Why do judges and police in authoritarian regimes violate laws in order to support some human rights and suppress others? This dissertation seeks to explain the seemingly paradoxical behavior of law enforcement agents in the post-Soviet world regarding women's rights, press freedom and the rights of religious minorities. In comparative politics and public law scholarship, law enforcement agents are assumed to obediently enforce the will of the political elite, and dare to act against the state only when a change in political power is expected or an economic incentive (i.e. bribery) coexists with a decrease in state pressure. Some authors argue that courts attempt to support human rights groups when institutional limitations are lessened by the state (for example, to attract foreign investment). None of these existing theoretical frameworks help us understand why judges and police violate state law to support some categories of rights but suppress others. Examining why law enforcement agents differentiate between categories of rights helps us understand why they are willing to break the laws of an authoritarian state. Through qualitative analysis of court rulings, interviews, public opinion data and archival research, I found that judges and police act against the will of a repressive state in accordance with their values of justice, which reflect public conceptions of rights in a given country. Public conceptions of rights, in turn, are influenced by the formation of national identities in these relatively new states. Thus, I found that since the public supports press freedom across the authoritarian countries in the study, judges are likely to limit state-prescribed penalties for libel. However, when the public views certain religious groups as a threat to national identity, judges and police are likely to suppress the rights of these groups despite constitutional provisions of religious freedom. The role national identity plays in shaping public conceptions of rights, and the link between these conceptions and law enforcement behavior, provide a vital insight for human rights literature, comparative legal studies and democratization theory.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/U0003501665 |
| Creators | Wilson, Sophia Voitanik. |
| Publisher | University of Washington. |
| Source Sets | National Chengchi University Libraries |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Rights | Copyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds