The Role of Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Assistance Policy: A Critique and Reappraisal

In a recent study, David Cingranelli and Thomas Pasquarello (1985) discovered a modest positive relationship between certain types of U.S. foreign assistance and human rights behavior. We believe a number of factors raise concerns over the validity of these results. Following some discussion, a brief and simplified reanalysis is presented, which varies the cases, economic data, and human rights measures employed by Cingranelli and Pasquarello. This reanalysis highlights a lack of robustness in the original results. We conclude with a brief plea for more judgment and diversity in the design of quantitative work on human rights.