Author: Nick Stevenson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317585542
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
This volume seeks to propose a reinvention of freedom under contemporary conditions of globalization, cross-border mobility, and neo-liberal dominance. There are currently two predominant myths circulating about freedom. The first is that in a global age growing numbers of citizens are less concerned with freedom than they are with security. Secondly, there is the presumption that freedom only refers to market freedom and consumerism, implying that the ideas of choice and consumption are interchangeable with ideas of freedom. Stevenson argues that while these arguments are significant, they are deeply misleading. More ‘authentic’ ideas of freedom such as self-realisation, participating in politics and seeking a meaningful life of self-reflection have not been entirely displaced but have instead become reinvented in our global times. The cries of freedom can still be heard in a multitude of places from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement and from the protests against European austerity to the current popularity of human rights. Stevenson also argues that the idea of freedom has become increasingly mobile in our interconnected and transnational society. The spaces and places of civil society are more complex in this global age, pushing ideas of freedom far beyond the usual arena of national politics. This volume brings together a diverse range of cultural interpretations in respect of freedom related to the idea of the commons, cosmopolitanism, contemporary documentary cinema and the history of jazz music. Exploring the ways in which notions of freedom are being re-made within the context of the present, and looking more precisely at the current threats to freedom, it will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, human rights and cultural sociology.
Human Rights and the Reinvention of Freedom
Author: Nick Stevenson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317585542
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
This volume seeks to propose a reinvention of freedom under contemporary conditions of globalization, cross-border mobility, and neo-liberal dominance. There are currently two predominant myths circulating about freedom. The first is that in a global age growing numbers of citizens are less concerned with freedom than they are with security. Secondly, there is the presumption that freedom only refers to market freedom and consumerism, implying that the ideas of choice and consumption are interchangeable with ideas of freedom. Stevenson argues that while these arguments are significant, they are deeply misleading. More ‘authentic’ ideas of freedom such as self-realisation, participating in politics and seeking a meaningful life of self-reflection have not been entirely displaced but have instead become reinvented in our global times. The cries of freedom can still be heard in a multitude of places from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement and from the protests against European austerity to the current popularity of human rights. Stevenson also argues that the idea of freedom has become increasingly mobile in our interconnected and transnational society. The spaces and places of civil society are more complex in this global age, pushing ideas of freedom far beyond the usual arena of national politics. This volume brings together a diverse range of cultural interpretations in respect of freedom related to the idea of the commons, cosmopolitanism, contemporary documentary cinema and the history of jazz music. Exploring the ways in which notions of freedom are being re-made within the context of the present, and looking more precisely at the current threats to freedom, it will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, human rights and cultural sociology.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317585542
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
This volume seeks to propose a reinvention of freedom under contemporary conditions of globalization, cross-border mobility, and neo-liberal dominance. There are currently two predominant myths circulating about freedom. The first is that in a global age growing numbers of citizens are less concerned with freedom than they are with security. Secondly, there is the presumption that freedom only refers to market freedom and consumerism, implying that the ideas of choice and consumption are interchangeable with ideas of freedom. Stevenson argues that while these arguments are significant, they are deeply misleading. More ‘authentic’ ideas of freedom such as self-realisation, participating in politics and seeking a meaningful life of self-reflection have not been entirely displaced but have instead become reinvented in our global times. The cries of freedom can still be heard in a multitude of places from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement and from the protests against European austerity to the current popularity of human rights. Stevenson also argues that the idea of freedom has become increasingly mobile in our interconnected and transnational society. The spaces and places of civil society are more complex in this global age, pushing ideas of freedom far beyond the usual arena of national politics. This volume brings together a diverse range of cultural interpretations in respect of freedom related to the idea of the commons, cosmopolitanism, contemporary documentary cinema and the history of jazz music. Exploring the ways in which notions of freedom are being re-made within the context of the present, and looking more precisely at the current threats to freedom, it will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, human rights and cultural sociology.
Human Rights and the Reinvention of Freedom
Author: Nick Stevenson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317585550
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Book Description
This volume seeks to propose a reinvention of freedom under contemporary conditions of globalization, cross-border mobility, and neo-liberal dominance. There are currently two predominant myths circulating about freedom. The first is that in a global age growing numbers of citizens are less concerned with freedom than they are with security. Secondly, there is the presumption that freedom only refers to market freedom and consumerism, implying that the ideas of choice and consumption are interchangeable with ideas of freedom. Stevenson argues that while these arguments are significant, they are deeply misleading. More ‘authentic’ ideas of freedom such as self-realisation, participating in politics and seeking a meaningful life of self-reflection have not been entirely displaced but have instead become reinvented in our global times. The cries of freedom can still be heard in a multitude of places from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement and from the protests against European austerity to the current popularity of human rights. Stevenson also argues that the idea of freedom has become increasingly mobile in our interconnected and transnational society. The spaces and places of civil society are more complex in this global age, pushing ideas of freedom far beyond the usual arena of national politics. This volume brings together a diverse range of cultural interpretations in respect of freedom related to the idea of the commons, cosmopolitanism, contemporary documentary cinema and the history of jazz music. Exploring the ways in which notions of freedom are being re-made within the context of the present, and looking more precisely at the current threats to freedom, it will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, human rights and cultural sociology.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317585550
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Book Description
This volume seeks to propose a reinvention of freedom under contemporary conditions of globalization, cross-border mobility, and neo-liberal dominance. There are currently two predominant myths circulating about freedom. The first is that in a global age growing numbers of citizens are less concerned with freedom than they are with security. Secondly, there is the presumption that freedom only refers to market freedom and consumerism, implying that the ideas of choice and consumption are interchangeable with ideas of freedom. Stevenson argues that while these arguments are significant, they are deeply misleading. More ‘authentic’ ideas of freedom such as self-realisation, participating in politics and seeking a meaningful life of self-reflection have not been entirely displaced but have instead become reinvented in our global times. The cries of freedom can still be heard in a multitude of places from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement and from the protests against European austerity to the current popularity of human rights. Stevenson also argues that the idea of freedom has become increasingly mobile in our interconnected and transnational society. The spaces and places of civil society are more complex in this global age, pushing ideas of freedom far beyond the usual arena of national politics. This volume brings together a diverse range of cultural interpretations in respect of freedom related to the idea of the commons, cosmopolitanism, contemporary documentary cinema and the history of jazz music. Exploring the ways in which notions of freedom are being re-made within the context of the present, and looking more precisely at the current threats to freedom, it will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, human rights and cultural sociology.
Liberty and Security
Author: Conor Gearty
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745669980
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108
Book Description
All aspire to liberty and security in their lives but few people truly enjoy them. This book explains why this is so. In what Conor Gearty calls our 'neo-democratic' world, the proclamation of universal liberty and security is mocked by facts on the ground: the vast inequalities in supposedly free societies, the authoritarian regimes with regular elections, and the terrible socio-economic deprivation camouflaged by cynically proclaimed commitments to human rights. Gearty's book offers an explanation of how this has come about, providing also a criticism of the present age which tolerates it. He then goes on to set out a manifesto for a better future, a place where liberty and security can be rich platforms for everyone's life. The book identifies neo-democracies as those places which play at democracy so as to disguise the injustice at their core. But it is not just the new 'democracies' that have turned 'neo', the so-called established democracies are also hurtling in the same direction, as is the United Nations. A new vision of universal freedom is urgently required. Drawing on scholarship in law, human rights and political science this book argues for just such a vision, one in which the great achievements of our democratic past are not jettisoned as easily as were the socialist ideals of the original democracy-makers.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745669980
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108
Book Description
All aspire to liberty and security in their lives but few people truly enjoy them. This book explains why this is so. In what Conor Gearty calls our 'neo-democratic' world, the proclamation of universal liberty and security is mocked by facts on the ground: the vast inequalities in supposedly free societies, the authoritarian regimes with regular elections, and the terrible socio-economic deprivation camouflaged by cynically proclaimed commitments to human rights. Gearty's book offers an explanation of how this has come about, providing also a criticism of the present age which tolerates it. He then goes on to set out a manifesto for a better future, a place where liberty and security can be rich platforms for everyone's life. The book identifies neo-democracies as those places which play at democracy so as to disguise the injustice at their core. But it is not just the new 'democracies' that have turned 'neo', the so-called established democracies are also hurtling in the same direction, as is the United Nations. A new vision of universal freedom is urgently required. Drawing on scholarship in law, human rights and political science this book argues for just such a vision, one in which the great achievements of our democratic past are not jettisoned as easily as were the socialist ideals of the original democracy-makers.
Principles in Power
Author: Vanessa Walker
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501752685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
Vanessa Walker's Principles in Power explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the United States government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights policies uniquely critical of U.S. power during the Cold War. Walker shows that the new human rights policies of the 1970s were based on a complex dynamic of domestic and foreign considerations that was rife with tensions between the seats of power in the United States and Latin America, and the growing activist movement that sought to reform them. By addressing the development of U.S. diplomacy and politics alongside that of activist networks, especially in Chile and Argentina, Walker shows that Latin America was central to the policy assumptions that shaped the Carter administration's foreign policy agenda. The coup that ousted the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, sparked new human rights advocacy as a direct result of U.S. policies that supported authoritarian regimes in the name of Cold War security interests. From 1973 onward, the attention of Washington and capitals around the globe turned to Latin America as the testing ground for the viability of a new paradigm for U.S. power. This approach, oriented around human rights, required collaboration among activists and state officials in places as diverse as Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Washington, DC. Principles in Power tells the complicated story of the potentials and limits of partnership between government and nongovernment actors. Analyzing how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, Walker explores the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501752685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
Vanessa Walker's Principles in Power explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the United States government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights policies uniquely critical of U.S. power during the Cold War. Walker shows that the new human rights policies of the 1970s were based on a complex dynamic of domestic and foreign considerations that was rife with tensions between the seats of power in the United States and Latin America, and the growing activist movement that sought to reform them. By addressing the development of U.S. diplomacy and politics alongside that of activist networks, especially in Chile and Argentina, Walker shows that Latin America was central to the policy assumptions that shaped the Carter administration's foreign policy agenda. The coup that ousted the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, sparked new human rights advocacy as a direct result of U.S. policies that supported authoritarian regimes in the name of Cold War security interests. From 1973 onward, the attention of Washington and capitals around the globe turned to Latin America as the testing ground for the viability of a new paradigm for U.S. power. This approach, oriented around human rights, required collaboration among activists and state officials in places as diverse as Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Washington, DC. Principles in Power tells the complicated story of the potentials and limits of partnership between government and nongovernment actors. Analyzing how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, Walker explores the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy.
