Human Rights Violations Beyond the State

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research for this article was made possible by the Rockefeller Foundation and the I. W. Killam Trust. I am grateful to Max Cameron, David Capie, Kal Holsti, Alan Jacobs, Brian Job, Peter Larose, Andrew Mack, Ram Manikkalingam, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous draft. Peter Larose also provided invaluable research and editorial assistance. The standard disclaimers apply.

Notes

I use the term “nonstate armed group” as a neutral term that includes any armed actor that is not a state and that challenges states' monopoly of coercive force. For a more extensive discussion of various ways to define armed groups, see Policzer (2004b).

Indeed, sovereignty has arguably been a weak shield for human rights violations at least since 1945.

This section draws on many of the standard references on the development of the state, including Anderson (1974), Tilly and Ardant (1975), Tilly (1992), Poggi (1978), Skocpol (1979), Evans et al. (1985), Spruyt (1994), and Ertman (1997), among others.

In other states, such as Russia, rulers extorted resources from their populations without accepting the same limitations on their power that business classes forced on the British monarchies (cf. Moore 1966; Skocpol 1979; Tilly 1992; Ertman 1997).

Holsti (2004) argues that the principle of sovereignty remains unchanged even though some states have greater coercive capacities (with which to assert their sovereignty) than others (135–142). By contrast to Holsti's stress on the continuities of the principles that bind the system, my focus is on the divergences in coercive capacity itself.

In the 1990s, for example, there were only seven interstate conflicts, compared with 104 intrastate conflicts (Wallensteen and Sollenberg 2001). And of nineteen major conflicts in eighteen countries in 2003, two were interstate wars (Iraq and India vs. Pakistan) and seventeen were intrastate conflicts, involving at least one nonstate party (SIPRI 2004). Amnesty International reports that there are over one hundred seventy six armed groups operating in sixty-four countries worldwide (Amnesty International 2005).

On the importance of policy networks that straddle the domestic-international divide, see Keck and Sikkink/string (1998) and Slaughter (2004).

Other possibilities include organizational purpose, control, ideology, orientation (e.g., criminal vs. political), size, level of centralization, recruitment strategies, or military capabilities, among others.

By contrast, other factors are not as universally applicable. For example, ideology is more of a factor in some organizations than others, and it is hard to measure; size can be easily measured but is not necessarily significant. An organization's military threat—its fighting potential—is certainly significant, but it does not allow nearly the same systematic grasp of the kinds of complex political trade-offs that a focus on information does. For a recruitment-based analysis of rebel organizations, see Weinstein (forthcoming).

See also McCubbins and Weingast (1984) and Krehbiel (1991).

For example, Argentine President Juan Perón and his wife Evita routinely held audiences where the people lined up to speak with them directly.

Internal and External monitaring correspond roughly to what McCubbins and Weingast label “police patrol” and “fire alarm” monitoring (McCubbins and Weingast 1984).

I have outlined these in detail elsewhere. See Policzer (2001, 2004a).

The leadership has two options in facing this dilemma. It can impose even stricter penalties for transgression and create yet more internal monitoring mechanisms, or it can tolerate independent monitors, such as media or watchdog groups. Under the first option, the leadership has the advantage of not having to deal with the costs of independent institutions that can potentially mobilize against it. However, the primary disadvantage is that layering punishments and internal monitoring institutions on top of one another does not really resolve the problem of getting accurate information on agents' operations. It merely transposes the problem from one level to another. For example, a principal P can monitor the behavior of her agent A by tasking agent B to do so. But so long as agent B is under P's control she has the same incentives to distort her reports as A does. Agent C can monitor B's operations (or D can monitor C's, etc.), but if she is also under P's control, the problem remains. At some point, the costs of maintaining such a cumbersome apparatus begin to outweigh its benefits or the organization's ability to pay for it.

For a discussion of how the costs associated with different degrees of external monitoring shaped the evolution of the coercive institutions in the Chilean military dictatorship, see Policzer (forthcoming).

Plausible deniability is one benefit of not having too much information on agents' operations. For a good discussion of death squads as organizations that permit “murder with deniability,” see Brenner and Campbell (2000).

This was apparent in totalitarian regimes, such as East Germany or the Soviet Union, where the highly developed bureaucracies were able to carefully weed out dissenters without needing to frequently terrorize the general population.

At least before the current ceasefire.

For example, the LTTE gives its agents on the ground no room to deviate from the leadership's directives in carrying out a given operation. Those who do so, whatever the results of the operation, are punished.

One example is the assassination of India's Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991. The LTTE has also carried out high-profile targeted assassinations against prominent Tamil moderates (cf. Dugger 1999). The FARC, for its part, has been responsible for kidnapping and assassinating literally dozens of highly guarded and influential members of the political and economic elite, including the former Governor of the Department (Province) of Antioquia Guillermo Gaviria, former Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri, and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Although, as indicated earlier, it is unlikely that nonstate groups operate with high levels of external monitoring.

I am not suggesting that groups such as the FARC or the LTTE raise funds to increase internal monitoring (though this may sometimes be the case). Instead, being able to raise funds and being able to increase internal monitoring are likely mutually reinforcing factors.

Its pattern of human rights violations indicates that a broad range of people is targeted, with large numbers killed (Human Rights Watch 1999b). This stands in sharp contrast to the LTTE's more precisely targeted operations.

On the economics of civil wars in Africa and elsewhere, see Berdal and Malone (2000), Chabal and Daloz (1999: 93–138), and Reno (1998: 183–216). On the economic incentives of various rebel groups' recruitment strategies, see Weinstein (2005).

For additional background information on the Sri Lankan conflict as well as on the LTTE and its activities, see also the reports of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), Sri Lanka (http://www.uthr.org), and Armon and Philipson (1998).

See also Vivanco (2001; 2002) and Chernick (2001).

“Transparent” coercion would appear to be possible only with states. And even then it is rare, given the difficulties in obtaining information on coercive organizations' operations.

Although the current ceasefire and framework agreement (at the time of writing) between the government and the LTTE are a promising development.

In the aftermath of September 11 there is an increased political willingness in the West to crack down on organizations in Europe and North America that support armed groups. Given the LTTE's reliance on such organizations, this crackdown is likely to seriously alter its calculation of costs and benefits. Although we can only speculate for the moment, there is likely a connection between the crackdown on LTTE funding in the West and its recent increased willingness to negotiate with the Colombo administration.

See also International Council on Human Rights Policy (2001).

An example of this kind of thinking is the Russian government's resistance to international scrutiny in Chechnya.

This view permeates thinking in places such as the United Nations and the European Union, and in policy statements such as The Responsibility to Protect, the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001). See also Held and Galtung (2004).

Moreover, there is no guarantee that a global architecture would be any more successful at establishing an effective monopoly of coercive force than the current state-based architecture.