'Structural adjustment' has been a central part of the development strategy for the 'third world'. Loans made by the World Bank and the IMF have been conditional on developing countries pursuing rapid economic liberalization programmes as it was believed this would strengthen their economies in the long run. M. Rodwan Abouharb and David Cingranelli argue that, conversely, structural adjustment agreements usually cause increased hardship for the poor, greater civil conflict, and more repression of human rights, therefore resulting in a lower rate of economic development. Greater exposure to structural adjustment has increased the prevalence of anti-government protests, riots and rebellion. It has led to less respect for economic and social rights, physical integrity rights, and worker rights, but more respect for democratic rights. Based on these findings, the authors recommend a human rights-based approach to economic development.

Systematic data on annual infant mortality rates are of use to a variety of social science research programs in demography, economics, sociology, and political science. Infant mortality rates may be used both as a proxy measure for economic development, in lieu of energy consumption or GDP-per-capita measures, and as an indicator of the extent to which governments provide for the economic and social welfare of their citizens. Until recently, data were available for only a limited number of countries based on regional or country-level studies and time periods for years after 1950. Here, the authors introduce a new dataset reporting annual infant mortality rates for all states in the world, based on the Correlates of War state system list, between 1816 and 2002. They discuss past research programs using infant mortality rates in conflict studies and describe the dataset by exploring its geographic and temporal coverage. Next, they explain some of the limitations of the dataset as well as issues associated with the data themselves. Finally, they suggest some research areas that might benefit from the use of this dataset. This new dataset is the most comprehensive source on infant mortality rates currently available to social science researchers.

Political leaders not only assess the costs and benefits of repression but also act strategically in their use of particular repression types. Choices amongst repression types depend partly upon leaders being held responsible for their particular actions. The codification of the international human rights regime indicated by broad ratification of the core International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights increases the likelihood of criminal responsibility, and political leaders who repress but want to avoid accountability for their actions respond strategically. These governments refrain from extrajudicial killing, which is easier to link to the government, relying instead on forced disappearances, a violation that is more difficult to tie to the incumbent regime. Using a sample of 194 countries from 1981 to 2009, we find that decreases in the use of extrajudicial killing in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights member states are associated with increases in the use of forced disappearance. This indicates a substitution effect as governments attempt to maintain the benefits of repression while avoiding the costs of accountability. Our findings are robust to changes in measurement, sample size, and model specification.