Human Rights Violations, Umbrella Concepts, and Empirical Analysis

Abstract

In this research note, the authors seek to demonstrate conceptually and empirically that the unidimensional treatment of human rights violations, which is the standard approach found in the literature, confounds two important underlying components of the concept. They argue that the disaggregation of umbrella concepts like human rights violations is an important step in the research process and that it offers significant theoretical and empirical benefits. The specific implications of this conceptual argument for the measurement of human rights violations are drawn out through an empirical analysis of the standard composite scale in terms of its two underlying components. Future research needs to recognize the distortions and information loss produced by unidimensional treatment of the concept and the benefits of disaggregating human rights violations into its important components.