Human Rights, Democracy, and International Conflict
Michael Tomz
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
Encina Hall West, Room 310
Stanford, CA 94305-6044
[email protected]
Jessica L. Weeks
Department of Government
Cornell University
318 White Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
[email protected]
1
1. Introduction
Despite significant progress over the last century, many governments around the
world violate the human rights of their citizens. In 2010, 85 percent of countries engaged
in at least one documented instance of torture, extrajudicial killing, political
imprisonment, or disappearance (CIRI 2011). Nearly 83 percent of countries committed
widespread violations on at least one of these dimensions, and more than 13 percent
carried out widespread violations in all four categories. Perhaps surprisingly, both
democratic and non-democratic governments were among the perpetrators.
In recent years scholars have raised the possibility that governments that use violence
against their own citizens are significantly more likely to use violence in their external
relations, as well. Relying on historical data, these studies have uncovered a strong
correlation between respect for domestic human rights and peaceful foreign relations
(Caprioli and Trumbore 2006, Sobek, Abouharb, and Ingram 2006, Peterson and Graham
2011). Importantly, this correlation persists whether the country is a democracy or an
autocracy, indicating that regard for human rights is a source of peace independent of
states’ formal political institutions.
While these studies break new ground, we nonetheless know relatively little about the
apparent relationship between human rights and peace. As with many observational
studies, one issue is that it is difficult to establish a causal relationship between human
rights violations and conflict using historical data: collinearity between democracy and
human rights, endogeneity between human rights and conflict, measurement error, and
omitted variables could all hamper efforts to separate cause and effect.
Moreover, we still have much to learn about the mechanisms connecting human rights
practices and interstate conflict. One possibility is that disregard for human rights creates
direct conflicts of interest: for example many Western countries view Syria’s human
rights violations as potential grounds for conflict even if those abuses remain inside
Syria’s borders. A more far-reaching prospect, however, is that human rights abuses also
lead to conflict indirectly. A long tradition of research on the liberal peace has argued that
states “externalize” their domestic norms to the international arena. When countries
violate human rights, this could signal to other states a willingness to resort to violence
internationally as well. If this is true, human rights abuses could have a long reach
indeed, by shaping states’ interactions on issues far removed from the treatment of
citizens.
While the possibility of a “human rights peace” has important implications, previous
studies have not demonstrated convincingly how and why such a peace might occur.
Reliance on highly-aggregated historical data in which the unit of analysis is the country
or the dyad over time means that we cannot know what motivated the actors who made
policy. All else equal, are voters and elected leaders in democracies less supportive of
using force against countries that abuse human rights, even when controlling for that
country’s political institutions? For what reasons do human rights practices affect these
calculations? And finally, is there an interactive or conditional relationship between
democratic institutions, human rights, and peace?
In this paper we use survey-based experiments to answer these questions, shedding
new light on the relationship between human rights practices, democracy, and the use of
force, as well as the mechanisms behind that relationship. Using survey experiments, we
2
directly measure the preferences and beliefs of actors in a democracy, while avoiding
problems of endogeneity, collinearity and over-aggregation that have impeded previous
research.
Our experiments, administered to a sample of American adults, involve a situation in
which a country is developing nuclear weapons, a policy issue with little direct
connection to human rights abuses. When describing the situation, we randomly and
independently varied the potential adversary’s political regime and human rights record,
while holding constant its alliance status, economic ties, and military power. After
describing the situation, we asked individuals whether they would support or oppose a
preventive military strike against the country’s nuclear facilities.
Our findings reveal that respondents are indeed significantly more willing to use
military force against countries that violate human rights than countries that respect their
citizens, even when the dispute at hand has little to do with the treatment of individuals.
Because we randomly and independently manipulated the regime type and human rights
practices of the adversary, the preference for peace that we observed was almost certainly
causal, rather than spurious.
Moreover, our unique experimental design helps reveal why this relationship exists.
First, we found strong evidence that respondents believe that countries with poor human
rights records externalize those norms to the international arena. We then used new
techniques for causal mediation analysis (Imai, Keele, and Yamamoto 2010, Imai et al.
2011) to demonstrate that human rights practices appear to affect preferences about the
use of force primarily through mechanisms emphasizing threat perception and morality.
Respondents were significantly more likely to view human rights violators as threatening,
attributing more ominous intentions to a country’s nuclear program when its government
abused its citizens, than when the country was described in otherwise identical terms but
respected human rights. Respondents were also more likely to say it would be morally
wrong to attack a country that upheld human rights, compared to a country that abused its
citizens. Those perceptions of threat and morality, in turn, drove much of the effect of
human rights. Thus, our data help arbitrate between possible theories, while also
identifying morality as an important but understudied mechanism.
Finally, our findings suggest that the relationship between formal democratic
institutions (such as elections) and peace is conditional on whether the government
respects human rights. When countries upheld the rights of their citizens, democratic
institutions further enhanced trust and reduced willingness to strike. In contrast, when
countries violated human rights, democratic institutions did not provide reassurance or
heighten moral qualms about attacking. This suggests that the “liberal” component of the
liberal peace is crucial: when a country’s formal institutions do not coincide with liberal
norms of respect for human rights, they do little to foster trust or raise moral concerns in
opposing states that are considering an attack.
In the remainder of the paper, we revisit existing theories of the effect of human
rights on peace and derive their implications for the preferences and perceptions of
individuals. We then discuss how experiments allow us to test these implications. The
subsequent sections present our findings about the relationship between human rights,
democracy, and peace and the mechanisms behind it. We conclude by discussing the
implications of our findings.
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2. How Shared Respect for Human Rights Fosters Peace
When actors decide on matters of war, peace, and cooperation, they often do so with
only scant knowledge of the precise motivations of other countries or the likely outcomes
of their own policies. As a consequence, many scholars have suggested that voters and
leaders rely on information about other countries’ domestic politics to inform their
preferences about using force. To date, the bulk of this scholarship has focused on how
political institutions – notably, democratic political structures – affect states’ perceptions
of each other and therefore their decisions to take up arms.
