Using practitioner surveys to measure human rights: The Human Rights Measurement Initiative’s civil and political rights metrics
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320959688 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Article |
Using practitioner surveys to measure
human rights: The Human Rights
Measurement Initiative’s civil and political
rights metrics
K Chad Clay
University of Georgia
Ryan Bakker
University of Essex
Anne-Marie Brook
Motu Economic and Public Policy Research
Daniel W Hill, Jr
University of Georgia
Amanda Murdie
University of Georgia
Abstract
Most cross-national datasets of civil and political rights practices have relied on internationally distributed English
language secondary sources as the core source of information for their metrics. This approach has yielded data that are
highly reliable, but also suffer from the fact that their information sources under-represent the overall level of abuse
internationally and do so in a way that is biased across countries. The combined knowledge of the individual human
rights practitioners working to directly monitor the abuses occurring within a country would likely serve to overcome
much of this biased under-reporting, but it is difficult to compare that knowledge across country and cultural
contexts. In this article, we discuss how we overcome these problems in the Human Rights Measurement Initiative
(HRMI) civil and political rights data. Using an expert survey that contains anchoring vignettes in concert with
Bayesian scaling techniques, we present a new methodology for collecting and aggregating data on the intensity and
distribution of respect for eight separate civil and political rights.
Keywords
data, expert surveys, human rights, measurement
Introduction
Civil and political rights ensure the ability to live and
engage in religious, political, intellectual, or other activ-
ities free from coercion, abuse, or discrimination. They
have been enshrined, along with other human rights, in a
vast body of international law that has proliferated since
the end of World War II. While international organiza-
tions, advocacy groups, scholars , and members of the
public are rightly concerned about violations of these
Corresponding author:
kcclay@uga.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2020, Vol. 57(6) 715–727
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343320959688
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