Human Rights Violations in Space: Assessing the External Validity of Machine-Geocoded versus Human-Geocoded Data

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Logan Stundal ◽  
Benjamin E. Bagozzi ◽  
John R. Freeman ◽  
Jennifer S. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
External Validity ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Political Event ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Geostatistical Models

Abstract Political event data are widely used in studies of political violence. Recent years have seen notable advances in the automated coding of political event data from international news sources. Yet, the validity of machine-coded event data remains disputed, especially in the context of event geolocation. We analyze the frequencies of human- and machine-geocoded event data agreement in relation to an independent (ground truth) source. The events are human rights violations in Colombia. We perform our evaluation for a key, 8-year period of the Colombian conflict and in three 2-year subperiods as well as for a selected set of (non)journalistically remote municipalities. As a complement to this analysis, we estimate spatial probit models based on the three datasets. These models assume Gaussian Markov Random Field error processes; they are constructed using a stochastic partial differential equation and estimated with integrated nested Laplacian approximation. The estimated models tell us whether the three datasets produce comparable predictions, underreport events in relation to the same covariates, and have similar patterns of prediction error. Together the two analyses show that, for this subnational conflict, the machine- and human-geocoded datasets are comparable in terms of external validity but, according to the geostatistical models, produce prediction errors that differ in important respects.

The Prevalence and Severity of Underreporting Bias in Machine- and Human-Coded Data

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin E. Bagozzi ◽  
Patrick T. Brandt ◽  
John R. Freeman ◽  
Jennifer S. Holmes ◽  
Alisha Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Event Data ◽  
State Repression ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Monte Carlo Experiments ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
The World ◽  
External Measure

Textual data are plagued by underreporting bias. For example, news sources often fail to report human rights violations. Cook et al. propose a multi-source estimator to gauge, and to account for, the underreporting of state repression events within human codings of news texts produced by the Agence France-Presse and Associated Press. We evaluate this estimator with Monte Carlo experiments, and then use it to compare the prevalence and seriousness of underreporting when comparable texts are machine coded and recorded in the World-Integrated Crisis Early Warning System dataset. We replicate Cook et al.’s investigation of human-coded state repression events with our machine-coded events, and validate both models against an external measure of human rights protections in Africa. We then use the Cook et al. estimator to gauge the seriousness and prevalence of underreporting in machine and human-coded event data on human rights violations in Colombia. We find in both applications that machine-coded data are as valid as human-coded data.

scholarly journals Africa: Risk, Security and Mapping of Human Rights Violations

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-127
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Varani ◽  
Enrico Bernardini
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Social Indicators ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Planetary interdependence makes the task of states and international organizations to guarantee security inside and outside national borders ever more urgent. The tendency is to widen the space from national to international and to conceive of security as multidimensional for the satisfaction of human needs, assumed as priority needs with respect to those of the States. The old concept of national security must today confront the new concept of human security cultivated within the United Nations, which places the fundamental rights of the individual and of people at the centre of attention and lays the foundations for overcoming the traditional politics of power. The concept of human security emphasises the security of the individual and his protection from political violence, war and arbitrariness. It takes account of the strong correlation between peace policy, human rights policy, migration policy and humanitarian policy. The contribution provides, through a series of social indicators such as the Global Peace Index (GPI), Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the World International Security and Policy Index (WISPI), a framework on risk, security, human rights violations in the African continent and examines some significant case studies related to sub-Saharan Africa.

scholarly journals Collective violence and the culture of peace: researching the social psychology of memory and social reconciliation

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Nekane Basabe ◽  
Darío Páez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Community Intervention ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Psychosocial Effects ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Culture Of Peace

This monograph aims to disseminate the results of various research studies carried out in the field of social and community psychology. The studies focus on efforts to build a culture of peace in post-conflict contexts and societies that have suffered collective and socio-political violence, with multiple and persistent human rights violations. Six studies on the psychosocial effects of transitional justice rituals from Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Basque country, Chile, and Ecuador compose this issue. This issue presents a series of results regarding the effects of reparation rituals and Truth Commissions, combining different methods and analysis strategies, including general population surveys, newspaper and social media content analysis, community intervention assessments and qualitative documentary analysis. Finally, two review books were included. First, a Peace Psychology Book that explores the implications and difficulties faced by societies that have experienced large-scale collective violence. Second, the problem of human rights violations and how to confront them, socio-political conflicts and the building of a culture of democracy and peace in Latin America are transversal axes of the chapters of this second book.

Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence

2014 ◽  
pp. 139-156
Author(s):  
Ann Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Multiple Data Sources ◽  
Analysis Group ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
Multiple Data

The Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (http://www.hrdag.org/) analyzes the patterns and magnitude of large-scale human rights violations. Together with local partners, HRDAG collects and preserves human rights data and helps NGOs and other human rights organizations accurately interpret quantitative findings. HRDAG statisticians, programmers, and data analysts develop methodologies to determine how many of those killed and disappeared have never been accounted for - and who is most responsible. This account illustrates how HRDAG pioneered the calculation of scientifically sound statistics about political violence from multiple data sources including the testimony of witnesses who come forward to tell their stories. It describes methodologies that HRDAG analysts have developed to ensure that statistical human rights claims are transparently, demonstrably, and undeniably true.

scholarly journals Violencia política: algunos problemas clínicos actuales / Political violence: Some current clinical problems

2018 ◽  
pp. 27-41
Author(s):  
Natalia Hidalgo Leiva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Sexual Torture ◽  
Chilean Dictatorship ◽  
Clinical Problems ◽  
Violencia Politica

Los tratamientos a víctimas de la dictadura chilena se ven desafiados por la mutación de la población atendida, los acontecimientos sociales y su correlación con los tiempos psíquicos. Se reflexiona sobre tres problemáticas incrementadas recientemente en PRAIS Oriente: el aumento de hijos y nietos como población atendida; la solicitud de elaborar “Informes de Daño” por tortura u otras formas de violencia política, dado el incremento de querellas contra el Estado; el reconocimiento de la tortura sexual como un apremio específicoPalabras claves: violencia política, transgeneracionalidad del trauma, Informes de Daño por violaciones a los derechos humanos, tortura sexual AbstractThe treatments to victims of the Chilean dictatorship are challenged by the mutation of the population taken care of, social events, and their correlation with psychic timing. The article reflects on three problems recently increased in Eastern PRAIS: the increase in children and grandchildren as population taken care of; the request to prepare "Damage Reports" for torture or other forms of political violence, given the increase in lawsuits against the State; the recognition of sexual torture as a specific constraint.Keywords: political violence, transgenerationality of trauma, damage reports for human rights violations, sexual torture 

Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence

2015 ◽  
pp. 578-595
Author(s):  
Ann Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Multiple Data Sources ◽  
Analysis Group ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
Multiple Data

The Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (http://www.hrdag.org/) analyzes the patterns and magnitude of large-scale human rights violations. Together with local partners, HRDAG collects and preserves human rights data and helps NGOs and other human rights organizations accurately interpret quantitative findings. HRDAG statisticians, programmers, and data analysts develop methodologies to determine how many of those killed and disappeared have never been accounted for - and who is most responsible. This account illustrates how HRDAG pioneered the calculation of scientifically sound statistics about political violence from multiple data sources including the testimony of witnesses who come forward to tell their stories. It describes methodologies that HRDAG analysts have developed to ensure that statistical human rights claims are transparently, demonstrably, and undeniably true.

scholarly journals Sobre la velocidad de la muerte, sus formas de captura y la extracción de carbón en Cerrejón

2017 ◽  
pp. 101-133
Author(s):  
Oscar Pedraza
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Coal Extraction ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Movimientos Sociales

En este artículo se discuten las dificultades, tensiones y conflictos que emergen en la construcción de casos de violaciones a derechos humanos relacionadas con minería. El artículo se concentra principalmente en los retos que enfrentan abogados y activistas de derechos humanos Colombia. Entre esos retos se encuentran: 1) La relación entre derechos humanos y minería, que implican paradigmas jurídicos, políticos y epistémicos cualitativamente distintos y obligan a la reelaboración en las formas de trabajo de quienes participan en los casos; 2) las disputas concretas en torno al estatus de verdad de los datos que sustentan las pruebas y los argumentos jurídicos, políticos y morales; 3) las diferentes formas de la muerte, que deben ser capturadas a través de prácticas, epistemologías e instituciones que no siempre son las adecuadas. Palabras clave: movimientos sociales, carbón, extractivismo, expertos, ong, saberes,derechos humanos, antropología jurídica. Abstract: On speed of death, its forms of capture and the coal extraction in Cerrejón Abstract: This paper discusses the tensions and conflicts that emerge in the processes of making cases of human rights violations linked to mining extraction. I focus on the challenges that human rights lawyers and activists, who have become experts in the art of assembling cases of human rights related to political violence in a context of war face when confronted to the making of human rights cases related to mining. Among these challenges are: 1) the relation between human rights and mining, which involve legal, political and epistemic paradigms that are often different, forcing the actors involved to reelaborate them; 2) the disputes on the truth status of the date used to sustain judicial, moral and political arguments and proofs; 3) different modalities of death that need to be captured, often with epistemological and political tools that are not always adequate. Keywords: social movements, coal, extractivism, experts, ngo’s.

Social representations of human rights violations: Further evidence

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Clémence ◽  
Thierry Devos ◽  
Willem Doise
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Costa Rica ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Questionnaire Study ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
High Tolerance ◽  
Individual Actions

Social representations of human rights violations were investigated in a questionnaire study conducted in five countries (Costa Rica, France, Italy, Romania, and Switzerland) (N = 1239 young people). We were able to show that respondents organize their understanding of human rights violations in similar ways across nations. At the same time, systematic variations characterized opinions about human rights violations, and the structure of these variations was similar across national contexts. Differences in definitions of human rights violations were identified by a cluster analysis. A broader definition was related to critical attitudes toward governmental and institutional abuses of power, whereas a more restricted definition was rooted in a fatalistic conception of social reality, approval of social regulations, and greater tolerance for institutional infringements of privacy. An atypical definition was anchored either in a strong rejection of social regulations or in a strong condemnation of immoral individual actions linked with a high tolerance for governmental interference. These findings support the idea that contrasting definitions of human rights coexist and that these definitions are underpinned by a set of beliefs regarding the relationships between individuals and institutions.

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