The Social Science Journal 39 (2002) 155–170
The capitalist political economy and human rights:
cross-national evidence夽
Ross E. Burkhart∗
Department of Political Science, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725-1935, USA
Abstract
In a growing empirical literature on the determinants of human rights violations, the variable economic system has been untried as an independent variable in multivariate models. More theoretical
treatments suggest that capitalism is more of a destructive force in the community, and thus more
problematic for the observance of human rights, than it is helpful in the maintenance of human rights.
An alternative consideration is that capitalism, through it encouraging the development of democratic
institutions, has an indirect positive effect on human rights practices. This manuscript tests three models
of human rights using variables common to the literature (political, economic, cultural, demographic),
and the uncommon variable capitalism, using OLS regression. The negative capitalism–human rights
violations theoretical perspective finds more support, though the parameter estimates generally lack
statistical significance. The conclusion at this stage of the research is that hypotheses of capitalism’s
relationship to political repression will have to be more strongly articulated if capitalism is to be included
as an independent variable in models of political repression. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights
reserved.
1. Introduction
Is capitalism a force for, or a hindrance to, the cross-national observance of human rights?
The answer to this question, it turns out, is ambiguous, perhaps fitting in with the current
haze in discerning a direction to post-Cold War international politics. More than a decade
now separates us from the dramatic events that effectively ended the Cold War. During this
interregnum, the world has searched for a thematic foreign policy orientation as compelling
夽
This is a revised version of a manuscript that was originally presented at the Hinman Symposium on Democratization and Human Rights, Binghamton University, SUNY, Binghamton NY, September 1998.
∗
Tel.: +1-208-426-3280; fax: +1-208-426-3280.
E-mail address: rburkha@boisestate.edu (R.E. Burkhart).
0362-3319/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 6 2 - 3 3 1 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 6 0 - X
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as the Cold War doctrines, with little success at consensus. Democratization, free markets,
globalization, the end of ideology (Fukuyama, 1992), and a return to nationalistic civilizations
(Huntington, 1996) have all been trotted out as possibilities, and all have worthy points to
make regarding the condition of international politics. Still, none of these thematic emphases
by themselves provide an ideological coherence to foreign (and domestic) policymaking. It
may well be that the diverse approach to international relations theory becomes the most
appealing by the millennium, with each orientation (and others not listed above) contributing
to a bedrock of knowledge about where to place a country’s foreign policy resources and
intellectual energy.
Human rights, the doctrine that the state should not harm the inherent dignity of its citizens,
steps into the theoretical breach left by the Cold War as another contender, but with greater
popular appeal than at any time in its history (Donnelly, 1998a; Sikkink, 1998). No less a former
Cold warrior than Zbigniew Brzezinski finds that human rights have become “the single most
magnetic political idea of the contemporary time” (quoted in Sikkink, 1998, p. 519). While
the roots of human rights doctrine stretch all the way back to Kant, the true “enthusiasm”
was sparked in 1948 with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the
United Nations General Assembly (Donnelly, 1998a, p. 86). Yet, human rights has ebbed and
flowed in its relative importance for political leaders, depending on the nature of the times and
the ideological predilections of the leaders themselves. For now, with calls by the West for
global democracy and free markets, human rights acts as an important moral force for gradual
social change from the Cold War days of supporting the “friendly dictator” in the name of
anti-communism.
Scholarly work on the determinants of human rights violations has ridden the wave of
momentum generated by the search for post-Cold War theory. Developing international law
and norms that fit the rubric of human rights theory has consumed the time of many legal
theorists. On another front, scholars have taken a keener focus on just what causes human
rights violations. Thus, recent scholarly work augments the traditionally legal and descriptive
focus of the literature with a more explicitly empirical orientation in attempting to account for
the violations (Henderson, 1991; McKinlay & Cohan, 1975; Milner, Poe, & Leblang, 1999;
Mitchell & McCormick, 1988; Pak, 1987; Poe & Tate, 1994). McCormick and Mitchell, in
a 1997 World Politics article, trace that empirical interest to two main sources: the increased
importance placed on the upholding of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, and the increased
availability of data on human rights and its hypothesized determinants (1997, p. 510). The
greater foreign policy urgency in emphasizing human rights practices provides an impetus for
theorizing about the best ways to achieve the goal of universal proper treatment of all human
beings. A more extensive and reliable collection of human rights data can help adjudicate
between competing theories. These various paths have led to a growing popularization of
human rights violations research.
