Structural Adjustment Programs and Human Rights:

The Counterintuitive Effect of Democracy

Horace Bartilow

Department of Political Science

University of Kentucky

Yanyu Ke

Department of Political Science

University of Kentucky

Abstract: Recent empirical research has found that the World Bank’s structural

adjustment programs (SAPs) increase human rights violations in countries that implement

structural adjustment. However, it remains unclear what type of regimes are more likely

to violate human rights when they implement SAPs. This article presents a

counterintuitive argument that suggests that human rights violations that result form

SAPs are more likely among democracies than autocracies. While the authority

characteristics of autocracies discourage public protest and thereby reduce the

opportunity for repression when SAPs are implemented, the institutional openness of

democratic governments encourages public protest against SAPs and, therefore, increases

the opportunity for state repression. This research employs a Bivariate Probit selection

model to estimate the interactive effect of regime type and the implementation of SAPs

on human rights violations for a sample of 164 countries from 1980-2002. The findings

support the argument that human rights violations increase in countries when democratic

governments implement SAPs.

Paper presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Political Science

Association, September 2, 2011, in Seattle, Washington, USA.

1

I. Introduction

In 2004, the World Bank received more than 10,000 birthday cards from NGOs across

the globe wishing it an unhappy 60th birthday (Marshall 2008). Compared to the far left’s

appeal to abolish the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because

International Financial Institutions (IFIs) represented by the Bank and the IMF, argue the

far left, are just imperialist tools promoting Western interests at the expense of the third

world (Hayter 1971; Payer 1974, 1982; Hayter and Watson 1985; Danaher 2001), the

unhappy birthday wish is just a moderate criticism of the Bank’s crippled missions in the

past. For example, in India, there were corruption allegations against the Bank’s health-

care projects.1 Likewise, in Chad, NGOs accused the Bank-aided Chad-Cameroon

Pipeline Project of increasing the risk of civil war in Chad because the government of

Chad diverted part of the oil income, which should be used on education and health care,

to arms purchases (Dugger 2006). Although the Bank suspended the loans to Chad in late

2005 given the government’s violation of the agreed terms related to the allocation of oil

revenues, the program was resumed in 2006.2 And in Albania, the Bank’s project was

found wrongfully tearing down 16 civilian homes.3

While the list of failed Bank’s projects can go on and on, the World Bank has

been facing a barrage of criticism particularly since it introduced the structural

adjustment programs (SAPs) into less developed countries (LDCs) in the 1980s. In theory,

1 “Dirty Linen.”. The Economist. 2008. Mar 22-28: 68.

2 See the World Bank’s website for more information. The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project is available

from<http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTSITETOOLS/0,,contentMDK:20263700~men

uPK:534319~pagePK:98400~piPK:98424~theSitePK:95474,00.html>, accessed 12/30/2008. Also see

“Breaking the Bank.” The Economist. 2008. 09/27-10/03/2008: 63-64. 3 “Guilty as Charged.” The Economist. 2009. Feb 28-Mar 6: 65.

2

SAPs are aimed at maintaining macro-economic stability and promoting economic and

social development in LDCs (Peet 2003; Marshall 2008). In practice, however, a large

amount of literature shows that SAPs failed to deliver on either economic or social

promises. For example, the Bank’s SAP policy of dealing with the Russian and East

European economic transitions in the 1990s was a notorious failure (Mosley 2006;

Woods 2006). Scholars criticize that the conditionality attached to SAPs works

ineffectively and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) has not reached the

desired outcome (Ranis 2006; Stewart and Wang 2006; Woods 2006).