More recently, scholars have broadened their focus beyond democratic institutions to
ask how states’ human rights practices affect their international relations. Several studies
have recently found that abuse of human rights is associated with violent international
behavior (Caprioli and Trumbore 2006, Sobek, Abouharb, and Ingram 2006, Peterson
and Graham 2011). While these studies provide important clues into the relationship
between human rights practices and conflict, a number of theoretical issues must be
explored more deeply. First, how exactly do perceptions of other states’ human rights
practices translate into peaceful relations? Second, does the pacifying effect of shared
democratic institutions—the democratic peace –depend on whether or not the other state
respects or violates human rights?
To answer these questions, we build on a body of scholarship about how perceptions
of other states affect decisions to use military force. Most theories of war presume that,
before engaging in violence, leaders and their constituents weigh the expected costs of
war against the anticipated benefits. Perceptions of costs and benefits are crucial in
classic texts about war (Thucydides, Morgenthau 1948, Jervis 1978), modern gametheoretic models (Fearon 1995, Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999, Kydd 2005),
psychological theories of conflict (Herrmann et al. 1997, Hermann and Kegley 1995),
and also constructivist theories, which argue that beliefs about costs and benefits are
socially constructed (Wendt 1992, Finnemore 2003).
From this body of theory, we highlight four inputs into calculations about the costs
and benefits of war. First, states form perceptions of how threatening other countries are.
Conflict is more likely when states perceive high levels of threat, because states that feel
threatened may attack in the interest of self-preservation (Jervis 1978, Kydd 2005).
Second, states consider the material costs of using force. All else equal, using force is
more attractive when the economic, human, and diplomatic costs of war are perceived to
be low. Third, states consider the likely success of the military operation. They are
reluctant to waste resources on impossible missions but may support operations they
expect to succeed (Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler 2006). Fourth, moral considerations could
influence decisions about whether to fight (Welch 1993, Price 1998, Herrmann and
Shannon 2001). Elsewhere, we have argued that shared regime type (whether both
countries are democratic) could potentially influence each of these four calculations.
Here, we ask how shared respect for human rights affects these mechanisms.
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Human Rights and Threat Perception
The first input into the decision for war is threat perception. Many scholars have
explored how democracy can reduce perceptions of threat, i.e. whether another country
has hostile intentions and is likely to resort to military force.
Threat perception plays a crucial role in “normative” theories of the democratic
peace. These theories start by assuming that democracies are normatively opposed to
using violence to settle disputes. In democracies, citizens solve domestic disagreements
peacefully, and they transfer those same nonviolent norms to their relations with fellow
democracies. Democracies therefore trust that when they are dealing with other
democracies, they will reach a peaceful resolution to their dispute rather than solving
their problems with military force (Doyle 1986, Maoz and Russett 1993, Russett 1993,
Dixon 1994, Owen 1994, Risse-Kappen 1995).
This argument can easily be adapted to explaining why shared respect for human
rights could enhance peace. Caprioli and Trumbore (2003, 2006), for example, argue that
human rights violators have a higher rate of involvement in international disputes because
they apply the same violent norms abroad as they do at home. Others have developed
dyadic arguments that rely on perceptions of other states’ norms. Sobek, Abouharb, and
Ingram (2006), for example, argue that when two states both respect human rights, their
shared belief that the other side’s norms proscribe violence raises the likelihood of
peaceful relations. Similarly, Petersen and Graham (2011) argue that expectations of
mutual norms of nonviolence can ease the security dilemma: “States respecting integrity
rights will transfer these norms of nonviolence to their dealings with other states … when
they expect these potential adversaries to do the same.” (252)
In fact, there are reasons to believe that domestic human rights practices could be
even more powerful than democratic institutions in shaping perceptions of threat. When a
country violates human rights by engaging in torture, imprisonment, disappearance, or
government killings, this is direct evidence that the government is willing to use violence
in pursuit of its goals. Other countries therefore have little reason to expect that an
international dispute will be resolved peacefully, either.
Finally, the threat perception mechanism suggests that the effect of democratic
institutions could be conditional on perceptions of human rights behavior. When
democracies violate human rights, this could be viewed as clear evidence that the
government of that country (and by extension, its citizens) finds it acceptable to use
violence domestically, and hence against other countries as well. Thus, democratic
institutions may reduce threat perception only when the opposing country respects human
rights.
Morality
Second, human rights violations could lead to conflict by lowering moral qualms
about using force. Perhaps surprisingly, existing scholarship does not emphasize that a
country’s human rights practices could affect other countries’ views about the morality or
legitimacy of taking up arms against it. But it seems reasonable to think that people might
have fewer moral qualms about attacking governments that harm their citizens, because
this implies that the government does not respect citizens’ rights to autonomy and selfdetermination. Governments that treat their own citizens poorly might make more
legitimate targets for military intervention.
5
This moral argument differs from the “normative” explanations described above, in
which the opponent’s domestic norms affect perceptions about military threats. It is also
distinct from moral arguments about self-defense. If morality is an independent cause of
peace between countries that respect human rights, we would expect to find a moral
aversion to using force against other countries that uphold human rights, separate from
perceptions of threat or other factors.
As with the threat perception mechanism, the discussion again suggests that the effect
of democratic institutions – the focus of much of the democratic peace literature – could
be conditional on respecting human rights. The government’s willingness to use violence
against its own citizens could invalidate moral claims to non-intervention even among
democracies. Thus, democracy may increase moral qualms about using military force
only when the country respects the human rights of its own citizens. When governments
violate human rights, democracy may offer no protection.
Deterrence (Costs of Fighting and Likelihood of Success)
Finally, while some theories of the relationship between domestic politics and war
focus on threat perception, others imply that domestic politics affect two other inputs into
the decision for war: the costs of fighting and/or the likelihood of success. Selectorate
theory (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999), in particular, argues that domestic political
factors affect leaders’ incentives to win; fighting against democracies would for example
be especially costly because democratic leaders have strong incentives to win the wars
they start (see also Reiter and Stam 2002). Following this logic, countries should be
deterred from using force against regimes that are likely to fight hard and therefore create
high costs of war and a low probability of victory.
How might human rights practices affect calculations of cost and success? In our
view, there could be countervailing effects. On the one hand, observers might expect that
countries that respect human rights, therefore signaling their pacific norms, would be
reluctant to use violence even in self-defense. This could lower the anticipated costs of
fighting a country that does not violate human rights and raise expectations of success.
