International Interactions, 38:597–621, 2012 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0305-0629 print/1547-7444 online DOI: 10.1080/03050629.2012.726180 International Organizations and Government Killing: Does Naming and Shaming Save Lives? JACQUELINE H. R. DEMERITT University of North Texas Do international organizations affect government killing? Extant work has studied international organizations’ effects on a set of human rights, but has not examined the abilities of specific actors to protect specific rights. I analyze naming and shaming by three types of international organizations (human rights nongovern- mental organizations [NGOs], the news media, and the United Nations), focusing on their impacts on a single type of abuse: one-sided government killing. I present a principal-agent theory in which the government develops a preference for killing, and then delegates the murderous task to a set of individual perpetra- tors. The theory reveals new ways for international organizations to make killing costly, and statistical analyses support my expec- tations: By calling attention to abusive states, human rights NGOs and the United Nations can reduce both the likelihood and severity of state-sponsored murder. I also find that international organiza- tions are better equipped to prevent killing from the beginning than to limit mounting body counts once it has begun. KEYWORDS empirical implications of theoretical models, extrale- gal killing, naming and shaming Between April 2007 and March 2008, Amnesty International (AI) spent £33,595,000—about $53 million and 95% of all expended resources—on activities in furtherance of the group’s objectives (AI 2009:33). At the same I thank Josh Busby, Charli Carpenter, Cullen Hendrix, Danny Hill, Matt Krain, Amanda Murdie, Wendy Wong, panel attendees at the 2009 annual meeting of the International Studies Association, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments and assistance. This article’s web appendix is available at the author’s website: http://psci.unt.edu/~demeritt. Replication materials can be downloaded at http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/internationalinteractions. Address correspondence to Jacqueline H. R. DeMeritt, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #305340, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA. E-mail: jdemeritt@unt.edu 597 Downloaded by [University of North Texas] at 08:25 28 August 2017