ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book provides the standard view that all violations of physical integrity rights constitute repression. It argues that not all violations appear to fit the rationalist-structuralist repression paradigm, which treats violations as the responses of leaders to threats or conflict. The book suggests that repression is best understood as one specific mechanism of physical integrity rights abuse. It provides an in-depth analysis of the distinction between political and non-political violations as well as of the individual mechanisms. The book argues that two broad classes (political and non-political) of violations can be distinguished. It shows that the distinction between the two types of violations holds empirically and that each type is explained by a different set of factors. The book evaluates the Domestic Democratic Peace proposition and describes controlling for a host of confounders.
