Human Rights Research Proposal

The first written assignment in this class is a 15 page (double-spaced with 1” margins and 12
point fonts with numbered pages) research design that is due on Friday October 9. In this paper
you will do the following:
• Develop a research question
• Importance of the question for scholarship and policy (NOTE: this is two issues not
one).
• Review the literature on your question, developing a series of alternative explanations
for the outcome
• Outline a strategy for answering this question, addressing each of the following:
o Operationalize the dependent variable (or what’s being caused)
o Operationalize independent variables (or what’s doing the causing)
o Discuss case selection (what cases are you going to look at and why)
o Develop a testing procedure (or, how you will test your arguments, and how you
will know you are right)
• Attach a preliminary bibliography (not included for page purposes)

Why do governments sign CEDAW & violate it?

Qualitative Study including all 189 CEDAW State parties.

Dependent Variable = CEDAW Compliance Gap (this will be the difference between a de jure score & a de facto score).

De jure score focused on Articles 10, 11, and 12 education, employment, and health/family planning).

De facto focused on real-world outcomes, including girls' education, women's employment, and access to family planning (scaled on a score from 0 to 3 (0 being government limits access to 3 being government provides direct support)

Compliance Gap = De jure minus de facto

Independent Variables:

CEDAW Commitment
Reservation Status
% of Population under 14
Dominant Religion
Regional Enrollment Ratios

To test this, I plan to use a multiple regression model across all 189 state parties.