Interventions and repression following civil conflict

Abstract

Civil conflicts inevitably have negative consequences with regards to respect for human rights within affected states. Unfortunately, the violation of human rights often does not end with the conflict. What factors explain variation in state repression in post-civil conflict societies? Can international interventions, both civilian and military, improve human rights in states with a history of conflict? Does the size of the intervention matter? We argue that international interventions, including peacekeeping missions and officially directed foreign aid, can reduce physical integrity abuses. This process occurs by simultaneously increasing protections for civilians while also raising the costs of repression to both government leaders and their agents. Human rights abuses will also decrease when there are legal remedies available to vulnerable populations which are bolstered by a strong judicial system. A robust civil society can also discourage human rights abuses by shedding light on these events and providing human rights education. In line with our theoretical argument, we focus on UN peacekeeping missions, especially those with human rights teams, and officially directed foreign aid for legal and security sector reform and NGOs. Using both a treatment effects approach and a continuous dose–response model, we find much support for the implications of our argument.

Keywords

civil conflict human rights abuses interventions repression

Civil conflicts are extremely detrimental to human rights.¹ Governments are more likely to respond with repression when they are violently threatened (Davenport, 2007). Civil conflicts, by their very nature, are direct violent challenges to the state.² As rebels take up arms, governments frequently ratchet up their use of physical integrity rights abuses, like torture or political killings. This is hardly remarkable; as Hill & Jones (2014: 662) comment, ‘civil conflict is the best predictor of most indicators of state repression’.

Surprisingly, however, repression often sticks around even after civil conflict is over.³ For post-civil conflict states, repression can be a tempting option. The threat of violence against the state was recently extremely high, and the legitimacy of the ruling regime may still be in question, either as a result of the previous revolt against it or as a result of the regime’s newness after the conflict. A post-conflict government may continue or heighten their use of human rights violations in an attempt to limit violent dissent and war recurrence. However, the use of repression could backfire, mobilizing the population and even contributing to a re-emergence of civil conflict (Hegre & Nygård, 2015; Keels & Nichols, 2018). Many post-conflict states do not stay peaceful for long (Fortna, 2004).

Scholars are just beginning to understand what limits repression after civil conflict.⁴ However, the international policy community has long attempted many types of ‘interventions’, often with the goals of improving human rights and influencing peace. For the purposes of this article, we use a broad definition of international intervention. In addition to the commonly accepted definition of international intervention as military and peacekeeping missions, we expand the concept to include foreign aid with the express purpose of altering the status quo in the targeted state. In the aftermath of the Cold War, peacekeeping interventions have increased. Foreign aid to post-conflict countries is now the norm, with billions of dollars flowing to post-conflict situations. Does the presence and nature of these interventions improve human rights? Although much scholarship has focused on how interventions affect the likelihood of conflict re-emergence, there has been limited examination of how interventions affect the use of human rights abuses in the aftermath of conflict.

This work examines the nature of repression in countries with a history of civil conflict, focusing specifically on how various types of international interventions could influence repression in the years following a conflict. Not all international inventions have human rights goals; many may sidestep human rights altogether. When interventions help with the protection of civilians, increase monitoring of security agents, and raise the potential costs of repression to government principals and agents, human rights abuses decrease in the aftermath of civil conflict. Similarly, when interventions support institutional reform and increase the likelihood that civilians use institutionalized or nonviolent avenues to make demands, human rights abuses decrease.

Based on this logic, we argue that there are four different types of international interventions that are likely contenders to improved human rights in the aftermath of civil conflict: United Nations (UN) mandated peacekeeping interventions, foreign aid directed at judicial reform, foreign aid directed at security sector reform, and foreign aid directed at civil society. We examine the efficacy of each of these interventions using a treatment effects approach and a continuous dose–response model. By using these approaches in tandem, we are able to both examine the efficacy of a dichotomous presence or absence of a particular type of intervention and whether the ‘dose’ or size of the intervention matters. Although we find robust evidence that these interventions are associated with improvements in human rights in post-conflict countries, we find little evidence that the size of the intervention corresponds with an increased response. Future work is needed to understand how best to structure interventions for human rights goals.

A review of the logic of repression

Repression is often the result of a calculated decisionmaking process by the ruling authority or their agents. It is seldom carried out purely for the sake of wanton violence. Physical integrity rights abuses are one of a host of actions that governments can take to deter actions or beliefs that the leadership views as threatening to their longevity and hold on power (Davenport, 2007). Instead of abuses, governments could provide concessions, buy-off key constituents, limit citizen association, engage in negotiations, or a host of other actions. Abuses may appear to be the most cost-effective response to demands in certain institutional and information environments (Ritter, 2014). Abuses may also be used pre-emptively to deter citizen demands (Ritter & Conrad, 2016).

Of course, not all human rights abuses are the result of active policy decisions by regime leaders. Abuses often occur when government agents act on their own, perhaps torturing to try to extract information from a suspect. In this regard, some abuses are the result of agent discretion or shirking; even though their government principals do not condone the agents’ actions, unmonitored agents may still carry out physical integrity abuses (Englehart, 2009).

