North Korean Human Rights: Naming and Shaming

A while back, there was an exchange between John Feffer and Roberta Cohen on North Korean human rights. John argued that naming-and-shaming are ineffective, if not counter-productive and instead argued for a human security approach to human rights (i.e. provide aid and development assistance). I later weighed in on the politics between these two camps.

I thought about John's point again on whether naming-and-shaming actually works on North Korea. Roberta mentioned that they did sign the UN Treaty on Human Rights as a sign of progress; this might be stage two of Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink's five-stage spiral model on human rights change. I was reminded though, thanks to a post on the Duck, that there actually is academic literature on the effectiveness of naming-and-shaming strategies. Amanda Murdie and Dylan Davis ran a quantitative analysis on this using some creative (in a good way) methods to measure shaming and human rights change. Cullen Hendrix and Wendy Wong also have a forthcoming article in BJPS.

The verdict: Yes, naming-and-shaming do have a qualified/conditional impact. Translation: naming-shaming has to be done under certain conditions (i.e. they're effective on autocratic but not democratic regimes) and in conjunction with some other factors (i.e. when domestic NGOs are present are INGOs are also weighing in). For North Korea then, human rights activism may have at least a weak effect on the regime: there are no domestic NGOs or civil society to support transnational activists, but there is pressure from the UN and North Korea is autocratic.

Evangelicals and Politics

Evangelicals get a bad rap for their intolerance and their association with right-wing conservatism. Some of this criticism is deserved. But I've also felt that the media and broader American public lump all "religious" Christians (those actively practicing their faith) into the category of "evangelical" and "conservative."

My own research (and advocacy) on North Korean human rights and humanitarian aid suggests this is wrong. I've encountered several evangelicals working with faith-based NGOs who think outside of the conservative box, supporting a more liberal political agenda. I've also read a couple of blogs by self-proclaimed liberal evangelicals. The death of evangelical theologian heavyweight John Stott last year also prompted Nicholas Kristof to write about compassionate evangelicals fighting for social justice.

Anyway, I just read Chris Seiple's critical response to Robert Putnam's Foreign Affairs piece "God and Caesar in America" which confirmed my observations. I think the problem in identifying "liberal" evangelicals has to do with the fact that they operate relatively silently and without recognizable leaders. Sieple offers a nice description:

They want to be defined by what they are for -- an orthodox reading of scripture, the interpretation and application of which they must faithfully grapple with -- instead of what they are against... They largely hold the same values as Evangelicals, they just aren't angry about it...

They might find aspects of the Democratic Party appealing, especially its heart for the disenfranchised, and be "turned off" by the Republican religious narrative Putnam and Campbell describe. At the same time, they do not feel comfortable with a party that seemingly resists any public discussion of what it means to be pro-life and to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Adding to Seiple's response, I'd add that whether this group votes Republican or Democrat will depend on how they balance their position on social issues (poverty, education, health) versus social values (gay marriage, abortion).

So what's this have to do with social movements? Well, my impression is that you're more likely to see right-wing evangelicals take it to the street (i.e. the Tea Party, North Korean human rights) than their more progressive brethren. Which is why the media and mainstream America will continue to lump all evangelicals into the conservative, right-wing camp.