The Impact of Indonesia’s 2019 Presidential Campaign on the Human Rights Movement: Narrow Solidarity versus Affinity

This chapter looks at the impact of the Internet on the worldwide human rights movement, and examines the opportunities and pitfalls of the technology and its applications for human rights organisations. It argues that the technology is a useful tool in nongovernmental efforts toward worldwide compliance with human rights norms despite the new challenges it presents for human rights defenders and activists, particularly in the South. Conceptualising the movement as a collection of issue-based social submovements, it draws on social movement literature and examples from Africa to describe how the technology and its applications benefit the movement in six key areas of activity. The promises, pitfalls, and difficulties of Internet usage are discussed, with particular emphasis on censorship, surveillance and privacy, and the challenges they pose for human rights activists operating in a digital environment.

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State Funding for Human Rights Activism: Channeling Protest?

American Behavioral Scientist ◽

10.1177/0002764217744133 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (13) ◽

pp. 1703-1728 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Dominique Clément

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Social Movements ◽

Public Funding ◽

State Funding ◽

Private Funding ◽

Data Set ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

Comprehensive Survey ◽

Channeling Effect ◽

The Impact

Channeling theory posits that external funding for social movements, rather than coopting activism, channels activism into more structured and less militants forms. Studies on channeling, however, focus on private funding. The following article examines whether public funding has a comparable effect on social movements. Using the human rights movement in Canada as a case study, it examines several issues relating to channeling: why funders support activism; funding as social control or altruism; how funding is related to consolidating movement gains; and the impact of funding on mobilization, activism, and internal movement dynamics. To address these questions, this article draws on an innovative new data set that includes lists of grants extracted from more than 30 years of government budgets in Canada. It also draws on several years of archival research on a network of 19 organizations in every region of Canada, as well as interviews with former members of these organizations. In addition to demonstrating that public funding has a comparable channeling effect as private funding, this article provides the first comprehensive survey of the extent of state funding for the human rights movement in Canada.

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From Above and Below

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414093026003001 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 259-285 ◽

Cited By ~ 116

Author(s):

ALISON BRYSK

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International System ◽

Critical Role ◽

International Human Rights ◽

International Response ◽

Human Rights Regime ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

Protection Of Human Rights ◽

Affective Information ◽

The Impact

What role does the international system play in amplifying the impact of domestic social movements on social change? The Argentine human rights movement reached the international system through the projection of cognitive and affective information—persuasion. International response was facilitated by the international human rights regime, and transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played a critical role. This challenge from above and below did have a clear impact on the target government and the development of broader mechanisms for the protection of human rights—even under the most severe conditions of repression and powerlessness.

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The Human Rights Movement Against Apartheid South Africa: The Impact of Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions

Waterloo Historical Review ◽

10.15353/whr.v8.74 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Author(s):

Colin Wintle

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Human Rights ◽

The United States ◽

Grassroots Organizations ◽

Institutionalized Racism ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

Apartheid Regime ◽

The Impact

This paper focuses on the development of the anti-apartheid movement and the role of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions in bringing down the apartheid regime of South Africa. It first establishes the anti-apartheid movement as a human rights movement, fighting against institutionalized racism as a human rights violation. It then analyzes the movement’s development from disorganized and disconnected, to professional and universal. Focusing mainly on the developments within the United States and the United Kingdom, the movement can be seen as developing within government institutions as well as grassroots organizations. The implementation of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions by the movement are analyzed individually through specific examples. The impact of these campaigns collectively was very substantial in causing discontent within South Africa, leading to a fall in support for apartheid from within the state. The paper concludes that it was the combined efforts of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions to infiltrate South Africa socially, economically, and politically that truly brought an end to apartheid.

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Human Rights on the March: Repression, Oppression, and Protest in Latin America

International Studies Quarterly ◽

10.1093/isq/sqz083 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

James C Franklin

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Latin America ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

Latin American ◽

Justice System ◽

Political Repression ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

The Impact ◽

Latin American Countries

Abstract This research examines the impact of human rights protests on human rights abuses in seven Latin American countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. I find that protests focused broadly on human rights are associated with significant declines in human rights abuses, controlling for important factors from previous studies. Furthermore, I argue that it is important to distinguish political repression (abuses that target political activists) from coercive state oppression, which has nonpolitical targets. These two types of abuses respond to different factors, but broadly focused human rights protests are found to decrease both types of abuses. I argue further that a strong human rights movement, indicated by frequent human rights protests, discourages the police abuses associated with oppression by raising the likelihood of accountability for such abuses, including by improving the likelihood of reforms to the criminal justice system.

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Human Rights Movements and the Internet

Information Communication Technologies ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-949-6.ch192 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 2682-2707

Author(s):

John Lannon ◽

Edward Halpin

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Social Movement ◽

Internet Usage ◽

The Internet ◽

Digital Environment ◽

The South ◽

Human Rights Movement ◽

New Challenges ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

The Impact

This chapter looks at the impact of the Internet on the worldwide human rights movement, and examines the opportunities and pitfalls of the technology and its applications for human rights organisations. It argues that the technology is a useful tool in nongovernmental efforts toward worldwide compliance with human rights norms despite the new challenges it presents for human rights defenders and activists, particularly in the South. Conceptualising the movement as a collection of issue-based social submovements, it draws on social movement literature and examples from Africa to describe how the technology and its applications benefit the movement in six key areas of activity. The promises, pitfalls, and difficulties of Internet usage are discussed, with particular emphasis on censorship, surveillance and privacy, and the challenges they pose for human rights activists operating in a digital environment.

Download Full-text