Civil Society and Japanese PoliticsGender and Human Rights Politics in Japan: Global Norms and Domestic Networks. By Jennifer Chan-Tiberghien. (Stanford University Press, 2004.)Constructing Civil Society in Japan: Voices of Environmental Movements. By Koichi Hasegawa. (TransPacfic Press, 2004.)Japan's Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century. By Jeff Kingston. (Routledge Curzon, 2004.)

2006 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 465-467
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Aldrich
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
First Century ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Environmental Movements ◽  
Global Norms ◽  
Twenty First Century

The Integral Humanism of Mahatma

1998 ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Geeta S. Mehta
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Free Will ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Societal Development ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Twenty First Century

Humanism as a theistic, pragmatic theory was first conceived around 2000 BCE in India. It is a this-worldly, human-centered, secular philosophical outlook. Gandhi understands religion as connoting the individual’s integrity and society’s solidarity. Free-will for him is freedom of the "rational self." Morality is not a matter of outward conformity, but of inward fulfillment. His integral humanism is indicated by his enumerated seven social sins: (1) politics without principles; (2) wealth without work; (3) commerce without morality; (4) knowledge without character; (5) pleasure without conscience; (6) science without morality; and (7) worship without sacrifice. The eleven vows recited in his Ášrama prayer began with Truth and Non-Violence as foundational for the integration of moral, social, political and economic values. Non-Violence should be a creed rather than a policy. Gandhi’s Truth meant freedom of self-actualization for societal development. He fulfilled these two principal themes of humanism in the civic function of religion and religious tolerance which aimed at evolving moral individuals in moral societies. "The twenty-first century should bring a synthesis of science and spirituality, socialism with human rights, social-change with nonviolence. And this is Gandhi."

Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
First Century ◽  
World Population ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Relative Share ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

The world faces significant and interrelated challenges in the twenty-first century which threaten human rights in a number of ways. This book examines the relationship between human rights and three of the largest challenges of the twenty-first century: conflict and security, environment, and poverty. Technological advances in fighting wars have led to the introduction of new weapons which threaten to transform the very nature of conflict. In addition, states confront threats to security which arise from a new set of international actors not clearly defined and which operate globally. Climate change, with its potentially catastrophic impacts, features a combination of characteristics which are novel for humanity. The problem is caused by the sum of innumerable individual actions across the globe and over time, and similarly involves risks that are geographically and temporally diffuse. In recent decades, the challenges involved in addressing global and national poverty have also changed. For example, the relative share of the poor in the world population has decreased significantly while the relative share of the poor who live in countries with significant domestic capacity has increased strongly. Overcoming these global and interlocking threats constitutes this century’s core political and moral task. This book examines how these challenges may be addressed using a human rights framework. It considers how these challenges threaten human rights and seeks to reassess our understanding of human rights in the light of these challenges. The analysis considers both foundational and applied questions. The approach is multidisciplinary and contributors include some of the most prominent lawyers, philosophers, and political theorists in the debate. The authors not only include leading academics but also those who have played important roles in shaping the policy debates on these questions. Each Part includes contributions by those who have served as Special Rapporteurs within the United Nations human rights system on the challenges under consideration.

3D-printed Futures of Manufacturing, Social Change and Technological Innovation in China and Singapore: The Ghost of a Massless Future?

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Heemsbergen ◽  
Angela Daly ◽  
Jiajie Lu ◽  
Thomas Birtchnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
3D Printing ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
First Century ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Law And Technology ◽  
3D Printed ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Political Economic

This article outlines preliminary findings from a futures forecasting exercise where participants in Shenzhen and Singapore considered the socio-technological construction of 3D printing in terms of work and social change. We offered participants ideal political-economic futures across local–global knowledge and capital–commons dimensions, and then had them backcast the contextual waypoints across markets, culture, policy, law and technology dimensions that help guide towards each future. Their discussion identified various contextually sensitive points, but also tended to dismiss the farthest reaches of each proposed ideal, often reverting to familiar contextual signifiers. Here, we offer discussion on how participants saw culture and industry shaping futures for pertinent political economic concerns in the twenty-first century.

The Persecuted Body

Facing Fear ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melani Mcalister
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
First Century ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Evangelical Christians ◽  
The World ◽  
Politics Of Fear ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
International Religious Freedom Act ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the politics of fear underlying the antipersecution discourse that revolved around evangelical Christians at the turn of the twenty-first century. A video made by the U.S.-based Christian evangelical group Voice of the Martyrs showed that Christians are being persecuted all around the world. By the turn of the twenty-first century, a passionate concern with the persecution of Christians united conservatives as well as liberal and moderate evangelicals. The chapter shows how antipersecution discourse resulted in the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. It also considers the significance of spectacles of the violated body to the discourse of persecution and how intense attention to Christian persecution created a tension for evangelicals between the universalizing language of human rights and a specific commitment to the “persecuted body” of Christ. Finally, it explores how evangelicals' attention to Christian persecution intersects with Islamic concerns.

Contemporary Issues

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tolan ◽  
Gilles Veinstein ◽  
Henry Laurens
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
First Century ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent States ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Newly Independent States

This chapter chronicles the struggles of the Muslim world and Europe during World War II as well as its aftermath. It shows how the war had helped to end European rule and begin the process of decolonization for Muslim nations such as Libya. And with the Muslim state now independent of direct European domination, the second half of the chapter explores the ways in which the Muslim world tackled the issue of development as well as a fresh wave of problems regarding human rights, universality, and other pitfalls of newly independent states struggling to survive in a world that has changed profoundly after a series of major conflicts. The chapter also reflects on the still-intertwined relationships between the Muslim world and Europe as history progresses into the twenty-first century.

Torture and the Norm against It

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
William L. d'Ambruoso
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
First Century ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Twenty First Century

Why has torture persisted into the twenty-first century despite long-standing normative and legal prohibitions? Especially strange is torture’s occurrence at the hands of liberal democracies, which are supposed to uphold human rights. Perhaps we should not be surprised by democratic hypocrisy in war—realists and rational choice theorists expect all states to violate norms if doing so holds instrumental promise. Yet torture is likely to yield inaccurate intelligence, harm valuable detainees’ memories, stress interrogators, invite retaliation, and encourage the enemy to fight on rather than surrender. In short, torture is both ethically and efficaciously questionable—and its recurrence is puzzling.

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 223-230
Author(s):  
Bai Guimei
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Cultural Setting ◽  
Chinese Perspective

This comment on the contribution by Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin focuses on three apparent antinomies of women’s rights: margin–mainstream, specialist–generalist, and family–individual. Adding a Chinese perspective to these discussions, the comment highlights the importance of choice of terminology in a particular cultural setting. It also questions the positioning of actors in terms of centre–periphery and shows how various actors can work across limits and perceived locations. Going beyond the discussions in UN bodies, the comment emphasizes the local social contexts and persisting stereotypes that need to be at the centre of social change. This requires a translation of international normative endeavours into local public and private spheres of civil society, economy, and government.

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