By their very nature, governments are thought of as the monopolist coercive force within a state (Weber, 2009). Their use of violence when threatened is not surprising, especially if that use of force quells the threat. To stop repression, much research has argued that the cost-benefit calculations concerning repression versus other policy or behavior choices must change (Davenport, 2007; DeMeritt, 2015; Conrad, Hill & Moore, 2018). Under certain conditions, repression may no longer seem to be the most cost-effective, appropriate, and beneficial response to active or perceived future threats. It could be that the potential costs of using physical integrity rights have increased. For example, a particular police officer or government agent may no longer use torture if he or she is being monitored and perceives a high risk of prosecution and imprisonment for their actions. The costs of repression may also be more internal; due to norm diffusion, abuses may no longer be considered an appropriate action for actors with a given identity (Risse, Ropp & Sikkink, 1999). Further, government principals and their agents may rethink the use of abuses because they are no longer perceived as effective population control. Researchers have found that physical integrity rights abuse could lead to more violent dissent and conflict (Hegre & Nygård, 2015; Keels & Nichols, 2018). As such, passive or active learning about the limited utility of abuses could also change the cost-benefit calculus of leaders and their agents.

Scholars have recently expanded our understanding of the strategic environment affecting repression (Ritter, 2014; Ritter & Conrad, 2016; Chenoweth, Pekoski & Kang, 2017). At the same time that governments are deciding whether to use repression, possible dissidents are deciding the nature of their demands and their strategies for voicing concerns to governments. The nature of protest may influence subsequent repression. When compared to violent dissent, nonviolent protest is less likely to illicit as intense a repressive response and may be more effective at large-scale policy change (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011; Chenoweth, Pekoski & Kang, 2017).

In line with this understanding of repression, scholars have identified some key institutions and underlying conditions that limit abuses, in part by changing the cost-benefit calculations of governments and their agents. As North, Wallis & Weingast (2009: 16) contend, ‘institutions frame rules that deter violence directly by changing the payoffs to violent behavior, most obviously by stipulating punishments for the use of violence’. The changing payoffs from institutions also apply to leaders and their agents.

First, fully consolidated democracies are less likely to repress (Hill & Jones, 2014). Because leaders in democracies are more beholden to larger segments of the population for political survival, a public’s desire for improved human rights practices is more likely to be taken seriously in a democracy. The logic of appropriateness may also factor in: democratic leaders may have internalized norms that forbid the use of certain human rights abuses by modern liberal and democratic leaders (Risse, Ropp & Sikkink, 1999). As Conrad & Moore (2010) find, however, once violent dissent is taking place, democratic institutions may not be enough to stop the use of torture.

Research has found a connection between an independent judiciary and improved human rights (Powell & Staton, 2009). If the likelihood of prosecution increases due to improvements in the judiciary system, agents may abstain from using repression. If principal decisionmakers know that there are elevated chances that agents will refuse to abuse fellow citizens, they may be more hesitant to order abuses in the first place (DeMeritt, 2015). Citizens may be more likely to seek legal recourse for abuses from a judicial system that is free from government interference and viewed as capable.

Similarly, wealthier countries are less likely have widespread repression (Hill & Jones, 2014). Prosperous governments have more tools to monitor and control security forces and encourage other forms of population control. Wealthy states are typically those with higher state capacity, a critical control against abuse as a result of agent discretion (Englehart, 2009). A more affluent population may also be more likely to use nonviolent means of resistance, limiting the government’s perception of threat.

An emboldened civil society sector is also important for repression to be constrained. Civil society, comprised of both domestic and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as more informal citizen groups, discourage human rights abuses by shedding light on these activities with the goal of enacting greater costs on abuse. NGOs assist the populace in monitoring agents and organizing for improved human rights. Domestic activism may garner the attention of international actors who can pressure the state from abroad to change their human rights practices or face international consequences. This transnational activism ultimately increases the costs of continued repression. Although NGO pressure may be directed at regime leaders, NGO attention has been argued to alter the decision-calculus of armed forces, who would also like to avoid the advocacy spotlight (Swed, 2018).

Further, NGOs often encourage nonviolent protest (Bell et al., 2014). NGOs provide resources that are critical for continued nonviolent resistance in the face of repression (Chenoweth, Pekoski & Kang, 2017). Some NGOs provide human rights education, leading more people to believe that their rights have been violated (Davis, Murdie & Steinmetz, 2012). By increasing the likelihood that abuses are observed, and that collective action is organized in response to abuses, NGOs and other civil society actors help to raise the costs of abuses and limit the likelihood that repression would be a successful method of population control.

Civil war, post-conflict, and repression

Given this logic, it is easy to see how a country with a history of civil conflict may be rife with human rights abuse. Uncertainty about power-sharing arrangements can exacerbate the perceived need for repression as a form of population control (Keels & Nichols, 2018; Karreth, Sullivan & Duzfuli, 2020). Potential rebels may see previous conflict as an example of how to stage violent dissent (Keels & Nichols, 2018). Governments that used militias during a conflict can continue to use these forces to carry out abuses after the conflict has dissipated (Carey & González, 2021). Cycles of radicalization and revenge can occur (Karreth, Sullivan & Duzfuli, 2020). Unfortunately, the use of repression can backfire, actually increasing the likelihood of conflict relapse (Hegre & Nygård, 2015; Keels & Nichols, 2018). Due to repression and poor governance, a country can become stuck in a ‘conflict trap’ (Hegre, Nygård & Raeder, 2017: 243).

Further, civil conflict breaks down the factors and institutions that constrain repression. Conflict is costly to a society, and these costs can lead to a reduction in development. Citizens may turn inwards, less likely to participate fully in the political system (Davenport et al., 2019). Intense conflicts can also limit the involvement of international NGOs, although recent research has found that NGOs can still influence human rights during conflict (Swed, 2018).

