Description
Public opinion is shaped by citizens’ interactions with human rights reports published at the domestic and international levels. However, there is little research studying the relationship between public opinion and human rights. This may be in the form of investigating how human rights perceptions are shaped among the public, or, conversely, how human rights perceptions of the public shape political decisions regarding human rights. The relationship between public opinion and human rights remains unexplored in the Global South, particularly in a pluralistic democracy such as India. With a rise in authoritarian regimes in many of the world’s democracies, it is important to measure citizen perceptions of those regimes. Studying the relationship between public opinion and human rights also has policy implications. To be representative of public interest, policymakers need to have an accurate sense of their constituents’ opinions about human rights. This paper contributes to the existing literature in two ways. First, I contextualize and address an existing gap in studying the relationship between human rights and public opinion in the context of domestic politics. Second, I create a framework to explore the relationship between human rights and public opinions within the Indian political context.
