The Backlash Against Civil Society Participation in International Organizations: The Case of Human Rights Complaints Mechanisms

Abstract What are the repressive consequences of civil society participation in international human rights complaints mechanisms? Such mechanisms allow civil society actors to make governments’ human rights violations known to international organizations. International organizations can respond by ‘naming and shaming’ states. We expect that complaint-based shaming increases repression against civil society organizations (CSOs). In particular, governments exploit the specific and personalized information contained in complaint-based shaming to repress challengers and deter future complaints. We test our theory with three studies – (i) a cross-national analysis, (ii) a CSO-level analysis with original survey data, and (iii) a media-based analysis – using multiple identification strategies, including instrumental variables. Our evidence shows that shaming in response to complaints has detrimental effects for CSOs in both democracies and autocracies. Our findings highlight that personalized shaming creates the risk of targeted reprisals and call for reforms that take this risk more seriously.