The Last Utopia
Author: Samuel Moyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Affluence and Freedom
Author: Pierre Charbonnier
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509543732
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509543732
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.
Gender, Alterity and Human Rights
Author: Ratna Kapur
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788112539
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 468
Book Description
Human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. Yet more rights for women, sexual and religious minorities, has had disempowering and exclusionary effects. Revisiting campaigns for same-sex marriage, violence against women, and Islamic veil bans, Gender, Alterity and Human Rights lays bare how human rights emerge as a project of containment and unfreedom rather than meaningful freedom. Kapur provocatively argues that the futurity of human rights rests in turning away from liberal freedom and towards non-liberal registers of freedom.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788112539
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 468
Book Description
Human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. Yet more rights for women, sexual and religious minorities, has had disempowering and exclusionary effects. Revisiting campaigns for same-sex marriage, violence against women, and Islamic veil bans, Gender, Alterity and Human Rights lays bare how human rights emerge as a project of containment and unfreedom rather than meaningful freedom. Kapur provocatively argues that the futurity of human rights rests in turning away from liberal freedom and towards non-liberal registers of freedom.
The Conservative Human Rights Revolution
Author: Marco Duranti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199811385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
This book reconsiders the origins of the European human rights system, arguing that its conservative inventors, foremost among them Winston Churchill, conceived of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a means of realizing a controversial political agenda and advancing a Christian vision of European identity.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199811385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
This book reconsiders the origins of the European human rights system, arguing that its conservative inventors, foremost among them Winston Churchill, conceived of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a means of realizing a controversial political agenda and advancing a Christian vision of European identity.
Pathologies of Power
Author: Paul Farmer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520243269
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
"Pathologies of Power" uses harrowing stories of life and death to argue thatthe promotion of social and economic rights of the poor is the most importanthuman rights struggle of our times.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520243269
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
"Pathologies of Power" uses harrowing stories of life and death to argue thatthe promotion of social and economic rights of the poor is the most importanthuman rights struggle of our times.
The Future of Human Rights
Author: Alison Brysk
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509520619
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
Human rights have fallen on hard times, yet they are more necessary than ever. People all over the world – from Amazonian villages to Iranian prisons – need human rights to gain recognition, campaign for justice, and save lives. But how can we secure a brighter future for human rights? What changes are required to confront the regime’s weaknesses and emerging global challenges? In this cutting-edge analysis, Alison Brysk sets out a pragmatic reformist agenda for human rights in the twenty-first century. Tracing problems and solutions through contemporary case studies – the plight of refugees, declining democracies such as Mexico and Turkey, the expansion of women’s rights, new norms for indigenous peoples, and rights regression in the USA – she shows that the dynamic strength of human rights lies in their evolving political practice. This distinctive vision demands that we build upon the gains of the human rights regime to construct new pathways which address historic rights gaps, from citizenship to security, from environmental protection to resurgent nationalism, and to globalization itself. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience as a leading human rights scholar and activist, The Future of Human Rights offers a broad and authoritative guide to the big questions in global human rights governance today.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509520619
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
Human rights have fallen on hard times, yet they are more necessary than ever. People all over the world – from Amazonian villages to Iranian prisons – need human rights to gain recognition, campaign for justice, and save lives. But how can we secure a brighter future for human rights? What changes are required to confront the regime’s weaknesses and emerging global challenges? In this cutting-edge analysis, Alison Brysk sets out a pragmatic reformist agenda for human rights in the twenty-first century. Tracing problems and solutions through contemporary case studies – the plight of refugees, declining democracies such as Mexico and Turkey, the expansion of women’s rights, new norms for indigenous peoples, and rights regression in the USA – she shows that the dynamic strength of human rights lies in their evolving political practice. This distinctive vision demands that we build upon the gains of the human rights regime to construct new pathways which address historic rights gaps, from citizenship to security, from environmental protection to resurgent nationalism, and to globalization itself. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience as a leading human rights scholar and activist, The Future of Human Rights offers a broad and authoritative guide to the big questions in global human rights governance today.