On the other hand, several factors could raise concerns about costs and lower confidence
in success. One is that if a country does not violate human rights, this could lead the
country’s citizens to be more loyal to the government, allowing it to fight more
effectively.1 Another possibility is that whether or not actors view it as morally wrong to
use force, they might anticipate that relations with other countries will suffer if they
attack a country that respects its citizens’ rights. Because of these countervailing
possibilities, the effect of human rights is more likely to be transmitted via the threat and
morality mechanisms.
In sum, there are three main sets of mechanisms through which information about a
state’s human rights practices could affect actors’ beliefs and preferences about using
force against that state. The theories not only imply that countries that uphold human
rights should be more inclined to use force against countries that violate human rights
than those that respect them, but they also make different claims about why actors would
hold these preferences.
1
See for example Reiter and Stam 2002.
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3. Research Design
Given the challenges with using aggregate historical data to study how and why
human rights practices affect preferences about striking, we take an experimental
approach.2 Survey experiments allow us to assign key explanatory variables (such as the
human rights practices and political regime of the target state) randomly. By
independently varying respect for human rights and democracy, which are correlated in
the real world, we can also avoid collinearity and omitted variable bias. Morever, our
experiments have unique advantages for shedding light on causal pathways. We can
measure how both human rights and democracy affect individual perceptions of threat,
cost, success, and morality, and thereby adjudicate among the competing mechanisms
outlined earlier.
Our survey design builds on our previous research using survey experiments to study
the democratic peace (Tomz and Weeks 2011). We chose to focus on a nuclear
proliferation scenario, as we did in earlier work, both for comparability and because we
wished to see how human rights practices affect perceptions in a policy domain that is not
related to the treatment of citizens. To field our survey, we recruited 1,159 U.S. adults via
an online service called Amazon Mechanical Turk. MTurk subscribers are younger, more
likely to be female, and more liberal than the national population. Nevertheless, Berinsky,
Huber, and Lenz (forthcoming) show that experiments on MTurk produce roughly the
same treatment effects as experiments on nationally representative samples.
The experiment begins by telling participants: “There is much concern these days
about the spread of nuclear weapons. We are going to describe a situation the United
States could face in the future. For scientific validity the situation is general, and is not
about a specific country in the news today. Some parts of the description may strike you
as important; other parts may seem unimportant. Please read the details very carefully.
After describing the situation, we will ask your opinion about a policy option.”
Respondents then received a series of bullet points with details about the situation.
The first bullet point explained, “A country is developing nuclear weapons and will have
its first nuclear bomb within six months. The country could then use its missiles to launch
nuclear attacks against any country in the world.” Participants were told that the country
did not have high levels of trade with the U.S, that the country had not signed a military
alliance with the U.S., and that the country’s conventional military strength was half the
U.S. level. We mentioned these issues to reduce information leakage, or the possibility
that respondents might infer information about alliances, military power, or trade from
the experimental conditions.
Next, we varied human rights practices and regime type, resulting in a 2x2
experimental design. To manipulate human rights behavior, respondents were told either
that “The country does not violate human rights; it does not imprison or torture its
citizens because of their beliefs,” or that “The country violates human rights; it imprisons
2
For other recent examples of experiments about international security, see Herrmann,
Tetlock, and Visser 1999, Herrmann and Shannon 2001, Berinsky 2007, Gartner 2008,
Baum and Groeling 2009, Berinsky 2009, Gelpi, Feaver, and Reifler 2009, Grieco et al.
2011, Horowitz and Levendusky 2011, McDermott 2011, Tingley 2011, Tingley and
Walter 2011, and Levendusky and Horowitz 2012.
7
or tortures some of its citizens because of their beliefs.” To vary regime type, respondents
learned either that “The country is a democracy. The president, the legislature, and local
councils are elected by the people,” or that “The country is not a democracy. The people
do not have the power to choose the leader.”
We concluded with several bullet points that were identical for everyone.
Respondents were told that “the country’s motives remain unclear, but if it builds nuclear
weapons, it will have the power to blackmail or destroy other countries.” Additionally,
they learned that the country had “refused all requests to stop its nuclear weapons
program.” Finally, the scenario explained that “by attacking the country’s nuclear
development sites now,” they could “prevent the country from making any nuclear
weapons.” After presenting this information, we asked whether respondents would favor
or oppose using their country’s armed forces to attack the nuclear development sites.
We then included a series of questions to measure each person’s perceptions of threat,
cost, success, and morality, with the goal of shedding light on causal mechanisms. To
gauge perceptions of threat, we first asked which of the following events had more than a
50 percent chance of happening if the U.S. did not attack: the country would build
nuclear weapons; threaten to use them against another country; threaten to use them
against the U.S. or a U.S. ally; launch a nuclear attack against another country; or launch
a nuclear attack against the U.S. or a U.S. ally. Respondents could select as many events
as they thought probable or indicate “none of the above.”
To assess perceptions of cost and success, we asked which, if any, of the following
events would have more than a 50 percent chance of happening if the U.S. did attack: the
country would respond by attacking the U.S. or U.S. ally; the U.S. military would suffer
many casualties; the U.S. economy would suffer; U.S. relations with other countries
would suffer; the U.S. would prevent the country from making nuclear weapons in the
short and/or the long run. And to measure perceptions of morality, we asked whether it
would be “morally wrong for the U.S. military to attack the country’s nuclear
development sites.”
Finally, we probed beliefs about norm externalization. Respondents were asked, “If
you had to guess, which of the following statements do you think the government of this
country would agree with?” They checked whether the government of that country
probably would or would not agree with each of the following statements: “In
international relations, violence should be used only as a last resort;” “It is wrong to use
violence to gain an advantage over other countries;” “Countries should resolve their
disputes through the United Nations;” “Countries should follow international law, even if
they disagree with it;” and “The best way to solve international problems is negotiation,
not violence.” Each of these questions taps expectations about whether a country would
use peaceful means of dispute resolution; if respondents believe that a country has
peaceful domestic norms and will externalize those norms, they should score a country
higher on our measures.
