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Language
English (en)
Date of Award
5-1-2017
Author's Department
International and Area Studies
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (A.B.)
Restricted/Unrestricted
Restricted
Abstract
To begin to investigate what political circumstances yield international acknowledgement of human rights, I chose to examine partisanship identity of 36 countries over 54 years and compare it to human rights treaty data. I chose human rights treaties as a metric to represent the acknowledgement of a human rights norm as it is consistent with norms in the literature, treaties clearly outline what expectations are associated with any human right, and signature or ratification ofa treaty demonstrates consensus. I identified five ‘lifecycle’ points in a treaty (adoption, open for signature, signatures, ratification, and entry into force) for 18 human rights treaties. Using this data, I tested two hypotheses. The first, that a greater number of left-leaning governments worldwide would yield increased acknowledgement of human rights, was not present in the data. The second was based in network theories of international relations indicating that that certain countries have greater influence in coalition building and international politics. It theorized that the G7 (G8 minus Russia) might lead human rights acknowledgement processes. These findings were also null, but the results were slightly more consistent with what was expected. Ultimately, I found that there is no significant relationship between partisanship and human rights treaty acknowledgement.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/c396-hk75
Mentor
Jeremy Caddel
Recommended Citation
Vadher, Hena, "Does Partisanship Construct Human Rights? An investigation into the relationship between partisan politics and human rights recognition" (2017). Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses. 193.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/c396-hk75
Comments
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