Domestic institutions which normally constrain abuse often break down during or after civil conflict. Judicial systems can be in such disarray after conflict that it can take years, if not decades, for cases to make their way through the court system. With an incapable legal system, citizens may forgo seeking a judicial remedy for abuses. Security forces may not feel constrained by any threat of judicial action; they know that the judicial system will not hold them accountable for their current actions.

As a result of all these factors, countries with a history of civil conflict have higher levels of abuses than those with no history of civil conflict. Many countries see human rights conditions continue to deteriorate in the aftermath of conflict (Keels & Nichols, 2018; Karreth, Sullivan & Dezfuli, 2020).

International ‘interventions’ to improve human rights

Given how repression contributes to a cycle of violence, a key question now is how to stop repression in countries with a history of civil conflict. Human rights organizations and human rights-minded countries often recommend various interventions to conflict-affected countries. We focus on two general categories of interventions: those that involve military missions and those that involve foreign aid.

First, there are many types of military interventions, from multilateral peacekeeping missions sanctioned by an intergovernmental organization to a solitary intervention by an interested third-party state. Some research finds that military interventions increase repression or have limited effects (Peksen, 2012; Sullivan, Blanken & Rice, 2020). Others, however, find that certain types of military interventions, typically those sanctioned by the UN or those with strict humanitarian goals which occur after the bulk of hostilities have ended, can positively impact peace and reduce violence directed at civilians (Fortna, 2004; Murdie & Davis, 2010; Kathman & Wood, 2011, 2016; Kirschner & Miller, 2019). Recent research has also shown that UN peacekeeping missions can improve the rule of law in post-conflict states (Blair, 2020).

There have been many studies of aid interventions and repression. Most of these studies have not focused particularly on post-conflict states, instead focusing on how aid correlates with repression in all aid-recipient states. Research has focused mainly on United States foreign aid (McCormick & Mitchell, 1989; Regan, 1995; Scott & Steele, 2011). Findings have been generally mixed, with some studies finding that aid does improve human rights, whereas others find that it has no impact (McCormick & Mitchell, 1989; Regan, 1995; Scott & Steele, 2011). In looking just at countries with a history of civil conflict, Sullivan, Blanken & Rice (2020) recently found that military aid and transfers do not stop abuses. To our knowledge, existing studies that do find a positive effect of aid often have restricted their focus to aid that is specifically targeted for human rights or democracy promotion (Scott & Steele, 2011).

Even though there are many calls for international interventions in the aftermath of conflict and a growing number of empirical studies that examine some of these interventions, we lack a thorough understanding of the effects of interventions on human rights in countries with a history of civil conflict. There are still questions about the causal logic linking interventions to reduced repression. In the next section, we outline our theoretical model, predicting multiple channels through which some specific interventions could limit abuses following civil conflict.

Our theoretical model

Repression after conflict

Our theoretical model rests on several assumptions about the preferences of key actors in the aftermath of civil conflict.⁵ First, like the core assumption of the bargaining model of war, we assume civil conflict is costly; government principals, government agents, and citizens would all like to avoid more widespread violence (Reiter, 2003). Second, we assume that those in power wish to remain so, and they would like to do so at the lowest cost to themselves (Bueno de Mesquita & Smith, 2010). As those in power control the coercive apparatus of the state, their desire to remain in power provides them with the ‘tool’ of physical integrity abuses. Although abuses could increase the likelihood of civil conflict re-emergence, there is a non-zero probability that abuses will not lead to organized conflict on the battlefield. In other words, abuses may be helpful in retaining power, but there is some uncertainty about their efficacy.

We assume that the citizenry will make policy demands of their leaders. This will occur regardless of whether a particular citizen is in the winning coalition or not or whether they were part of the past rebel movement or not. Depending on their nature, available information, and the political environment, government leaders may see policy demands as threatening their survival and hold on power.

Both the government leadership and agents prefer to respond to citizen demands and carry out policy in a manner that minimizes their individual risk of reprisal and retains the status-quo power arrangement. Government principals then choose from a menu of potential responses to demands, including full acquiescence, tactical concessions, buying off portions of the winning coalition, restricting organizational rights and resources, and, of course, physical integrity abuses. These potential responses vary in expected costs and benefits. Government agents can decide whether to carry out the tasks delegated to them; if the potential costs of a task are too high or viewed as less beneficial than other available actions, a government agent may shirk and choose another action. Agent shirking will increase if agents do not believe their actions are being monitored or that their shirking will lead to punishment.

In this same strategic environment, citizens, both those with the original policy demands and others in the country, can decide how to react to the government’s response. They may be placated with a government’s response. The government’s response could also serve to deter future challenges by changing the cost of making demands. Citizens could change their underlying support for the regime. As a result of the government’s response, political or legal remedies for past abuse could be added to citizen policy demands. Citizens could be more motivated for future collective action.

