This document summarizes research on the connection between respect for civil and political rights and political and economic stability. Several studies are discussed that find violations of rights like freedom of expression and discrimination correlate with increased risks of instability, such as civil war or unrest. Case studies of countries like Benin, Bangladesh, Laos and Equatorial Guinea provide specific examples where limitations on civil rights preceded political instability, which sometimes then led to economic issues as well. The document argues this research challenges justifications for restricting civil liberties in the name of security and stability, as respecting human rights may actually be the best path to achieving those goals.

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RESEARCH SUMMARY
On the Connection Between Respect for Civil and Political Rights and Political
and Economic Stability
Introduction
The claim that universal human rights exist and should be respected is one that has been made regularly
in the international community even prior to the publication of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
in 1948 and with increasing frequency since then (Norman and Zaidi, 2008). The argument is made by
heads of state, religious leaders, economic and foreign policy advisors, and human rights advocates alike
and is widely understood to impacted trade agreements, treaties, alliances, and international relations in
general. However common, though, the claim is almost always put in normative terms and lacks the
empirical support necessary to make it compelling to countries less invested in the philosophy of
international human rights than in economic growth and political stability. Demonstrating that the violation
of human rights, especially civil and political rights, is counter-productive to these other goals would
motivate countries making utilitarian calculations to reprioritize and take the protection and advancement
of human rights more seriously.
Literature Review
Recent contributions to the body of evidence connecting human rights violations to economic and political
troubles include a model developed by Goldstone et al. (2010) for predicting political instability around the
world. In a study of all countries with a population above 500,000 covering 1955 to 2003, Goldstone and
company argue that incidence of state-led discrimination, which violates Articles 2, 7, and 28 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is one of only four variables (along with regime type, infant
mortality, and regional stability) needed to predict political instability with 80% accuracy. They note that
“countries with high levels of state-led discrimination against at least one minority group... faced roughly
triple the relative odds of future civil war onsets than those without such discrimination.” Thus, violations
of civil and political human rights such as governmental prejudice and discrimination can be seen to
correlate strongly with political instability.
John Booth and Patricia Bayer Richard (1996) also point to civil and political rights violations as sources
of unrest. In their study of fledgling democracies of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, and Panama in Central America, they note that a climate of political repression, characterized by
frequent violations of the rights to freedom of speech, association, and assembly, reduces popular
support for the government, as well as citizens’ commitment to political engagement. Furthermore, these
reductions happen differentially, creating a factionalized polity that leans towards instability. Here the
Booth-Bayer Richard findings fall into line with the aforementioned Goldstone model, which also finds that
“partial democracies with factionalism [are] an exceptionally unstable type of regime.”
Further bolstering the connection between respect for civil and political rights and political stability is a
study conducted by David Coltright et al. (2011), which suggests that maximum political stability is
achieved by increasing, rather than decreasing, space for civil society and political discourse. By giving

