Developing bottom-up indicators for human rights

ABSTRACT

There is a growing effort to quantify and track trends in human rights. The reliance on large, international indicators, including global indexes and national human rights report cards, is increasing as part of international development assistance and human rights monitoring. This article explores the limitations of mainstream human rights indicators, particularly in the developing world, arguing that many of these approaches overlook local realities. An alternative strategy for designing bottom-up human rights indicators is offered drawing on the experience of constructing the Uhakiki Human Rights Index in Tanzania. The challenges of developing an appropriate and feasible methodology in complex environments is discussed, particularly given that with bottom-up indicators, what works in one situation might not necessarily be transferrable to another context.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights indicators
• Africa
• political rights
• index
• human rights trends

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nicole Stremlau is Research Professor in the Humanities at the University of Johannesburg and she is Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford.

Notes

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6. See special section on ‘Diverging Conceptualisations of the Local’, in Social Anthropology 25, no. 4 (2017).

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21. Similar criticisms have been made of the global public opinion polling industry. See, for example, Iginio Gagliardone and Nicole Stremlau, ‘Public Opinion Research in a Conflict Zone: Grassroots Diplomacy in Darfur’, International Journal of Communication 2 (2008): 1085–113.

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33. See, for example, the global study by Nicole Stremlau, Monroe Price, and Iginio Gagliardone, World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development (Paris: UNESCO, 2017) and the associated regional reports available at: https://en.unesco.org/world-media-trends-2017 (accessed September 30, 2018).

34. See, for example, the description of the Human Rights Indicators at https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/indicators/pages/hrindicatorsindex.aspx (accessed September 30, 2018)

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44. See, for example, the in-depth study by Davis and Kruse analysing the strengths and limitations of the Doing Business project and the implications for legal reform: Kevin E. Davis and Michael B. Kruse, ‘Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project’, Law & Social Inquiry 32, no. 4 (2007): 1095–119.

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47. Paul M. Heywood, ‘Measuring Corruption: Perspectives, Critiques, and Limits’, in Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 137–53.

48. See, for example the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, https://www.nbs.go.tz/

49. Rachel Kleinfeld, Reducing All Violent Deaths, Everywhere: Why the Data Must Improve (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2017), http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/02/02/reducing-all-violent-deaths-everywhere-why-data-must-improve-pub-67857 (accessed April 12, 2018).

50. The Statistics Act, 2015. http://www.nbs.go.tz/nbstz/documents/The_Statististics_Act_2015_1a306.pdf.

51. The Statistics Act, 2015.

52. See: http://www.nbs.go.tz/

53. As quoted in Heywood, ‘Measuring Corruption’, 137.

54. As noted in Legal and Human Rights Center, ‘Introduction’, http://www.humanrights.or.tz/page/introduction (accessed September 30, 2018).

55. See Legal and Human Rights Center, ‘Introduction’.

56. See: https://everydaypeaceindicators.org

57. Mac Ginty, ‘Indicators+: A Proposal’; Roger Mac Ginty, ‘What Do We Mean When We Use the Term “Local”?’, in Peacebuilding in Crisis: Rethinking Paradigms and Practices of Transnational Cooperation, eds. Tobias Debiel, Thomas Held, and Ulrich Schneckener (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), 193; Mac Ginty and Firchow, ‘Everyday Peace Indicators’.

58. Mac Ginty, ‘Indicators+: A Proposal’, 56.

59. Ibid.

60. Irwin, ‘How Public Opinion Polls’; Colin Irwin, ‘Peace, Stability and Elections: An Opinion Poll and its Implications’, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics 2, no. 1 (2002): 62–74; Colin Irwin, ‘Using Public Opinion Polls to Support Peace Processes: Practical Lessons from Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Cyprus, Israel and Palestine’, in Democracy and Ethnic Conflict: Advancing Peace in Deeply Divided Societies, ed. Adrian Guelke (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 139–67, http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230523258_8 (accessed April 12, 2018).

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62. Center For Deliberative Democracy, ‘What is Deliberative Polling®?’, http://cdd.stanford.edu/what-is-deliberative-polling/ (accessed April 12, 2018).

63. Edna F. Einsiedel, Erling Jelsøe, and Thomas Breck, ‘Publics at the Technology Table: The Consensus Conference in Denmark, Canada, and Australia’, Public Understanding of Science 10, no. 1 (2001): 83–98.

64. African Media Barometer: The First Home Grown Analysis of the Media Landscape in Africa: Tanzania 2015 (Windhoek: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung), http://www.fesmedia-africa.org/uploads/media/AMB_Tanzania_2015_01.pdf (accessed April 12, 2018).

65. African Media Barometer, 34.

66. Davis, Kingsbury, and Merry, ‘Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department for International Development.