A recent civil conflict changes the cost–benefit calculations of all actors in this environment. First, compared to a leader without a history of conflict, a government leader in a post-conflict state will be more likely to see any policy demand as threatening to their longevity. Power-sharing arrangements and uncertainty in the post-conflict environment means that leaders are more likely to see their hold on power as tenuous. Second, the state may see repression as less costly. Governments may have perfected the use of militias to aid in their repressive practices (Carey & González, 2021). Due to a breakdown of state capacity, agents will be less monitored and constrained, also potentially increasing abuses. Third, citizen experience with rebellion will make it more likely that any policy demands made would be threatening to the state. At the same time, nonviolent collective action and citizen political engagement may decrease post-conflict, reducing the ability of civil society to monitor and advocate that abuses are stopped. For both citizens and the government in a post-conflict state, the arena for policy demands and responses will be tilted towards violence, despite, or even because of, the very real fear of conflict re-emergence.

Interventions after conflict

International actors of many different types can intervene within the state in ways that alter the cost–benefit analysis of key actors. To be clear, many interventions have nothing to do with our outlined decision-calculus concerning physical integrity abuses. Moreover, some interventions may actually exacerbate abuses, perhaps by providing unfettered support to the ruling regime or increasing the threat a leader perceives from a citizen group’s demands.

There are two main pathways through which international interventions could improve human rights. These pathways are broad enough to incorporate many types of international interveners. They are also not necessarily independent; a single intervention may reduce abuses through multiple pathways.

First, interventions can increase the costs of ordering or carrying out abuses. Some interventions may make it harder for government leaders and their agents to reach civilians to abuse. For example, UN peacekeeping missions often provide physical protection for civilians. These ‘missions are authorized to use all necessary means, up to and including the use of deadly force’ to carry out the mandate to protect civilians (UN Peacekeeping, 2018a: np). Simply being a presence within the state may provide a buffer against abuses.

Interventions can increase international and domestic monitoring of government leaders and agents, increasing the cost of abuses vis-à-vis other types of responses to citizen demands. Some interveners carry out their own human rights monitoring, investigations, and analysis (UN Peacekeeping, 2018b). Interventions that include increased monitoring impact both the decisionmaker’s choice to order human rights violations as well as the agent’s choice to carry out abuses. Increased monitoring may lead leaders to not order abuses in the first place, as issuing an order that is then not followed can signify weakness.

The cost of abuses also increases when interventions help strengthen the domestic institutions that could punish governments and their agents. For example, by making the judicial branch a more credible avenue of punishment, agents may be more hesitant to carry out abuses.

Interventions could also decrease the perceived costs of other responses to citizen demands. If the perceived costs of other responses to policy demands goes down in relation to the cost of abuses, government principals and their agents could choose other responses. For example, training of security forces could help agents maintain order without physical integrity rights violations. Interventions that include mediators could help suggest tactical concessions that would be acceptable policy choices by both governments and citizens.

Further, interventions may encourage norm socialization towards human rights, ultimately increasing the perceived costs of abuses through the logic of appropriateness. There is some discussion as to the efficacy of human rights training and the adoption of international human rights norms in local security spheres.⁶ Norm socialization would have to be carried out by interveners with a careful eye towards the possibility of normative backlash (Snyder, 2020).

Our second main pathway centers on how interveners could influence citizen interactions with the state. If interventions increase the credibility of the judiciary or legislative branch, citizens will have more institutionalized avenues to raise their policy demands. Further, interventions could encourage nonviolent protests and collective action. By providing robust alternatives to the use of violence in making policy demands, abuses may decrease simply because the government leadership and its agents are less threatened by the demands. As a result of interventions that strengthen civil society, citizens could increase their monitoring of abuses and collective action for human rights protection. In light of this increased collective action, repression may not be viewed as a potentially effective form of population control; governments may be more concerned about the possibility that repression would backfire. Further, if interventions improve the capacity of the judiciary, citizens may be emboldened in their calls for remedies for past abuses, ultimately increasing the cost of future abuses in the eyes of the government and its agents.

Implications

Given our theoretical argument for how interventions influence the calculus underlying abuses, we first acknowledge that many interventions will have no impact on human rights. Most military interventions and aid packages have no connection to the pathways we have laid out or could possibly even exacerbate violence. We think there are some specific types of targeted interventions which have qualities consistent with our theory. While we make no claim that these are the totality of interventions which could positively influence human rights, we think the following four interventions are likely contenders for positive impact as implied by our theoretical logic.

First, we expect UN peacekeeping to reduce abuses. UN peacekeeping includes mandates to protect civilians and monitor behavior. Even though UN peacekeepers are sent to the most difficult post-conflict cases, UN peacekeeping helps keep the peace (Fortna, 2004). Many existing studies have found that UN peacekeepers help reduce civilian victimization (Hultman, Kathman & Shannon, 2014; Kathman & Wood, 2016; Kirschner & Miller, 2019).

UN peacekeeping can encourage institutional reform. As mentioned, Blair (2020) recently found that UN peacekeeping can improve rule of law. Blair’s (2020) theory and evidence point to the importance of civilian personnel and their interactions with the state. By improving rule of law, UN peacekeeping may indirectly also improve human rights outcomes as the legal system may be seen as a more powerful constraint against abuses.

UN peacekeeping can include training to government agents in ways that show the costs of abuses and could make other forms of population control appear less costly. Missions, including recent missions in the DRC, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, can include months-long training for police officers on ‘how to intervene to maintain and re-establish public order while being respectful of human rights’ (Katayanagi, 2014: 137). Peacekeeping can include training to ‘legal and judicial’ officials on how international human rights law can be applied to their country, as well as general awareness-building among students and existing advocates (Katayanagi, 2014: 137). Bara (2020) recently found that UN police can reduce general postwar violence by affecting public security environments.

