Does Institutional Change Spread Across Countries? Explaining Spatial Patterns in Human Rights

• Published date: 01 May 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12416
• Author: Gerrit Faber,Michiel Gerritse
• Date: 01 May 2017

Does Institutional Change Spread Across

Countries? Explaining Spatial Patterns in

Human Rights*

Gerrit Faber

1

and Michiel Gerritse

2

1

Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht, The Netherlands and

2

Faculty of Economics and

Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

1. INTRODUCTION

IN 1945, the United Nations was founded to promote peace, security and human rights

through international cooperation. In the wake of the horrors of the Second World War,

protecting the rights laid down in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights became a

prime goal of the UN. Other organisations, including many national governments, non-go vern-

mental organisations like Amnesty International and the American Library Association, reli-

gious organisations and trade unions put great effort into organising international support for

the Declaration. Similarly, the provision of aid, trade concessions and investment treaties was

linked to the observance of the Declaration. In 2000, all 189 member countries of the UN

committed to jointly pursuing the Millennium Goals, of which human rights are a substantial

pillar. Do these international efforts improve human rights integrity in poorly performing

countries? They are not successful on all accounts: the respect for human rights is far from

perfect in large parts of the world. Human right violations occur at a large scale over long

stretches of time, in several regions of the world.

Interactions between neighbouring countries can frustrate international efforts to promote

local human rights. Regional military interventions, trade and investment relations and politi-

cal interactions with neighbouring countries probably determine local human rights. If coun-

tries thus reinforce each other’s poor human rights, interventions for improvement may

quickly be undone. Or more positively, local aid may have wider benefits in the region. Under

such interactions, spatial clusters of good and poor human rights emerge. Figure 1 shows

some tentative proof that human rights records follow spatial patterns, by mapping a human

rights score, the Political Terror Scale (PTS). Visually,

1

there is indeed a clustering of high

and low scores. Figure 1 suggests that violations of human rights in neighbouring countries

are associated with a low domestic respect for human rights.

However, the spatial pattern in human rights scores does not prove that international inter-

actions or spillovers play a large role in the development of human rights. Neighbouring

countries often share a history and geography, which are replete with possible explanations of

human rights performance. Such ‘deep determinants’ can include the physical geography: the

soil and climate in sub-Saharan Africa may lag economic development, which often goes

*The authors thank Anja Mihr (formerly of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, SIM and The

Hague Institute for Global Justice), Olaf de Groot (United Nations ECLAC), Daniel Arribas-Bel (Univer-

sity of Liverpool), Paul Elhorst (University of Groningen) and Jochen Mierau (University of Groningen).

1

And statistically: the Moran’s I statistic for spatial autocorrelation is 0.123 and rejects the null of

random distribution with a p-value beyond the second decimal. The Moran’s I statistic is high, when

scores are clustered in space. Section 4 contains an exact definition.

©2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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The World Economy (2017)

doi: 10.1111/twec.12416

The World Economy

hand in hand with human rights violations (Sachs, 2001). Similarly, nearby countries often

share history, including wars, the same colonisers and the same culture. The geography and

history associated with a location affect overall institutional quality, thus determining the

protection of minorities and the risk of conflicts. Indirectly, a good institutional quality

contributes to economic development, possibly allowing for better human rights indirectly,

too (Acemoglu et al., 2001, 2002, 2005; Rodrik et al., 2004). Therefore, even if current-day

interactions between countries were absent, spatial patterns in human rights violations are still

likely to form due to deep determinants.

But do Niger and Chad have the same imperfect human rights performance because they

share a border; or because they both have large stretches of desert and saw French colonisa-

tion? While there is much anecdotal evidence, there are far fewer structural analyses that

examine whether human rights benefit from, say, economic development in neighbouring

countries. To design human rights policy, the interpretation of spatial human rights patterns is

decisive. Local improvements in human rights (or violations of human rights) carry implica-

tions for other countries only, if international diffusion of the respect for human rights occurs.

If the regime changes incited by the ‘Arab Spring’ in countries like Tunisia, Egypt and

Yemen improve the national human rights performance, spatial spillovers could lead to paral-

lel effects in North Africa and the Middle East. Conversely, serious deteriorations of huma n

rights following political turmoil or conflict might lead to interventions in neighbouring coun-

tries. In this situation, human rights intervention may have indirect benefits elsewhere. More-

over, if countries reinforce each other’s human rights violations, regional instead of national

interventions are called for. However, if deep determinants like history and geography explain

spatial patterns in human rights, such spatial spillovers are less realistic. Similarities among

neighbouring countries like climate, diseases, legal heredity or soil quality cause similar out-

comes, but will not lead changes in human right performance to affect neighbours. If such

Human Rights Score

1

2

3

4

5

N/A

FIGURE 1

Human Rights Scores Across the Globe

Notes: US Department of State scores. Higher scores point to more violations of human rights

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