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Studies have found that democracy is associated with increased government respect for human rights, but we are not sure exactly why. The purpose of this research is to examine the effect that the presence of national elections has on government respect for a category of human rights known as physical integrity rights. This study uses a random-effects GLS model to analyze a pooled cross-sectional time-series data set containing information about seventy-four countries from 1981 to 1987. It is found that the presence of national elections, either executive or legislative, has no effect on government respect for human rights. This finding suggests that policy makers need to be cognizant of the differences between strict democracy and liberal democracy, as they are likely to be promoting one, and expecting the benefits of the other. The consequences of doing so may be …