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citizens a way to voice dissent, “civil society groups address political grievances, socio-economic
injustices, and power imbalances that are among the root causes of violent armed conflict.” In each of
four case studies (Colombia, Kenya, Manipur, and Mindanao), Coltright and company find that
demonstrated respect for civil and political rights helps diffuse tension and prevent conflict.
The strongest claims in regard to the connection between rights violations and internal conflict come from
Oskar Thoms and James Ron (2007), who state quite bluntly that “violations of civil and political rights
appear... obviously associated with conflict.” They concur with previous findings about the dangers of
political repression, finding that find that “of the thirty-six regimes engaged in ‘systematic’ or ‘extensive’
state terror, thirty-one were also embroiled in internal conflict,” while inversely “sixty-nine of the seventy-
eight least repressive countries were conflict free.” So, while careful not to assume causation where all
that can be proven is correlation, they are confident in their conclusion that “violations of personal integrity
or security rights... do provide a clear link to escalation.”
Case Studies
Additional evidence of the link between rights violations and instability can be found in case studies. It is
worth acknowledging that, as always, direct causation is hard to prove and there are many factors that
can be said contribute to any one outcome. However, there are some instances in which connections and
directionality are clear enough to be worth taking into consideration when making policy decisions, and it
is those instances that will be analyzed here.
Political Instability
The connection between civil and political rights violations and instability is most clear and most widely
studied in regards to political instability. At the risk of appearing to appeal to anecdotal evidence and
making the phenomenon seem less common than it actually is, we will look at two instances of especially
clear correlation between civil and political rights violations and political instability: Benin between 2001
and 2002 and Bangladesh between 2001 and 2008.
Benin was the first African country to successfully transition from a dictatorship to a pluralistic political
system, holding free and fair democratic elections first in 1991 and then 1996. During this time Benin was
held up as an example of democratization and lauded as a leader in the region. In 2001, however,
progress broke down. Voting irregularities and accusations of unsealed ballot boxes early in the
presidential election process led to a boycott of the race by challengers, ultimately resulting in a runoff
between friendlies and an administration with little legitimacy. Widespread objections to the election
results were ignored and the new government took power in spite of having no real mandate to rule. After
the election, civil and political rights continued to fall by the wayside: voices of dissent were persecuted
and the consolidation of power by the new administration excluded minority parties. In the municipal
elections held one year later, voting irregularities again marred the election, this time in the 12
th
district,
home to the capital city of Cotonou. This time, protests erupted and eventually forced a reversal of the
result through a second vote.
Benin is a good example of the straightforward connection between political unrest and civil and political
rights violations: when citizens feel as though their voices are not being heard within the existing political
system, they feel compelled to work outside that system, causing unrest either intentionally or
unintentionally in the process. In some cases, including Benin, the unrest consists primarily of large-scale
protests and vocal government opposition that upsets basic institutional functions. In other cases, it can
escalate into violence and create a longer-term problem, as in Bangladesh.

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Bangladesh has a mixed record with respect to human rights, but when the basic civil and political rights
of the people are not secure, political unrest and government turnover follows like clockwork, either by
election (as in 2008), mass protest (as in 1996), or even assassination (as in 1975). The most recent
instance of significant unrest began during the 2001-2006 rule of a semi-authoritarian coalition
government led by the center-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The election marked a shift in the
political climate of the country, with fifteen right-wing Islamist parties fielding candidates and the largest of
them, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), forming part of the elected coalition. Following the shift, extreme Islamist
violence broke out soon after the 2001 election, primarily targeting journalists and left-of-center
government officials but frequently involving large numbers of civilian casualties. The BNP government at
first did little, in spite of fatalities from terrorism rising from a steady zero to an average of 34 per year
between 2001 and 2006, and sometimes even provided protection for the accused. When it finally did
take action, the government declined to launch a proper investigation of the attacks, instead creating the
Rapid Action Battalion, a special unit authorized to use lethal force outside the bounds of normal judicial
authority. Rather than reducing violence, this caused extrajudicial killings, previously hovering around
zero, to increase to 147 in 2004 and 400 in 2005. This combination of terror attacks and governmental
violence continued into 2006, at which point preparations for the constitutionally-mandated transitional
government began. However, instead of releasing power to a neutral election-oversight body, the BNP
government began manipulating personnel appointments in order to affect the election result. After failing
to block BNP changes in Parliament, the opposition took to the streets by the thousands and imposed a
transport blockade in the capital by attacking buses, trains, trucks, and ferries. The unrest ultimately lead
to a declaration of a state of emergency in early 2007 that formally ended fifteen years of democratic rule
by appointing a caretaker government. This too soon devolved, with police, military, and paramilitary
personnel arresting political activists under the guise of maintaining peace. By September 2007, 22
people had been tortured to death and public criticism of the government had been banned, leading to
mass arrests. Activists’ families were targeted and government surveillance increased significantly. Any
semblance of respect for human rights was lost. The downward spiral that had begun with unchecked
extremist violence in 2001 and continued through the authoritarian caretaker government in 2007 was
righted only with free and fair elections held in 2008 under the watchful eye of the United States and
India.
The case of Bangladesh is a longer-term loss of stability and is somewhat more complex than that of
Benin, but what seems clear across both is that a government that refuses to ensure the basic rights of its
people has a tenuous hold on power and is likely to face opposition, and that the opposition will only be
satisfied when they see evidence that their rights are secure. Any moves to exchange the people’s civil
and political rights for power or security seem to backfire in rather short order.
Economic Instability
Less obvious but no less important is the connection between civil and political rights violations and
economic stability. There is less scholarship on this connection, but one way to study it is to recognize
instances in which human rights violations have lead to the political instability, which in turn causes the
economic instability. One such situation occurred in Laos in 2003: media coverage of several apparent
human rights violations including the detention and expulsion of two journalists and a priest for the
unlikely charge of “obstructing police and possessing illegal explosives” caused protests that combined
with conspicuous rivalries within the ruling party, polarization of political power between dominant
lowlanders and marginalized highlanders, and confrontations between rebel groups and government
forces to create an atmosphere of political unrest. In light of the circumstances, the United States
postponed entering into normal trade relations with Laos, a move that had already been delayed since a
1997 bilateral trade accord due to previous human rights concerns.

