Patterns of Oppression: An Exploratory Analysis of Human-Rights Data
分析了1982-1983年74个国家的人权数据，结合社会、人口和经济指标，用分类和聚类算法将国家分为七类，发现少数人权指标即可反映大部分信息，并识别出与人权侵犯模式相关的社会经济指标。
This article reports an exploratory analysis of human-rights data compiled for 74 countries during 1982–1983. The information is combined with social, demographic, and economic indexes, then subjected to the scrutiny of CART, nearest-neighbor clustering, and other classification and clustering algorithms. Human-rights data separate most nations into one of seven categories; these categories can also be accurately predicted from widely available social and economic indexes. The results suggest that one need monitor only a small number of human-rights indexes to capture most of the original information, thus reducing the cost and complexity of human-rights assessment. Also, the analysis discovers socioeconomic indexes associated with certain patterns of human-rights violation, and this may enable a better understanding of climates that foster compliance with the International Bill of Rights.