (International Promises Not to) Torture.’’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 58 (1): 3467.Google Scholar
Conrad, Courtenay R., Haglund, Jillienne, and Moore, Will H.. 2013. “Disaggregating Torture Allegations: Introducing the Ill-Treatment and Torture (ITT) Country-Year Data.” International Studies Perspectives 14 (2): 199220.Google Scholar
Conrad, Courtenay R. and Ritter, Emily Hencken. 2013. “Treaties, Tenure, and Torture: The Conflicting Domestic Effects of International Law.” Journal of Politics 75 (2).Google Scholar
Conrad, Courtenay Ryals and Moore, Will H.. 2010. “What Stops the Torture?American Journal of Political Science 54 (2): 459–76.Google Scholar
Cross, Frank B. 1999. “The Relevance of Law in Human Rights Protection.International Review of Law and Economics 19 (1): 8798.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Davenport, Christian. 1995. “Multi-Dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry Into Why States Apply Negative Sanctions.American Journal of Political Science 39 (3): 683713.Google Scholar
Davenport, Christian. 1996. “‘Constitutional Promises’ and Repressive Reality: A Cross-National Time-Series Investigation of Why Political and Civil Liberties are Suppressed.Journal of Politics 58 (3): 627–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Christian. 1999. “Human Rights and the Democratic Proposition.Journal of Conflict Resolution 43 (1): 92116.Google Scholar
Davenport, Christian. 2005. “Understanding Covert Repressive Action The Case of the US Government Against the Republic of New Africa.Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (1): 120–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Christian. 2007 a. “State Repression and Political Order.” Annual Review of Political Science 10: 127.Google Scholar
Davenport, Christian. 2007 b. State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, Christian, and Armstrong, David. 2004. “Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights: A Statistical Analysis from 1976–1996.American Journal of Political Science 48 (3): 538–54.Google Scholar
Davenport, Christian, Moore, Will H., and Armstrong, David. 2007. “The Puzzle of Abu Ghraib: Are Democratic Institutions a Palliative or Panacea?” Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1022367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della-Porta, Donatella. 1996. Social Movements and the State: Thoughts on the Policing of Protest. In Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, eds. McAdam, Doug, McCarthy, John D. and Zald, Mayer N.. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Demeritt, Jaqueline H., Conrad, Courtenay Ryals, Fariss, Christopher J., and Schnakenberg, Keith E.. 2014. “Human Rights Advocacy and State Repression Substitutability.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association.Google Scholar
DeMeritt, Jacqueline H. R. and Young, Joseph K.. 2013. “A Political Economy of Human Rights: Oil, Natural Gas, and State Incentives to Repress.Conflict Management and Peace Science 30 (2): 99120.Google Scholar
Earl, Jennifer. 2003. “Tanks, Tear Gas, and Taxes: Toward a Theory of Movement Repression.Sociological Theory 21 (1): 4468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eck, Kristine, and Hultman, Lisa. 2007. “One-Sided Violence Against Civilians in War Insights from New Fatality Data.Journal of Peace Research 44 (2): 233–46.Google Scholar
Efron, Bradley. 1983. “Estimating the Error rate of a Prediction Rule: Improvement on Cross-Validation.Journal of the American Statistical Association 78 (382): 316–31.Google Scholar
Elkins, Zachary, Ginsburg, Tom, and Melton, James. 2009. The Endurance of National Constitutions. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fariss, Christopher J. 2014. “Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time: Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability.” American Political Science Review 108 (2): 297318.Google Scholar
Fariss, Christopher J. and Schnakenberg, Keith E.. Forthcoming. “Measuring Mutual Dependence between Repressive Actions.’’Journal of Conflict Resolution.Google Scholar
Fein, Helen. 1995. “More Murder in the Middle: Life-Integrity Violations and Democracy in the World, 1987.Human Rights Quarterly 17: 170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fielding, David, and Shortland, Anja. 2010. “An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth: Political Violence and Counter-Insurgency in Egypt.Journal of Peace Research 47 (4): 433–47.Google Scholar
