A Discussion of Kathryn Sikkink's Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 816-817
Author(s):  
Samuel Moyn

Since their emergence in the late eighteenth century, doctrines of universal individual rights have been variously criticized as philosophically confused, politically inefficacious, ideologically particular, and Eurocentric. Nevertheless, today the discourse of universal human rights is more internationally widespread and influential than ever. In Evidence for Hope, leading international relations scholar Kathryn Sikkink argues that this is because human rights laws and institutions work. Sikkink rejects the notion that human rights are a Western imposition and points to a wide range of evidence that she claims demonstrates the effectiveness of human rights in bringing about a world that is appreciably improved in many ways from what it was previously. We have invited a broad range of scholars to assess Sikkink’s challenging claims.

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 818-819
Author(s):  
Alison Brysk

Since their emergence in the late eighteenth century, doctrines of universal individual rights have been variously criticized as philosophically confused, politically inefficacious, ideologically particular, and Eurocentric. Nevertheless, today the discourse of universal human rights is more internationally widespread and influential than ever. In Evidence for Hope, leading international relations scholar Kathryn Sikkink argues that this is because human rights laws and institutions work. Sikkink rejects the notion that human rights are a Western imposition and points to a wide range of evidence that she claims demonstrates the effectiveness of human rights in bringing about a world that is appreciably improved in many ways from what it was previously. We have invited a broad range of scholars to assess Sikkink’s challenging claims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 810-811
Author(s):  
Courtney Hillebrecht

Since their emergence in the late eighteenth century, doctrines of universal individual rights have been variously criticized as philosophically confused, politically inefficacious, ideologically particular, and Eurocentric. Nevertheless, today the discourse of universal human rights is more internationally widespread and influential than ever. In Evidence for Hope, leading international relations scholar Kathryn Sikkink argues that this is because human rights laws and institutions work. Sikkink rejects the notion that human rights are a Western imposition and points to a wide range of evidence that she claims demonstrates the effectiveness of human rights in bringing about a world that is appreciably improved in many ways from what it was previously. We have invited a broad range of scholars to assess Sikkink’s challenging claims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 812-813
Author(s):  
Stephen Hopgood

Since their emergence in the late eighteenth century, doctrines of universal individual rights have been variously criticized as philosophically confused, politically inefficacious, ideologically particular, and Eurocentric. Nevertheless, today the discourse of universal human rights is more internationally widespread and influential than ever. In Evidence for Hope, leading international relations scholar Kathryn Sikkink argues that this is because human rights laws and institutions work. Sikkink rejects the notion that human rights are a Western imposition and points to a wide range of evidence that she claims demonstrates the effectiveness of human rights in bringing about a world that is appreciably improved in many ways from what it was previously. We have invited a broad range of scholars to assess Sikkink’s challenging claims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 814-815
Author(s):  
Emilie Hafner-Burton

Since their emergence in the late eighteenth century, doctrines of universal individual rights have been variously criticized as philosophically confused, politically inefficacious, ideologically particular, and Eurocentric. Nevertheless, today the discourse of universal human rights is more internationally widespread and influential than ever. In Evidence for Hope, leading international relations scholar Kathryn Sikkink argues that this is because human rights laws and institutions work. Sikkink rejects the notion that human rights are a Western imposition and points to a wide range of evidence that she claims demonstrates the effectiveness of human rights in bringing about a world that is appreciably improved in many ways from what it was previously. We have invited a broad range of scholars to assess Sikkink’s challenging claims.


Author(s):  
J. C. D. Clark

The changing fortunes of democracy and of rights discourse in the present have provoked the concern that ‘History is not turning out as intended’. Such changing fortunes call for renewed attention to the ‘age of revolution’ and a reconsideration of its conventional historiography. Universalism must now be balanced against particularism. Paine helps that analysis, and also sheds light on the unexplained contradiction in recent historiography between a late eighteenth century dominated by natural rights and Enlightenment discourse, and an early nineteenth dominated by utilitarianism and socialism. The long-term trajectories of natural rights theory and republicanism, especially, now demand reconsideration. Paine’s age did not see a transition from particularist legal right to universal human rights, and into the twentieth century universalizing rights language seldom provided a stable intellectual foundation for proliferating republics. Merely pragmatic reinterpretations of Paine’s ‘representative system’ contribute to blighting the democratic potential of many republics.


