Global Institutionalization of Human Rights: The Effects of State Institutions and Domestic Politics

This dissertation investigates the causes and mechanisms driving the global institutionalization of human rights since the end of World War II. This project studies two indispensable components of this institutionalization, the intergovernmental treaty system and the non-governmental organization (NGO) field. I address two central questions: how human rights are institutionalized into an international regime, and why this institutionalization process occurs unevenly across the world. This study develops a state-oriented theoretical approach which emphasizes the role of the state, and employs various statistical tools to test this approach. I argue that the institutional composition of the state and domestic politics are key to understanding the institutionalization process and its unequal nature.;Specific findings can be summarized as follows. (1) The establishment of the human rights treaty system is mainly driven by states undergoing democratization through the "commitment" and "concession" mechanisms within domestic politics that intensify states' tendency to support global legalization of human rights. Through treaty ratification, these democratizing states forestall future repression, make necessary critical concessions to newly empowered political groups, lock in positive institutional changes achieved in democratization, and render their commitments to continuing democratization more credible to the domestic audience. (2) Cross-national inequality in participation in human rights NGOs is best explained by two intertwined dimensions within the state, democracy and state capacity. Civic participation in human rights NGOs is mostly supported by strong democratic states and tolerated by weak states, while strong authoritarian states have both the motive and capacity to restrain their citizens' participation. (3) Cross-national inequality in creation of human rights NGOs can be attributed to inequality in domestic (economic, human, and political) resources, world polity connections, and American exceptionalism. Notably, a well-established democracy with a strong democratic tradition provides favorable environment for human rights association activities.;Overall, this dissertation explains the global institutionalization of human rights from a state-oriented perspective, and has broad implications for theories of institutionalization of global norms, for the debate on the role of the state in the world polity, and for effective promotion of human rights in countries with differing state regimes and political institutions.