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This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of militarization, governance, and democracy on human rights in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for the period 2002 to 2018. The study employed the instrumental variable Fixed Effects model to account for simultaneity/reverse causality, and unobservable heterogeneity as well as the instrumental variable quantile regression with Fixed Effects to account for existing levels of human rights in SSA. Based on the Fixed Effects results, it is revealed that militarization significantly increases human rights violation in the region, while governance and democracy significantly improve human rights. Results from the quantile regression show that (1) the negative impact of militarization on human rights is observable across all quantiles, (2) the positive impact of the control of corruption on human rights is more pronounced in countries where the existing level of human rights is high, while political stability and rule of law exerts stronger impact on human rights in countries where the existing level of human rights is low, (3) the positive impact of democracy on human rights is stronger in countries where the existing level of human rights is high. Policy recommendations based on these findings are discussed.

This study adds to the body of existing literature on the relationship between democracy and terrorism by investigating the impact of democracy on terrorism in 26 African countries. The study utilises a robust measure of democracy known as the varieties of democracy index which has been observed in literature to be more superior to conventional measures of democracy. A composite index of terrorism was derived from the number of terrorism incidents, the number of terrorist fatalities, and the number of terrorist injuries utilising the principal component analysis. The study utilises a Fixed Effects regression with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors and account for simultaneity utilising the first lags of the regressors as instruments. The result reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between democracy and terrorism in the selected African countries. In particular, early stages of democracy are associated with higher levels of terrorism while later stages of democracy are associated with lower levels of terrorism. The study provides recommendations based on these findings.