Human rights ideology and dimensions of power: A radical approach to the state, property, and discrimination

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 906-932

  Arat, Zehra F Kabasakal ^a  

^a STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CAPITALISM; DEMOCRACY; HUMAN RIGHTS; IDEOLOGY; WELFARE PROVISION;

EID: 65749305696     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.0.0037     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. "Ideology" has been attributed different meanings, including utopian notions, false consciousness, and the study of the formation of ideas. For various definitions, see MOSTAFA REJAI, POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES: A Comparative Approach (1991)
2. John Gerring, Ideology: A Definitional Analysis, 50 POL. RES. Q. 957 (1997)
3. Terrel Carver, Ideology: The Career of a Concept, in IDEALS AND IDEOLOGIES: A READER 3-13 (Terence Ball & Richard Dagger eds., 5th ed. 2004)
4. Terence Ball & RICHARD DAGGER, POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES AND THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL 4-11 (2006).
5. Relying upon human beings as agents of change, political ideologies differ also from religions, which are also powerful belief systems. Of course, some religions emerged as a critique of the world to which they were introduced and demanded change. However, the significance attached to the divine will in most religions tends to limit the human agency. The notion of afterlife and eternal salvation may even work to prevent change. Limited human agency, however, does not mean lack of it; religions are frequently politicized, and they serve ideological purposes both to mobilize and pacify people. BALL & DAGGER, POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES, supra note 1.
6. JOHN WILSON, INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (1974)
7. Rejai, supra note 1
8. Pamela Oliver & Hank Johnston, What a Good Idea! Frames and Ideologies in Social Movement Research, 5 MOBILIZATION 37 (2000)
9. Mayer N. Zald, Ideologically Structured Action: An Enlarged Agenda for Social Movement Research, 5 MOBILIZATION 1 (2000).
10. THE GLOBALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (Jean-Marc Coicaud, Michael W. Doyle, & Anne-Marie Gardner eds., 2003)
11. MARGARET E. KECK & KATHRYN SIKKINK, ACTIVISTS BEYOND BOARDERS: ADVOCACY NETWORKS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS (1998).
12. See Oliver & Johnston, supra note 3
13. Zald, supra note 3 on the mobilizing function of ideologies and the need to incorporate ideologies into the analysis of social movements as a complementary, if not alternative, approach to the popular Frame Theory.
14. Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat, Human Rights Worldwide: A Reference Handbook ch. 1 (2006).
15. Wilson, supra note 3, at 91-92, defines ideology as "a set of beliefs about the social world and how it operates, containing statements about the rightness of certain social arrangements and what action would be undertaken in the light of those statements," and notes that it "is both a cognitive map of sets of expectations and a scale of values in which standards and imperatives are proclaimed." Focusing on their function in social movements, he identifies three components: diagnosis, prognosis, and rationale. Id. at 95-131. Although I fully adopt his definition of diagnosis, there are significant differences between our treatments of the other two components. Ball & Dagger, Political Ideologies, supra note 1, also employ a similar list of components, including human nature, in their analysis of ideologies.
16. This analytical approach does not preclude the possibility of reactionary ideologies presenting themselves as new and radical, seeking change; neither does it claim that ideologies would reappear in their original form and format, without any modifications. Needless to note that the position of a GLOBLEly known ideology on its life cycle at a given time point would vary from one society to another.
17. ISAIAH BERLIN, TWO CONCEPTS OF Liberty, An INAUGURAL Lecture DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ON 31 October 1958 (1958).
18. Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, in FOUR ESSAYS ON LIBERTY 118 (1969).
19. For a socialist response to the attempts of framing socialism as anti-liberty and a critique of Isaiah Berlin, see BRYAN GOULD, SOCIALISM AND FREEDOM (1985), who illustrates the false dichotomy in the right-wing conceptualization of liberty and also points to the differences between socialist theory and some regimes that claimed to be socialist but deviated from the liberating premises of socialist ethics. For the significance of liberty in Marxist analysis, see JON ELSTER, MAKING SENSE OF MARX (1985).
20. For example, compare Locke's liberalism to: JOHN LOCKE, THE SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT (1952)
21. JOHN STUART MILL, ON LIBERTY (1974)
22. ROBERT NOZICK, ANARCHY, STATE, AND UTOPIA (1974)
23. JOHN RAWLS, POLITICAL LIBERALISM (1993).
24. MILTON FRIEDMAN & ROSE D. FRIEDMAN, CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM 52 (1962).
25. Steven Lukes, Five Fables about Human Rights, in ON HUMAN RIGHTS: THE OXFORD AMNESTY LECTURES 1993, at 19 (1993).
26. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 10 Dec. 1948, G.A. Res. 217A (III), U.N. GAOR, 3d Sess. (Resolutions, pt. 1), at 71, U.N. Doc. A/810 (1948), reprinted in 43 AM. J. INT'L L. 127 (Supp. 1949)
27. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted 16 Dec. 1966, G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), U.N. GAOR, 21st Sess., Supp. No. 16, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 993 U.N.T.S. 3 (entered into force 3 Jan. 1976) (ICESCR)
28. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted 16 Dec. 1966, G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), U.N. GAOR, 21st Sess., Supp. No. 16, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force 23 Mar. 1976) (ICCPR).