Author(s):  
Mika LaVaque-Manty

This chapter traces some of the conceptual history from the late eighteenth century, when arguments about equal, intrinsic, and universal human dignity became politically important, to the mid-twentieth century, when the idea of universal human dignity was enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The chapter argues that this universalization process primarily took place in the nineteenth century, in political controversies around gender, race, and labor. The chapter argues that a particular Christian conception about the dignity of labor, expressed by Pope Leo XII, helped cement the value of inherent human dignity while at the same time weakening its more radical political potential.


2019 ◽  
pp. 203-219
Author(s):  
David Collings

Inheriting longstanding norms that require reciprocation between the living and the dead, the Gothic interprets the cultural shifts of the late eighteenth century as a breach in such reciprocation, a breach that it hopes to address through its own account of symbolic exchange. In a wide range of scenarios - ghost tales, stories of sexual transgression, accounts of unborn and undead figures - it proposes that a body, a corpse, or a sexually active individual is inexplicable, out of place, haunting, until it receives the status of human being through a symbolic act. In some tales, it even provides counterfactual narratives of interchanges with supernatural figures - Satan, Dracula - to conceive of how symbolic exchange with the inhuman might cut across, replicate, or disturb human reciprocation. The Gothic thus attempts to redress the conditions of a certain modernity by calling upon -- and theorizing -- the fundamental imperatives of symbolic exchange.


Author(s):  
Simon Bainbridge

This chapter traces mountaineering’s evolution from one-off ascents, usually undertaken for a specific utilitarian purpose, into a leisure pursuit participated in by an increasingly large section of society. It examines how the practice of climbing developed out of three cultures that were well established in late eighteenth-century Britain: scientific research, antiquarianism, and picturesque travel. Investigating a wide range of writing from these three cultures (with key texts including Horace Bénédict de Saussure’s Voyages dans les Alpes, Thomas Pennant’s Journey to Snowdon, and Thomas West’s A Guide to the Lakes), the chapter shows how the summit became appreciated for the role it played in these pursuits, as an elevated viewing station, an observatory, a source of scientific specimens, and even as an outdoor laboratory.


2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-193
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ford

Although Bernardin's correspondence spans most of his adult life and involves a wide range of correspondents and subject matter, there is a marked increase in the number of correspondents and frequency of correspondence from the time he begins to enjoy real literary success. Indeed, the relationship between the reading and writing of letters and the writing and reading of Bernardin's published works is a close and multi-faceted one. The focus for this article is the correspondence between Bernardin and Mme de Genlis, one of the most significant literary figures in Bernardin's correspondence network. Their correspondence casts light on Bernardin's place in late eighteenth-century literary and cultural life and his developing identity as an author. Bernardin's correspondence with Mme de Genlis helps him to deal with practical issues surrounding the publication of his works, and to explore the moral and ethical implications of authorship; but it also reveals the difficulties inherent in the act of correspondence itself.


Author(s):  
Ivona Kollárová

Through a wide range of sources, this study reveals the non-philosophical spread of the ideas of Immanuel Kant in the Slovak regions of Hungary. The flow of philosophical ideas can be demonstrated not only in the works of the Hungarian followers of Kant, but also in censorship sources documenting the import of Kantian texts in the 1790s. The critical debates in correspondences and published texts reveal anti-Kantian argumentations. Information about the advertisements of Kant’s works and subscriptions to them also help form an idea about their popularity. Research on private albums reveals how the philosophical legacy circulated, despite bans and repressions, in non-public communication networks and how its social area extended beyond the sphere of philosophy and education.


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