With this empirical popularization comes agreement on the inclusion of certain forces in
models of human rights violations. These can be classified into four groups: political, economic,
cultural, and demographic. Mainstay variables in the discipline, such as economic development and political culture, find a place in the major modeling exercises (Davenport, 1997;
Henderson, 1991; Mitchell & McCormick, 1988; Poe & Tate, 1994). Another type of economic variable, economic system, has not been included up to now. Milner et al. (1999, p. 429)
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provide a bivariate analysis of a common operationalization of capitalism, the Fraser Institute’s
cross-national index of economic freedom, and a human rights index inspired by the reports
from Amnesty International. The result of the analysis is that there is a significant negative correlation between economic freedom and human rights violations. From this promising result,
capitalism may carry some water in multivariate models explaining varying patterns in human
rights violations. Donnelly submits that capitalist development (analogous to capitalism) “has
in all notably successful cases involved massive violence and repression directed against
established pre-capitalist institutions” Donnelly (1989, p. 312). For capitalism to be introduced
de novo, normal economic arrangements are uprooted and the new economic arrangements are
enforced with vigor. This, in other words, is the “development-repression trade-off.”
Capitalism, however, has become a talisman for free-market scholars who are interested in
democratic development. If democracy is seen by human rights scholars as highly helpful to the
maintenance of human rights (Cingranelli, 1992; Milner et al., 1999; Poe & Tate, 1994), then
it is possible that capitalism could have a significant positive indirect impact on human rights
violations, through a positive effect on democracy. All current democracies have a capitalist
market system. However, capitalism is generally seen as insufficient by itself for democracy. Not
all capitalist countries are democratic, and “in every democratic country the market economy
is modified by government intervention” (Dahl, 1993, p. 81). Nevertheless, none of these
propositions regarding capitalism has been explored extensively through multivariate modeling
in the empirical human rights literature.
Therefore, my manuscript builds on the burgeoning empirical work on the determinants of
human rights violations, by considering in empirical fashion the impact capitalism has on the
cross-national violation of human rights using a dataset of 92 countries measured in the year
1985. I continue with the modeling tradition established in the field by using several common
variables, but advance the field by incorporating capitalism as an independent variable in the
multivariate explanation. In my conceptualization of the model, capitalism has both direct
(negative) and indirect (positive, through democracy) effects on variations in human rights
violations.
2. A short tour of the literature’s models
Basic models of human rights violations include several common types of independent
variables, classed as political, economic, cultural, and demographic.
2.1. Political variables
Political variables seek to capture the regime types and underlying policy factors most
important in causing repression. Henderson (1991) and Poe and Tate (1994) argue for the
dampening effects of democracy on human rights violations, positing that an open political
system provides more peaceful channels of political conflict than does a closed system. Additionally, citizens hold the ultimate power of the ballot box in a democracy, and can vote out
any elected official suspected of, or known for, repressive behavior (Poe & Tate, 1994, p. 855).
Countries that attain a relatively high level of freedom have citizenry with less to fear from
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undue governmental repression. Countries ruled by military dictatorships seem far less likely
to experience a repression-free environment (Poe & Tate, 1994).
Added into the theoretical mix is the notion that ideologically leftist regimes could display
more repressive behavior than do ideologically rightist regimes (Mitchell & McCormick, 1988;
Poe & Tate, 1994). The power of the state is increased under a leftist regime, and challenges
to that power are strongly met, according to this theoretical perspective.
Political choices made by the ruling regime, whether left or right in orientation, also make
for more or less repressive environments. Whether a country is at war or not makes a great
deal of difference as to whether human rights get proper respect. Civil liberties are well-known
to disappear in even the most democratic of countries come wartime. Civil war brings about
a similar mindset amongst the challenged ruling regime (Poe & Tate, 1994). A final political choice for the regime is whether or not to continue the country’s historical human rights
practices. Both Gurr (1986) and Davenport (1996) propose a “habituation” explanation for
repression, whereby “decision-makers are more inclined to follow standard operating procedures and emotional responses to what has taken place before” (Davenport, 1996, p. 380). An
opposing theory is the rational choice theory (Lichbach, 1987), hypothesized to be used by
leaders bent on a cost-benefit analysis of the situation, and who will use repression when the
benefits outweigh the costs.
