Human Rights and Social Movements

Neil Stammers

Description

This book champions social movements as one of the most influential agents that shape our conceptions of human rights.



It argues that human rights cannot be understood outside of the context of social movement struggles. It explains how much of the literature on human rights has systematically obscured this link, consequently distorting our understandings of human rights.



Neil Stammers shows how human rights can be understood. He suggests that what he calls the 'paradox of institutionalisation' can only be addressed through a recognition of the importance of human rights arising out of grassroots activism, and through processes of institutional democratisation.
Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Introduction

1. Getting Beyond the Hall of Mirrors

2. The 'Sociality' Of Natural Rights

3. The Lost Nineteenth Century

4. The Paradox of Institutionalisation

5. New Movements? Old Wrongs?

6. Expressive and Instrumental Dimensions of Movement Activism

7. Analyses of Globalisation and Human Rights

8. Renewing the Challenge to Power

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Political Freedom
• Human Rights
• Political Science

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783713967
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Human Rights and Social Movements
 
 
 
 
Human Rights and Social Movements
NEIL STAMMERS
 
 
 
 
 
First published 2009 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Neil Stammers 2009
The right of Neil Stammers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN    978 0 7453 2912 3    Hardback
ISBN    978 0 7453 2911 6    Paperback
ISBN    978 1 8496 4429 7    PDF eBook
ISBN    978 1 7837 1397 4    Kindle eBook
ISBN    978 1 7837 1396 7    EPUB eBook
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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. The paper may contain up to 70 per cent post-consumer waste.
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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Sidmouth, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
 
 
 
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Introduction
1
Getting Beyond the Hall of Mirrors
 
The Hall of Mirrors
 
Rediscovering Creative Movement Praxis
2
The ‘Sociality’ of Natural Rights
 
Natural Rights in the Hall of Mirrors
 
Social Movement Praxis in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
3
The Lost Nineteenth Century
 
Understanding and Explaining Absence
 
The Rise of Workers’ and Socialist Movements
 
At The Heart of The Nineteenth Century: Struggles for Self-Determination
4
The Paradox of Institutionalisation
 
Institutions and Institutionalisation
 
The Institutionalisation of Particularity
 
The Institutionalisation of Universality
 
The Paradox and Human Rights Activism
5
New Movements? Old Wrongs?
 
Conceptualising ‘New Social Movements’
 
Re-Opening the Analysis and Critique of Power
 
Five Sites of Power and ‘Old Wrongs’
 
Ageing and Resurgence
6
Expressive and Instrumental Dimensions of Movement Activism
 
Locating the Expressive Dimension
 
From ‘Interests’ to ‘Identities’
 
From Identity to Recognition
 
The Expressive/Instrumental Dynamic
7
Analyses of Globalisation and Human Rights
 
On Globalisation
 
Human Rights as Globalisation
 
The Rise of a ‘Movement of Movements’?
8
Renewing the Challenge to Power
 
The Contemporary Crises of Human Rights
 
Re-orienting Creative Human Rights Praxis
 
Human Rights and Institutional Democratisation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 
 
 
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1
Actors, agency, structures … and power
Figure 1.2
Analysing ‘the social’
Figure 1.3
Movements straddling the institutional and everyday worlds
Figure 5.1
Contrast between ‘new movements’ and ‘workers’ movements’ (Scott 1990)
Figure 6.1
Formal rationality and the paradox of institutionalisation
 
