U.S. Human Rights Focus Skewed Toward Allies

Insights from the Field

structural topic models

u.s. state department reports

physical integrity rights

allies

International Relations

The Politics of Scrutiny in Human Rights Monitoring: Evidence from Structural Topic Models of U.S. State Department Human Rights Reports was authored by Benjamin Bagozzi and Daniel Berliner. It was published by Cambridge in PSR&M in 2018.

Examining nearly 6300 U.S. State Department human rights reports spanning four decades, this study uses structural topic modeling (STM) to uncover patterns in scrutiny.

Topics Analyzed: Physical integrity rights violations (killings/disappearances), freedoms of expression and movement, labor rights, etc., identified through STM analysis.

Key Finding: Scrutiny varies significantly over time and across countries. Crucially, U.S. allies receive disproportionately more attention for physical integrity rights issues than non-allies.

Why This Matters: These results challenge existing assumptions about human rights monitoring and demonstrate how geopolitical relationships can shape which rights violations merit greater documentation.