2.2. Economic variables
For five decades, scholars have proclaimed economic development as a premier cross-national
force on political events, explaining everything from democracy to war to elections (Burkhart
& Lewis-Beck, 1994; Davenport, 1998; Hibbs, 1973; Lewis-Beck, 1988; Lipset, 1959). The
human rights literature is no exception. Poe and Tate (1994, p. 857) summarize the economic
development-human rights violations findings as “uniformly” negative and significant. Wealthy
countries evidence less need for repressive tactics.
Yet, the strength of this relationship could well be tempered by three other economic variables: dependency, economic growth, and income inequality. Dependency theory claims that
economic development will be hampered, and its effectiveness will always be in question, if
the country is outside of the “core” set of economic powers (Cardoso & Faletto, 1979; Frank,
1969; Wallerstein, 1974). Dependency theory has been helpful in explaining political phenomena such as democratic performance, a political event accountable by economic conditions.
Bollen (1983) and Gonick and Rosh (1988) found that dependency has a statistically significant and direct impact on democracy, in that non-core countries were predicted to have lower
levels of democratic performance. Burkhart and Lewis-Beck (1994) refined the finding by
discovering that economic development and dependency have in fact an interactive effect on
democratic performance, where “world-system position conditions the impact of economics
on democracy” (p. 905).
Economic growth acts in the literature as a destabilizing force on political life. The population
must make adjustments to the growth, and not all sectors of the population equally share in
the growth (Henderson, 1991; Poe & Tate, 1994). The losers can be expected to be dissatisfied
with the situation, and possibly rebel against the winners, causing the winners to repress
the losers (if the winners are also the governors, more than likely the case). On a similar
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note, income inequality is commonly hypothesized to lead to repressive acts, using similar
reasoning (Burkhart, 1997; Henderson, 1991). Gurr’s relative deprivation theory is the major
statement on the connection between inequality and political repression (Gurr, 1970; Wang,
Dixon, Muller, & Seligson, 1993). Citizens disappointed with their lot in life as opposed to their
expected standard of living will tend to rebel. Governments may well be zealous in stopping
such rebellions, resorting to human rights violations.
2.3. Cultural variables
Cultural influences on a country’s behavior can lead to a tendency to repress (or not repress)
its citizens. Mitchell and McCormick, along with Poe and Tate, have hypothesized that British
colonial tenure may make the former colony more receptive to respecting human rights, in
contrast to the experiences of colonies colonized by other European countries. The non-English
colonies favored more authoritarian forms of political rule, and were thus less tolerant of
opposition than were the English colonies. Mitchell and McCormick additionally argued that
the newer the country, the less settled and legitimate the political and legal arrangements were,
and the higher the temptation for the ruling regime to engage in repressive activities (1988,
p. 480).
The distribution of cultural homogeneity in the country is also seen as a potential causal force
of repression. The more divided the country along ethnic lines, the more likely the prospect
for conflict, a path chosen especially by elites (Gurr, 1986, p. 151). Ethnic division contributes
to inequalities of income, furthering the potential for conflict (Burkhart, 1997).
2.4. Demographic variables
The problem of resource distribution exists as well in countries with large populations.
Additionally, sudden growth in population can lead to strains on resources (Henderson, 1991;
Poe & Tate, 1994). These twin pressures can encourage governments to resort to repression.
3. Capitalism and human rights
Building a case for capitalism having an influence, negative or positive, on human rights
violations requires some work. The major recent theoretical and analytical work done by
scholars on the relationship of the capitalist economic system to political outcomes focuses
on democracy, a close relative of human rights. Dryzek, one of these theorists, finds that
democracy, a helpful condition for human rights observance, is threatened by capitalism. The
business demands that capitalism makes on its social environment may well serve to constrain
political options to those that support capitalism such as “market confidence,” even if those
options are anti-democratic, and that the decision to support capitalism takes precedence over
supporting democracy (Dryzek, 1996, p. 29). Soros (1997) finds troubling the whole-hearted
acceptance of laissez-faire free market economics as an ultimate truth, with it crowding out
other belief structures as an ideological guiding light to post-Cold War life. Soros invokes
Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies in an attempted return to an “open society,”
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where no ideology has a monopoly on the truth. Societies dominated by free market capitalist
principles alone, without an allowance for social norms such as the redistribution of income in
times of need, can hardly be considered to be open, making too much capitalism an enemy of
democracy and possibly an enemy of human rights practices.
