Digital Authoritarianism and the Future of Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Tiberiu Dragu ◽  
Yonatan Lupu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Strategic Context

Abstract How will advances in digital technology affect the future of human rights and authoritarian rule? Media figures, public intellectuals, and scholars have debated this relationship for decades, with some arguing that new technologies facilitate mobilization against the state and others countering that the same technologies allow authoritarians to strengthen their grip on power. We address this issue by analyzing the first game-theoretic model that accounts for the dual effects of technology within the strategic context of preventive repression. Our game-theoretical analysis suggests that technological developments may not be detrimental to authoritarian control and may, in fact, strengthen authoritarian control by facilitating a wide range of human rights abuses. We show that technological innovation leads to greater levels of abuses to prevent opposition groups from mobilizing and increases the likelihood that authoritarians will succeed in preventing such mobilization. These results have broad implications for the human rights regime, democratization efforts, and the interpretation of recent declines in violent human rights abuses.

Collective Action and Constraints on Repression at the Endgame

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (8) ◽  
pp. 1042-1073 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiberiu Dragu ◽  
Yonatan Lupu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Simple Game ◽  
Coordination Game ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model

How can human rights abuses be prevented or reduced? Using a simple game-theoretic model, we demonstrate that repression can become a coordination game when the potential for abuses is greatest: when dissent against a regime has grown sufficiently powerful. In such scenarios, repression depends on how the leader’s agents coordinate on implementing a repression order. If and to the extent agents believe other agents will not comply with an order to repress, leaders can expect agents to disobey orders and will be less likely to order repression. This logic of expectations constitutes a third mechanism for constraining repression, in addition to sanctioning (i.e., the logic of consequences) and normative mechanisms (i.e., the logic of appropriateness). We formally explore how the logic of expectations can constrain the implementation of repression and also show that the logic of expectations has the greatest potential to constrain repression in middle regimes or “anocracies.” In turn, this has broader implications for the strategies human rights advocates use in such regimes, how leaders structure their security forces, and for the study of why legal rules might be especially effective in such regimes.

Dull, Dirty, and Dangerous

The Drone Age ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 195-233
Author(s):  
Michael J. Boyle
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Humanitarian Relief ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
The Future

Chapter 7 argues that drones will enable international organizations, NGOs, and advocacy groups to monitor human rights abuses, deliver relief, and pressure governments for change. Small surveillance drones are ideally suited for taking on the “dull, dirty, and dangerous” jobs that are needed in these situations. In the future, drones will be able to transport and drop food and medicine in response to crises in places where humanitarian organizations are reluctant to send their own personnel. Drones will ultimately give these actors another tool with which they can monitor events on the ground and possibly shame governments into stronger action. But drones may also increase the ambitions of IOs/NGOs to intensify the pace of humanitarian relief and social change, even if doing so is unsustainable.

The Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Humans and Human Rights

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (02) ◽  
pp. 141-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Livingston ◽  
Mathias Risse
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
General Term ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Rapid Rate ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Potential Development ◽  
The Future ◽  
Human Practices

AbstractWhat are the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on human rights in the next three decades? Precise answers to this question are made difficult by the rapid rate of innovation in AI research and by the effects of human practices on the adaption of new technologies. Precise answers are also challenged by imprecise usages of the term “AI.” There are several types of research that all fall under this general term. We begin by clarifying what we mean by AI. Most of our attention is then focused on the implications of artificial general intelligence (AGI), which entail that an algorithm or group of algorithms will achieve something like superintelligence. While acknowledging that the feasibility of superintelligence is contested, we consider the moral and ethical implications of such a potential development. What do machines owe humans and what do humans owe superintelligent machines?

Accessing the state: Executive constraints and credible commitment in dictatorship

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Meng
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Credible Commitment ◽  
The Future ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Commitment Problems

When do executive constraints provide credible commitment power in dictatorships, and under what conditions do leaders establish such constraints? This article argues that institutions successfully constrain autocrats only when elites are given real access to state power, such as appointments to key governmental positions. I present a game theoretic model in which an autocratic leader decides whether to establish binding constraints at the start of her rule. Doing so shifts the future distribution of power in favor of elites, alleviating commitment problems in bargaining. I show that leaders are likely to place constraints on their own authority when they enter power especially weak, and these initial decisions shape the rest of their rule. Even if a leader enters power in a uniquely weak position vis-á-vis other elites, and is on average, quite strong, the need to alleviate commitment problems in the first period swamps expectations about the future distribution of power. I illustrate the model’s findings through case studies of Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.

scholarly journals Human Rights and the Future of Being Human

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 324-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Huneeus
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
The Future ◽  
Slow Moving ◽  
Sense Of Urgency

The seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) comes at a time of more contestation than usual over the future of human rights. A sense of urgency animates debates over whether the institutions and ideas of human rights can, or should, survive current geopolitical changes. This symposium, by contrast, shifts the lens to a more slow-moving but equally profound challenge to human rights law: how technology and its impacts on our social and physical environments are reshaping the debate on what it means to be human. Can the UDHR be recast for a time in which new technologies are continually altering how humans interact, and the legal status of robots, rivers, and apes alike are at times argued in the language of rights?

