Does respect for human rights vary across ‘civilizations’? A statistical reexamination

Abstract

The cultural content of international human rights standards has inspired much discussion and debate, but cross-cultural levels of compliance with these standards remains understudied. Using Samuel Huntington’s controversial ‘clash-of-civilizations’ thesis as a point of departure, this article analyzes whether human rights practices differ systematically across dominant cultural and religious traditions, with a focus on two sets of rights: bodily integrity and civil/political. Net of standard political, social, economic, and demographic factors, countries identified as Western countries and Japan generally have better rated practices than other countries, but differences are especially pronounced with respect to Buddhist, Catholic/Latin, Islamic, and Orthodox nations. These countries are closely scrutinized by watchdogs such as Amnesty International, which might account for their lower human rights scores. Variation in human rights scores also tends to be durable over time; in contrast with Huntington’s thesis, the end of the Cold War mattered little for cross-cultural differences in countries’ practices. Finally, cultural and religious effects are more pronounced for bodily integrity rights than for civil and political rights. All told, the analyses offer little support for the clash-of-civilizations approach, insofar as it predicts increased cultural conflict over putatively ‘Western’ human rights standards.