More important, recent empirical research has found that the World Bank’s SAPs

increase human rights violations in countries that implement structural adjustment

(Ibhawoh 1999; Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006). First, SAPs decrease recipient

governments’ legitimacy and their governing capacity, which leads to increased human

rights violations (Ibhawoh 1999; Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006). Second, the economic

liberalization required by SAPs can weaken governments’ respect for human rights by

violating economic rights and increasing domestic conflict (Abouharb and Cingranelli

2006). This finding has important implications for the World Bank given that social

development including the respect for human rights is the key element of the Bank’s

mandate (Marshall 2008). If the World Bank’s SAPs, as suggested by recent research,

have deteriorated recipient countries’ human rights practice, the Bank must adjust its

policy framework to avoid the negative effect.

However, it remains unclear what type of regimes are more likely to violate

human rights when they implement SAPs. To understand the negative effect of SAPs on

human rights in recipient countries, we need further explore whether the SAP effect

3

varies across regimes. Traditionally, human rights research demonstrates that

democracies are more likely to respect human rights and autocracies are less likely to do

so (Poe and Tate 1994; Davenport 1995, 1996). Are autocracies more likely than

democracies to violate human rights when implementing SAPs? In this article we present

a counterintuitive argument that suggests that human rights violations that result form

SAPs are more likely among democracies than autocracies. While the authority

characteristics of autocracies discourage public protest and thereby reduce the

opportunity for repression when SAPs are implemented, the institutional openness of

democratic governments encourages public protest against SAPs and, therefore, increases

the opportunity for state repression.

This paper proceeds as follows. First, we briefly review the literature of SAPs.

Research questions arise from the literature review. Second, we draw insights on human

rights research to build the theoretical framework. Third, we discuss data and

measurement in this research. Then we employ a Bivariate Probit selection model to

estimate the interactive effect of regime type and the implementation of SAPs on human

rights violations for a sample of 164 countries from 1980-2002. The findings support the

argument that human rights violations increase in countries when democratic

governments implement SAPs. Finally, we reach conclusions and indicate implications

for future research.

4

II. The Literature Review

The World Bank’s SAPs include policy reforms aimed at: 1) maintaining macroeconomic

stability through tight monetary policies such as raising interest rates and devaluating the

currency to improve the Balance of Payment (BOP) and austere fiscal policies such as

raising taxes and cutting government expenditures; 2) promoting long-term economic and

social development through economic liberalization policies such as deregulation,

privatization, free trade and global capital flows, institutional reforms, and the like (Singh

1999; Ferreira and Keely 2000). (Singh 1999; Ferreira and Keely 2000). In theory, the

SAP conditionality should help LDCs which need loans from the Bank increase

institutional effectiveness and economic performance, and therefore further enhance

social well-being. In practice, there is rarely large-N evidence showing that SAPs

successfully promote long-term economic development, let alone the overall social well-

being (Ferreira and Keely 2000; Przeworski and Vreeland 2000). With respect to the

World Bank SAPs, Easterly (2006) finds that most “African countries that received

intensive treatment from structural adjustment have had negative or zero growth……

Most ex-Communist countries that received shock therapy and many structural

adjustment loans have had sharply negative growth and high inflation.” Also, Przeworski

and Vreeland (2000) find that IMF SAPs have a negative impact on economic growth.

In particular, scholars and NGOs criticize SAPs as hurting the poor

disproportionately through cutting public expenditures, reducing government subsidies

on energy and food, and devaluating the currency (Crisp and Kelly 1999; Ferreira and

Keely 2000). That is to say, the burden of SAP conditionality rests on the poor given that

the poor are closely related to welfare programs supported by public expenditures. Take

5

Mozambique as an example. In the 1990s, the World Bank and the IMF attached harsh

conditions to their programs in Mozambique. The SAP conditionality includes increasing

public-health service fees and privatizing water management and important industrial

sectors such as the cashew-nut manufacturing. The reform policies recommended by the

Bank and the IMF finally led to increased water and health-care fees and job losses

(Bond 2003). Additionally, the negative effects of SAPs on the poor may further result in

government crises. Employing a sample of more than 90 LDCs from 1970 to 2002,

Dreher and Gassebner (2008) find that SAPs increase the probability of government

crises partly due to increased inequality. Likewise, Easterly (2006, 218) analyzes eight

cases of state failure in the 1990s and finds that “spending a lot of time under an IMF

program is associated with a higher risk of state collapse.”

