The world seems to have reached agreement on a set of ideals
regarding state human rights behavior and the appropriate
institutions to promote and protect those ideals. The global script
for state legitimacy calls for a written constitution or the
equivalent with an embedded bill of rights, democratic processes
and institutions, and increasingly, a judicial check on state power
to protect human rights. While the progress toward universal formal
adherence to this global model is remarkable, Linda Camp Keith
argues that the substantive meaning of this progress is much less
clear. In "Political Repression," she seeks to answer two key
questions: Why do states make formal commitments to democratic
processes and human rights? What effect do these commitments have
on actual state behavior, especially political repression?The book
begins with a thorough exploration of a variety of tools of state
repression and presents evidence for substantial formal acceptance
of international human rights norms in constitutional documents as
well as judicial independence. Keith finds that these institutions
reflect the diffusion of global norms and standards, the role of
transnational networks of nongovernmental organizations, and an
electoral logic in which regimes seek to protect their future
interests. Economic liberalism, on the other hand, decreases the
likelihood that states adopt or maintain these provisions. She
demonstrates that the level of judicial independence is influenced
by constitutional structures and that levels of judicial
independence subsequently achieved in turn diminish the probability
of state repression of a variety of rights. She also finds strong
evidence that rights provisions may indeed serve as a constraint on
state repression, even when controlling for many other factors.
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