The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project

TLDR

The CIRI Human Rights Data Project is a large, long‑term dataset covering 195 countries and 26 years, providing detailed information on government respect for a broad range of human rights. This essay offers an overview of the CIRI project and addresses critiques of its physical integrity rights index. Empirical evidence shows the CIRI physical integrity rights index is unidimensional and more valid than the Political Terror Scale, due to its focus, disaggregation, transparency, and replicability.

Abstract

The CIRI Human Rights Data Project provides information about government respect for a broad array of human rights in nearly every country in the world. Covering twenty-six years, fifteen separate human rights practices, and 195 countries, it is one of the largest human rights data sets in the world. This essay provides an overview of the CIRI project and our response to some critiques of the CIRI physical integrity rights index. Compared to the Political Terror Scale (PTS), the CIRI physical integrity rights index is focused on government human rights practices , can be disaggregated, is more transparent in its construction, and is more replicable because of the transparency of our coding rules. Furthermore, unlike the PTS, the unidimensionality of the CIRI index has been demonstrated empirically. For these reasons, the CIRI index is a more valid index of physical integrity rights.