Francisco, Ronald A. 1995. “The Relationship between Coercion and Protest An Empirical Evaluation in Three Coercive States.Journal of Conflict Resolution 39 (2): 263–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francisco, Ronald A. 1996. “Coercion and Protest: An Empirical Test in Two Democratic States.American Journal of Political Science 40 (4): 1179–204.Google Scholar
Franklin, James C. 2008. “Shame on You: The Impact of Human Rights Criticism on Political Repression in Latin America.International Studies Quarterly 52 (1): 187211.Google Scholar
Freedman, David A. 1983. “A Note on Screening Regression Equations.The American Statistician 37 (2): 152–5.Google Scholar
Geisser, Seymour. 1975. “The Predictive Sample Reuse Method with Applications.Journal of the American Statistical Association 70 (350): 320–8.Google Scholar
Gibney, M., Cornett, L., and Wood, R.. 2009. “Politial Terror Scale 1976–2006.” http://www.politicalterrorscale.org Google Scholar
Gill, Jeff. 1999. “The Insignificance of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing.Political Research Quarterly 52 (3): 647–74.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede. 2002. “Expanded Trade and GDP Data.Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (5): 712–24.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, and Ward, Michael D.. 1997. “Double Take: A Reexamination of Democracy and Autocracy in Modern Polities.Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 (3): 361–83.Google Scholar
Gurr, Ted Robert. 1986. The Political Origins of State Violence and Terror: A Theoretical Analysis. In Government Violence and Repression: An Agenda for Research, eds. Stohl, Michael and Lopez, George. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Gurr, Ted Robert. 1988. “War, Revolution, and the Growth of the Coercive State.Comparative Political Studies 21 (1): 4565.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. 2005 a. “Right or Robust? The Sensitive Nature of Repression to Globalization.” Journal of Peace Research 42 (6): 679–98.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. 2005 b. “Trading Human Rights: How Preferential Trade Agreements Influence Government Repression.” International Organization 59 (3): 593629.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M. 2008. “Sticks and Stones: Naming and Shaming the Human Rights Enforcement Problem.International Organization 62 (4): 689716.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., and Tsutsui, Kiyoteru. 2005. “Human Rights in a Globalizing World: The Paradox of Empty Promises.American Journal of Sociology 110 (5): 1373–411.Google Scholar
Harff, Barbara, and Gurr, Ted Robert. 1988. “Toward Empirical Theory of Genocides and Politicides: Identification and Measurement of Cases since 1945.International Studies Quarterly 32 (3): 359–71.Google Scholar
Haschke, Peter. 2011. “Repression or Not: Physical Integrity Rights Violations in Contemporary Democracies.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Hastie, Trevor, Tibshirani, Robert J., and Friedman, Jerome. 2008. Elements of Statistical Learning. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A. 2002. “Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?Yale Law Journal 111: 19352042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A. 2004. The Promise and Limits of the International Law of Torture. In Torture, ed. Levinson, Sanford. New York: Oxford University Press, 199212.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A. 2007. “Why Do Countries Commit to Human Rights Treaties?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51 (4): 588621.Google Scholar
Henderson, Conway. 1991. “Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression.Journal of Conflict Resolution 35: 120–42.Google Scholar
Henderson, Conway. 1993. “Population Pressures and Political Repression.Social Science Quarterly 74 (2): 322–33.Google Scholar
Hibbs, Douglas A. Jr 1973. “Problems of Statistical Estimation and Causal Inference in Time-Series Regression Models.Sociological Methodology 1974: 252308.Google Scholar
Hill, Daniel W. Jr. 2010. “Estimating the Effects of Human Rights Treaties on State Behavior.The Journal of Politics 72 (4): 1161–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Daniel W. Jr. 2013. “The Concept of Personal Integrity Rights in Empirical Research.” IPSA Committee on Concepts and Methods Working Paper Series on Political Concepts No. 59.Google Scholar