29. ARAT, HUMAN RIGHTS WORLDWIDE, supra note 6.
30. While the emphasis is on states, private individuals' obligation to respect human rights is mentioned in the UDHR, supra note 15, art. 29: "Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible." Moreover, the preambles of both Covenants note that "[t]he States Parties to the present Covenant, ⋯ Realizing that the individual, having duties to other individuals and to the community to which he belongs, is under a responsibility to strive for the promotion and observance of the rights recognized in the present Covenant, ⋯ Agree upon the following articles." (emphasis added).
31. Although other concepts such as peace and justice are often linked to human rights, they are not synonymous, nor are they treated as such in any component of the IBR (though the right to peace is recognized in later declarations and outcome documents of world conferences of the United Nations). Absence of peace establishes grounds for violations of human rights, but peace, defined as absence of war or physical conflict, cannot necessarily guarantee human rights. Similarly, human rights issues can be addressed also as matters of justice, but all concerns of justice cannot be treated as human rights. For a convincing argument on the latter point, see James Griffin, The Presidential Address: Discrepancies between the Best Philosophical Account of Human Rights and the International Law of Human Rights, 101 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY 1, 14-15 (2001); though he also argues for a narrower notion of human dignity than the one implied in the UDHR and several international human rights treaties. The IBR implies a causal relationship between these three concepts and treats the respect for human rights as buttressing peace and justice.
32. UDHR, supra note 15, art. 1 (emphasis added).
33. For example, the central tenet of Classic Liberalism or its conceptualization of human rights can be defined as protecting individual freedom and property from state repression and intervention. Like other natural law theorists who preceded him, John Locke falls short of fulfilling universalism implied in the "natural rights" reference. His conceptualization of human rights, especially with regard to political rights, is extremely discriminatory-privileging landowners, excluding women, and justifying slavery, among other things. ARAT, HUMAN RIGHTS WORLDWIDE, supra note 6, ch. 2.
34. UDHR, supra note 15, art 2.
35. ICCPR, supra note 15, art. 27
36. UDHR, supra note 15, art. 1 (emphasis added).
37. ICESCR, supra note 13, ¶ 1 (emphasis added).
38. ICCPR, supra note 15, art. 20(2).
39. Tolerance and discrimination tend to be treated as opposites in daily language. Most dictionaries define discrimination as "unfair treatment of one person or group, usually because of prejudice about race, ethnicity, age group, religion, or gender." ENCARTA WORLD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (North American ed. 2007, available at http://encarta.msn.com), or as "prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment." Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 10th ed., available at http://www.merriam-webster.com (emphasis added), and list tolerance as an antonym of prejudice. Similarly, when state policies toward different groups are considered, recognition of a group and its distinct identity and assimilation are regarded as opposites, and recognition is associated with tolerance, thus expected to involve no discrimination. Contrary to this assumption, recognition can go hand in hand with discrimination. Turkey constitutes an excellent case to illustrate that recognition can be in fact more discriminatory than assimilation, if the recognized "others" are tolerated to exist but not accepted as equals. The Republic of Turkey recognized Armenians, Greek Orthodox, and Jews as "distinct" groups and allowed them to speak and study their languages, practice their religion, and preserve other cultural practices. Muslims, on the other hand, were assumed to be homogenous; there was no recognition of their diversity in terms of ethnicity, language, or religious sects. The expectation or plan was to blend all into a Turkish nationality, the demarcation of which would be mainly the language. Thus, Muslim and non-Muslim minorities, e.g., Kurds and Greek Orthodox, were subjected to two contrasting policies, recognition and assimilation, respectively. While Greeks were recognized, thus tolerated to exist as a distinct group and allowed to maintain their religion, language, schools, press, and so on, they were considered as non-Turkish, and sometimes treated as foreigners. As such, they were subjected to discrimination through the denial of access to important military, bureaucratic, and political posts, and at times in other areas such as taxation. Kurds, on the other hand, were denied forming or claiming a distinct ethnic identity. Considered "mountain Turks" to be taught "proper Turkish," "civilized," and incorporated into the "modern" Turkish life, assimilated Kurds were allowed to move up on the social and political ladder and occupy top positions in public office. The juxtaposition of the Greek Orthodox and Kurdish experiences shows that while tolerance (recognition) can be accompanied by discrimination, intolerance in the form of assimilation can appear with nondiscrimination. HUMAN RIGHTS IN TURKEY (Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat ed., 2007).
40. Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition, in MULTICULTURALISM AND "THE POLITICS OF RECOGNITION" 25 (Amy Guttmann ed., 1992).
41. Doron Shultziner, Human Dignity: Functions and Meanings, 3 GLOBAL JURIST TOPICS 17, art. 3 (2003), available at http://www.bepress.com/gj.
42. See ICESCR, supra note 15, esp. art. 2, ¶1.
43. Id. art. 2, ¶ 2.
44. ICCPR, supra note 15, art. 2.
45. UDHR, supra note 15, art. 21 (emphasis added).
46. ICCPR, supra note 15, art. 25.
47. UDHR, supra note 15, art. 4; ICCPR, supra note 15, art. 8.
48. UDHR, supra note 15, pmbl., ¶ 3.
49. Id. art. 17.
50. JOHANNES MORSINK, THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: ORIGINS, DRAFTING, AND INTENT 139-56 (1999).
51. Id. at 104, 113-16.
52. Id. at 110.
53. Id. at 113-14.
54. UDHR, supra note 15, art. 25, ¶ 1.
55. Charles Taylor accepts that "wrong" is the opposite of "right" but also notes that "I have a right to life says more than that you shouldn't kill me. It gives me some control over this immunity." Charles Taylor, A World Consensus on Human Rights?, 43 DISSENT 15, 16 (1996), reprinted in Charles Taylor, A World Consensus on Human Rights?, in THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 409, 412 (2001).
56. UDHR, supra note 15, art. 23, ¶ 3.
57. ICESCR, supra note 15, art. 11(2).
58. Id. art. 11(2)(b).
59. John Wilson makes a useful distinction between revolutionary and reformist ideologies by emphasizing their position on prevailing institutions and values. Revolutionary ideologies challenge both the pivotal social institutions and the values of the society, while reformist ideologies focus on "how well common values are being actualized," without finding fault with the society as a whole, and "call attention to the backsliding and hypocrisy in social life and to social advances which can be made with a more "relevant" interpretation of accepted values." WILSON, supra note 3, at 104-05.
60. In his critique of the Social Democratic approach to human rights, Neil Stammers, A Critique of Social Approaches to Human Rights, 17 HUM. RTS. Q. 488 (1995), includes HENRY SHUE, BASIC RIGHTS: SUBSISTENCE, AFFLUENCE AND US FOREIGN POLICY (1980)
61. R. JOHN VINCENT HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (1986) as implicit Social Democratic theorists, along with an explicit proponent, JACK DONNELLY, UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (1989).
62. Rhoda E. Howard & Jack Donnelly, Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Political Regimes, 80 AM. POL. SCIENCE REV. 801 (1986)
63. DONNELLY, supra note 47
64. Rhoda Howard, Human Rights and the Search for Community, 32 J. PEACE RES. 1 (1995).
65. Howard, supra note 48, at 1.
66. DONNELLY, supra note 47, at 30-31.
67. Id.; Jack Donnelly, Economic and Social Rights: The Myth of Western Opposition, Paper presented at the conference on Economic Rights: Conceptual, Measurement, and Policy Issues. The Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut 1 (27-29 Oct. 2005).
68. Id. at 21.
69. On Foucault's arguments about the liberalist manipulation of human rights and freedom discourse to assert discipline by way of "government through freedom," see THE FOUCAULT EFFECT: STUDIES IN GOVERNMENTALITY (Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, & Peter Miller eds., 1991).
70. Howard, Human Rights and the Search for Community,supra note 47, at 6
71. Rhoda Howard-Hassmann & Claude E. Welch, Introduction: Looking at Ourselves, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 1 (Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann & Claude E. Welch eds., 2006)
72. According to MacPherson, the capitalist foundation of liberal democracy makes it a double system of power. He also points out that the advancement of welfare policies cannot transform the essence of the power relations maintained in capitalist democracies. C.B. MACPHERSON, THE REAL WORLD OF DEMOCRACY 19 (1965).
73. EDUARD BERNSTEIN, EVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM: A CRITICISM AND AFFIRMATION (1961).
74. CHRISTOPHER HOWARD, THE WELFARE STATE NOBODY KNOWS: DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT U.S. SOCIAL POLICY (2007) argues against the claims that the US welfare system has been limited in scope but accepts its ineffectiveness in reducing poverty and inequality, noting that the main beneficiary of the US welfare policies has been the middle-class.