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One might argue that the real issue at hand in Laos was that unrest may have caused money to be lost
and that the main concern was not the human rights violations at all, but simple economics and risk-
aversion. If this were the case, human rights violations could not be understood to cause economic
instability and could only be said to correlate with it. However, there is additional evidence that even in
cases where investments are relatively safe, reputational risk alone is enough to discourage foreign
investment and do damage to a small economy. This was the case in Equatorial Guinea in 2013, where,
in spite of some confusion around who would succeed President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, analysts had
enough confidence in the market to predict economic stability even in the case of political instability as
extreme as a coup. At the same time, the country’s long record of regular arbitrary detentions, serious
restrictions on freedoms of speech and assembly, and silencing opposition groups and independent
media caused enough of a reputational risk to foreign investors that those same analysts warned of
potential damage to trade, especially in regards to the United States, Spain, and France, all of whom had
conducted probes into governmental corruption. In this and other similar cases, human rights violations
clearly put a country’s economic future into question even without actual monetary risk and human rights
violations can be seen to cause economic instability even without the intervening variable of political
instability.
Significance to Policy
Evidence about the potentially destabilizing effects of civil and political rights violations is especially
important to note in the context of a recent global trend towards strict “counter-terrorism measures”
(CTM’s) in “anti-terror legislation.” Language used in and around such legislation frequently presents
infringements on civil and political rights and limitations on civil society as a necessary tradeoff to
maintaining security and stability. Advocates of CTM’s justify everything from extensive government
surveillance and censorship of media outlets to limitations on freedom of assembly and arrest based on
reasonable suspicion by suggesting that curtailments of civil and political liberties lead to a safer and
more secure political climate.
The studies and cases discussed here show that the opposite may be true. Goldstone et al. demonstrate
that civil and political rights violations can be used to predict domestic and regional instability. Coltright
and company show that infringements on civil society increase tension and the likelihood of violent
unrest, rather than preventing it. Thoms and Ron find that political oppression tracks with internal conflict
with 85% accuracy. Thus arguments about the supposed utility of violating human rights are worth a more
critical look as it may be that the opposite approach, placing emphasis on the promotion and protection of
human rights, that is the best way to achieve security and stability.

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Works Cited
Booth, John A., and Patricia Bayer Richard. 1996. “Repression, Participation and Democratic Norms in
Urban Central America.” American Journal of Political Science 40(4): 1205–32. Web.
Coltright, David, Alstair Millar, Linda Gerber-Stelling, George A. Lopz, Eliot Fackler, and Joshua Weaver.
2011. “Friend not Foe: Opening Spaces for Civil Society Engagement to Prevent Violent Extremism.”
Fourth Freedom Forum and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of
Notre Dame. Web.
“Equatorial Guinea: Succession Raises Instability Risk.” 2013. Oxford Analytica Daily Brief Service.
Goldstone, Jack A., Robert H. Bates, David L. Epstein, Ted R. Gurr, Michael B. Lustik, Monty G. Marhsall,
Jay Ulfelder, and Mark Woodward. 2010. “A Global Model for Forecasting Political
Instability.” American Journal of Political Science 54(1): 190-208. Web.
“Laos: Reports of Instability Could Harm Trade Policy.” 2003. Oxford Analytica Daily Brief Service.
Normand, Rodger, and Sara Zaidi. 2008. Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal
Justice. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Thoms, Oskar N. T., and James Ron. 2007. “Do Human Rights Violations Cause Internal Conflict?”
Human Rights Quarterly 29(3): 674-705. Web.
Alamgir, Jalal. 2009. “Bangladesh's Fresh Start.” Journal of Democracy 20(3): 41-55. Web.
Developed by Rachel Hile-Broad for Human Rights First, August 2016