In addition, UN peacekeeping should increase citizen awareness and help build civil society for collective action for human rights improvement. Currently, UN peacekeeping operations typically include a ‘human rights team’ whose goals are:

to contribute to the protection and promotion of human rights through both immediate and long-term action;

to empower the population to assert and claim their human rights;

to enable State and other national institutions to implement their human rights obligations and uphold the rule of law. (UN Peacekeeping, 2018b: np)

UN peacekeeping in the aftermath of civil conflict increases nonviolent protest (Belgioioso, Salvatore & Pinckney, 2020). As such, UN peacekeeping may reduce human rights abuses by changing the threat perceived by the government by policy demands. UN peacekeeping may help to educate a larger segment of society on their human rights, leading governments to rethink the utility of repression as a successful method of population control.

These examples are not to say that UN peacekeeping is without problems. Peacekeepers themselves can carry out abuses (Razack, 2004). Recent research has found that countries with less than perfect human rights records often contribute the most peacekeepers (Levin, 2020). Nonetheless, when compared to peacekeeping missions without UN mandates, the lead states in UN peacekeeping missions have better physical integrity rights.⁷ Due to this and the explicit human rights focus in current UN peacekeeping, although some similar mechanisms may be present in other forms of peacekeeping, we do not expect non-UN mandated missions to have quite the positive effect on human rights.

In short, because of their civilian protections, monitoring functions, institutional reform goals, and citizen empowerment tasks, we contend:

Hypothesis 1: In countries with a history of civil conflict, those with UN-mandated peacekeeping interventions will have improved human rights performance compared to countries without such interventions.

Beyond the dichotomy of whether a post-civil conflict state has a UN peacekeeping mission or not, there could also be variation in the size and composition of the intervention. While our theoretical insights do not give us clear implications for how the size of an intervention could influence outcomes, it does suggest that the effects of UN peacekeeping will not be only limited to peacekeeping troops. Civilian staff and UN police that are part of UN peacekeeping interventions could also affect the use of physical integrity abuses through many of the mechanisms we have laid out.

Second, we contend that certain types of foreign aid interventions will be effective at improving human rights. Aid can be directed to a variety of sectors that concretely relate to institutional reform and the empowerment of citizens. Due to the causal links these sectors have to our proposed pathways, we think these forms of aid will be the most concretely linked to reduced repression post-civil conflict.

Officially directed foreign aid with the express purpose of improving the judicial system could help in building an independent and reformed judiciary that is well-trained and adequately funded. Government agents are more constrained when the threat of prosecution through the legal system is heightened. Concerned citizens will be more likely to adopt legal methods of resistance, decreasing the chances of initiating a violence-repression cycle. Therefore, we contend that:

Hypothesis 2: In countries with a history of civil conflict, those with aid directed at judicial reform will have improved human rights performance compared to countries without such aid.

Aid can also be directed at reforming security forces. A reformed security sector may be better trained in population control that does not involve physical integrity abuses. Security reform could provide mechanisms to monitor rogue agents. It may also allow agencies to pay higher wages to police and military forces; this could help in the recruitment of agents that may be more capable of controlling a population without the use of abuses. Further, much like that which occurs within UN peacekeeping interventions, aid for security sector reform may allow for training about human rights abuses. This is not to say that police and security forces are solely responsible for improved relations. As Jauregui (2016) shows, police and security forces are often subject to informal rules that have developed through social context and practices. A broader society movement alongside improved training and support for police and security forces may be required. Nonetheless, this logic implies that:

Hypothesis 3: In countries with a history of civil conflict, those with aid directed at security reform will have improved human rights performance compared to countries without such aid.

Foreign aid after conflict can also be directed at NGOs and other civil society actors that have the capacity to increase human rights protection monitoring; this human rights monitoring will ensure that governments and their agents expect abuses to be more costly. Aid to NGOs can also enrich the civil society sector and provide it with more organizational resources. Through a strengthened civil society sector, the local population can better demand that their rights be protected in a manner that could be less threatening to the state.⁸ An organized civil society may also make governments hesitant to use abuses for fear that the abuses could backfire and cause further collective policy demands. This logic implies that:

Hypothesis 4: In countries with a history of civil conflict, those with aid directed at civil society will have improved human rights performance compared to countries without such aid.

As with our hypothesis concerning UN peacekeeping, although these aid interventions are predicted to improve human rights, it does not necessarily follow that there is a one-to-one relationship between more spending and better outcomes. Efficient aid spending on a smaller project could have a better outcome for human rights than inefficient aid spending on a larger project. We examine this dynamic in more detail later.

Research design

We argue that certain international military and aid interventions can improve human rights in countries that have recently experienced civil conflict. In the following sections, we outline the novel ways we examine our hypotheses using statistical methods that allow us to isolate the effects of these interventions.

Dependent variable and sample

The unit of analysis is the country-year. We use Fariss’s (2014) latent human rights mean as our dependent variable.⁹ This variable captures a country’s respect for physical integrity rights and is based on a compilation of available data sources, including the CIRI Human Rights Dataset and the Political Terror Scale, and the approach Fariss (2014) uses accounts for the changing standard of accountability over time (Cingranelli, Richards & Clay, 2014; Gibney et al., 2016). A higher score on this variable indicates a better human rights situation. In our sample, this variable goes from roughly −2.8 to 2.5.

We are interested in how various interventions affect future human rights performance. As such, we run models where our dependent variable is measured five years after the intervention.¹⁰ We include a control for the country’s human rights situation in the year when the intervention occurred.

