Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Government Respect for Human Rights
Date
2009
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Publisher
International Studies Quarterly
Abstract
A main justification for press freedom is that free media will act as a
watchdog over the government. While we would expect democracies to
have free media and autocracies to have government-controlled media,
some democracies have government-controlled media, and some autocracies
have free media. How this mismatch between regime type and
media system influences government behavior is a puzzle worth exploring.
One of the most widely criticized government behaviors is the
violation of physical integrity rights. The question posed here is, how
does media freedom affect government respect for these rights? In this
article, I theorize that the relationship between media freedom and
government respect for human rights differs, depending on the presence
of democratic institutions. The findings support my premise. Specifically,
the influence of media freedom on government respect for human rights is negative
for the most autocratic regimes and positive for only the most democratic regimes.
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Keywords
media freedom, freedom of the press, human rights, repression, democracy, censorship
Citation
International Studies Quarterly (2009) 53, 595–625