1. On the same day that Erick Erickson argues we need more Pinochets, and more helicopters (to throw people from), Averell Schmidt and @kathryn_sikkink have an important new article in @PoPpublicsphere on the relationship between CIA cooperation programs and spread of HR abuses.
2. cambridge.org/core/journals/… Sikkink's earlier classic book with Mimi Keck focused directly on human rights in Latin America, and how cross national networks of activists pushed back against state abuses. This new research looks at the opposite phenomenon :
3. how cross national networks facilitate torture rather than pushing back against it. Schmidt and Sikkink look at 1992-2011 data, find that "countries that collaborated actively with the CIA adopted worse human rights practices in comparison to countries that were not involved"
4. In the GWB presidency presidency, "prisoners were shuffled through a complex network of detention sites in foreign lands," with the cooperation of 53 foreign governments." The CIA's "intense maneuvering" for freedom from prosecution showed they knew that
5. others would see the organization as involved in committing crimes. Torture was normalized in US political discourse to an extent not seen even during the Latin America insurgencies. And this plausibly had consequences.
6. Schmidt and Sikkink evaluate 2 theories. "When the most powerful state in the system undermines powerful prohibition norms, it is plausible that its actions would lead to regression in both human rights norms and the corresponding practices of other countries in the world."
7. Or there could be more specific effects:"extensive collaboration between the CIA and other security groups, especially intelligence agencies, could have a more focused impact on the human rights practices of those countries that actually collaborated actively [in rendition]"
8. They find no evidence that the example of the US lead to a broader deterioration in respect for human rights, which has been on an upward trajectory since the end of the Cold War - but there is evidence that collaboration with CIA worsened human rights impact.
9. This may plausibly have involved socialization (normalization of abuse through "learning by doing") and increases in the capacity of security organizations to carry out abuses. Schmidt and Sikkink acknowledge possibility of endogeneity, but do test for it (with no results)
10. They find no relationship for democratic states, but high negative correlation for non-democratic states. If this relationship is causal, then plausible conclusion is that US cooperation in human rights abuses have big consequences for later behavior of undemocratic states.
11. Or - more simply, the Erickson program is one that would return us to widespread torture and murder in Latin American countries, which would plausibly be worse than in the 1980s. Then, there were (often hypocritical) qualms about torture. Now, probably not so much.
12. Large swathes of US conservatism - including anti-Trump conservatism - are straightforwardly morally depraved. Finis.
