Political Repression. Linda Camp Keith

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СКАЧАТЬ of target population) of the repression (14–16). The two earliest popular measurements of political repression, Taylor and Jodice’s (1983) State Coercive Behavior (part of The World Handbook of Political and Social Science Indicators) and Freedom House’s Civil Liberties Index, represent significant data-collection efforts, but each fails to some degree to meet these criteria, as I will demonstrate below. Most empirical studies to date, however, have primarily addressed the more severe form of repression, violations of personal integrity (imprisonment, torture, killing, and disappearances) (for example, Poe and Tate 1994; Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999; Cingranelli and Richards 1999a, 1999b; Keith 2002a), and have tended to employ the dominant indicators in the field: the Political Terror Scale (PTS) or the (CIRI) physical integrity rights measures, both of which I believe come much closer to meeting the criteria set forth by Mitchell et al. (1986) than do the two early measures of civil liberties restrictions. The Political Terror Scale was originally developed by Stohl and others (Stohl and Carleton 1985; Gibney and Stohl 1988; Poe 1992; Gibney and Dalton 1996) and is maintained by Mark Gibney (Gibney 2011).

      The two standards-based PTS measures are based on assessments contained in the yearly human rights country reports published by Amnesty International and the U.S. Department of State in regard to the occurrence of political imprisonment, execution, disappearances, and torture. The ordered indices range from 1 to 5. The coding categories and their criteria are:

      (1) Countries [are] under a secure rule of law, people are not imprisoned for their views, and torture is rare or exceptional…. Political murders are extremely rare.

      (2) There is a limited amount of imprisonment for nonviolent activity. However, few persons are affected, torture and beating are exceptional…. Political murder is rare.

      (3) There is extensive political imprisonment, or a recent history of such imprisonment. Execution or other political murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited detention, with or without trial, for political views is accepted.

      (4) The practices of level 31 are expanded to larger numbers. Murders, disappearances are a common part of life…. In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects primarily those who interest themselves in politics or ideas.

      (5) The terrors of level 41 have been expanded to the whole population…. The leaders of these societies place no limits on the means or thoroughness with which they pursue personal or ideological goals. (Gastil 1980, 37, as quoted in Carleton and Stohl 1985, 212–13)¹

      While the two measures are highly correlated (.81 in the data set here), the country coverage varies. The country coverage in the Department of State-based measure reflects the universal set of independent states, except in a couple of the early years under study here.² The measure based on Amnesty International reports is less complete because, as a human rights NGO, its mission has been to respond to human rights abuse, and thus it has tended to focus on states with problematic human rights records (Poe and Tate 1994, 869; Poe, Carey, and Vazquez 2001, 655–56). Specifically, the Department of State–based measure tends to cover 20 to 40 more states than the one based on the Amnesty International reports. In previous work we wanted to take advantage of having two measures based on different reports of human rights, so we dealt with this issue of uneven country coverage by substituting Department of State scores for the missing scores in the Amnesty International–based data, and vice versa for the less frequently missing State Department–based data (Poe and Tate 1994; Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999; Keith, Tate, and Poe 2009). I continue this practice here, and I conduct parallel analyses with each of the political terror scales.

      Cingranelli and Richards (1999b) have created another measure that is useful in capturing the level of state repression. Their physical integrity rights measures are somewhat similar to Gibney and Stohl’s Political Terror Scale, but four components of repression (imprisonment, torture, disappearances, and killings) are measured separately on a three-point scale that captures the frequency of violations: frequent (fifty or more) violations (0), some (one to fifty) violations (1), and no violations (2). The authors note that their categories rest on events-based criteria whenever possible: countries with 50 of more confirmed violations are scored zero; countries with less than 50 violations but than zero confirmed violations are scored one; and countries with no violations are scored two. A brief description of the variables follows (for the fuller description see http://ciri.binghamton.edu/documentation.asp).

      Disappearance: Disappearances are cases in which people have disappeared, political motivation appears likely, and the victims have not been found. Knowledge of the whereabouts of the disappeared is, by definition, not public knowledge. However, while there is typically no way of knowing where victims are, it is typically known by whom they were taken and under what circumstances. A score of 0 indicates that disappearances have occurred frequently in a given year; a score of 1 indicates that disappearances occasionally occurred; and a score of 2 indicates that disappearances did not occur in a given year.

      Extrajudicial Killing: Extrajudicial killings are killings by government officials without due process of law. They include murders by private groups if instigated by government. These killings may result from the deliberate, illegal, and excessive use of lethal force by the police, security forces, or other agents of the state whether against criminal suspects, detainees, prisoners, or others. A score of 0 indicates that extrajudicial killings were practiced frequently in a given year; a score of 1 indicates that extrajudicial killings were practiced occasionally; and a score of 2 indicates that such killings did not occur in a given year.

      Political Imprisonment: Political imprisonment refers to the incarceration of people by government officials because of: their speech; their nonviolent opposition to government policies or leaders; their religious beliefs; their nonviolent religious practices, including proselytizing; or their membership in a group, including an ethnic or racial group. A score of 0 indicates that there were many people imprisoned because of their religious, political, or other beliefs in a given year; a score of 1 indicates that a few people were imprisoned; and a score of 2 indicates that no persons were imprisoned for any of the above reasons in a given year.

      Torture: Torture refers to the purposeful inflicting of extreme pain, whether mental or physical, by government officials or by private individuals at the instigation of government officials. Torture includes the use of physical and other force by police and prison guards that is cruel, inhuman, or degrading. This also includes deaths in custody due to negligence by government officials. A score of 0 indicates that torture was practiced frequently in a given year; a score of 1 indicates that torture was practiced occasionally; and a score of 2 indicates that torture did not occur in a given year. (http://ciri.binghamton.edu/documentation/ciri_variables_short_descriptions.pdf)

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