CIRI Human Rights Dataset

The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project provides policymakers, researchers, teachers, and students with easily accessible, high quality annual information about government respect for a broad array of human rights in every country in the world (1981-2006). Covering 25 years, 13 separate human rights practices, and 193 countries, it is the largest human rights data set in the world.^{[ref 1]}

The CIRI Human Rights Data Set includes measures of the practices of governments that allow or impede citizens who wish to exercise their:

• Physical integrity rights--the rights not to be tortured, summarily executed, disappeared, or imprisoned for political beliefs. The scores of these variables can be summed to form a statistically valid cumulative scale (Cingranelli and Richards, 1999);
• Civil rights and liberties—the rights to free speech, freedom of association and assembly, freedom of domestic movement, freedom of international movement freedom of religion, and the right to participate in free and fair elections for the selection of government leaders. The scores of these variables also can be summed to form a statistically valid cumulative scale. (Richards, Gelleny, and Sacko, 2001);
• Worker rights; and
• Rights of women to equal treatment politically, economically, and socially.

Measuring human rights practices and understanding the determinants and consequences of government respect for human rights are necessary steps in the effort to attain human dignity for all persons worldwide. A government that violates human rights reduces its international and domestic legitimacy.

Research using the CIRI Human Rights Data Set will allow for the exploration of a variety of important questions including:

• What human rights are most and least respected?
• How have patterns of respect for human rights changed over time?
• Is there a relationship between violations of human rights and rebellion? In other words, do human rights violations create grievances that cause groups to mobilize, and, under some circumstances, to rebel?
• How has the spread of democracy and rapid economic globalization since the end of the Cold War affected human rights practices?
• How have specific policies such as trade liberalization, bilateral foreign aid and structural adjustment conditions affected government human rights practices?
• Is respect for some types of human rights necessary for rapid economic growth?
• Do human rights crises as in the Sudan and successes like Turkey have measurable effects on the human rights practices of neighboring governments?

The CIRI Human Rights Data Set contains valid, reliable, replicable, annually updated, standards-based quantitative information on government human rights practices, not human rights policies or human rights conditions.^{[ref 2]} Besides the support of the National Science Foundation’s Political Science Division, it has attracted modest additional financial assistance from the World Bank Governance Project and from the Government of Germany. From the CIRI website, anyone can download the variables and years they need in a variety of formats. The website includes a mapping feature that allows users to select a human rights practice, region, and year, and then create a color or black and white map. The map can be saved for use in presentations, in the classroom or in publications.

Quantitative indicators of the degree of respect for various human rights by governments around the world are obtained from a careful reading of the US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Coders are instructed to use this source for all variables. For a group of four rights known as "Physical Integrity Rights" (the rights to freedom from extrajudicial killing, disappearance, torture, and political imprisonment) coders also use a second source, Amnesty International's Annual Report. Both reports can be found online since 1994. If there are discrepancies between the two sources, coders are instructed to treat the Amnesty International evaluation as authoritative. Some scholars believe that this step is necessary to remove a potential bias in favor of US allies, although, since 1981, there is great agreement between these reports.^{[ref 3]}

In the future, Cingranelli and Richards expect to add measures of respect for other human rights including government respect for economic and social rights.

References

1. ↑ The basic unit coded is a "country-year." A country-year is a particular country in a particular year. For instance, "United States 1998" is a particular country-year. It is a single snapshot of space and time -- one country in a particular year.
2. ↑ For details on these distinctions, see David L. Cingranelli (l986).
3. ↑ Poe, Steven P., Sabine C. Carey,and Tanya C. Vazquez. 2001. How are these pictures Different? A quantitative comparison of the US State Department and Amnesty International human rights reports, 1976-1995. Human Rights Quarterly 23.3: 650-677.

Cingranelli, David L. and David L. Richards. 2008. The Cingranelli- Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project Coding Manual Version <http://ciri.binghamton.edu/documentation/ciri_coding_guide.pdf