The linkage of capitalism to political openness and respect for human rights is not without
its defenders. The 1998 summit meeting of the Rio Group of Latin American political leaders
revealed the leaders’ consensus in arguing for the continuation of capitalist free market reforms
and the further institution of human rights protections. They view the two as linked, augmenting
each other. Both depend on guarantees of freedom. Some governments, such as Japan’s, even
demand that businesses shoulder the responsibility of providing their employees with basic
economic and social rights (Donnelly, 1998b, p. 531). However, Donnelly goes on to mention
that “we generally accept that the proper business of business is making money,” and that
we “assume that states are politically capable of controlling corporations” in their business
practices when they often are incapable of providing such oversight.
Therefore, it is rather an open question as to whether capitalism’s influence on human rights
practices is helpful, hurtful, or even neutral. In order to attempt to obtain an answer to the
question of capitalism’s influence on human rights practices, we must be able to measure in a
satisfactory manner these important concepts.
4. Measuring human rights
The measurement of broad concepts such as “human rights” is bound to encourage controversy. A similar debate rages in the democratization literature in several forms: whether
democracy is a dichotomous or a multicategorical variable, whether or not it is a discrete
or continuous measure, and, on a more definitional plane whether or not to include social
and economic justice components in a democracy measure (Beetham, 1994; Bollen, 1979;
Inkeles, 1991; Przeworski & Limongi, 1997; Vanhanen, 1990). The conceptual and technical difficulties inherent in a measure of democracy are also present in attempting to measure
human rights. McCormick and Mitchell (1997) argue that human rights is an “umbrella”
concept, to use the language of Jackman (1985), where it is counter-productive to insist on
the usage of one measurement to represent the entire concept. In particular, McCormick and
Mitchell advocate the separation of the torture and killing components from the imprisonment component in the Poe and Tate measure, because they “differ in type not just amount”
(1997, p. 513). Poe and Tate, as a defense of their measurement strategy, find that both torture/killing and imprisonment “are rooted in a regime’s willingness to repress its citizens when
they are considered a threat” (1994, p. 855). While this controversy has no clearly articulated result, it does speak to the necessity of further work in conceptualizing what dimensions
should be included in measures of human rights. For now, Poe and Tate have achieved a
practical standard with their measure, as well as making it widely available for scholarly testing, thus its usage in this manuscript. See Cingranelli and Richards (1999) for a different
view.
We move on to a specification of models of human rights practices, in which will be embedded capitalism variables to test the capitalism–human rights thesis.
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5. Models
I test three different models of human rights violations: the “parsimonious” model proposed
by Henderson (1991), the “standard” model of Poe and Tate (1994), and a “comprehensive”
model incorporating the major hypotheses generated by the literature. The purpose of the
modeling exercise is to determine, under increasingly constrained conditions, if measures of
capitalism are associated with human rights violations.
The “parsimonious model” is:
Human rights: f(democracy, income inequality, GNP, GNP growth, capitalism)
The “standard model” is:
Human rights: f(lagged human rights, democracy, logged population, population growth,
GNP, GNP growth, leftist government, military government, British colony, international
war, civil war, capitalism)
(This model includes a 5 year lag of human rights violations in order to test the “habituation”
thesis that human rights protection is consistently performed, or not performed, in countries
over time.)
The “comprehensive model” is:
Human rights: f(lagged human rights, democracy, logged population, population growth, GNP,
GNP growth, GNP interacted with semiperipheral world-system status, GNP interacted with
peripheral world-system status, leftist government, military government, British colony,
international war, civil war, date of statehood, ethnicity, income inequality, capitalism)
6. Data
The data on human rights violations come from Poe and Tate’s dataset, on the webpage
http://www.psci.unt.edu/ihrsc/poetate.htm. (Many of the other variables in this analysis come
from the Poe and Tate dataset.) The measure is a 5 point ordinal human rights index based on
the analysis of Amnesty International country reports for 1985. A country scoring 1 has “a
healthy record of respect of personal integrity,” while a country scoring 5 is “a human rights
disaster” (Poe & Tate, 1994, p. 855).