We restrict our sample to countries not currently in civil conflict but where there has been a civil conflict in the past ten years. This is similar to Murdie & Davis (2010) and Karreth, Sullivan & Dezfuli (2020) and allows us to focus only on countries where we could expect the ‘treatment’ of international interventions to occur.¹¹ The logic here is similar to a public health study on how an HIV/AIDs treatment affected HIV/AIDs patients: you would not include patients without HIV/AIDs in the sample. We use the UCDP/PRIO Conflict Database to restrict our sample to cases where a civil conflict occurred in the past ten years.¹²

Measuring international interventions

For each hypothesis, we first focus on a dichotomous variable that concerns the presence or absence of an intervention related to that specific hypothesis. We then focus on a corresponding continuous variable to examine whether the amount (in dollars or number of interveners, for example) of the intervention matters for future human rights performance.

For Hypothesis 1, we focus on the dichotomous presence and then the continuous number of civilians and peacekeeping troops present within a UN mandated intervention. Recent work has indicated that both civilians and troops are important to the pathways through which human rights improve (Kathman & Wood, 2016; Bara, 2020; Belgioioso, Salvatore & Pinckney, 2020; Blair, 2020). Our indicators come from Mullenbach’s (2013) Third Party Peacekeeping Missions Version 3.1 dataset.

For Hypotheses 2–4, we use AidData’s Core Research Release 3.0 (Tierney et al., 2011; AidData, 2016). For the treatment models, we are using a dichotomous indicator for whether aid for a specific purpose was given in the particular year. In our sample, less than half of the cases receive aid directed in these specific ways; we think this reinforces the idea that aid for these purposes can be thought of as a discrete treatment, similar to a UN peacekeeping mission. For the continuous dose–response model, we also focus on the amount of aid given. For Hypothesis 2, we focus on aid for the purpose of ‘legal and judicial development’ (purpose code 15130). For Hypothesis 3, we use aid that has the expressed purpose of ‘security system management and reform’ (purpose code 15210). And, for Hypothesis 4, we focus on aid directed at NGOs, using the sum of aid to support ‘national NGOs’ (purpose code 92010), ‘local and regional NGOs’ (purpose code 92030), and ‘international NGOs’ (purpose code 92020).

Statistical modeling choices

We first begin by examining correlational regressions; these results are provided in the Online appendix. Building upon critical advances in the social sciences, we then use treatment effects models that better allow us to account for the processes that make treatment more or less likely for some observations (Austin, 2011). We rely on two treatment effects statistical techniques. First, for dichotomous interventions, we use Wooldridge’s treatment effects doubly robust or inverse probability weighted regression adjustment estimator (IPWRA). This approach allows us to account for the process that leads to intervention (the ‘treatment’ in common terminology) and then better isolate the effects of that intervention on future human rights practices (Cattaneo, 2010; Słoczyński & Wooldridge, 2014; Wooldridge, 2007, 2010). The approach first models the probability of intervention and then uses this information to weigh the regression coefficients in a second stage model for those that received the intervention and those that did not. This specific treatment effects approach provides consistent estimates if either the intervention or the outcome stage (but not both stages) is specified incorrectly, making it doubly robust to model misspecification.¹³ Given the large empirical literature on determinants of human rights abuses, we feel reasonably confident with this assumption. Using this approach, we are especially interested in the average treatment effect (ATE). The ATE relates to the population; it is the ‘average effect, at the population level, of moving an entire population from untreated to treated’ (Austin, 2011: 401).¹⁴

Most treatment effects models, including the IPWRA model we use, do not allow us to focus on continuous treatments, like the number of peacekeepers or amount of aid provided. Although testing our hypotheses only requires focusing on the dichotomous presence or absence of a particular type of intervention, we think practical and policy concerns require us to examine the size of the intervention as well. As such, we also run models using Cerulli’s (2015) continuous treatment effects or dose–response model. The model is ideal for political situations like this. As Cerulli (2015) discussed:

In many socioeconomic and epidemiological contexts, interventions take the form of a continuous exposure to a certain type of treatment. From a program evaluation perspective, indeed, what is relevant in many settings is not only the binary treatment status but also the level of exposure (or dose) provided by a public agency. (2015: 1019)

This model provides both the average treatment effect (ATE) of all non-zero values of the continuous treatment variable and a dose–response function that provides information on how our dependent variable responds to specific doses of the treatment. To use this model, continuous treatments are standardized between 0 and 100.¹⁵ As Cerulli (2015) notes, the model is a good choice when there is an abundance of observations that do not receive the treatment. As before, we have to assume that randomization can be conditioned on identifiable confounders. Given that we explicitly tested for correlated unobservables (endogeneity) using the previous approach, we think this is a reasonable assumption.

Control variables

All models include a variety of control variables. As mentioned, all models include a control for Fariss’s (2014) latent human rights mean for when the intervention occurred. We also include Polity IV’s 21-point scale for regime type; a higher score on this scale indicates that the country is a more consolidated democracy (Marshall, Jaggers & Gurr, 2014).¹⁶ Controls for the natural log of a country’s GDP per capita and the natural log of a country’s population size come from the World Bank’s (2015) World Development Indicators. We also include a control for the natural log of aid commitments received from donor countries, also from the AidData’s Core Research Release 3.0 (Tierney et al., 2011; AidData, 2016).¹⁷ As a final control at the outcome stage, we include an indicator for whether civil conflict has emerged or re-emerged in the year when we measure the dependent variable (t+5).¹⁸ All other control variables are measured in the same year as when the intervention could have taken place (t).¹⁹

Model results and discussion

As shown in Tables I and II, we find some support for our hypotheses. Human rights within a country with a previous civil conflict improves as a result of some specific interventions. However, there remains much to understand about how to properly implement interventions for optimal effect: although we find a positive and statistically significant average treatment effect across all models and treatments, we do not find that a higher ‘dose’ of any of the treatments is robustly associated with an increased response.