More important, recent research demonstrates that the implementation of SAPs

in recipient countries decreases governments’ respect for human rights. While Franklin

(1997) and Camp Keith and Poe (2000) find that the implementation of IMF SAPs

increases the probability of political repression and of the violation of physical integrity

rights, Abouharb and Cingranelli (2006) use a selection model based on data ranging

from 1981 to 2000 and find that the World Bank SAPs are associated with increased

human rights violations in terms of physical integrity rights. Furthermore, Ibhawoh (1999)

conducts case studies and argues that SAPs are prone to worsening human rights practice

in Africa. Ray (2007) employs a large-N dataset including 47 African countries from

1990 to 2000. The finding is that the SAP effect on human rights is negative as long as

the level of organized dissent passes an important threshold.

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Generally, the negative effect of SAPs on human rights can be attributed to two

mechanisms. First, SAPs undermine recipient governments’ legitimacy and their

governing capacity (Ibhawoh 1999; Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006). On the one hand,

governments have to use coercive methods to carry out SAP policies given the

unpopularity of SAPs (Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006). But at the same time the

unwelcomeness of SAPs reduces the government’s ability to implement policies

(Ibhawoh 1999). On the other hand, SAPs decrease the government’s legitimacy because

conditionalities attached to SAPs may imply incompetence (Bratton and Van de Walle

1997; Ibhawoh 1999). For example, Bratton and Van de Walle (1997) find that in Africa

the governments which receive IFI conditionality are more likely to experience mass

protests. Therefore, the governments have to resort to the violation of human rights to

implement SAPs when facing public discontents.

Second, the economic liberalization policies prescribed by SAPs may violate

economic rights and increase domestic conflict, which lead to deteriorated human rights

practices (Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006). Given that the trickle-down effect of

economic development expected from SAPs are rarely seen, the liberalization polices are

less likely to have a positive impact on economic rights and democracy. On the contrary,

the increased grievances, as a consequence of job losses and deteriorating welfare and

public education, are positively correlated with worsening economic rights and a higher

likelihood of civil conflict. Hence, governments respond to the tightened security

situation by violating human rights (Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006).

An important question arises from the research on SAPs and human rights.

Since human rights research traditionally agrees that democracies are the better human

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rights practitioners than autocracies (Poe and Tate 1994; Davenport 1995, 1996), can we

also conclude that autocracies are more likely than democracies to violate human rights

when implementing SAPs? In other words, is there a cross-regime variation on the SAP

effect on human rights? Research is scant in delving into this question. Note that Ibhawoh

(1999) argues that SAPs increase human rights violations in African authoritarian states

because those regimes have to rely on repressive behavior to implement the unpopular

SAP policies. Nevertheless, Ibhawoh’s (1999) finding is limited to case studies in African

countries. What will we find if comparing authoritarian regimes to democracies

employing large-N research? Counterintuitively, in this article we argue that democracies,

rather than autocracies, are more likely to be associated with less respect for physical

integrity rights when implementing SAPs. The centerpiece of our argument is that the

repressive capacity of authoritarian regimes has a dampening effect on the public

demonstration of grievances. We clarify our argument by first reviewing the determinants

of governments’ respect for human rights. We then draw on the human rights literature to

build our theory and derive the hypotheses. Finally we use a Bivariate Probit selection

model to test the hypotheses. To which we turn the next sections.

III. Theory and Hypothesis

Frey et al. (1999) summarize that traditionally there are three schools with respect to

governments’ human rights practices. The modernization school focuses on the

benevolent effects of economic development on social equality, education, and political

stability. Thus a developed state is more likely to show respect for human rights because

of the tolerance and social interdependence resulted from economic development. The

8

second school, the dependency school, contends that the asymmetrical power distribution

in the world system widens the gap between the rich and the poor in peripheral states and

finally leads to increased political repression. The third school adopts a neo-Malthusian

perspective which emphasizes the negative impact of population pressure on human

rights (Frey et al. 1999).

