scholarly journals Costly Signals?

2021 ◽  
pp. 146-172
Author(s):  
James Scott ◽  
Allegra Hernandez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
External Factor ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
Democracy Assistance ◽  
Promotion Strategies ◽  
Costly Signals ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Relevant Factors

Developed states increasingly turned to democracy assistance strategies as the Cold War came to an end. A number of recent studies conclude that such aid positively affected democratization in recipients. But, like foreign aid, democracy assistance allocations are subject to change, sometimes dramatically. In foreign aid, sudden, sizable reductions – or aid shocks (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2011) – can have severe consequences, precipitating conflict in the recipient state. How do democracy aid shocks affect recipient states? This analysis examines the effects of sudden withdrawals of democracy aid – or democracy aid shocks – by the U.S. on recipient regime behavior, specifically, their treatment of citizens and civil society groups. We argue that democracy aid shocks trigger repressive action by recipients resulting in harmful human rights practices by the regime. Examining U.S. democracy aid to the developing world from 1982-2013, we find that, after controlling for other relevant factors likely to affect the human rights practices of a regime, democracy aid shocks are associated with subsequent repression of human rights in the recipient state. Our analysis thus sheds light on an external factor affecting human rights practices within states, as well as an important element of the consequences of democracy aid decisions. We conclude by assessing the implications for democracy promotion strategies and human rights behavior.

Human Rights Conditionality and Aid Allocation: Case Study of Japanese Foreign Aid Policy

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumitaka Furuoka
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Development Assistance ◽  
Official Development Assistance ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Aid Policy

AbstractThis paper examines a new trend in Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) policy that emerged at the end of the Cold War. In 1992, the Japanese government adopted the "Official Development Assistance Charter," which obliged Japan to use its foreign aid to promote human rights, democracy, and freedom. Since the beginning of the 1990s, there have been cases when Japan imposed "human rights conditionalities" by increasing the amount of foreign aid to the recipient countries with good human rights records and reducing economic assistance to the countries with poor human rights practices. However, there remain doubts whether Japan is truly committed to use its aid power as leverage to ensure that democracy and human rights are respected by the governments of its aid recipients. This paper uses panel data analysis to examine whether the condition of human rights in aid-recipient countries has become one of the factors that influence Japan's ODA allocation. The findings reveal the lack of evidence to prove that the human rights condition in aid-recipient countries has influenced the allocation of Japanese aid.

The Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance on Democracy Building, 1990–2003

2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven E. Finkel ◽  
Aníbal Pérez-Liñán ◽  
Mitchell A. Seligson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Statistical Models ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Democracy Assistance ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Democracy Building ◽  
Program Information

Democracy promotion has been an explicit doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the cold war. Between 1990 and 2003 resources for democracy programs increased by over 500 percent. Has this policy worked? Prior research has been inconclusive, relying either on case studies or on quantitative efforts that have not distinguished overall foreign assistance from democracy promotion. The authors answer this question using a new data set that includes program information for 165 countries for the years 1990–2003. The analysis distinguishes between direct and indirect causal mechanisms and employs a variety of statistical models that allow the authors to control for the unique democratization trend in each country when assessing causal effects, as well as for the potential endogeneity of U.S. democracy assistance. The analysis shows that democracy assistance does indeed have a significant impact.

scholarly journals The Right to Survival in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoung Song
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

AbstractFor the past decade, the author has examined North Korean primary public documents and concludes that there have been changes of identities and ideas in the public discourse of human rights in the DPRK: from strong post-colonialism to Marxism-Leninism, from there to the creation of Juche as the state ideology and finally 'our style' socialism. This paper explains the background to Kim Jong Il's 'our style' human rights in North Korea: his broader framework, 'our style' socialism, with its two supporting ideational mechanisms, named 'virtuous politics' and 'military-first politics'. It analyses how some of these characteristics have disappeared while others have been reinforced over time. Marxism has significantly withered away since the end of the Cold War, and communism was finally deleted from the latest 2009 amended Socialist Constitution, whereas the concept of sovereignty has been strengthened and the language of duties has been actively employed by the authority almost as a relapse to the feudal Confucian tradition. The paper also includes some first-hand accounts from North Korean defectors interviewed in South Korea in October–December 2008. They show the perception of ordinary North Koreans on the ideas of human rights.

What Future for Human Rights?

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Nickel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
World War ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
The Cold War

Like people born shortly after World War II, the international human rights movement recently had its sixty-fifth birthday. This could mean that retirement is at hand and that death will come in a few decades. After all, the formulations of human rights that activists, lawyers, and politicians use today mostly derive from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the world in 1948 was very different from our world today: the cold war was about to break out, communism was a strong and optimistic political force in an expansionist phase, and Western Europe was still recovering from the war. The struggle against entrenched racism and sexism had only just begun, decolonization was in its early stages, and Asia was still poor (Japan was under military reconstruction, and Mao's heavy-handed revolution in China was still in the future). Labor unions were strong in the industrialized world, and the movement of women into work outside the home and farm was in its early stages. Farming was less technological and usually on a smaller scale, the environmental movement had not yet flowered, and human-caused climate change was present but unrecognized. Personal computers and social networking were decades away, and Earth's human population was well under three billion.

Human Rights, Perestroika and the End of the Cold War

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-141
Author(s):  
Marie-Pierre Rey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The Cold War

Defying Communism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
International Human ◽  
Extra Weight ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
East West

This chapter details how the rise of the international human rights movement as a significant force in world affairs cannot be separated from the Cold War context in which it took place. The Cold War magnified the importance of citizen efforts to promote rights and, though many of those involved in the movement during the Cold War era took significant risks and suffered severe consequences, it was the circumstances of the East–West conflict that attracted many of them to the cause in the first place. Rights activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain became aware that calling attention to abuses of rights by their own governments carried extra weight in an era when a global competition was underway for people's hearts and minds.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Manu Bhagavan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Nuclear Science ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Political Conversation ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
United Nation

The introduction presents India’s role in the Cold War by providing a background of India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Also briefly discussed are a summary of the United Nation and the role India played in political conversation, topics, and events such as human rights, India’s role as a peacemaker, involvement in the development nuclear science, and politics. The introduction then outlines India’s approach to the Cold War and explains the book’s thematic sections. Part I focuses on the interplay of a bifurcated subcontinent with the polarized superpowers. Part II accentuates India’s peacekeeping aspirations. Part III discusses the domestic economic and political developments that were deeply intertwined with external relations, ideologies, and interventionism during the Cold War. Lastly, in light of all three portions, the book assesses India’s multifaceted role in the Cold War.

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