The democracy index is the POLITY IV index for 1985, compiled by Jaggers (1998). It
is a 20 point ordinal scale created by combining the autocracy and democracy indices in the
POLITY IV dataset. The virtue of using this particular index is in its construction: it measures
the institutional aspect of democracy (competitiveness of elections and political participation,
the extent of executive power), without explicitly assessing the civil liberties situation in the
country, unlike prominent democracy measures such as the one compiled by Freedom House.
Leaving civil liberties out of the democracy measure will avoid confounding the variable with
the human rights violation variable.
The measure of income inequality is roughly for 1975 and comes from Henderson (1991).
It is the Ward Inequality Index for 114 countries, making its virtue be the scope of country
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coverage. Measures of income inequality rarely extend beyond 80 countries. The Ward measure
is a ratio of societal poverty to affluence, with each country ranked from −165 (the most equal,
Switzerland) to 123 (the most unequal, Guinea).
The Gross National Product (GNP) measure is for 1985 and is taken from the Poe and Tate
dataset. Despite its deficiencies in representing the concept of economic development, I use it
in order to compare the significance of the parameter estimates to those of other studies. The
percentage growth in GNP is an annual growth measure (1984–1985).
The measures of capitalism come from the Fraser Institute publication Economic Freedom
of the World 1975–1995 (Gwartney, Lawson, & Block, 1996). Through a correlation analysis
of the fourteen economic freedom component indices available, I narrowed the capitalism
measures down to the three correlating the highest with human rights violations: (1) general
government consumption expenditures as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (low
expenditures equate to high levels of free market capitalism), (2) difference between the official
exchange rate and the black market rate (small differences equate to high levels of free market
capitalism), (3) transfers and subsidies as a percentage of GDP (low levels equate to high levels
of free market capitalism), all measured for the year 1985.
The measure of population (natural log) comes from the Poe and Tate dataset, as does the
annual percentage increase in population (1984–1985). The leftist government variable also
comes from the Poe and Tate dataset, coded in binary fashion: 1 for a socialist party or coalition
forming the government and 0 otherwise. The military regime variable, from the Poe and Tate
dataset, is also a binary variable. If the government was formed through a military coup d’état,
and the government was effectively led by a member of the country’s military, then the country
received a score of 1, and 0 otherwise. The former British colony variable is a binary variable
(1 = former colony, 0 = not former colony), from the Poe and Tate dataset.
The international and civil war binary variables also come from the Poe and Tate dataset,
and are based on definitions of the concepts of war developed by Small and Singer (Poe &
Tate, 1994, p. 859). International wars were deemed those that caused at least a thousand battle
deaths and that the country itself had at least a hundred fatalities or had a thousand participants
in the war. Civil wars were only those in which the government was on one of the warring sides.
Semiperipheral and peripheral world system position are as coded by Burkhart and LewisBeck (1994, pp. 908–909), or in my judgment based on the “panel of experts” methodology
for countries not coded by Burkhart and Lewis-Beck, using their sources. (See the Appendix
A for the country codes.) The date of independence is from the historical record, and is a count
from the year 1815, with 1815 = 0. Ethnic heterogeneity is measured by the Atlas Narodov
Mira ethnic fractionalization index in Taylor and Hudson, defined as “the probability that two
randomly selected persons from one country will not speak the same language” Taylor and
Hudson (1972, pp. 216, 271–273). The scores are for 1960–1965 and the higher scores indicate
a more ethnically divided country.
7. Results and discussion
The parsimonious, standard and comprehensive models were all estimated using ordinary least squares regression, correcting for heteroskedasticity when indicated using White’s
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heteroskedastic-consistent covariance matrix estimation. (Of less statistical concern is autocorrelation, despite the lagged dependent variable, because it is 5 years removed from the
dependent variable. This version of the lagged dependent variable does allow for a test of the
habituation thesis, however.) Estimation was done using the Shazam econometrics software
package. The modeling strategy throughout is to determine, under increasingly strict standards
of statistical control, whether or not capitalism either directly or indirectly (through democracy)
has a statistically significant impact on human rights violations. With three different measures
of capitalism (transfers and subsidies, black market exchange rates, government consumption
as a percentage of GDP), there are nine possible combinations and thus nine different equations
to estimate for each model. To summarize, there are three equations measuring the direct effects of each of the capitalism variables on human rights violations, three equations measuring
both the direct and indirect effects (the capitalism variable itself and the capitalism variable
interacted by multiplication with the democracy variable), and three equations measuring the
indirect effects only (the capitalism–democracy interaction variable). With the three models
presented here, there are 27 equations to estimate to test for capitalism’s effect on human rights
violations, but only six variables of critical interest across the equations. They are: transfers and
subsidies, transfers and subsidies multiplied by democracy, black market exchange rates, black
market exchange rates multiplied by democracy, government consumption as a percentage of
GDP, and government consumption as a percentage of GDP multiplied by democracy.