Of the three schools, the modernization school gains much attention because the

policy implication is that economic development should improve governments’ record on

human rights. Nonetheless, empirical research provides mixed evidence related to

economic development. While Frey et al. (1999) find that economic development

positively affects governments’ respect for human rights, Poe and Tate (1994) and

Davenport (1996) argue that there is only limited evidence on the consistent positive

effect of economic development on human rights. Instead, the consistently significant

factor related to human rights arising from the research is democracy.

Democracy increases governments’ respect for human rights because: 1)

democratic regimes provide citizens with various channels of expressing discontents and

participating in politics through the guarantee of freedom of speech, freedom of the press,

freedom of religion, and the like (Poe and Tate 1994); 2) the checks and balances of

democratic regimes and the political cost (losing elections) of violating human rights in

democracies (Davenport and Armstrong 2004). Empirical research presents consistent

evidence demonstrating that democracy improves governments’ record on human rights

(Poe and Tate 1994; Davenport 1995, 1996; Milner 2002). Particularly, democratization

decreases the violation of human rights, especially after the Cold War (Cingranelli and

Richards 1999; Zanger 2000).

9

Nonetheless, researchers also find that there is a within-regime variation on

human rights. Davenport (2007) finds that for autocracies, military regimes and single-

party regimes are less repressive. Besides, Davenport and Armstrong (2004) argue that

even in democracies, which can punish political leaders for violating human rights, the

sanction will not be effective if the legislature lacks the ability to inflict the political cost

on individual leaders. Besides, elections, the important instrument for democracies to

function, are insignificant in decreasing human rights violations in illiberal democracies

(Richards 1999). Although elections in democracies have a positive impact on human

rights, the effect is only significant in the years following elections instead of in the

election years (Richards and Gelleny 2007).

The findings on the within-regime variation related to governments’ respect for

human rights have two important implications for the SAP effect on human rights. First,

there should be a cross-regime variation with respect to human rights when recipient

countries implement SAPs given that different regime characteristics, as suggested by

above mentioned research, will affect the levels of governments’ repressive behavior.

Second, to understand the cross-regime variation, we should deal with the roots of

political repression, which are also revealed by aforementioned studies.

Why Do States Repress When Implementing SAPs? Generally, there are

two reasons for states resorting to political repression. First, states repress because the

benefit of repression exceeds the cost. The benefit may be political order and the

assurance of staying in power, while the political cost can be legitimacy and resources

(Davenport 2007). Second, states’ coercive behavior is a response to potential domestic

threat. States employ coercion and violate human rights when facing great domestic

10

challenges and possessing no alternative mechanisms to resume political order

(Davenport 1995, 2007).

However, a “perception of threat” (Davenport 1995) must exist first for states

to feel the pressure, which can only be demonstrated by dissidents’ action. A brief review

on the outbreak of war should help our understanding of the “perception of threat”. Most

and Starr (1980, 934) suggest that the role of the “perceived risks and opportunities” is

indispensable for the war onset. During the process of war initiation and duration, the

decision makers must take risks and opportunities into account. On the one side, the cost-

benefit calculation (the perceived risk) influences the actors’ willingness to fight. On the

other, the actors must have the capacity and willingness to grab opportunities. In other

words, the willingness, opportunities, and the cost-benefit calculation affect war in an

intertwined way. The benefit of the fighting must be greater than the cost to overcome the

unwillingness. And the actors must possess enough willingness to catch opportunities.

Likewise, states which implement SAPs have to cope with domestic discontents

resulted from the cutting welfare spending, worsening economic situation, and the like.

