The Mass Appeal of Human Rights

187 Pages·2019·2.1 MB·English

by  Joel R. Pruce

HUMAN RIGHTS INTERVENTIONS
JOEL R. THE MASS APPEAL
PRUCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Human Rights Interventions
Series Editors
Chiseche Mibenge
Stanford University
Stanford, CA, USA
Irene Hadiprayitno
Leiden University
Leiden, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands
The traditional human rights frame creates a paradigm by which the duty
bearer’s (state) and rights holder’s (civil society organizations) interests
collide over the limits of enjoyment and enforcement. The series departs
from the paradigm by centering peripheral yet powerful actors that agi-
tate for intervention and influence in the (re)shaping of rights discourse
in the midst of grave insecurities. The series privileges a call and response
between theoretical inquiry and empirical investigation as contributors
critically assess human rights interventions mediated by spatial, temporal,
geopolitical and other dimensions. An interdisciplinary dialogue is key as
the editors encourage multiple approaches such as law and society, politi-
cal economy, historiography, legal ethnography, feminist security studies,
and multi-media.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15595
Joel R. Pruce
The Mass Appeal
of Human Rights
Joel R. Pruce
Department of Political Science
University of Dayton
Dayton, OH, USA
Human Rights Interventions
ISBN 978-3-319-92074-0 ISBN 978-3-319-92075-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92075-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942208
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To Heather Anne, forevermore.
P
reface
When you work on a project for long enough, the present becomes the
past and the past becomes the distant past. But the future remains the
future and only once we cross over into the future do we approach a
position from which we can proffer a sober assessment; just as Hegel and
his owl suggest. This project always felt to me that it was of the pres-
ent, a critical examination of a phenomenon that was all around us, in
the headlines and in our news feeds. Now that I’ve completed it, I am
increasingly curious whether what I’ve prepared here is a time capsule of
a period in the rearview rather than a snapshot out my window.1
I grew up in human rights attending local chapter meetings of
Amnesty International. I formed a chapter in my New Jersey high school
and my college roommate and I ran our campus chapter. After college,
I moved to the West Coast and staked out an active chapter there, like
someone in recovery looking for a meeting. In graduate school, my study
of human rights deepened as did my skepticism of the enterprise. The
Save Darfur movement of 2004–2007 provoked me initially, transform-
ing my skepticism into suspicion. I finished the first iteration of this book
in 2012, when “Make Joseph Kony Famous” swept us off our feet—a
campaign that appeared as proof-of-concept for the argument I was
developing. Now, looking backward and forward, I wonder if anything
1 I’m indebted to an anonymous reviewer for Palgrave who brought this question to my
attention and challenged me to consider the passage of time.
vii
viii PREFACE
approximating the groundswell of energy behind Save Darfur or Kony
2012 will ever manifest again. Has human rights lost its mass appeal?
The work for this book began the week of President Obama’s inau-
guration, only to wrap in the second year of the Trump administra-
tion; a period pregnant with hope bookended by a wave of fear. It was
to be an era of recovery following the belligerent interventions of the
Bush administration, however sympathetic even he was to certain human
rights causes, including Darfur. Obama promised to right the ship of
state and re-orient American power behind liberal internationalist values.
But American power and will had grown tepid by this point, more so
than human rights advocates may have preferred. In crucial ways, it took
the human rights community over ten years to realize that the 1990s had
ended. In that time, the USA had squandered whatever moral currency
it may have had and encountered a soured world turning increasingly to
new sources of support and searching for alternative frameworks. Panned
as weak and dithering, Obama’s paralysis provided fertile ground for the
rise of Trump’s bellicose cries—a reaction to the failures of internation-
alism to extend and protect US interests. Not only were the 1990s over,
but finally the age of Jimmy Carter, the first post-cold war president, was
also slammed shut. The intervening period witnessed its share of mass
atrocities, but no mass movements. Syria, Myanmar, Central African
Republic, Yemen, and Mexico are only the most egregious horror shows
and despite condemnation, reporting, and efforts to mobilize, none took
hold of the hearts of advocates.
This book, in many ways, is about the USA because the USA, its cul-