Table 1 presents results from the estimation of the parsimonious model as suggested in the
work of Henderson. Of the nine equations estimated (M1–M9), two have statistically significant
capitalism variables. The equation “M4” estimates the direct effect of the difference between
official and black market exchange rates on human rights violations. The effect is statistically
significant at the .05 level, two-tailed test, and it is in the expected theoretical direction. The
negative coefficient indicates that the less the influence of the black market (or the higher the
Fraser Institute score), the lower the amount of human rights violations in the country. Since
black markets arise when capitalism is less present, this estimation lends support to the thesis
that capitalism can have a direct positive impact on the observance of human rights.
A finding from the estimation of another version of the parsimonious model, though, casts
doubt on the positive effect of capitalism. Equation “M7” is an estimation of the direct effect of
government consumption (as a percentage of GDP) on human rights violations. The statistically
significant positive coefficient for government consumption from the M7 estimation means that
the higher the Fraser Institute score (and thus, the lower the level of government consumption),
the greater the extent of human rights violations. Thus, the less the government consumes, the
more the human rights violations.
The only consistently strong performing control variable in Table 1 is GNP per capita,
which is almost always statistically significant and is always negatively signed. The richer
the country (at best, an indirect measure of capitalist practices), the fewer the human rights
violations in the country. The other control variables only occasionally pass conventional levels
of statistical significance. Model performance is not as strong with the parsimonious model
equation estimations as with either the standard or the comprehensive models, as indicated by
the adjusted R2 statistics.
The standard model (estimated equations M10–M18) is meant to emulate the research
strategy of Poe and Tate, and is a stiffer test for the capitalism variables. In fact, only one
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of the equations, “M11,” finds a statistically significant capitalism variable, the interaction
of the transfers and subsidies variable (or, in the language of the Fraser Institute, “property
takings”) with democracy. The coding for this variable is as follows: the higher the transfers
and subsidies score, the lower the rate of property takings engaged in by the government. The
positive coefficient for the interactive variable in “M11” suggests that the higher the transfers
and subsidies score, the higher the level of human rights violations in countries. Therefore,
the lower the rate of property takings prompts greater amounts of human rights violations, a
negative finding for the capitalism–democracy–human rights linkage. This finding is repeated
in Table 3, equation “M20.”
These are the lone instances confirming capitalism’s influence on human rights practices
found in Tables 2 and 3. (This includes the Table 3 estimated equations M19–M27.) The other
22 capitalism variables fail to pass conventional levels of statistical significance. Capitalism’s
impact, though evident, is hardly overwhelming.
This mediocre performance could be the result of several factors: inappropriately performing
control variables, misspecification, poor measurement, multicollinearity, and/or insufficient
data come to mind as culprits. The control variable performance in the estimations presented
in Tables 2 and 3 is, generally speaking, unimpressive if one is searching for statistically
significant effects on human rights. Unsurprisingly, 5 year (1980) lagged values of human rights
very well predict 1985 levels of human rights practices, lending support for the habituation
thesis of human rights practices. There is also relatively strong support for the notion that if
a country is engaged in an international war, upholding human rights standards takes a back
seat. Less convincing, especially moving from the standard model equations in Table 2 to
the comprehensive model equations in Table 3, is the economic and political pressure large
populations place on countries, and the resulting human rights abuses. At a consistent, yet
lower level of statistical significance is the presence or absence of civil war in the country.
Its presence is a harbinger of human rights violations. Economically, both income inequality
(Table 3 only) and GNP also operate at lower levels of statistical significance, but are less
consistent than the civil war variable. However, they are in the theoretically correct direction,
implying that poorer and more unequal societies make countries less hospitable to human
rights. The control variables may well perform below theoretical expectations, but they are far
from being inappropriate contending explanations of human rights practices.