Nevertheless, we argue that the cost of demonstrating grievances in autocracies is too

high and hence discourages public protest. It is not to say that citizens in autocracies will

never act against the ruling parties. Rather, what we argue is that the grievances derived

from SAPs are not high enough to overcome the perceived risk of protest. In other words,

the cost of taking to the street is extremely high and thus makes demonstration motivation

and mobilization less probable. As a consequence, the opportunity for states’ repression

should be relatively low in authoritarian regimes implementing SAPs because of the

lower perception of potential threat.

11

On the contrary, the institutional openness of democratic governments

encourages public protest against SAPs. In democracies, the political rights, civil rights,

and civil liberties are guaranteed by the constitution. Therefore, citizens can resort to

public protest to address their grievances when states implement SAPs. More important,

the political opposition can exploit the public grievances resulted from SAPs to mobilize

supporters for political gains. Consequently, the public protest increases the opportunity

for state repression due to the higher perception of potential threat.

For example, from 2003 to 2005, when the Philippines was implementing the

World Bank’s project, Philippines President Arroyo had to escalate the level of coercion

to repress the political opposition when facing growing domestic discontents about the

regime corruption. Note that before 2005, the Philippines was ranked as a “Free” regime

by Freedom House.4 That is to say, the “free” characteristic of the regime gave the

political opposition the opportunity to make their grievances visible. Therefore, the

government can perceive more clearly about the threat facing the regime. Another good

example is the “IMF riots” in Ecuador (Easterly 2006). In 2002, indigenous groups in

Ecuador launched large-scale demonstrations against the government due to the IMF

SAPs. The incumbent president had to mobilize 25000 soldiers and police to repress the

protest (Easterly 2006). It is noteworthy that in 2002 the polity score of Ecuador was 6

according to Polity IV, a score approaching liberal democracy.5 Here comes the

hypothesis in this paper.

4 In 2005, Freedom House lowered the rank of the Philippines from “Free” to “Partly Free” due to the

increased repression of the Arroyo administration.

See more details on: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=334 5 Check Polity IV Project’s website for the score: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm

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Hypothesis: Democracies are more likely to violate human rights when

implementing SAPs.

IV. Data and Measurement

We follow the bivariate probit selection models adopted in Abouharb and Cingranelli’s

(2006) research with minor respecifications. Data comes from the Cingranelli-Richards

(CIRI) Human Rights Dataset (Cingranelli and Richards 2008) and Abouharb and

Cingranelli (2006). There are 164 countries for the World Bank’s SAPs in the dataset and

the time period of this research is from 1980 to 2002.

Abouharb and Cingranelli’s (2006) research uses Entering into SAPs, a dummy

variable, as the dependent variable at the first stage to control for the selection bias which

may be introduced when determining the SAP recipients. The dependent variables at the

second stage of the models are human rights indicators from the CIRI dataset. Cingranelli

and Richards (2008) employ four indicators, killing, torture, political imprisonment, and

disappearance to represent physical integrity rights. Given that the bivariate probit

model must use dichotomous variables as the dependent variable, the four indicators are

collapsed into two categories with 0 indicating the violation of human rights and 1 as no

violations of human rights (Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006, 248). Collapsing the

dependent variables constitute the weakness of the research. Therefore, we use the full-

range physical integrity rights variable in our test of robustness.

Abouharb and Cingranelli (2006) use variables like the change of GDP, trade

dependence, regime types, populations, international conflict, and so on, as the

independent variables at the first stage to control for the selection bias. Since the focus of

13

this research is the second stage, the impact on human rights, we mainly describe the

independent and control variables at the second stage. To test our hypothesis, we create

an interaction term democracy*SAP implementation as the independent variable based on

Abouharb and Cingranelli’s (2006) models. The other three main independent variables

at the second stage are: Democracy denoting regime types, SAP implementation, and

entering into SAPs.

