How naming and shaming affects human rights perceptions in the shamed country

Abstract

Although individual citizens perceive the human rights conditions in their country differently, existing research on human rights and public opinion has tended to ignore the possible impact from international sources of information. This article builds upon previous research on human rights, public opinion, and international organizations by arguing that citizens will perceive the human rights conditions in their country more negatively when their country is shamed by the international community for human rights violations. This hypothesis is tested using both observational and experimental methods. I use multilevel modeling and survey responses from both the Gallup International Millennium Survey and the World Values Survey to show that individual human rights perceptions are negatively related to the adoption of resolutions by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights shaming a survey respondent’s government for human rights abuses, as well as the number of human rights-focused international nongovernmental organizations with members or volunteers living within the survey respondent’s country. These results are supplemented by an original, web-based experiment on human rights perceptions in the United States and India in which survey respondents are exposed to an experimental manipulation modeled on press statements from Amnesty International shaming the survey respondent’s country for human rights abuses.

Citizens and Condemnation: Strategic Uses of International Human Rights Pressure in Authoritarian States

“…As grievances grow, this will "empower and legitimate the claims of domestic opposition groups against norm-violating governments" (Risse et al, 1999, p. 5), mobilizing them against the regime. Davis and colleagues (2012) and Ausderan (2014) demonstrate that, cross-nationally, foreign shaming does indeed make a country's citizens less likely to believe their government respects human rights the following year. 7 Powerful repressive and censorship apparatuses mean that authoritarian regimes like the CCP can exert strong control over this information.…”

Making Human Rights Emotional: A Research Agenda to Recover Shame in “Naming and Shaming”

“…A rich IR literature examines the use and efficacy of a variety of naming and shaming instruments, ranging from formal resolutions, blacklists, and targeted sanctions to discursive representations that impose reputational costs such as social opprobrium on targets. While states are adept users of naming and shaming as documented in this literature (Ausderan, ; Biersteker, ; de Goede, ; Lebovic & Voeten, ), a robust scholarship centers on its use by nonstate actors (NSAs), particularly nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), in the arena of human rights (Bell & Carens, ; Bob, ; Hill, Moore, & Mukherjee, ; Keck & Sikkink, ; Meernik, Aloisi, Sowell, & Nichols, ; Murdie & Peksen, ; Ron, Ramos, & Rodgers, ). Despite the centrality accorded to NGOs in promulgating human rights norms through naming and shaming, the literature provides a rudimentary understanding of their underlying motivations, assessment, and conceptualization of this tool.…”

Human rights shaming through INGOs and foreign aid delivery

“…One mechanism by which INGO "shaming and blaming" campaigns can induce policy change is by influencing public opinion on human rights conditions (Davis, Murdie and Steinmetz, 2012;Ausderan, 2014). Recent research has found that shaming reports alone, even without changes zations.…”

“…in actual human rights conditions, is associated with changes in public opinion (Davis, Murdie and Steinmetz, 2012;Ausderan, 2014). Further, according to recent World Value Survey reports, ordinary citizens are more confident of NGOs than of their government or the media.…”