8
4. Findings
Main Effects
We begin by examining how the two randomized treatments, human rights and
democracy, affected support for military strikes. As Table 1 shows, human rights
conditions were profoundly influential, regardless of whether the potential adversary was
a democracy or an autocracy. The first column summarizes the effect of human rights in
scenarios involving democracies. There, 48.8% of respondents wanted to strike
democracies that imprisoned or tortured citizens because of political and religious beliefs.
In contrast, only 25.3% stood ready to attack democracies that did not engage in those
human rights practices. The overall effect of human rights conditions was, therefore, 23.5
percentage points, a massive effect that almost certainly did not arise by chance alone.
[Table 1 about here]
The second column displays the effect of human rights in scenarios involving
autocracies. Once again, the human rights practices of the adversary shaped preferences
about war. Around 50.5% of respondents wanted to attack autocracies that violated
human rights, whereas only 34.6% preferred to strike autocracies that respected human
rights. Here, the pacifying effect of human rights was nearly 16 percentage points.
Table 1 also confirms that democracy contributes to peace, but only under certain
conditions. The first row refers to scenarios in which the target respected human rights.
Given those conditions, U.S. citizens were substantially less likely to strike a democracy
than to strike an otherwise equivalent autocracy. Overall, democracy reduced support for
military action by 9.3 percentage points, an effect that was not only substantively large
but also statistically significant at conventional levels.
In contrast, Americans barely discriminated between democracies and autocracies in
scenarios where both types of regimes violated human rights. Around 50.5% would
attack an autocracy that trammeled on the human rights of citizens, but nearly as many
(48.8%) would use violence against a democracy with a similar record of democracy and
torturing citizens. Conditional on widespread human rights violations, the net effect of
democracy was only 1.7 percentage points.
In summary, Table 1 provides the first experimental evidence about the interactive
effects of human rights and democracy on public attitudes toward war. Our data show
that human rights contribute to peace, not only when the adversary is a democracy, but
also when it is an autocracy. In contrast, democracy pacifies the masses only when the
adversary respects human rights. Early research on the democratic peace (Doyle 1986)
emphasized that liberal democracy—the confluence of political liberalism and
democratic institutions—contributed to peace. Table 1 supports that conjecture. In our
experiment, regular elections in the target state by themselves did not dampen enthusiasm
for war. Elections proved consequential only for countries that refrained from
imprisoning or torturing their own citizens.
Norm Externalization
Above, we argued that human rights (and democracy) could lead to peace by
revealing information about domestic norms. If other countries believe that states
“externalize” their domestic norms, this could foster peace by reducing threat perception
and increasing confidence that the dispute could be settled peacefully.
9
Did the respondents in our survey believe that countries apply similar norms abroad
as they do at home? Table 2 summarizes our findings on norm externalization. The first
panel shows the percentage of respondents who believed that the country would
“probably agree” with a series of five statements measuring a normative commitment to
resolving disputes peacefully, given each of the four combinations of human rights and
regime type. The second panel summarizes the same data in a slightly different way,
showing the effect of human rights conditional on the country’s regime type, and the
effect of regime type conditional on human rights. A star indicates that the difference was
statistically significant at the .05 level.
[Table 2 about here]
The table indicates that human rights practices strongly affected beliefs about the
country’s norms of international behavior. Respondents were much more likely to think
that a democratic country held normative prohibitions against violence in international
affairs when it respected human rights than when it violated them. For example, 74% of
our respondents thought that democratic respecters of human rights would agree that “In
international relations, violence should only be used as a last resort.” In contrast, only
40% of respondents attributed such pacific beliefs to a democratic government that
violated human rights, a difference of 34 points. They were also less like to think that the
country’s government would agree that “Countries should resolve their disputes through
the United Nations” (54% when the democratic country respected human rights, but only
25% when it violated human rights), and that “Countries should follow international law,
even if they disagree with it” (44% vs. 24%). Across the five indicators of norm
externalization, human rights violations shifted beliefs about the country’s international
norms by an average of 29 points, effects that were always statistically significant. The
effect of human rights violations was nearly as strong when the country was not a
democracy: respondents were on average 21 points less likely to believe that the
government was committed to peaceful international norms across the five questions,
again with differences that were always statistically significant.
While democracy also had an effect on beliefs about the country’s norms, we found
that this effect was to some extent conditional on whether or not the country respected
human rights. When the government refrained from torturing and imprisoning its citizens,
democracy shifted beliefs about the country’s pacific international norms by an average
of 16 points, ranging from 11 to 21 points and always significant. However, when we
described the country as a human rights violator, democracy had a smaller effect: on
average, there was only a 9-point shift in beliefs that the government had a normative
commitment to resolving international disputes peacefully, and the differences on two of
the five indicators were not distinguishable from zero.
In sum, we found strong evidence that human rights practices are powerful indicators
of pacific international norms. Democracy not only had a weaker effect on beliefs about
norm externalization, but the size of this effect was also conditional on whether the
country respected human rights. When countries violate human rights, democratic
institutions do little to rehabilitate their international image.
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Threat Perception
Next, we investigated whether governments that respect human rights are less
threatening than countries that abuse their citizens. Table 3 summarizes the impact of
human rights and democracy on this first mediator, perceptions of threat. In the top panel,
the first two columns show what participants expected when the scenario involved a
democracy; the third and fourth columns show how expectations changed given an
identical scenario involving a non-democracy. The lower panel again shows the same
data, except displays the differences attributable to human rights and democracy across
the various combinations. A star indicates that the effect was statistically significant at
the .05 level.
[Table 3 about here]
The first row of each panel, labeled “build nuclear weapons,” shows that neither
human rights nor democracy substantially affected beliefs about whether the country
would finish building nuclear weapons. 87 percent of our participants predicted that a
democratic country that respected human rights would build a bomb, but the percentage
expecting that a democracy that violated human rights would go nuclear was only 1 point
higher. The numbers were similar when the country was not a democracy. These effects
were substantively small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. Hence, human
rights and democracy did not promote peace by allaying fears that the country would
build nuclear weapons.
The next two lines of each panel in Table 3 summarize beliefs about nuclear threats.