Hoff, Peter D., and Ward, Michael D.. 2004. “Modeling Dependencies in International Relations Networks.Political Analysis 12 (2): 160–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollyer, James, and Rosendorff, B. Peter. 2011. “Why do Authoritarian Regimes Sign the Convention Against Torture? Signaling, Domestic Politics and Non-Compliance.Quarterly Journal of Political Science 6: 275327.Google Scholar
Hothorn, Torsten, Hornik, Kurt, and Zeileis, Achim. 2006. “Unbiased Recursive Partitioning: A Conditional Inference Framework.Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 15 (3): 651–74.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Vol. 4. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Zachary M. 2013. “An Analysis of Polity IV and its Components.” http://zmjones.com/polity/.Google Scholar
Keith, Linda Camp. 1999. “The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Does It Make a Difference in Human Rights Behavior?Journal of Peace Research 36 (1): 95118.Google Scholar
Keith, Linda Camp. 2002. “Constitutional Provisions for Individual Human Rights: Are They More Than Mere Window Dressing.Political Research Quarterly 55: 111–43.Google Scholar
Keith, Linda Camp, Tate, C. Neal, and Poe, Steve C.. 2009. “Is the Law a Mere Parchment Barrier to Human Rights Abuse?” Journal of Politics 71 (2): 644–60.Google Scholar
Leamer, Edward, and Leonard, Herman. 1983. “Reporting the Fragility of Regression Estimates.The Review of Economics and Statistics 65 (2): 306–17.Google Scholar
Lee, John N., and Ahlquist, John S.. 2011. “Justify My Love: A Re-Introduction to Out-of-Sample Prediction, Cross-Validation, and Model Selection for Applied Research.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Lichbach, Mark. 1987. “Deterrence or Escalation? The Puzzle of Aggregate Studies of Repression and Dissent.Journal of Conflict Resolution 31: 266–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linzer, Drew, and Staton, Jeffrey K.. 2011. “A Measurement Model for Synthesizing Multiple Comparative Indicators: The Case of Judicial Independence.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Lupu, Yonatan. 2013. “Best Evidence: The Role of Information in Domestic Judicial Enforcement of International Human Rights Agreements.International Organization 67 (3): 469503.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty G, Gurr, Ted Robert, and Harff, Barbara. 2009. “Political Instability Task Force State Failure Problem Set: Internal Wars and Failures of Governance, 1955–2009.” Dataset and Coding Guidelines.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty, and Jaggers, Keith. 2009. Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2007. Data Users’ Manual. Center for Systemic Peace. Available online at http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/p4manualv2007.pdf.Google Scholar
Meyer, William H. 1996. “Human Rights and MNCs: Theory versus Quantitative Analysis.Human Rights Quarterly 18 (2): 368–97.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Neil J., and McCormick, James M.. 1988. “Economic and Political Explanations of Human Rights Violations.World Politics 40 (4): 476–98.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin, Ring, Jonathan J., and Spellman, Mary K.. 2013. “Domestic Legal Traditions and States’ Human Rights Practices.Journal of Peace Research 50 (2): 189202.Google Scholar
Moore, Will H. 1995. “Action-Reaction or Rational Expectations? Reciprocity and the Domestic-International Conflict Nexus during the Rhodesia Problem.Journal of Conflict Resolution 39 (1): 129–67.Google Scholar
Moore, Will H. 1998. “Repression and Dissent: Substitution, Context and Timing.American Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 851–73.Google Scholar
Moore, Will H. 2000. “The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion.Journal of Conflict Resolution 44 (1): 107–27.Google Scholar
Moore, Will H. 2010. “Incarceration, Interrogation, and Counterterror: Do (Liberal) Democratic Institutions Constrain Leviathan?” PS: Political Science and Politics 43 (3): 421–4.Google Scholar
Munck, Gerardo L., and Verkuilen, Jay. 2002. “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices.Comparative Political Studies 35 (1): 534.Google Scholar
