A neglected nexus: Human rights and public perceptions

Abstract

Although human rights scholars have extensively focused on the origins of human rights, research is underdeveloped that attends to the origins of public perceptions of human rights. We expand our knowledge of state-level and individual-level determinants of human rights perceptions. Unlike prior work that ignores within-country variation, we take advantage of state-level variation within Mexico to explore the extent to which human rights perceptions are influenced by context. Specifically, we examine whether the public's human rights perceptions are influenced by violence levels and human rights organizational activities at the state level. Additionally, we assess whether the public's human rights perceptions are related to trust in domestic institutions and security forces and whether sharing partisan ties with the current administration is a contributing factor. Finally, we assess how education levels moderate human rights perceptions. Our results show that human rights perceptions are linked to both state-level and individual-level factors.