Of our sample, 40% thought a democratic country that respected human rights would not
only build the bomb but also threaten to use it against another country. When those same
respondents considered an equivalent democracy that violated human rights, anticipation
of nuclear threats was 26 points higher. Similarly, 29% predicted that a democracy
respecting human rights would likely issue nuclear threats against U.S. or its allies; those
fears increased by 23 percentage points when the country violated human rights. Again,
the effect of human rights was large and significant, though slightly smaller (18 points),
when the country was non-democratic.
Moving further down the table, we see that human rights violations also increased
fears of an actual nuclear attack. Around 21-26% of our sample thought that the human
rights-respecting democracy would not only obtain nuclear weapons but also fire them
against a foreign target. Substantially more thought the democracy would use its nuclear
arsenal when it violated human rights, an effect of 10-11 percentage points. The effect of
human rights when the country was non-democratic was about 8 points. In summary,
human rights violations mattered not by lowering the expected probability of getting
nuclear weapons, but by changing perceptions about how the country would use them.
When we turn our focus from human rights to democracy, we see, as before, that the
size of the effect of democracy appears to be conditional on whether the country upholds
human rights. When the target country shows regard for its citizens, democracy reduced
perceptions of threat by an average of 6 points, a statistically significant margin. When
the country abused its citizens, the effect of democracy was a mere 2 points. As before,
when a country tortures or imprisons its residents, democracy does little to salvage its
threatening image.
11
Morality
We next turn to our second mechanism, morality. We found that human rights had a
pronounced effect on the moral intuitions of respondents (Table 4). About 53% deemed it
immoral to strike a democracy that upheld human rights, but when respondents read
about a democratic human rights violator, the moral reluctance to strike plummeted by 18
points, to 35%. Human rights had a similar effect on moral concerns when the country
was a non-democracy, dropping by 14 points from 46% to 32%. Thus, our survey
provides micro-level evidence that human rights behavior affects the moral calculation
for war. Other factors equal, people have far greater moral reservations about attacking a
country that respects human rights than one that abuses its citizens.
[Table 4 about here]
Like human rights, democracy also had an effect on moral beliefs, but this effect was
smaller and not statistically significant in our survey. Democracy shifted beliefs about the
morality of striking by 7 points when the country respected human rights, but only by 3
points when the country violated human rights. Thus, as before, the effect of democracy
on moral reservations appears to be conditional on respect for human rights.
Cost and Success
Finally, although human rights reduced perceptions of threat, it had little effect on the
third causal pathway: expectations about the costs of fighting and the likelihood of
winning. We asked what would happen if the U.S. struck the country’s nuclear facilities.
Sixty-eight percent of our participants thought that a democratic country that respected
human rights would retaliate against the U.S. or a U.S. ally, but they did not think a
human rights violator would react much differently. This non-effect of human rights was
similar when the target was non-democratic. Similarly, around 61 percent of respondents
said the U.S. military would suffer many casualties and that the U.S. economy would
decline as a result of the strike, but these perceptions did not depend on the country’s
human rights behavior.
Human rights did affect forecasts about the cordiality of U.S. relations with other
countries, at least when the country was a non-democracy. About 75% of our sample
thought that that striking a democratic country that respects human rights would hurt U.S.
relations with other nations. That prediction was about 5 percentage points less common
when the target was a democratic human rights violator. The effect of human rights was a
bit larger when the country was non-democratic: 72% of the respondents thought that
striking an autocratic country that respects human rights would damage U.S. relations
with other countries, compared to 62 when the country was an autocratic human rights
violator. In general, though, the effect of human rights on the predicted cost of fighting
was weak and not statistically significant. Democracy had a somewhat larger effect on
expectations of cost in our experiment than human rights did.
Finally, we studied how human rights and democracy affected beliefs about the
probability of success of military action. Human rights did not affect expectations of
success by a statistically significant margin whether or not the target was a democracy.
Democracy had a similarly insignificant effect, whether or not the country violated
human rights.
12
In summary, human rights affected some but not all of the hypothesized mediators.
Human rights substantially reduced perceptions of threat and morality but had almost no
effect on the expected cost of launching a preventive military strike or the likelihood of
winning. While democracy also affected beliefs about threat and morality, these effects
were smaller, particularly when the country violated human rights. Moreover, the effect
of democracy was consistently smaller – often insignificant – when the country violated
human rights, indicating that the effect of democracy is conditional on respect for
citizens’ rights.
The Effects of the Mediators on Support for Strikes
Next, we estimated the effect of each mediator on support for military strikes. Having
observed the mediators instead of randomizing them, we needed a statistical model with
control variables. Given the binary nature of our dependent variable—1 if the respondent
supported a strike and 0 otherwise—we used probit regression.
The key independent variables for these analyses were the four mediators: threat,
cost, success, and immorality. To summarize perceptions of threat, we counted the
number of adverse events (listed in Table 3) that respondents marked as probable if the
U.S. did not strike the country’s nuclear facilities. Threat ranged from 0 to 5, with a mean
of 2.5. Similarly, we summarized perceptions of cost by counting the number of negative
consequences—military retaliation, high casualties, economic damage, and deteriorating
relations—that the respondent anticipated if the U.S. carried out the operation. Cost
ranged from 0 to 4, with a mean of 2.6. To gauge perceptions of success, we asked
whether respondents thought the mission would stop the country from getting nuclear
weapons. Success was 2 if respondents thought the mission would succeed both in the
short and in the long run, 1 if it would prove efficacious only in the short run, and 0 if it
had less than a 50–50 chance of working even in the near term. The modal belief, shared
half the respondents, was that strikes would work only in the short run. Finally,
Immorality was coded 1 if respondents thought it would be morally wrong to strike
(42%) and 0 otherwise.
We then added dummy variables for the randomized treatments: Human Rights,
Democracy, and the interaction of the two, implicitly treating autocratic abusers of
human rights as the reference category. Finally, we included demographic and attitudinal
control variables. In particular, we controlled for whether the respondent was Male and
White. We also controlled for the respondent’s Age in years and level of Education. As
noted earlier, subjects recruited via Mechanical Turk tend to be younger, more likely to
be female, and more educated the general population. Those same patterns appeared in
our sample, where the mean age was 32 (with a range from 18 to 74), 55% of participants
were female, and 43% had a college degree. Our probit model controls for those
potentially important demographic variables.
