How can we interpret and respond to the rise of populist regimes that infringe on human rights? This incisive book analyses illiberal, repressive, and patriarchal logics of rule, identifying critical catalysts in the meteoric growth of populist agendas. Contributors scrutinise the records of authoritarian and nationalist leaders in Brazil, Hungary, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and the United States.
For decades, framing an issue as a ‘human rights’ issue carried certain power and effect in politics and international relations, one that has been challenged by the recent rise of populist political forces. Ford explores the recent impact of populist politics on the universalist human rights project, in particular, how scholars have framed and responded to this challenge. Ford offers a provocation to the human rights movement. Rather than ‘what have populists done to human rights?’, it asks ‘how did we, the human rights movement, do this to ourselves?’ How did fundamental protections for all become so easily scapegoated as ‘us and them,’ as claims of small, often foreign, minorities? Did human rights lose some vital connection to ordinary people’s interests, their value taken as obvious and self-explanatory? Looking forward, the book asks how – in a post-truth ‘fake news’ world – we might reimagine human rights as underpinning human flourishing as well as important constraints on public and private concentrations of power. Traversing relevant scholarly literature on the future of human rights and zooming out to look at wider patterns of political and diplomatic discourse, this book will speak to policymakers, diplomats, journalists, and human rights advocates – and all interested in the crisis of liberal democracies.
In recent years, human rights have come under fire, with the rise of political illiberalism and the coming to power of populist authoritarian leaders in many parts of the world who contest and dismiss the idea of human rights. More surprisingly, scholars and public intellectuals, from both the progressive and the conservative side of the political spectrum, have also been deeply critical, dismissing human rights as flawed, inadequate, hegemonic, or overreaching. While acknowledging some of the shortcomings, this book presents an experimentalist account of international human rights law and practice and argues that the human rights movement remains a powerful and appealing one with widespread traction in many parts of the globe. Using three case studies to illuminate the importance and vibrancy of the movement around the world, the book argues that its potency and legitimacy rest on three main pillars: First, it is based on a deeply-rooted and widely appealing moral discourse that integrates the three universal values of human dignity, human welfare, and human freedom. Second, these values and their elaboration in international legal instruments have gained widespread - even if thin - agreement among states worldwide. Third, human rights law and practice is highly dynamic, with human rights being activated, shaped, and given meaning and impact through the on-going mobilization of affected individuals and groups, and through their iterative engagement with multiple domestic and international institutions and processes. The book offers an account of how the human rights movement has helped to promote human rights and positive social change, and argues that the challenges of the current era provide good reasons to reform, innovate, and strengthen that movement, rather than to abandon it or to herald its demise.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This thoughtful book provides a refreshing, comparative perspective on the future of care homes in our post-pandemic world. Building on more than a decade of collaborative international and interdisciplinary research in Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US, it employs a feminist political economy framework to address the key challenges facing care homes in this turbulent era.
This incisive book examines how the values of social justice can be protected against attacks from the interacting economic, social, environmental, and health crises of the 21st century. Global contributors outline key elements of a political programme that resists the shift to the right caused by this turbulence through centring fairness, equality, respect and inclusion.
Still the Age of Populism? investigates current conceptions of populism and its relevance across the globe. Using contextualized case studies, cross-national comparisons, and theoretical interventions, this volume addresses key conceptual debates in comparative politics and political sociology. This essential volume brings together scholars from different traditions in political sociology, political science and cultural studies, and comparativists and area experts working on Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, and the US. Chapters in the book employ innovative theoretical approaches to study aspects of populism in global comparative perspective whilst regional case studies, including Brazil, Venezuela, Germany, and the US, are utilised to explore populism in geographically specific contexts. In doing so, the volume addresses the key issues for those seeking to understand contemporary populism. What are the advantages and limits of the category of populism to understand contemporary debates on democratization and processes of democratic erosion? Under what structural, institutional, and cultural conditions does populism emerge? Is populism the nemesis of democracy, its shadow, or a path to move beyond “liberal democracy” towards “real democracy”? What lessons does the history of past populist moment hold for our understanding of contemporary populist governance? Under what conditions have populists in office led to political polarization and democratic erosion? What comes after populism, and how do societies deal with its legacies? Still the Age of Populism? will be of interest to a broad audience of students and scholars of political sociology and comparative politics.
Rodrigo Duterte’s rise and the Marcoses’ return to power have captivated Southeast Asia watchers and the rest of the world. That the spectacle of strongman rule has allured most Filipinos is no longer in doubt, with the strong electoral mandate garnered by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022. Whether their capture of state power is in any way connected and what this portends about the country’s democratic future is a key theme marking Games, Changes, and Fears. In this volume, Filipino academics and practitioners provide much needed analysis about this political succession and what it means for Asia’s oldest republic. Packed with thirteen chapters depicting insightful trends and prognosis on the Philippine economy, domestic politics, foreign policy, and society, this volume offers scholars, students, and policymakers with the analytical repertoire to understand developments in the Philippines. Overall, the chapters suggest that while some policies and practices continue under the Marcos Jr. administration, there have been pivotal changes indicating a break from the past. The chapters offer key policy recommendations critical in recalibrating Philippine political, economic, and social conditions that could address democratic backsliding, economic challenges, and societal polarization. "This carefully curated volume offers a judicious assessment of the political legacy of Rodrigo Duterte in key policy areas and the continuities and changes marking the transition to the Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. administration. Games, Changes, and Fears lays out a number of important insights—the formation of dynastic cartels, erosion of democratic values and civil liberties, securitization of governance, politicization of the information ecosystem, emergence of new political actors, and politics of fear, violence, and misogyny—that deepen our understanding of Philippine politics and society while providing portents of, and object lessons in, the struggle for substantive democracy in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries and the world." -- Caroline S. Hau, Professor, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University "In the wake of Rodrigo Duterte’s populist rule, the Philippines stands at a critical juncture, grappling with the aftermath of profound political and policy changes. As the nation enters a new era under Marcos Jr.’s presidency, questions loom large over the future of democracy and governance. This edited volume offers a multifaceted analysis of Duterte’s legacy, providing essential insights into the trajectory of Philippine politics and society." -- Yuko Kasuya, Professor, Faculty of Law, Keio University "This is a superb survey of Philippine politics during the Rodrigo Duterte administration and the early years of the Bongbong Marcos presidency. Written by Filipino scholars based in Philippine universities and research institutions, this unique compilation of essays provides a keen and grounded analysis of political developments in the country. In doing so, this volume showcases the strength and value of Filipino scholarship on Philippine politics. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the impact and legacy of the Duterte years." -- Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Associate Professor, McGill University
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This forward-thinking book illustrates the complexities of the morality of human rights. Emphasising the role of human rights as the only true global political morality to arise since the Second World War, chapters explore its role as applied to often controversial issues, such as capital punishment, the exclusion of same-sex couples from civil marriage and criminal abortion bans.
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
While research in right-wing populism has recently been blossoming, a systematic study of the intersection of right-wing populism and gender is still missing, even though gender issues are ubiquitous in discourses of the radical right ranging from »ethnosexism« against immigrants, to »anti-genderism.« This volume shows that the intersectionality of gender, race and class is constitutional for radical right discourse. From different European perspectives, the contributions investigate the ways in which gender is used as a meta-language, strategic tool and »affective bridge« for ordering and hierarchizing political objectives in the discourse of the diverse actors of the »right-wing complex.«