Murdie, Amanda M., and Davis, David R.. 2012. “Shaming and Blaming: Using Events Data to Assess the Impact of Human Rights INGOs.International Studies Quarterly 56 (1): 116.Google Scholar
Murphy, Kevin P. 2012. Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Neumayer, Eric. 2005. “Do International Human Rights Treaties Improve Respect for Human Rights?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (6): 925–53.Google Scholar
Nordås, Ragnhild, and Davenport, Christian. 2013. “Fight the Youth: Youth Bulges and State Repression.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (4): 926–40.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1989. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England.The Journal of Economic History 49 (04): 803–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ordeshook, Peter C. 1992. “Constitutional Stability.Constitutional Political Economy 3 (2): 137–75.Google Scholar
Park, Han S. 1987. “Correlates of Human Rights: Global Tendencies.Human Rights Quarterly 9 (3): 405–13.Google Scholar
Picard, Richard R., and Cook, R. Dennis 1984. “Cross-Validation of Regression Models.Journal of The American Statistical Association 79 (387): 575–83.Google Scholar
Pierskalla, Jan Henryk. 2010. “Protest, Deterrence, and Escalation: The Strategic Calculus of Government Repression.Journal of Conflict Resolution 54 (1): 117–45.Google Scholar
Poe, Steven C. 2004. The Decision to Repress: An Integrative Theoretical Approach to the Research on Human Rights and Repression. In Understanding Human Rights Violations: New Systematic Studies, eds. Carey, Sabine C. and Poe, Steven C.. Ashgate.Google Scholar
Poe, Steven C., Carey, Sabine C., and Vazquez, Tanya C.. 2001. “How Are These Pictures Different? A Quantitative Comparison of the US State Department and Amnesty International Human Rights Reports, 1976–1995.Human Rights Quarterly 23 (3): 650–77.Google Scholar
Poe, Steven C., Rost, Nicolas, and Carey, Sabine C. 2006. “Assessing Risk and Opportunity in Conflict Studies A Human Rights Analysis.Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (4): 484507.Google Scholar
Poe, Steven, and Tate, C. Neal. 1994. “Repression of Personal Integrity Rights in the 1980’s: A Global Analysis.American Political Science Review 88: 853–72.Google Scholar
Poe, Steven, Tate, C. Neal, and Keith, Linda Camp. 1999. “Repression of the Human Right to Personal Integrity Revisited: A Global, Cross-National Study Covering the Years 1976–1993.International Studies Quarterly 43: 291313.Google Scholar
Politis, D. N., Romano, J. P., and Wolf, M.. 1999. Subsampling. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Powell, Emilia Justyna, and Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin. 2007. “The International Court of Justice and the World’s Three Legal Systems.Journal of Politics 69 (2): 397415.Google Scholar
Powell, Emilia J., and Staton, Jeffrey K.. 2009. “Domestic Judicial Institutions and Human Rights Treaty Violation.International Studies Quarterly 53 (1): 149–74.Google Scholar
Rasler, Karen. 1996. “Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution.American Sociological Review 132–52.Google Scholar
Rejali, Darius. 2007. Torture and Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, David L., Gelleny, Ronald D., and Sacko, David H.. 2001. “Money With a Mean Streak? Foreign Economic Penetration and Government Respect for Human Rights in Developing Countries.International Studies Quarterly 45 (2): 219–39.Google Scholar
Ríos-Figueroa, Julio, and Staton, Jeffrey K.. 2014. “An Evaluation of Cross-National Measures of Judicial Independence.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 30 (1): 104–37.Google Scholar
Ritter, Emily Hencken. 2014. “Policy Disputes, Political Survival, and the Onset and Severity of State Repression.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58 (1): 143–68.Google Scholar
Ron, James, Ramos, Howard, and Rodgers, Kathleen. 2005. “Transnational Information Politics: NGO Human Rights Reporting, 1986–2000.International Studies Quarterly 49 (3): 557–88.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael. 2006. “A Closer Look at Oil, Diamonds, and Civil War.Annual Review of Political Science 9: 265300.Google Scholar
Rummel, Rudolph J. 1995. “Democracy, Power, Genocide, and Mass Murder.Journal of Conflict Resolution 39 (1): 326.Google Scholar