Finally, to adjust for baseline attitudes toward the use of military force, we included
indices of Militarism, Internationalism, Religiosity, Ethnocentrism, and identification
with the Republican Party. Each of these indices had a mean of zero and a standard
deviation of about 0.8; details on the construction of these variables are available in an
online appendix.
Table 5 confirms that, when deciding whether to use military force, people weighed
the threat the adversary posed, the expected cost of taking military action, the perceived
13
likelihood of success, and the morality of employing violence. Threat, Cost, Success, and
Immorality all worked in the hypothesized directions and were statistically significant at
the .05 level.
[Table 5 about here]
To judge the importance of these four variables, we simulated how support for a
strike would change if we shifted each mediator from its minimum to its maximum, while
holding the other variables at their observed values. The effects were massive. If
perceptions of threat rose from low to high, support for military action would increase by
46 points. Similarly, a groundswell of optimism about the chances of success would
boost mass support by 10 points. Conversely, if the expected cost changed from low to
high, the popularity of military action would decline by 22 points. Finally, if people came
to view the operation as immoral, mass enthusiasm would drop by 29 points.
Mediation Analysis
We have now estimated the effects of human rights and democracy on each mediator,
and the effect of each mediator on support for military strikes. By joining these parts of
the causal chain, we can see how perceptions of threat, cost, success, and morality
mediate the relationships between our two experimental treatments—human rights and
democracy—and public preferences regarding the use of force (Imai, Keele, and
Yamamoto 2010, Imai et al. 2011).
More precisely, for each individual 𝑖, let 𝐻! be a treatment indicator that takes a
value of 1 when 𝑖 was asked about a country that respected human rights, and 0 when 𝑖
was asked about a country that violated human rights. Similarly, let 𝐷! be a treatment
indicator that is 1 when 𝑖 was asked about a democracy, and 0 when 𝑖 was asked about an
autocracy.
Use 𝑌! (ℎ, 𝑑) to denote 𝑖’s support for a military strike under treatment conditions
𝐻! = ℎ and 𝐷! = 𝑑. Our experiment had four combinations of treatment conditions,
implying four potential outcomes for each individual: 𝑌! (1,1), 𝑌! (1,0), 𝑌! (0,1), and
𝑌! (0,0). We randomly presented each individual with one of these four scenarios, and
therefore observed only one of the four potential outcomes for each individual. This
pattern of missing data posed no problem when constructing Table 1, but we will need to
overcome it, as discussed below, to identify of causal mechanisms.
Our analysis focused on four mediators, which we will index as 𝑘 = {1,2,3,4}.
For each person in our panel, let 𝑀!! ℎ, 𝑑 represent the value of mediator 𝑘 when the
target had attributes ℎ and 𝑑. Again, with four experimental conditions, there were four
potential values of each mediator for each individual: 𝑀!! (1,1), 𝑀!! (1,0), 𝑀!! (0,1), and
𝑀!! (0,0). For any given individual, we observed one of these four values; we will need to
impute the others.
For any given individual, the effect of human rights transmitted via mediator 𝑘
(controlling for the level of democracy) is
𝜈!! = 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 1, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑
− 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 0, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 .
(1)
The first term the right hand side is 𝑖’s support for a military strike when the target
respects human rights and has democracy value 𝑑, and all the mediators (both 𝑘 and −𝑘,
14
meaning “not 𝑘”) are as if the country respected human rights and had democracy value
𝑑. The second term is identical, except that mediator 𝑘 is as if the country violated human
rights but remained at democracy level 𝑑.3
𝜈!! is the difference between an observable quantity and a counterfactual one. The
minuend, 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 1, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 , simplifies to 𝑌! (1, 𝑑), the observable response
to a scenario in which the adversary respects human rights and has democracy level 𝑑.
The subtrahend, 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 0, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 , on the other hand, is hypothetical. It
represents the preference 𝑖 would have expressed if she read about a country that
respected human rights and had democracy level 𝑑, but perceived mediator 𝑘 as if that
same country violated human rights. Because the subtrahend is a counterfactual, 𝜈!! is not
directly observable for any member of the sample.
!
Fortunately, one can estimate 𝜈!! and the sample-wide average, 𝜈 ! = ! !!!! 𝜈!! , by
applying the following algorithm:
1. Using all cases, estimate a probit model of support for a military strike. In this model,
𝑌! ~Bernoulli(𝜋! ) and 𝜋! = Φ(𝛼𝑇! + 𝛽𝑀! + 𝛾𝑋! ), where Φ is the cumulative normal
distribution, 𝑇! is the treatment vector (𝐻! , 𝐷! , 𝐻! ×𝐷! ) with coefficient vector 𝛼, 𝑀! is
a vector of mediators with coefficients 𝛽, and 𝑋! is a vector of control variables with
coefficients 𝛾. We estimated this model in Table 5.
2. Using all cases, model each mediator as a function of the randomized treatments and
demographic control variables, i.e., 𝑀!! = 𝑓(𝛿𝑇! + 𝜔𝑋! ). We estimated ordered
probit models for Threat, Cost, and Success, and a binary probit model for
Immorality. To conserve space we do not report the coefficients here.
3. For each 𝑖,
a. Use the mediator models to predict 𝑀!! (ℎ, 𝑑) for each 𝑘, for all four possible
combinations of ℎ and 𝑑, conditional on the respondent’s true demographic attributes,
𝑋! . This step addresses the missing data problem by imputing the values we would
have observed, if we could have administered all four treatment conditions to every
person in the sample.
b. Use the probit model in Table 5 to predict 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 1, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 , where
𝑀!! 1, 𝑑 and 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 are imputed values of the mediators. Use the same probit
model to predict 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 0, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 , where 𝑀!! 0, 𝑑 and 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑 are
imputed values of the mediators.
3
Equation (1) gives the effect of human rights via mediator 𝑘 for the treatment condition.
Alternatively, one could estimate the effect for the control condition,
𝑌! 0, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 1, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 0, 𝑑 − 𝑌! 0, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 0, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 0, 𝑑 . When we did so, our
conclusions remained the same.