75. Dana-Ain Davis, Violating Dignity: Welfare Reform, Black Women, and Non-State Violators, in NON-STATE ACTORS IN THE HUMAN RIGHTS UNIVERSE 289 (George Andreopoulos, Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat, & Peter Juviler eds., 2006).
76. On the other hand, many others tend to misrepresent Karl Marx's arguments by presenting him as hostile to human rights. This misconception is based on the out of context interpretation of his inflammatory remark: "ideological nonsense about right and other trash so common among the democrats and French Socialists." Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, in KARL MARX AND FREDERICK ENGELS: SELECTED WORKS IN ONE VOLUME 315, 325 (1977). Yet, criticizing provisions on the "fair distribution of the proceeds of labour" in the Socialist Party's Gotha program, what Marx problematizes is the emphasis placed on the distribution of the means of consumption in the transition stage by ignoring that "[a]ny distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves." Id. Writing that "equal right here [in the wording of the Program] is still in principle-bourgeois right ⋯ this equal right is still constantly stigmatised by a bourgeois limitation." Id. at 324. Marx actually snubs a particular conceptualization of human rights.
77. Howard, Human Rights and the Search for Community, supra note 48, at 6.
78. David P. Forsythe & Eric A. Heinze, On the Margins of the Human Rights Discourse: Foreign Policy and International Welfare Rights, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES, supra note 53, at 59.
79. James B. Atleson, International Labor Rights and North American Labor Law, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES, supra note 53, at 138.
80. ROBERT E. GOODIN, BRUCE HEADEY, RUUD MUFFELS, & HENK-JAN DIRVEN, THE REAL WORLDS OF WELFARE CAPITALISM (1999).
81. Peter R. Baehr, The Netherlands: A Walhalla of Economic and Social Rights?, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES, supra note 53, at 190, 202.
82. Virginia A. Leary, So Close and Yet So Different: The Right to Health Care in the United States and Canada, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES, supra note 54, at 135-36.
83. See THE NEW SOCIAL DEMOCRACY (Andrew Gamble & Tony Wright eds., 1999) on the challenges of neo-liberalism and recent phase of GLOBLEization for the European Social Democratic parties, their ideological crisis, and search for alternative visions.
84. Michael Neocosmos, Development, Social Citizenship and Human Rights: Rethinking the Political Core and Emancipatory Project in Africa, Paper presented at the Centre for Civil Society, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Mar. 2006)
85. MAKAU MUTUA, HUMAN RIGHTS: A POLITICAL AND CULTURAL CRITIQUE (2002)
86. Robert Meister, Human Rights and the Politics of Victimhood, 16 ETHICS & INT'L AFFAIRS 91 (2002).
87. Tony Evans, Introduction: Power, Hegemony and the Universalization of Human Rights, in HUMAN RIGHTS FIFTY YEARS ON: A REAPPRAISAL 6-7 (Tony Evans ed., 1998).
88. Mine Eder, Implementing the Economic Criteria of EU Membership: How Difficult is it for Turkey?, in TURKEY AND THE EUROPEAN UNION: DOMESTIC POLITICS, ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND INTERNATIONAL DYNAMICS 219 (Ali Çarkoglu & Barry Rubin eds., 2003).
89. JOSEPH STIGLITZ, GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS (2003).
90. RODWAN ABOUHARB & DAVID CINGRANELLI , HUMAN RIGHTS AND STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT (2007).
91. Figure II points to Kropotkin's Anarchism as ranking lowest on the concentration of power and thus holding an emancipatory promise greater than all other examined ideologies, including Human Rights Ideology.
92. It should be noted that the very first advocacy of human rights in Europe, in the form of legal protection of property against the centralized state authority, was displayed by the powerful landed classes (i.e., Magna Carta).
93. Joining many who argue that human rights should be read as primarily the rights of the disadvantaged and oppressed, Father Ignacio Ellacuría, a Liberation Theologian, writes: "It is only by doing justice to the oppressed peoples and classes that an authentic common good and truly universal human rights will be fostered." Ignacio Ellacuría, Human Rights in a Divided Society, in HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AMERICAS: THE STRUGGLE FOR CONSENSUS 52, 63 (Alfred T. Hennelly & John Langan eds., 1982).
94. For example, see Carole Pateman, Democratizing Citizenship: Some Advantages of a Basic Income, 32 Politics & Soci ety 89 (2004)
95. Michael Goodhart, None So Poor that He is Compelled to Sell Himself': Democracy, Subsistence, and Basic Income, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS (Lanse Minkler & Shareen Hertel eds., forthcoming) for discussions of "basic income" proposals offered to democratize citizenship in liberal democracies.
96. The characterization belongs to Seán MacBride, who helped found Amnesty International. PAUL GORDON LAUREN, THE EVOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS: VISIONS SEEN 256 (1998).