Transcript ncgg.princeton.edu

A Panel Analysis
on the Effects of the Women´s Convention
-Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW)
Seo-Young Cho (George-August University of Göttingen)
IPES 2009
17. Juli 2015
Motivation: can democracy increase the effectiveness of
a human rights convention?
• Recurring question in political economy:
- Is an international convention on human rights effective?
- ‘Cheap talk’ (Downs et. al., IO 1996) vs. ‘spread of international
norm’ (Koh, ILJ 1998)
- No consensus in both theoretical and empirical discussions
• Redirecting the question:
In which condition can
an international human rights treaty be effective?
 Focus on democracy as a crucial institutional condition
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Studies on democracy, human rights and treaties
• Democracy promotes the human rights practice of a country
- Poe, Tate and Keith (ISQ 1999), Simmons (RPS 1998), HafnerBurton and Tsutsui (AJS 2005)
- Respect for law, justice, judicial independence and civil
participation
• Does democracy enhance the effectiveness of the international
legal mechanism of human rights norms?
- Only one empirical study: Neumayer (JCR 2005)
- His findings: positive interaction effect bet. the membership of
HR treaties (ICCP, Torture, other regional conventions) and
democracy on HR practice
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CEDAW (1981, UN)
• The prime ‘Women’s Convention’
• Comprehensive but a special focus on women’s social rights
article 16 – core article
article 5 calling for changes in social and cultural patterns
• Innovative approaches attempting to change practice of family
and social matters (deeply rooted and habituated in culture,
Simmons 2004)
• Universal agreement (186 members)
however, a large number of reservations (1/3 of members have
reservations), in par. to the core articles (arc. 2 and 16, 1/5 of
members)
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Does the CEDAW improve women’s rights?
Women’s Social Rights
CIRI Women’s Rights Index
(126 countries, 1981-2005)
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Commitments to the CEDAW
weighted scale of reservations
(126 countries, 1981-2005)
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Hypotheses and Focus of Analysis
Hypothesis 1
The effects of the CEDAW on women’s rights are enhanced if
combined with a higher level of democracy
Hypothesis 2
The effects of the CEDAW are most positively pronounced in
the dimension of women’s social rights
Focus of Analysis
• Estimation and interpretation of the interaction term – CEDAW
and democracy – in a non-linear model
• Reverse-causality issue: employing two exogenous instrumental
variables, commitments to the Torture Convention (CAT) and
Genocide Convention (CPPCG)
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Measuring commitments to the CEDAW
• Taking into account the large amount of reservations,
membership alone does not reflect true commitments
• Modification of Landman’s (2005) weighted scale of reservations
• Special weights given to the core articles, arc. 2 and arc. 16
0: No signatory
1: Signed but not ratified
2: Ratified but with reservations to arc. 2 and/or 16 (incl. general
reservations based on conflicts with religious or domestic law)
3: Ratified but with reservations to other articles than 2 and 16
4: Full ratification without reservations
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Data and Estimation Method
• Dependent variable: women’s social, political and economic
rights, CIRI Human Rights Index
• Independent variable of the main interest:
- commitments to the CEDAW, proxied by reservations
- interaction bet. CEDAW and democracy (PolityIV)
• Selection of control variables: one-year lagged dependent
variable, democracy, the number of HR NGOs, regime
durability, external conflict, internal conflict, (log) population
sizes, (log) per capita income and trade openness
(Neumayer, JCR 2005; Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, AJS 2005)
• Time, religion and regions are controlled
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Women’s rights, ordered probit, 1981-2005, 126 countries
WOSOC
WOPOL
IV
WECON
OProbit
IV
Oprobit
OProbit
IV
0.059
CEDAW
Reservation (2.70)***
0.044
(0.58)
0.082
(2.92)***
0.123
(2.00)**
0.024
(1.10)
-0.031
(-0.41)
Reservation 0.0025
*Democracy (2.56)***
0.011
(2.20)**
0.0007
(0.63)
-0.012
(3.13)***
0.0006
(0.63)
-0.004
(-0.69)
• Positive effect on women’s social rights conditional to democracy
• Positive effect of the CEDAW on political rights has to be interpreted
with a caution, given the negative effect of the interaction term
• Marginal effects of the interaction term calculated at the mean
• Validity of the instruments: exogeneity (Hansen J test, P-value 0.330.90)
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Effectiveness of the CEDAW and the level of democracy
.0008
Marginal Effect of Reservations on the Level of Democracy
-.0002
0
.0002
.0004
.0006
The effect becomes
significant after the
median score 0
-10
Dependent var:
women’s social rights
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-5
0
5
10
Level of Democracy (Polity2 score)
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Conclusion
• Effectiveness of the CEDAW conditional on democracy
• Effects differ across multi-dimensions of women’s rights the
CEDAW advocates and the positive impact is confirmed for
women’s social rights with the conditionality, the level of
democracy
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