15
c. Compute 𝜈!! = 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 1, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑
!
4. Compute the sample-wide average, 𝜈 ! = !
− 𝑌! 1, 𝑑, 𝑀!! 0, 𝑑 , 𝑀!!! 1, 𝑑
.
!
!
!!! 𝜈! .
This algorithm produces one sample-wide estimate for each of the four mediators.
One can approximate the sampling distributions of the 𝜈 ! ’s by repeating the algorithm
many times, with each iteration based on a different bootstrap resample of the original
data. The algorithm can also be adapted to decompose the effect of democracy, holding
human rights constant at ℎ.
Using this algorithm, we estimated how the total effects of our randomized
treatments (Table 1) were transmitted via each of the four mediators. Recall that, when
the country was a democracy, human rights reduced support for a military strike by 23.5
percentage points. Table 6 shows that about 22 percent of that effect arose because
human rights changed perceptions of threat, and an additional 16 percent arose because
human rights altered perceptions of morality. The mediatory roles of cost and success
were much weaker, and not statistically significant. Together, threat and morality
mediated nearly 40% of the total effect, whereas perceptions of cost and success played
no significant role in the causal chain.
[Table 6 about here]
In a similar way, we decomposed the other significant treatment effects from Table
1. When the adversary was autocratic, its good human rights practices led to a 16-point
decline in public support for the use of force. Table 6 attributes about 24% of that effect
to the threat mechanism, and an additional 19% to concerns about morality. Once again,
cost and success played relatively minor roles. Finally, recall that citizens were less
willing to strike a democracy than to strike an equivalent autocracy, provided that the
target respected human rights. Table 6 shows that democracy exerted that effect by
influencing beliefs about threat and morality, but not cost and success.
We found little evidence that human rights and democracy promoted peace by
changing perceptions of cost and success. This does not mean that citizens disregarded
the expected cost of fighting and the probability of success. On the contrary, Table 5
showed that respondents were much less enthusiastic about military action when they
thought strikes would be costly or unsuccessful. Rather, the reason that cost and success
did not mediate the effects of human rights and democracy, is because those political
conditions had only a negligible effect on perceptions of costs and success (Table 4).
5. Conclusion
Scholars have long argued that democracies tend to have peaceful relations with other
democracies. Accordingly, over the past two decades, a large number of studies have
found that countries with formal democratic institutions are very unlikely to use force
against each other. In recent years, scholars have raised the related possibility that
countries that respect human rights by refraining from imprisoning, torturing,
disappearing, or killing their citizens – whether or not they have formal democratic
16
institutions – tend to have peaceful relations with each other as well. Several recent
studies have used historical data on human rights abuses and international conflict to
demonstrate a strong correlation between respect for human rights and peace (Caprioli
and Trumbore 2006, Sobek, Abouharb, and Ingram 2006, Peterson and Graham 2011).
Moreover, they have found that this correlation persists whether or not the country is also
democratic, indicating that respect for human rights leads to peace regardless of the type
of government in power.
Despite this strong correlation between shared respect for human rights and peace,
little direct evidence exists about the mechanisms behind it. Nor have scholars explored
whether there is an interactive or conditional relationship between democratic institutions
and respect for human rights in the target state. In this paper we use survey-based
experiments to shed new light on these questions. Using survey experiments, we directly
measure preferences and beliefs, while avoiding problems of endogeneity, collinearity
and over-aggregation that have impeded previous research.
Our surveys reveal that respondents are indeed significantly more willing to use
military force against countries that violate human rights than otherwise identical
countries that respect their citizens. Our ability to randomly and independently
manipulate the regime type and human rights practices of the adversary means that we
can be confident that the observed preference for peace is causal, not spurious.
Moreover, our experiments uncovered intriguing evidence about why this relationship
exists. Through our innovative experimental design and causal mediation analysis, we
found that respondents believe that countries externalize their domestic norms, and that
threat perception and morality explain much of the relationship between the target’s
human rights record and willingness to strike. Respondents viewed the nuclear ambitions
of human rights violators as much more threatening compared to those of countries that
respected human rights. Respondents were also more likely to say it would be morally
wrong to attack a country when it respected rather than abused human rights. Those
perceptions, in turn, drove much of the effect of human rights. Thus, our experiment help
distinguish between possible theories, while also highlighting the often-overlooked role
of morality in international affairs.
Moreover, our findings suggest that the relationship between formal democratic
institutions (in our experiments, elections) and peace is conditional on whether the
government upholds human rights. When a country refrained from human rights abuses,
having a democratic government further enhanced trust and lowered willingness to attack
the country’s nuclear program. In contrast, when a country violated human rights,
democratic institutions did little to increase trust or raise moral hesitations to striking.
This suggests that formal institutions may have little effect on peace unless those
institutions are backed by liberal values.
17
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20
TABLE 1: EFFECTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY ON WILLINGNESS TO STRIKE
Is a
democracy
Not a
democracy
Effect of
democracy
Respects human rights
25.3
34.6
-9.3
(-17.0 to -1.9)
Violates human rights
48.8
50.5
-1.7
(-10.0 to 6.5)
Effect of human rights
-23.5
(-31.0 to -16.0)
-15.9
(-24.0 to -7.8)
Note: The table gives the percentage of respondents who supported military strikes,
conditional on whether the country was a democracy and whether it violated human
rights. The values in the right column are the estimated effects of democracy; the values
in the bottom row are the estimated effects of respecting human rights. 95% confidence
intervals appear in parentheses. Estimates are based on 304 cases in which a democracy
that respected human rights, 297 cases in which a democracy violated human rights, 283
cases in which a non-democracy respected human rights, and 275 cases in which a nondemocracy violated human rights.
21
TABLE 2: EFFECTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY ON PERCEPTIONS OF NORMS
(A) Perceptions of Norms in Each Experimental Condition
The government would
probably agree that ...
Is a democracy
Respects
Violates
human rights
human rights
Not a democracy
Respects
Violates
human rights
human rights
In international relations, violence
should be used only as a last resort.
74
40
58
26
It is wrong to use violence to gain an
advantage over other countries.
59
30
46
19
Countries should resolve their disputes
through the United Nations.
