National Incorporation of Global Human Rights: Worldwide Expansion of National Human Rights Institutions, 1966-2004

Abstract

Using an event history framework we analyze the adoption rate of national human rights institutions. Neo-realist perspective predicts adoption rates to be positively influenced by favorable national profiles that lower the costs and make it more reasonable to establish these institutions. From a world polity perspective adoption rates will be positively influenced by a world saturated with human rights organizations and conferences, by increasing adoption densities, and by greater linkages to the world polity. We find support for both perspectives in the analysis of the human rights commission. Only the changing state of the world polity is consequential for the founding of the classical ombudsman office. We discuss the national incorporation of international human rights standards and its relevance to issues of state sovereignty and national citizenship.The rise and expansion of the international human rights regime is a recent focus of sociological theory and research. Much theorizing revolves around the question of what such a regime implies for state sovereignty and national citizenship, and has accordingly centered on issues of treaty ratification and membership in international rights organizations. For both theory and research the crucial question is to ascertain the degree of importance to attach to national factors and historical legacies on the one hand, and on the other, the extent to which the outcomes of interest are driven by transnational dynamics. The literature includes those who assert that there are some discernable national economic, political and cultural Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Stanford

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