 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has been a long time in the making and draws much from experiences outside and beyond an academic environment. In particular, many years of working in, and helping to manage, a range of non-governmental organisations concerned with rights, homelessness, welfare and housing in my home town have importantly informed this study. So it is right to begin these acknowledgements with a big thank you to users and colleagues of Brighton Housing Trust, Brighton Law Centre and Brighton Rights Advice Centre.
Though seemingly an age away now, my doctoral research was on civil liberties in Britain during the Second World War and I now realise that the seeds for this study were in some ways sown then, when I was unable to find satisfactory pre-existing theoretical frameworks through which my research could be adequately presented. So thanks to Bob Benewick and John Dearlove for all their support in those early years and subsequently. From 1989 to 2005 I worked in the Politics Department at the University of Sussex. Innumerable discussions with students, friends and colleagues both in the department and the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies have helped to shape important aspects of this project. Particular thanks go to students and faculty involved with the graduate programmes in Human Rights and in Social and Political Thought.
While work on this book was under way I was also lucky enough to be involved with the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability at the Institute of Development Studies led by John Gaventa. I gained some important insights and met some great people through my involvement with this Centre. Special thanks go to Celestine Nyamu-Musembi, Research Fellow at the Institute, for her consistent encouragement and support for this project. Many others have also offered me inspiration, support and encouragement for this project over the years. Amongst these, Christien van den Anker, Amy Bartholomew, Gurminder Bhambra, Jane Cowan, Marie Dembour, Tony Evans, Anna Grear, Beate Jahn, Zdenek Kavan, Jenneth Parker and Justin Rosenberg all have a special place.
I was also very lucky to have a group of friends and colleagues who were willing to comment on my work as it was going along. Marie Dembour and Zdenek Kavan both unflinchingly waded through draft chapters offering the constructive criticism that is so invaluable and necessary to anyone endeavouring to write. Then Gurminder Bhambra, Emily Haslam, Jenneth Parker, Rob Raeburn, and Zdenek Kavan all went through the completed manuscript providing vital feedback on a range of issues great and small. I must say another word or two about Zdenek Kavan here. With remarkable patience and good grace, especially when I refused to heed his advice, he has sustained his interest and engagement throughout. Truly help beyond words.
Clearly, this book is much better for all the help, comments and advice I have received, but the usual indemnity applies: weaknesses, mistakes and failures are my responsibility alone.
My partner Teresa Harris has seen the process from beginning to end, putting up with some of those strange habits writers engage in – in my case, for example, jumping out of bed at an unearthly hour to make a note about some point which seemed so crucial at the time. Despite such habits, she has offered me unswerving support and helped to keep me grounded in the world. The importance of this latter point can hardly be overestimated.
 
 
 
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
CRC
Convention on the Rights of the Child
DFID
Department for International Development
GA
Globalisation from above
GB
Globalisation from below
FoEI
Friends of the Earth International
INGO
International non-governmental organisation
(I)NGO
This acronym is used to mean international nongovernmental organisation and/or non-governmental organisation. I use the more familiar acronyms NGO or INGO where I want to be more specific
LGBT
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
OHCHR
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
MAI
Multilateral Agreement on Investment
NGO
Non governmental organisation
NSM
New Social Movement
TSMO
Transnational social movement organisation
UNDHR
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
WSF
World Social Forum
WTO
World Trade Organisation
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION
This book explores the analytical significance of the historical link between human rights and social movements, arguing that ordinary people – working together in social movements – have always been a key originating source of human rights. The approach taken here contrasts starkly with other approaches that claim the meaningful origins of human rights are to be found in philosophy or law. As a consequence, this book also tries to identify the contours of a framework through which the potentials and limits of human rights might be better and more effectively assessed.
Given the millions of words written about human rights worldwide each year, the first instinct of many readers might be to wonder whether anything novel could possibly be said on the subject. Yet, because the significance of the link between human rights and social movements remains largely unexplored in the specialist academic literature on human rights, such an investigation is sorely needed – not only for understanding human rights in the world today but also for interrogating other key areas, for example, around power, globalisation, democracy, participation and, last but not least, contemporary forms of institutions and institutionalisation.
Prior to the mid-1990s, any reference at all to a connection between human rights and social movements was a rarity. One exception was Stuart Scheingold’s (2005) The Politics of Rights , first published in 1974. Occasionally the odd comment might be made (for example, Weston, 1992), but generally the literature on human rights ignored social movements altogether. The last decade has witnessed the beginnings of a shift, with some well-known scholars at least acknowledging a historical connection between social movements and human rights. From positions avowedly rooted in the liberal tradition, Michael Ignatieff (2001) has brought social movements close to centre stage in his recent account of Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry and the second edition of Jack Donnelly’s (2003) Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice gives significantly more attention to so