54
25
33
16
Countries should follow international
law, even if they disagree with it.
44
24
33
19
The best way to solve international
problems is negotiation, not violence.
67
36
48
30
Average
60
31
44
22
(B) Effects of Human Rights and Democracy on Perceptions
The government would
probably agree that ...
Effect of human rights
If a
If not a
democracy
democracy
Effect of democracy
If respects
If violates
human rights
human rights
In international relations, violence
should be used only as a last resort.
34 *
31 *
17 *
14 *
It is wrong to use violence to gain an
advantage over other countries.
29 *
27 *
13 *
11 *
Countries should resolve their disputes
through the United Nations.
29 *
17 *
21 *
9*
Countries should follow international
law, even if they disagree with it.
21 *
15 *
11 *
5
The best way to solve international
problems is negotiation, not violence.
31 *
18 *
19 *
6
Average
29 *
21 *
16 *
9*
Note: Panel A gives the percentage of respondents who held each perception. Panel B
gives the percentage change in perceptions caused by human rights (controlling for
democracy), or by democracy (controlling for human rights). Effects with an asterisk
were statistically significant at the .05 level.
22
TABLE 3: EFFECTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY ON PERCEPTIONS OF THREAT
(A) Perceptions of Threat in Each Experimental Condition
If the U.S. did not attack, the country would …
Is a democracy
Respects
Violates
human rights
human rights
Not a democracy
Respects
Violates
human rights
human rights
Build nuclear weapons
Threaten to use nukes vs. another country
Threaten to use nukes vs. U.S. or U.S. ally
Launch a nuclear attack vs. another country
Launch a nuclear attack vs. U.S. or U.S. ally
87
40
29
26
21
88
66
52
37
32
89
55
37
29
23
87
73
55
37
31
Average
41
55
47
57
(B) Effects of Human Rights and Democracy on Perceptions
If the U.S. did not attack, the country would …
Effect of human rights
If a
If not a
democracy
democracy
Effect of democracy
If respects
If violates
human rights
human rights
Build nuclear weapons
Threaten to use nukes vs. another country
Threaten to use nukes vs. U.S. or U.S. ally
Launch a nuclear attack vs. another country
Launch a nuclear attack vs. U.S. or U.S. ally
0
-26 *
-23 *
-10 *
-11 *
2
-18 *
-18 *
-8 *
-8 *
-2
-15 *
-9 *
-3
-3
1
-7
-3
0
1
Average
-14 *
-10 *
-6 *
-2
Note: Panel A gives the percentage of respondents who had each perception. Panel B
gives the percentage change perceptions caused by human rights (controlling for
democracy), or by democracy (controlling for human rights). Effects with an asterisk
were statistically significant at the .05 level.
23
TABLE 4: EFFECTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY ON PERCEPTIONS OF COST,
SUCCESS, AND MORALITY
(A) Perceptions of Cost, Success, and Morality in Each Experimental Condition
If the U.S. did attack …
Cost
The country would attack U.S. or U.S. ally
The U.S. military would suffer many casualties
The U.S. economy would suffer
U.S. relations with other countries would suffer
Average
Success
It would prevent nukes in the near future
It would prevent nukes in the long run
Average
Morality
It would be immoral
Is a democracy
Respects
Violates
human rights
human rights
Not a democracy
Respects
Violates
human rights
human rights
68
63
61
75
72
68
62
70
70
63
59
72
66
59
58
62
67
68
66
61
79
32
79
38
81
37
83
43
55
58
59
63
53
35
46
32
(B) Effects of Human Rights and Democracy on Perceptions
If the U.S. did attack …
Cost
The country would attack U.S. or U.S. ally
The U.S. military would suffer many casualties
The U.S. economy would suffer
U.S. relations with other countries would suffer
Average
Success
It would prevent nukes in the near future
It would prevent nukes in the long run
Average
Morality
It would be immoral
Effect of human rights
If a
If not a
democracy
democracy
Effect of democracy
If respects
If violates
human rights
human rights
-3
-5
-1
5
4
4
1
11 *
-1
1
2
3
6
9*
4
8*
-1
5
1
7*
-1
-6
-2
-5
-2
-6
-4
-5
-3
-4
-4
-4
18 *
14 *
7
3
Note: Panel A gives the percentage of respondents who held each perception. Panel B
gives the percentage change in perceptions caused by human rights (controlling for
democracy), or by democracy (controlling for human rights). Effects with an asterisk
were statistically significant at the .05 level.
24
TABLE 5: EFFECT OF MEDIATORS ON SUPPORT FOR MILITARY STRIKE
Variable
Coefficient
t -stat
Mediators
Threat
Cost
Success
Immorality
0.36
-0.24
0.23
-1.14
10.6
5.9
3.2
10.3
Treatments
Democracy
Human rights
Democracy x HR
0.08
-0.29
-0.27
0.6
-2.1 *
-1.4
Controls
Militarism
Internationalism
Republican
Ethnocentrism
Religiosity
Male
White
Age
Education
Intercept
0.20
0.02
0.06
0.16
-0.05
-0.03
-0.12
-0.01
-0.12
0.32
2.6 *
0.4
0.9
1.7
-0.8
-0.3
-0.9
-2.0 *
-2.0 *
1.1
*
*
*
*
ΔPr(strike)
0.46
-0.22
0.10
-0.29
Note: Estimates from a probit regression, in which the dependent variable was 1 if the
respondent favored a military strike and 0 otherwise. For each mediator, the final column
summarizes how the probability of favoring a military strike would change if the
mediator shifted from its minimum to its maximum value, while all other variables
remained at their actual, observed values.
25
TABLE 6: ANALYSIS OF CAUSAL MECHANISMS
Mechanism
Threat
Cost
Success
Morality
Effect of human rights
If a
If not a
democracy
democracy
22 %
-1
1
16
24 %
6
2
19
Effect of democracy
If respects
If violates
human rights
human rights
22 %
0
3
14
.
.
.
.
Note: The table decomposes the total effects of human rights and democracy on
willingness to strike. It shows the percentage of the total effect that is transmitted by each
of four mechanisms: threat, cost, success, and morality. We leave the last column blank,
because democracy did not affect support for a military strike when the country violated
human rights.
26