Electoral Rules and Incentives to Protect Human Rights

Abstract

In order to function as an effective constraint on human rights violations, democratic competition must put politicians in a situation where it is electorally beneficial for them to monitor abuses and to expose public officials who fail to protect human rights. In the absence of proper electoral incentives, both incumbent politicians and opposition leaders may strategically choose to ignore poor human rights practices. Building on this logic, we assess the proposition that, among democracies, certain electoral rules are associated with better protection of physical integrity rights. We find that, other things equal, there is higher average respect for physical integrity rights in countries where all members of parliament are elected through low magnitude proportional representation districts, and where voters can cast a vote for individual candidates. Our theoretical approach focusing on incentives for politicians to protect human rights offers a unifying framework for studying institutional and noninstitutional effects on different categories of human rights.