Schnakenberg, Keith E., and Fariss, Christopher J.. 2014. “Dynamic Patterns of Human Rights Practices.” Political Science Research and Methods 2 (1): 131.Google Scholar
Shellman, Stephen M. 2006. “Leaders’ Motivations and Actions: Explaining Government-Dissident Conflict-Cooperation Processes.Conflict Management and Peace Science 23 (1): 7390.Google Scholar
Simmons, Beth A. 2009. Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Siroky, David S. et al. 2009. “Navigating Random Forests and Related Advances in Algorithmic Modeling.Statistics Surveys 3: 147–63.Google Scholar
Somers, Robert H. 1962. “A New Asymmetric Measure of Association for Ordinal Variables.American Sociological Review 27: 799811.Google Scholar
Spilker, Gabriele, and Bohmelt, Tobias. 2013. “The Impact of Preferential Trade Agreements on Governmental Repression Revisited.” Review of International Organizations 8 (3): 343–61.Google Scholar
Staton, Jeffrey K. 2006. “Constitutional Review and the Selective Promotion of Case Results.American Journal of Political Science 50 (1): 98112.Google Scholar
Staton, Jeffrey K., and Moore, Will H.. 2011. “Judicial Power in Domestic and International Politics.International Organization 65 (3): 553–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stohl, Michael, Carleton, David, Lopez, George, and Samuels, Stephen. 1986. “State Violation of Human Rights: Issues and Problems of Measurement.Human Rights Quarterly 8: 592.Google Scholar
Strobl, Carolin, Boulesteix, Anne-Laure, Zeileis, Achim, and Hothorn, Torsten. 2007. “Bias in Random Forest Variable Importance Measures: Illustrations, Sources and a Solution.BMC Bioinformatics 8 (1): 25.Google Scholar
Strobl, Carolin, Malley, James, and Tutz, Gerhard. 2009. “An Introduction to Recursive Partitioning: Rationale, Application, and Characteristics of Classification and Regression Trees, Bagging, and Random Forests.Psychological Methods 14 (4): 323.Google Scholar
Summers, Robert, and Heston, Alan. 1991. “The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988.The Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (2): 327–68.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles L., and Jodice, David. 1983. “World Handbook of Social and Political Indicators.” New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Themnér, Lotta, and Wallensteen, Peter. 2012. “Armed Conflicts, 1946–2011.Journal of Peace Research 49 (4): 565–75.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1985. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In Bringing the State Back In, ed. Skocpol, Theda. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 169–91.Google Scholar
Urdal, Henrik. 2006. “A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence.International Studies Quarterly 50 (3): 607–29.Google Scholar
Vanberg, Georg. 2005. The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vreeland, James R. 2008. “Political Institutions and Human Rights: Why Dictatorships Enter into the United Nations Convention Against Torture.International Organization 62 (01): 65101.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., and Ahlquist, John S.. 2014. Maximum Likelihood Strategies for Social Sciences: Strategies for Analysis. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., Greenhill, Brian D., and Bakke, Kristin M.. 2010. “The Perils of Policy by P-Value: Predicting Civil Conflicts.Journal of Peace Research 47 (4): 363–75.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., and Hoff, Peter D.. 2007. “Persistent Patterns of International Commerce.Journal of Peace Research 44 (2): 157–75.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., Metternich, Nils W., Dorff, Cassy, Gallop, Max, Hollenbach, Florian M., Schultz, Anna, and Weschle, Simon. 2012. “Learning From the Past and Stepping Inot The Future: The Next Generation of Crisis Predition.International Studies Review 15 (4): 473–90.Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., Siverson, Randolph M., and Cao, Xun. 2007. “Disputes, Democracies, and Dependencies: A Reexamination of the Kantian Peace.American Journal of Political Science 51 (3): 583601.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry. 1997. “The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law.American Political Science Review 91 (2): 245–63.Google Scholar
Wood, Reed M., and Gibney, Mark. 2010. “The Political Terror Scale (PTS): A Re-Introduction and a Comparison to CIRI.Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2): 367400.Google Scholar