Turn to the control variables. Following the discussion of Frey et al.’s (1999)

summary on factors which may influence governments’ human rights practices in the

theoretical section, we control for elements related to the economy, demography, regime

types, and conflict. Specifically, there are six control variables at the second stage of the

bivariate probit models in this research: GDP per capita, military regime, population,

interstate conflict, internal conflict, and British colony. Moreover, we use splines to

control for the time dependence.

Moreover, to test the robustness of the research result, we estimate the predicted

value of entering into SAPs and use it as the instrumental variable in ordered logit models.

To compensate for the drawback of the bivariate probit models, which use collapsed

dependent variables, we include the full-range physical integrity rights variable in the

ordered logit models when testing the robustness. Physical integrity rights ranges from 0

to 8, in which 0 denotes no respect for physical integrity rights and 8 represents full

government respect for these human rights (Cingranelli and Richards 2008). Finally, we

use bootstrap to correct standard errors.

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V. The Empirical Analysis

As aforementioned, we employ the bivariate probit selection models to estimate the

interactive effects of regime type and SAP implementation on human rights. The first

stage of the bivariate models controls for the possible selection effects when countries

negotiate SAPs with the World Bank. Given that we are mainly concerned with the

second stage of the models, we discuss the empirical results of the second stage. Table 1

presents the impact of implementing SAPs on human rights. Generally speaking, the

statistical results support our hypothesis. Democracies are more likely to violate human

rights, in terms of physical integrity rights, when implementing the World Bank’s SAPs.

In the first column of Table 1, the interaction term of democracy and SAP

implantation, has a significantly (at 95% level) negative effect on political killing. Recall

that all the four indicators of physical integrity rights use 1 to denote the respect for

human rights and 0 for the violation of human rights. That is to say, the negative sign of

the coefficient implies that human rights decrease. The finding shows that political killing

significantly increases in democracies during the process of implementing SAPs.

Furthermore, in the second column of Table 1, the interaction term of democracy and

SAP implementation has a significantly (at 95% level) negative effect on torture as well.

In other words, democracies significantly increase torture while implementing SAPs. The

exceptions for the deteriorating effect of SAPs in democracies on human rights are in the

third and fourth column of Table 1. There is no significant relationship between

democracy*SAP implementation and political imprisonment (or disappearance).

To present the marginal effects of SAP implementation in democracies on

human rights in a straightforward way, we graph the marginal interaction effects on

15

political killing and torture respectively in Figure 1 and Figure 2. The downward trend in

the two figures clearly demonstrates that while the democratic score increases, the

situation of political killing and torture deteriorates. As our theory suggests, although the

implementation of SAPs in recipient countries increases grievances, citizens in absolutely

authoritarian regimes lack the motivation to take to the street to protest because of the

huge repression cost they must face. Consequently, the opportunity for authoritarian

regimes’ repression should be relatively low. In contrast, citizens that experience the

difficulty resulted from SAPs in democracies have more opportunities to protest against

the incumbent government. In order to stay in power, the government has to resort to

coercive measures.

It is interesting to ask why SAPs have no effect on political imprisonment and

disappearance. We argue that the cost-benefit calculation contributes to states’ decision

on adopting certain coercive methods. Take physical integrity rights in this research as an

example. Cingranelli and Richards (1999) find that of four categories of physical

integrity rights from the Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset (Cingranelli

and Richards 2004), torture is most likely to be adopted by states than political

imprisonment, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. Besides, Abouharb and

Cingranelli (2006) find that torture is most statistically significant when states implement

SAPs. Given the extremely high cost when violating specific physical integrity rights,

such as political imprisonment and disappearances, in democracies to repress the

opposition protest, the coercive methods with lower costs, such as torture and political

killing, should be more likely to be adopted when democracies implement SAPs.

