About Me
I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Prior to beginning this appointment, I was the Jeffrey L. Hyde and Sharon D. Hyde and Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor in Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Penn State University. In June 2013, I graduated with a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego. I also studied at the University of North Texas, where I graduated with an M.S. in political science (2007), a B.F.A in drawing and painting (2005), and a B.A. in political science (2005).
My core research interest is in the politics of human rights, violence, and repression. I use computational methods to understand why governments around the world choose to torture, maim, and kill individuals within their jurisdiction. Other projects cover a broad array of themes but share a focus on computationally intensive methods and research design. These methodological tools, essential for analyzing "big data", open up new insights into the micro-foundations of state repression. Below you will find links to my publications, working papers, teaching material, a Dataverse archive where you can access replication data, and links to human rights data generated from several measurement projects.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
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Enhancing Validity in Observational Settings When Replication Is Not Possible
Christopher J. Fariss and Zachary M. Jones
Political Science Research and Methods (Forthcoming) -
Social network clustering of sexual violence experienced by adolescent girls
Holly B. Shakya, Christopher J. Fariss, Christopher Ojeda, Anita Raj, and Elizabeth Reed
American Journal of Epidemiology (Forthcoming) -
Are Things Really Getting Better?: How To Validate Latent Variable Models of Human Rights
Christopher J. Fariss
British Journal of Political Science (Forthcoming) -
The Changing Standard of Accountability and the Positive Relationship between Human Rights Treaty Ratification and Compliance
Christopher J. Fariss
British Journal of Political Science (Forthcoming) -
Social Endorsement Cues and Political Participation in an Experiment Involving 61 Million Facebook Users
Robert M. Bond, Jaime E. Settle, Christopher J. Fariss, Jason J. Jones, and James H. Fowler
Political Communication (Forthcoming) -
The Bar Fight Theory of International Conflict: Regime Type, Coalition Size, and Victory
Benjamin A.T. Graham, Erik Gartzke, and Christopher J. Fariss
Political Science Research and Methods (Forthcoming) -
Rescuing Human Rights Law from International Legalism and Its Critics
Geoff Dancy and Christopher J. Fariss
Human Rights Quarterly (February 2017) -
The Paradox of Weak Ties in 55 Countries
Laura K. Gee, Jason J. Jones, Christopher J. Fariss, Moira Burke, and James H. Fowler
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (January 2017) -
Stylized Facts and Experimentation
Charles D. Crabtree and Christopher J. Fariss
Sociological Science 3:910-914. (October 2016) -
A Method to Account for and Estimate Underreporting in Crash Frequency Research
Jonathan S. Wood, Eric T. Donnell, and Christopher J. Fariss
Accident Analysis and Prevention 95(Part A):57-66 (October 2016) -
From Posting to Voting: The Effects of Political Competition on Online Political Engagement
Jaime E. Settle, Robert M. Bond, Lorenzo Coviello, Christopher J. Fariss, James H. Fowler, and Jason J. Jones
Political Science Research and Methods 4(2):361-378 (March 2016) -
Recouping after Coup-Proofing: Compromised Military Effectiveness and Strategic Substitution
Cameron S. Brown, Christopher J. Fariss, R. Blake McMahon
International Interactions 42(1):1-30 (January 2016) -
Human Rights Texts: Converting Human Rights Primary Source Documents into Data
Christopher J. Fariss, Fridolin J. Linder, Zachary M. Jones, Charles D. Crabtree, Megan A. Biek, Ana-Sophia M. Ross, Taranamol Kaur, and Michael Tsai
PLOS ONE 10(9):e0138935 (September 2015) -
Uncovering Patterns Among Latent Variables: Human Rights and De Facto Judicial Independence
Charles D. Crabtree and Christopher J. Fariss
Research & Politics 2(3):1-9 (September 2015) -
International Trusteeship: External Authority in Areas of Limited Statehood
David A. Lake and Christopher J. Fariss
Governance 27(4):569-587 (October 2014) -
Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time: Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability
Christopher J. Fariss
American Political Science Review 108(2):297-318 (May 2014)- DOI:10.1017/S0003055414000070
- Human Rights Scores (download the data)
- Replication Files (replicate the data)
- Supplementary Appendix
- Slides
- Penn State Press Release
- The Rights Track: Sound evidence on human rights (podcast)
- Foreign Policy's Democracy Lab
- Dart-Throwing Chimp
- Analog (the anti-blog)
- Washington Post (The Monkey Cage Blog)
- Global Policy
- Political Violence @ a Glance
- Our World In Data
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Dynamic Patterns of Human Rights Practices
Keith E. Schnakenberg and Christopher J. Fariss
Political Science Research and Methods 2(1):1-31 (April 2014) -
Measuring Mutual Dependence Between State Repressive Actions
Christopher J. Fariss and Keith E. Schnakenberg
Journal of Conflict Resolution 58(6):1003-1032 (September 2014)