ture, its society, and its politics, are the center of the global human rights
universe; which is a descriptive statement, not a normative one. As others
have argued, the prospects for transnational human rights advocacy rose
and fell with the US hegemon. Yet human rights have not, as still oth-
ers have argued, receded, or expired, but have taken new form and have
come to occupy new spaces. Regional networks gain strength. National
human rights institutions continue to spring up around the world,
including in post-conflict and transitional societies. Local movements fly
the flag in their confrontation with the increasingly hostile forces of pro-
vincialism and chauvinism. Human rights continues to be recontextual-
ized and re-articulated in the lives and struggles of marginalized groups.
This is equally true in the USA.
For instance, the collective demand that Black lives should matter
to police officers, before the criminal justice system, and in the eyes of
PREFACE ix
society at large is a declaration that African Americans be counted as
equals in the human family. Yes, “mattering” instructs that the subject
be treated with the respect due to any being with inherent dignity and
worth. No, all US movements for racial justice do not uniformly adopt
the human rights banner. But delegations representing critical communi-
ties, including from Ferguson and Chicago, have pursued accountability
through global human rights mechanisms, and these efforts signal the
persistent appeal of making internationalized rights-based claims. The
power of these initiatives may be even more acute, essential, and forth-
coming in an age of US decline and retrenchment.
As the Trump agenda rolled out, ugly and clumsy, impacted constitu-
encies came together, often working across identity groups to forge new
intersectional coalitions. Yes, there are fault lines and disagreements. No,
there is not consensus that human rights best captures the claim for every-
one in every instance. But the expression that “(fill-in-the-blank) Rights
are Human Rights” is a ubiquitous phrase on the placards of protestors as
the most basic request for recognition and I think that means something.
The energy, momentum, and sheer quantity of grassroots political activity
suggest that the demographics that may have previously been moved by a
transnational advocacy campaign for the human rights of distant strangers
are now focused on their local context and even on threats to their own
rights. The 2017 Women’s March is the clearest evidence of this possi-
bility and of the potential for a furious population to reclaim sovereignty
over its politics, even in an age of polarization and cynicism.
Human rights may be experiencing the same contraction as other
globalizing forces have exhibited but contraction for human rights does
not mean disappearance or death. Rather, human rights may become
reinterpreted and relocated in ways that can help secure their future.
Transnationalism could return at any time because all the tools and plat-
forms endure. The truly threatening proposition holds that if human
rights are reinvigorated by their resurgence at the local and national lev-
els, then new transnational advocacy networks may emerge with deeper
roots and more forceful resolve. Until that future materializes, we can
look back on the mass appeal of human rights as a manufactured symp-
tom of a moment when ordinary people genuinely believed they could
change the world.
Dayton, OH, USA Joel R. Pruce
April 2018
a
cknowledgements
This book is the product of years of conversations, debates, questions,
elevator pitches, and self-doubt. While all the empirical mistakes and
errors in judgment are my own, I have benefited tremendously from
relationships with many people. Stephen Eric Bronner is my earliest
intellectual inspiration and mentor. Micheline Ishay challenged me to
think critically and dialectically. Jack Donnelly guided me with his pre-
cise style. Roger Haydon pushed me to write more assertively and ded-
icated significant effort to improving this project. I am also indebted to
colleagues and friends who provided input and support along the way:
George Andreopolous, Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat, Tristan Anne Borer,
Alexandra C. Budabin, Natalie F. Hudson, Rachael Liberman, Jonathan
Moyer, Grant Neeley, Marilyn Pruce, James Ron, Marc Ross, and Daniel
J. Whelan.
This book is dedicated to Heather Atkinson who epitomizes why writ-
ers—particularly academic writers—thank their partners. This book is
unimaginable without her. Heather has been my pep-talker, cheerleader,
and champion from the beginning: defending my dissertation, adopting
our dog, taking my first job, getting married, moving across the country
for a second job, buying our first home, having our two children, Wyatt
and Daisy, and now publishing this book. Everything is due to her and I
am grateful, forevermore.
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