Strategic promotion, reputation, and responsiveness in bureaucratic hierarchies

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyu Fan ◽  
Feng Yang
Keyword(s):  
Third Party ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Supportive Evidence ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
The Future ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Promotion Strategies ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
Government Responsiveness

While existing studies usually model promotion as a bilateral interaction between promoter and promotee, it is not uncommon that the promoter is under the influence of a third party. For instance, authoritarian rulers may consider how their interactions with local agents change the way that citizens view them. Similarly, a mid-tier officer in a bureaucratic hierarchy often concerns herself with her image in the eyes of her superior when managing her subordinates. In this paper, we construct a game-theoretic model to investigate promotion strategies when promoters have reputation concerns. We show that promoters can use promotion as a signaling tool, where she can deliberately postpone promoting the subordinate to enhance her own reputation. Furthermore, the promoter has extra incentives to shirk, knowing that she can manipulate promotion in the future. Thus, strategic promotions decrease government responsiveness. Counter-intuitively, such a decrease is more severe when intra-bureaucracy information is more transparent. In other words, transparency may do more harm than good. We conduct a case study of the Chinese bureaucracy and provide supportive evidence.

Skabelsen af fortiden i Kigali Genocide Memorial Center

2018 ◽  
pp. 28-40
Author(s):  
Amy Sodaro
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Rwandan Genocide ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Memorial Museums ◽  
Memorial Museum ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Creation

Emerging from the extremely violent 20th century, memorial museums are a new form of commemoration, created to both commemorate and educate about past genocide, human rights abuses and other injustices with the goal of instilling in their visitors an ethic of “never again.” However, these ambitious goals are often compromised by the politics behind the creation of memorial museums. The focus of this paper is on the ways in which memorial museums produce history according to the dictates, needs and desires of the regimes that build them, using the example of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in Rwanda. Despite the fact that the Kigali Center commemorates the 1994 Rwandan genocide using the increasingly familiar, global memorial museum form, it reveals much more about current Rwandan politics and the government’s hopes for the future of Rwanda than it does confront the terrible past.

Envisioning the future role of librarians: skills, services and information resources

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 2-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philomena W. Mwaniki
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
User Needs ◽  
Library Services ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Future ◽  
Evolution Of Technology

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the future of academic libraries in the era of new user needs, new skills for staff and services offered. The literature shows the evolution of new technologies and the implications they have on the staff, library services and new user needs. The discussions in this paper are surrounded by conceptualization of what the library products and services will be in future academic libraries. It also looks at future studies that explore opportunities for librarians to advance their professional role. Design/methodology/approach This is a literature-based conceptual paper that draws on a wide range of literature that hypothetically looks at the future roles of professional librarians, the collection, services and the evolution of technology on the new user needs. Findings The library today will give the basis for the future librarian’s role, the emerging user needs and impact of service delivery. Technological advances have also affected the establishment of library systems and services offered. The emerging future roles will generally depend on how advanced the libraries are in the region or country including Kenya. Originality/value This paper adds a flexible approach to the skills, services as a role of future librarians.

scholarly journals Costs and Collateral Damage of a Failure to Protect in Syria

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-111
Author(s):  
Leah Sherwood
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
World Order ◽  
Collateral Damage ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Failure To Protect

Abstract This article reviews humanitarian intervention and Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Syria arguing that inaction has had greater repercussions than action would have had. It begins by engaging a wide range of policy literature on humanitarian law and broader international relations theory to locate R2P and Syria’s case. Using the Kosovo precedent, it shows an intervention was justifiable and then explains why one did not occur. The consequences of failing to act (when it was possible) is said to have undermined respect for human rights and R2P. The article concludes that the failure to protect in Syria has had international reverberations, which are intensified by concurrent global trends. The damage Syria has done to the human rights regime has bearing on the post-WWII (especially post-Cold War) liberal and normative world order because central values were left undefended. Regionally, inaction destabilized the Middle East and created problems in Europe - and beyond. Inside Syria, the costs of the war will last generations. Unintended collateral damage created by the failure to protect in Syria includes less future respect for human rights, R2P, US global leadership and the liberal world order as well as challenges to Middle Eastern stability, European refugee policy and counterterrorism policy.

scholarly journals Contours of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 174-186
Author(s):  
Jernej Letnar Černič
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Action Plans ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Wide Range

Central and Eastern Europe has been often overseen in the debates on business and humanrights. Countries in the regions share a common history, experience and culture. Human rights andfundamental freedoms were in the past systematically and generally violated. Since democratisation,countries have suffered from a wide range of related human rights abuses. Corporations in theregions have often directly and indirectly interfered with the human rights of employees and thewider communities. Business and human rights has in the past lagged behind global developmentsalso in the light of the lack of capacity and general deficient human rights situation. This articledescribes and discusses contours of the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights of theCzech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine and Slovenia by examining their strengths anddeficiencies. It argues that the field of business and human rights in Central and Eastern Europe hasmade a step forward in the last decade since the adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principleson Business and Human Rights. Nonetheless, human rights should be further translated into practiceto effectively protect human dignity of rights-holders.

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