16

Move to the remaining independent and control variables in Table 1. Consistent

with previous research findings, the implementation of SAPs increases the likelihood of

political killing, torture, and disappearance significantly. GDP per capita significantly

decreases the violation of physical integrity rights in all the four aspects. Obviously the

economic development provides a safety net for losers under SAPs. The demographic

factor, population, significantly (at 99% level) increases the opportunity of using political

killing, torture, political imprisonment, and disappearance to repress mass protests. The

scarce resources in a society with a huge population make the conflict between winners

and losers more severe when implementing SAPs. An unstable domestic situation

resulted from civil conflicts also contributes to worsening human rights. International

conflicts and the history of British colony cause no impact on governments’ practices on

physical integrity rights.

To test the robustness of our finding, we employ ordered logit models with the

inclusion of an instrumental variable, predicted entering into SAPs, and the full-range

physical integrity rights variable. Table 2 presents the statistical results, which are

consistent with the empirical results shown in Table 1. The interaction term of democracy

and SAP implementation significantly decreases physical integrity rights (at 99% level)

and increases the likelihood of political killing, torture, and political imprisonment. Table

3 provides the predicted probabilities for the interactive effects of SAP implementation

and democracy on human rights by using CLARIFY. The implementation of SAPs in

democracies worsens physical integrity rights by 2% as a whole. The likelihoods of

increasing torture, political killing, and political imprisonment in democracies

implementing SAPs are around 2%, 0.4%, and 0.6%.

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VI. The Conclusion

The empirical and robustness tests mostly confirm the hypothesis of this research by

revealing that compared to authoritarian regimes, democracies that implement the World

Bank’s SAPs are more likely to violate human rights. While previous research has found

that the Bank’s SAPs have a negative effect on recipient countries’ respect for human

rights, it remains unclear what type of regimes are more likely to violate human rights

when they implement SAPs. We argue that autocracies discourage public protest and

therefore reduce the opportunity for repression when SAPs are implemented.

Counterintuitively, the institutional openness of democracies encourages public protest

against SAPs and, consequently, increases the opportunity for state repression.

Employing bivariate probit selection models to estimate the interactive effect of regime

types and the implementation of SAPs on violations of physical integrity rights for a

sample of 164 countries from 1980-2002, the statistical findings support our argument.

Our research reveals that there is a cross-regime variation for the negative effect

of the World Bank’s SAPs on human rights practices in recipient countries. Hence the

policy implication for the World Bank in improving its design of SAPs is that there

should be a distinction between programs implemented in different regime types. A one-

size-fits-all package is not helpful in solving the recipient countries economic misery

because it ignores the differentiated characteristics in different countries. Moreover, more

attention should be paid to the human rights record in democracies. Future research

focusing on other aspects of human rights, such as workers’ rights and women’s rights,

will definitely help us understand the impact of the Bank’s SAPs on human rights.

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Table 1: The Impact of Implementing SAPs While Democracy Increases on Human

Rights, bivariate probit models.

Killing Torture Political

Imprisonment Disappearance

Democracy* SAP

Implementation

-.015**

(.007)

-.023**

(.011)

-.014

(.010)

-.007

(.007)

SAP

Implementation

-.237***

(.060)

-.233**

(.097)

-.063

(.084)

-.171**

(.067)

Democracy .002

(.006)

.042***

(.007)

.072***

(.007)

.001

(.006)

Entering into

SAPs

1.646***

(.065)

1.620***

(.168)

1.261***

(.185)

1.685***

(.077)

GDP per Capita .000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

Military Regime -.20*

(.102)

-.003

(.150)

-.138

(.141)

-.085

(.107)

Population (log) -.167***

(.022)

-.152***

(.029)

-.207***

(.026)

-.129***

(.023)

Interstate

Conflict

.022

(.087)

.136

(.109)

.010

(.102)

.089

(.091)

Internal Conflict -.164***

(.050)

-.360***

(.089)

-.275***

(.063)

-.274***

(.039)

British Colony -.063

(.058)

-.057

(.081)

-.050

(.076)

.089

(.061)

_PeaceYears -.226***

(.030)