Table I provides a summary breakdown of our treatment regression results. Table II provides the results of our continuous dose–response models, and Figure 1 graphs the dose–response function across the treatment values, which are standardized between 0 and 100.

For Hypothesis 1, we find that UN peacekeeping (present in around 7% of the sample) improves physical integrity rights in post-conflict countries, as shown in Table I, column 1. Importantly, we did not find any significant effect when we focused on non-UN peacekeeping.²⁰ Substantively, UN peacekeeping causes the latent human rights mean to increase an average of 0.24 points above the mean of countries without such intervention, where the average latent human rights mean is −0.23. Although such a numerical increase might seem minor (it represents one-fourth of a standard deviation), such a change would represent far fewer physical integrity rights abuses. As such, the change is substantively important, especially for those concerned with human rights.

When we turned to look at the peacekeeping personnel numbers in the continuous dose–response model, we continued to find that UN peacekeeping has a positive and statistically significant effect. This is observed in the first substantive row in Table II, which shows the average treatment effect over all values taken by the treatment. Moving from the idea of a dichotomous treatment and looking specifically at the different ‘doses’, Figure 1 shows how the response function changes as the number of UN peacekeeping civilians and troops increases. In general, although we find a positive mean effect across almost all doses of the treatment, the 95% confidence intervals are wide enough to include a zero or a negative response function of the majority of the treatment

Table I.

Average treatment effect of various interventions on future (t+5) human rights performance in post-civil conflict countries

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	Treatment = UN intervention	Treatment = Judicial aid	Treatment = Security aid	Treatment = Aid to NGOs
Average treatment effect	0.24183**	0.24814**	0.14915**	0.09372*
	(0.068)	(0.041)	(0.047)	(0.040)
Potential outcome mean	−0.22911**	−0.30971**	−0.23393**	−0.25547**
	(0.032)	(0.038)	(0.033)	(0.037)
Outcome model (Treatment = 1)
Latent human rights mean	0.74377**	0.67754**	0.79978**	0.70846**
	(0.074)	(0.046)	(0.072)	(0.050)
Regime type	−0.01566*	0.00595	0.01594**	0.01038*
	(0.007)	(0.005)	(0.005)	(0.006)
Population (ln)	−0.34490**	−0.19649**	0.01169	−0.21284**
	(0.064)	(0.029)	(0.056)	(0.033)
GDP per capita (ln)	0.19089**	0.12405**	0.05739	0.10277**
	(0.032)	(0.028)	(0.039)	(0.033)
Total aid (ln)	0.16587**	0.04458*	−0.05956	0.14089**
	(0.048)	(0.023)	(0.063)	(0.023)
Conflict re-emergence	−0.48367**	−0.37989**	−0.38630**	−0.30425**
	(0.140)	(0.067)	(0.101)	(0.069)
Constant	1.23961	1.62260**	0.82430	0.01574
	(0.761)	(0.440)	(0.823)	(0.436)
Outcome model (Treatment = 0)
Latent human rights mean	0.70351**	0.64290**	0.69302**	0.67873**
	(0.029)	(0.040)	(0.029)	(0.036)
Regime type	0.01998**	0.01514**	0.01992**	0.01719**
	(0.003)	(0.004)	(0.003)	(0.004)
Population (ln)	−0.10002**	−0.06989**	−0.11204**	−0.08380**
	(0.015)	(0.019)	(0.015)	(0.017)
GDP per capita (ln)	0.02554	0.02598	0.04327*	0.01697
	(0.018)	(0.025)	(0.018)	(0.022)
Total aid (ln)	0.02711*	0.01221	0.03303*	0.01445
	(0.013)	(0.017)	(0.014)	(0.015)
Conflict reemergence	−0.49849**	−0.66755**	−0.52551**	−0.62679**
	(0.061)	(0.098)	(0.066)	(0.089)
Constant	0.96368**	0.69770*	0.91232**	0.99937**
	(0.298)	(0.373)	(0.292)	(0.340)
Treatment model
Regime type	0.10637**	0.13043**	0.09251**	0.10320**
	(0.021)	(0.013)	(0.016)	(0.013)
Population (ln)	−0.53635**	−0.32147**	−0.31203**	−0.19605*
	(0.147)	(0.089)	(0.091)	(0.093)
GDP per capita (ln)	−0.48922**	−0.44249**	−0.42023**	−0.48809**
	(0.178)	(0.079)	(0.091)	(0.078)
Total aid (ln)	0.56221**	0.54403**	0.49032**	0.56822**
	(0.195)	(0.091)	(0.098)	(0.103)
Constant	−2.14275	−3.04476*	−3.85360**	−5.44288**
	(2.316)	(1.299)	(1.379)	(1.337)
Observations	870	870	870	870

Standard errors in parentheses.

** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

Table II.

