ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the empirical literature on human rights and repression and utilizes the model to bring some order to the many propositions and findings arising from this literature. It illustrates the utility of this model as an integrative device and focuses on the variables that have received support as determinants of repression. The chapter discusses the Most-Starr model by addressing two of the problems in the field, pertaining to the effects of economic growth and foreign aid allocations on repression. Unfortunately, a by-product of the nearly exclusive adoption of ‘scavenger hunt’ approach is that the theoretical linkages between the many hypotheses, drawn from diverse and seemingly unrelated theoretical perspectives, are as yet quite unclear. Beginning in the mid-1970s, international relations, comparative politics, and public policy scholars began to build statistical models in order to answer the question of why countries abuse human rights and repress their citizens.