-.394***

(.042)

-.393***

(.070)

-.384***

(.047)

_Spline1 .001**

(.000)

-.002*

(.001)

.000

(.000)

.002***

(.001)

_Spline2 -.012***

(.003)

-.024***

(.010)

_Spline3 -.004***

(.001)

.011**

(.004)

.004

(.003)

-.022***

(.366)

Constant 2.450***

(.345)

1.944***

(.449)

2.964***

(.413)

2.267***

(.366)

Rho -.982***

(.010)

-.851***

(.060)

-.748***

(.087)

-.974***

(.010)

2χ 1161.61 823.11 1185.89 1041.31

Prob > 2χ .000 .000 .000 .000

N 1918 1918 1918 1918

Note: * P<0.1, ** P<0.05, *** P<0.01

Standard errors are in parentheses.

24

Figure 1: The Marginal Effect of Regime Type and SAP

Implementation on Political Killing.

-.5

0.5

Marginal Effect of SAP Implementation on Political Killing

-10 -5 0 5 10Regime Type

Dashed lines give 95% confidence interval.

25

Figure 2: The Marginal Effect of Regime Type and SAP

Implementation on Torture

-.6

-.4

-.2

0.2

.4Marginal Effect of SAP Implementation on Torture

-10 -5 0 5 10Regime Type

Dashed lines give 95% confidence interval.

26

Table 2: The Impact of Implementing SAPs While Democracy Increases on Human

Rights, ordered logit models.

Physical

Integrity

Rights

Killing Torture Political

Imprisonment Disappearance

Democracy* SAP

Implementation

-.042***

(.013)

-.033**

(.016)

-.054***

(.015)

-.030**

(.014)

-.005

(.019)

SAP

Implementation

-.957***

(.131)

-.912***

(.143)

-.976***

(.137)

-.231

(.156)

-.668***

(.185)

Democracy .098***

(.009)

.007

(.011)

.082***

(.009)

.157***

(.009)

-.004

(.015)

Predicted

Entering into

SAPs

5.114***

(.571)

4.386***

(.590)

3.921***

(.763)

3.251***

(.682)

4.258***

(.896)

GDP per Capita .000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

.000***

(.000)

Military Regime -.146

(.153)

-.477***

(.161)

.118

(.198)

-.000

(.185)

-.264

(.204)

Population (log) -.557***

(.033)

-.403***

(.039)

-.379***

(.047)

-.487***

(.045)

-.271***

(.054)

Interstate

Conflict

.156*

(.094)

.063

(.160)

.188

(.155)

-.058

(.175)

.450***

(.172)

Internal Conflict -1.069***

(.071)

-.892***

(.080)

-.561***

(.084)

-.827***

(.097)

-.912***

(.070)

British Colony -.053

(.078)

.006

(.102)

-.185

(.135)

-.164

(.107)

.475***

(.163)

_PeaceYears -1.095***

(.258)

3.128***

(1.169)

14.205***

(2.978)

2.200***

(.837)

10.936

(9.077)

_Spline1 -.016

(.014)

.011**

(.005)

.030***

(.007)

.004**

(.002)

.066

(.061)

2χ 1203.3 501.66 518.26 787.53 406.27

Prob > 2χ .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

Pseudo 2R .206 .290 .330 .333 .305

N 1915 1918 1918 1918 1918

Note: * P<0.1, ** P<0.05, *** P<0.01

Bootstrapped standard errors are in parentheses.

Instrumental variable: Predicted Entering into SAPs.

27

Table 3: Predicted Probabilities (using CLARIFY) for the Interactive Effects of

SAP Implementation and Democracy on Human Rights.

Physical

Integrity

Rights

Killing Torture Political

Imprisonment

Democracy *

SAP

Implementation

.02 .004 .016 .006

Note: The predicted Probabilities are calculated by using the variables of interest from

their minimum to maximum levels while holding the remaining variables at their mean

levels.