Quantitative Methods in Advocacy-Oriented Human Rights Research
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Description
Applied human rights researchers have turned to quantitative methods in recent years to systematise their knowledge and help answer questions about the scope, intensity, characteristics, responsibility for, and causes of human rights violations and their solutions. Using data of widely varying type and provenance, researchers have adopted a range of methods with different capabilities for a spectrum of purposes. These methods not only vary in their approach and capacity, but also relate to international human rights law in different ways. This chapter provides examples of how quantitative methods are used by researchers engaged in advocacy-oriented, real-world human rights work. It concludes that quantitative methods hold real promise for human rights research, but they also pose risks. In many human rights contexts, data problems - from missing and biased data to hidden or falsified data - are insurmountable. Yet in other cases, it is possible to use well-chosen methods, with great care. When they can be used ethically, quantitative methods should be considered alongside qualitative methods and mixed methods models. Only when the objectives, data and methods match, and when the perils can be obviated or limited to an acceptable level, should practitioners choose quantitative methods.
Source Publication
Research Methods in Human Rights: A Handbook
Source Editors/Authors
Bård A. Andreassen, Claire Methven O’Brien, Hans-Otto Sano
Publication Date
2024
Edition
2
Recommended Citation
Satterthwaite, Margaret L. and Kacinski, Daniel, "Quantitative Methods in Advocacy-Oriented Human Rights Research" (2024). Faculty Chapters. 1792.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1792
