Suchergebnisse

Few have questioned how democracies as a group differ within and among themselves. The most important study in this area of inquiry is Powell's (1982) Contemporary Democracies. Unfortunately, some of his results may be both inefficient and biased due to the use of what we now understand to be an inappropriate method. This study applies more appropriate event count models to Powell's data in hopes of gaining new insights into the relationship between political violence and elements of democracy. Evidence to support Collective Action explanations of political violence was found. Strong support for the argument that presidencies can be detrimental to the state and that representational electoral systems and constitutions, especially consociational constitutions, outperform majoritarian systems was also supported. Environmental factors are important, but constitutional variables, discounted to some degree by Powell, were also found to have extremely important and significant effects on the degrees of violence in democracies.

The author argues that openings in the political opportunity structure, rather than the levels of concentration of power, best predict the onset of genocides or politicides and which states will engage in the most severe state-sponsored mass murder. These and other hypotheses are tested. Analysis of logit models reveals that civil war involvement is the most consistent predictor of the onset of genocides or politicides, and other political opportunity structure variables have some effects, especially when in combination with at least one of the other political opportunity structure variables. Analysis of negative binomial event-count models also reveals that political opportunity structure variables best account for the degree of severity of a given genocide or politicide. In sum, openings in the political opportunity structure are more important in understanding what affects the onset and degree of severity of genocides and politicides than other more static variables.

Examines the relationship of the political opportunity structure, principally civil war involvement, to the onset and degree of severity of state-sponsored mass murder.

This article describes an innovative service learning project designed
for undergraduate courses examining human rights. The project vividly
illustrated the role of dehumanization in affecting human rights. Within
the broader context of discussions about human rights issues writ
large, it forced students to reconsider questions about rights not
accorded to those on the fringes of society. We discuss the project in
detail, including its planning, implementation, and pedagogical value. The
article begins with an overview of human rights education, followed by
thoughts on the benefits and challenges of a service learning approach. It
concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of our activity.