Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Organizing Oppression: Government, Politics and the Violation of Human Rights

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

Investigators

Abstract

In spite of an emerging consensus around the significance of human rights, political repression remains an ever-present reality. Over the past few decades, a scientific research program has developed to explain why states abuse their citizens' human rights. But despite the explanatory power of this model, its utility for predicting future abuses remains limited. As a result, policy interventions are essentially reactive, with policy makers responding to observed violations of human rights rather than taking steps to proactively prevent human rights abuses anticipated in the future. Developling a model that is better able to forecast future violations of human rights requires delving deeper into the organizations responsible for human rights violations and directly investigating the decision-making processes that ultimately produce political repression. To do so, this project investigates the internal workings of the Guatemalan security apparatus and the violation of human rights that took place during the country's civil war. The study provides both theoretical and methodological improvements over the leading studies in repression research. The theory identifies how repressive bureaucracies, such as the police, military, or special forces, generate and update expectations of the potential success or failure of repressive actions. These theoretical claims are evaluated using unique data on the inner workings of the Guatemalan security apparatus. The Guatemalan National Police Archive, upon which this research is based, is a trove of more than eight million uncensored records collected and composed by the police during the civil war. The Archive's collection contains unprecedented detail on both potential and actual targets of political repression leading to violations of human rights. With regards to broader impacts, this study will generate practical knowledge that can be applied to limit conflict and prevent political violence.