The issue of misspecification is, of course, a threat to valid inference for any model. It
is possible that capitalism, in particular, can be better specified, but the primary contender
(government consumption) is included as one of the capitalism measures. Whether capitalism
is well-measured worldwide or not is a separate matter. It does not cover all the countries in the
world; the sample size drops to as low as 69 in several equation estimations. If more countries
were included in the sample, the parameter estimates might differ. The bias is toward richer,
more industrialized countries as sample size is reduced, which might confound the potential
influence of capitalism with other variables such as GNP. Multicollinearity, measured by the
R2 test of regressing each independent variable on all of the other independent variables, is at
varying levels as well, but not lethal enough to interfere with parameter estimation.
Despite these methodological caveats, capitalism’s place at the table of causes of human
rights violations may not be strong enough to warrant anything more than a peripheral seating.
If anything, such a seating would be controversial with such contradictory findings.
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8. Conclusion
Are capitalist practices effective in advancing human rights practices in countries? Future
research seems necessary in order to help answer this question. Three useful research paths are
more comprehensive and timely data collection, better model specification, and comparative
case studies. Human rights data that include the post-Cold War period would allow for assessing
change in human rights practices since the end of the Cold War, possibly in a quasi-experimental
research design. Model specification will be further enhanced by systematically measured
variables (such as assessing the impact that the presence of human rights NGOs in countries
has on human rights practices) that are derived from insights from comparative case studies of
human rights practices and policy.
We have witnessed in this manuscript increasingly stringent tests of the effect of capitalism on
human rights practices. Even at the most strict level of model specification, capitalism managed
to achieve conventional levels of statistical significance. However, the statistical results in
some cases are clouded in their counterintuitive direction, suggesting further theoretical work
is needed before proclaiming with confidence the importance in promoting capitalist practices
as part and parcel with respect for human rights, or affirming that capitalism promotes winning
as opposed to the fair play advocated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Acknowledgments
I also thank Keith Jaggers for providing me with a working copy of the POLITY IV dataset.
Appendix A
List of countries and world system position
Algeria∗∗ –P
Argentina–SP
Australia–C
Austria–C
Bangladesh∗ ,∗∗ –P
Belgium–C
Benin∗,∗∗ –P
Bolivia–P
Botswana–P
Brazil–SP
Burundi∗∗ –P
Cameroon–P
Canada–C
Central African Rep.∗∗ –P
Chile–SP
Colombia–SP
Honduras–P
Hungary–SP
Iceland–SP
India–SP
Indonesia–P
Iran–SP
Ireland–SP
Israel–SP
Italy–C
Jamaica–P
Japan–C
Jordan–P
Kenya–P
Madagascar∗ ,∗∗ –P
Malawi–P
Malaysia–SP
Portugal–SP
Romania–SP
Rwanda∗,∗∗ –P
Senegal∗∗ –P
Sierra Leone–P
Singapore–SP
Somalia∗∗ –P
South Africa–SP
South Korea–SP
Spain–SP
Sri Lanka–P
Sweden–C
Switzerland–C
Syria∗∗ –P
Taiwan–SP
Tanzania–P
R.E. Burkhart / The Social Science Journal 39 (2002) 155–170
169
Appendix A (Continued )
Congo∗∗ –P
Costa Rica–P
Côte d’Ivoire∗∗ –P
Denmark–C
Dominican Republic–P
Ecuador–P
Egypt–P
El Salvador–P
Fiji∗ –P
France–C
Finland–C
Gabon∗∗ –P
Ghana–P
Greece–SP
Guatemala–P
Haiti∗ –P
Mali∗ –P
Mauritius∗ –P
Mexico–SP
Morocco–P
Nepal∗ ,∗∗ –P
Netherlands–C
New Zealand–C
Nicaragua–P
Niger∗∗ –P
Nigeria–P
Norway–C
Pakistan–P
Panama–P
Paraguay–P
Peru–P
Philippines–P
Thailand–P
Togo∗,∗∗ –P
Trinidad and Tobago∗ –P
Tunisia–P
Turkey–SP
Uganda–P
United Kingdom–C
United States–C
Uruguay–P
Venezuela–SP
West Germany–C
Zaire (Congo)–P
Zambia–P
Zimbabwe–P
Where C: core, SP: semiperiphery, P: periphery. (∗ ) Not in models with ethnicity or income
inequality as independent variables. (∗∗ ) Not in models with black market presence as an
independent variable.
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