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Going the Distance: The Price of Projecting Power
Jonathan N. Markowitz and Christopher J. Fariss
International Interactions 39(2):119-143 (April 2013) -
Yahtzee: An Anonymized Group Level Matching Procedure
Jason J. Jones, Robert M. Bond, Christopher J. Fariss, Jaime E. Settle, Adam D. I. Kramer, Cameron Marlow, and James H. Fowler
PLOS ONE 8(2):e55760 (February 2013) -
Inferring Tie Strength from Online Directed Behavior
Jason J. Jones, Jaime E. Settle, Robert M. Bond, Christopher J. Fariss, Cameron Marlow, and James H. Fowler
PLOS ONE 8(1):e52168 (January 2013) -
A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization
Robert M. Bond, Christopher J. Fariss, Jason J. Jones, Adam D. I. Kramer, Cameron Marlow, Jaime E. Settle, and James H. Fowler
Nature 489:295-298 (13 September 2012)- DOI:10.1038/nature11421
- Supplementary Information
- Commentary by Sinan Aral
- UCSD press release
- San Diego Supercomputer Center article
- Top Ten Social Media Papers of 2012
- New York Times
- Washington Post
- MSNBC
- Time
- BBC
- Los Angeles Times
- NPR All Things Considered
- NPR Science Friday
- PBS News Hour
- Forbes
- CNN
- Businessweek
- Ars Technica
- The Monkey Cage Blog
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Emergency and Escape: Explaining Why States Derogate from Human Rights Treaties
Emilie Hafner-Burton, Laurence R. Helfer, and Christopher J. Fariss
International Organization 65(4): 673-707 (October 2011) -
The Strategic Substitution of United States Foreign Aid
Christopher J. Fariss
Foreign Policy Analysis 6(2):107-131 (April 2010) -
The Path to Asylum in the US and the Determinants for Who Gets In and Why
Andy J. Rottman, Christopher J. Fariss, and Steven C. Poe
International Migration Review 43(1):3-34 (Spring 2009) -
International Criminal Defense: The Influence of Attorney Background on Judicial Decision Making at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
James D. Meernik and Christopher J. Fariss
Judicature 89(6):326-333 (May-June 2006)
Editor-Reviewed Journal Articles
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Measuring the Impact of Human Rights: Conceptual and Methodological Debates
Christopher J. Fariss, and Geoff Dancy
Annual Review of Law and Social Science 13:TBD (November 2017) -
The Presidential Election in Belarus, October 2015
Charles D. Crabtree, Christopher J. Fariss, and Paul J. Schuler
Electoral Studies 42:304–307 (June 2016)
Other Editor-Reviewed Publications
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How War is Like a Barfight
Benjamin A.T. Graham, Christopher J. Fariss, and Erik Gartzke
The Washington Post: Monkey Cage Blog (15 December 2015) -
Morsi's Potential Counterweight
Cameron S. Brown, R. Blake McMahon, and Christopher J. Fariss
INSS Insight No.367, (4 September 4 2012) -
New Takes on Human Rights Measurement
Christopher J. Fariss and Keith E. Schnakenberg
Wrongs & Rights: The Newsletter for the APSA Human Rights Section (May 2012)
Teaching
- PS 498: The Politics of Human Rights, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan (Spring 2017)
- PS 688: Measurement, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan (Spring 2017)
- PLS 451/497: Human Rights, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University (Spring, 2015, Spring 2014, Fall 2013)
- PLS 501: Methods of Political Analysis (Research Design), Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University (Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013)
- PLS 597: The Politics of Human Rights, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University (Fall 2015)
- PLS 597: The Politics of Measurement and the Measurement of Politics (Measurement Theory), Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University (Spring 2015)
- Analyzing Big Data, The 48th Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis, July, 27, 2015 - August, 7 2015
- Introduction to Latent Variable Models with R and STAN, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, May, 21-22, 2015
- Introduction to R and statistical analysis of data using R, San Diego Super Computer Center, July 2013
- Introduction to R for Programmers, San Diego Super Computer Center, April 2013 and May 2012
- Introduction to R, College of William & Mary, October 2012 (with Jaime E. Settle)
- Introduction to R and Stata, Math Boot Camp, Department of Political Science UCSD, August 2010 (with Dimitar Gueorguiev)
Data and Code
- Dataverse - Data repository with replication files.
- Human Rights Scores - Website with data, information, and example code from several human rights measurement projects.
- Human Rights Texts - Website with information about digitized prirmary source human documents and new text datasets derived from those documents.
- Sub-National Anaysis of Repression Project (NSF Award #1626775) - Website with information about new disaggregated human rights allegation data.
- Code - Selected example R programs for implementing latent variable models in R, JAGS and now STAN, in addition to online resources for using R, JAGS, and STAN.
Contact
Center for Political Studies (CPS)
Institute for Social Research, 4200 Bay
University of Michigan
426 Thompson Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48106-1248
USA
[email protected]