At the Nexus of Observational and Experimental Research: Theory,Specification, and Analysis of Experiments with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

Experimentalists are increasingly examining heterogeneous treatment effects, in which observed individual-level characteristics are hypothesized to moderate an experimental treatment effect. Such work places researchers at the nexus of experimental and observational approaches. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical and statistical issues that can arise in testing such hypotheses. We note that inclusion of an observed (as opposed to randomly-assigned) moderator introduces the possibility of confounds that are commonplace in observational data analysis but too-easily ignored in experimental data analysis. We simulate several different data generating processes that include heterogeneous treatment effects, and we discuss the implications of various statistical models. We aim to provide researchers who examine heterogeneous treatment effects with background and advice that enable them to identify where common issues may arise and to develop research designs and implement statistical tests that will mitigate them.     

Advancing LGBT Rights in Turkey: Tolerance or Protection?

Tolerance is treated as a virtue and a key principle in liberal theories of the state and human rights. Critics of liberalism have already addressed limitations of tolerance, and the United Nations (UN) introduced broader and more inclusive human rights and non-discrimination norms. Yet, tolerance is still invoked in human rights advocacy, and the UN promotes teaching tolerance as a means to protect human rights. However, there is an asymmetrical relationship between the “tolerant” and the “tolerated,” which must be questioned for its human rights implications. The paper contends that tolerance does not ensure non-discrimination, freedom from persecution, or ending violence. Instead, it can be complicit in violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. As an illustrative case, it examines Turkey—a country that has pursued the liberal policy of tolerance by not criminalizing homosexuality—during a reform period that involved further liberalization of law but not the protection of LGBT rights.     

Technologies of Displacement and Children’s Right to Asylum in Sweden

Through an analysis of 100 asylum decisions and 10 interviews with 20 asylum officers at the Swedish Migration Agency this article reveals two intricate processes through which children’s rights are displaced in the Swedish asylum process; by overlooking children’s individual claims for asylum through a circle of neglect, and negating children’s best interests. The article demonstrates how the balancing act between migration control on one hand and children’s rights on the other hand plays out in the asylum process, which results in a double displacement; the children are not adult enough to be addressed as asylum seekers and not children enough to deserve qualification as bearer of children’s rights. An in-depth analysis of everyday practices at institutions applying children’s rights is essential both to understand the reproduction of discrepancies between rights on paper and rights in practice, and to explore the potential of rights to disrupt oppressive vehicles of power.