Continuous dose–response models of various interventions on future (t+5) human rights performance in post-civil conflict countries

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	Treatment = UN intervention	Treatment = Judicial aid	Treatment = Security aid	Treatment = Aid to NGOs
Average treatment effect (of all doses of the treatment)	0.29138*	0.21501**	0.17744**	0.09633*
	(0.118)	(0.040)	(0.059)	(0.042)
Conflict re-emergence	−0.49629**	−0.50644**	−0.50962**	−0.50372**
	(0.049)	(0.049)	(0.050)	(0.050)
Latent human rights mean	0.71991**	0.67716**	0.69873**	0.69362**
	(0.026)	(0.025)	(0.025)	(0.026)
Regime type	0.01804**	0.01561**	0.01921**	0.01853**
	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)
Population (ln)	−0.09961**	−0.10779**	−0.10652**	−0.11030**
	(0.016)	(0.015)	(0.016)	(0.016)
GDP per capita (ln)	0.04431**	0.05802**	0.04525**	0.04982**
	(0.016)	(0.016)	(0.016)	(0.016)
Total aid (ln)	0.03175*	0.02011	0.03169*	0.02741*
	(0.013)	(0.013)	(0.013)	(0.013)
Parameter A	−0.01077	0.00765	−0.02106	0.01269
	(0.015)	(0.019)	(0.014)	(0.013)
Parameter B	0.00017	−0.00076	0.00064	−0.00072
	(0.000)	(0.001)	(0.000)	(0.001)
Parameter C	−0.00000	0.00001	−0.00000	0.00001
	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
Constant	0.73598*	0.91635**	0.83334**	0.92375**
	(0.291)	(0.285)	(0.287)	(0.289)
Observations	870	870	870	870

Standard errors in parentheses.

** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

values. Only at extremely low and at medium levels of personnel numbers do we find a statistically significant dose–response. In other words, although the average treatment effect of UN peacekeeping is positive, there is much uncertainty about the correct dose. It could be that the general presence of a UN peacekeeping mission is enough to start the human rights monitoring and reform that eventually influences human rights practices, or there may not be a one-size-fits-all best mission size. In some situations, small missions may be preferred over large numbers of personnel.

Roughly 42% of our country-years received judicial aid. In line with Hypothesis 2, this aid causes improved physical integrity rights, as shown in Table I, column 2. As Table II and Figure 1 show, however, although we find that the treatment of judicial aid improves human rights on average, specific doses only have statistically significant effect until roughly 10 out of 100 on the treatment scale. After that, the confidence intervals on the response function cross zero. We can conclude that giving aid for judicial reform can help, but there may not be a general improvement in human rights for each additional dollar given after a certain point.

Hypothesis 3 is also supported in the treatment effects regression (Table I) and in the average treatment effect portion of the continuous dose–response model (Table II). The treatment of any aid to security reform, found in about 15% of cases, improves human rights. However, an increased ‘dose’ does not directly correspond to a response, as indicated in Figure 1.

Finally, in line with Hypothesis 4, we again found consistent results concerning the effect of aid to NGOs (present in about 37% of cases). As Tables I and II show, aid to NGOs does affect human rights. Like before, the ‘dose’ does not generally increase the response; we cannot say with confidence that larger doses improve human rights performance, as shown in Figure 1.

Discussion and conclusion

While scholarship on human rights has increased, there is much unknown about how to prevent abuses to the

Figure 1.

Dose–response functions of various interventions on future (t+5) human rights performance in post-civil conflict countries.

most vulnerable populations. In the event of civil conflict, human rights abuse often increases substantially. Debates about potential interventions, whether they be military interventions or injections of foreign aid, continue to occur within the academic and policy communities.

We have argued that certain types of military and aid interventions improve human rights following civil conflict. These interventions not only increase the costs of continued abuses in the eyes of the government and their agents, but they also provide the necessary tools and protections for the local population to collectively demand human rights improvements. Specifically, we focus on UN peacekeeping and aid interventions directed at the judiciary, security sector, and the NGO sector. We have shown statistical support for our hypotheses concerning the general effects of these interventions.

Further research needs to be conducted to understand the correct ‘dosing’ or size of these interventions. Once the international community has decided on a UN peacekeeping or aid intervention, the question remains of how to best allocate resources. Are there certain types of states where a larger treatment dose means a better response? Could interventions involving certain aid donors or lead peacekeeping states have systematically better dose–responses then others?

While we focused on interventions following civil conflict, there is still much work to be done concerning whether characteristics of the conflict condition the effect of interventions on human rights abuses. For example, rebel groups can create parallel institutions. One could extend this study to look at whether parallel institutions created during the civil conflict condition the effectiveness of the interventions we identified.

Our work has sought to contribute to the literatures on both civil conflict and human rights, with the aim of assisting both scholars and practitioners. We have outlined critical pathways through which interventions could influence the decision-calculus underlying physical integrity abuses. Some interventions can have a positive impact on levels of governmental respect for human rights following the cessation of conflict. Beyond showing the importance of contributions to these interventions, we hope to stimulate further discussions and research into these important topics.

Footnotes

Replication data

The dataset, codebook, and do-files for the empirical analysis in this article, along with the Online appendix, can be found at . All analyses were conducted using Stata 15.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Sara Mitchell and the participants of the 2017 Conflict, Aid, and Refugees workshop at the University of Arizona for their assistance and feedback.

ORCID iDs

Naji Bsisu

Amanda Murdie

Notes

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