Ereignisdaten: Irrlichter in der Erfassung menschenrechtlicher Trends

In this article, Janika Spannagel critically examines the increasing use of events-based (event) data to document and analyze human rights violations in civil society, journalism, and academia. She explains that although event data have grown in popularity because they offer seemingly concrete accounts of individual violations and are relatively easy to collect, they carry significant conceptual and methodological risks when used to infer broader trends or general statements about human rights conditions. Central problems include conceptual ambiguity in defining what constitutes an event, inconsistencies in coding and aggregation across data sources, and the limited generalizability of such data due to incomplete coverage and sample biases. Event data often fail to capture less visible forms of repression — such as restrictive laws or generalized fear — that do not manifest in discrete incidents, potentially distorting interpretations. Spannagel illustrates these limitations with examples from datasets and analyses of political repression. She argues that without careful attention to context, clear coding protocols, and transparency about data collection and analysis decisions, quantitative event counts can mislead rather than illuminate human rights trends. The article calls for more methodologically reflexive approaches when employing event data in human rights research and advocacy.

Journal article