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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Human rights
This book explores how new governments and societies deal with a legacy of past repression, in Portugal, Spain, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany after reunification, as well as Russia, the Southern Cone of Latin America and Central America, as well as South Africa. It looks at official truth commissions, trials and amnesties and purges and unofficial social initiatives to deal with the past. The book also assesses the significance of forms of reckoning with the past for a process of democratic deepening as well as the importance of international actors in shaping policies to deal with past legacies in some of the countries examined.
This book analyses large-scale land investments for agricultural purposes in Africa's least developed countries from a law and economics perspective. Focusing on the effects of foreign land investments on host countries' local populations and the apparent failure of international law to create incentives to offset them, it also examines the legal and economic mechanisms to hold investors accountable in cases where their investment leads to human rights violations. Applying principal agent and contract theory, it elucidates the sources of opportunism and develops control mechanisms to ameliorate the negative effects. It shows that although judicial mechanisms fail to deliver justice, international law offers alternatives to safeguard against arbitrary and abusive state and investor conduct, and also to effectuate human rights and, thus, tackle opportunistic behaviour.
Stories of women of peace, justice and rights, who have distinguished themselves in a world ruled by men. Women who have made a decisive contribution to the vindication of rights or the drafting of legal treaties, some of which are in force to this day. Sometimes promoters, at others formidable supporters, all have worked without reserve, with the courage of those who never stop believing. Opposed and hindered, they have nevertheless managed to impose themselves with the strength of their ideas, achieving, in the end, prizes and recognition. Their stories are usually little-known, but it is especially their humanity that makes them role models. The book reports their captivating personal, human and professional experiences, all lived in the advancement of human progress. To this day, our society is indebted to their battles and their victories.
This important new volume analyzes relations among America's minority groups, specifically the prospects of political coalitions among those usually unrelated groups: African Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, Jews, Arab-Americans, and Native Americans. At the end of the 20th century, the United States is faced with a situation where minority groups are no longer assimilating but rather are moving toward separate mini-societies, complete with separate languages, cultures, and economies. Even if society accepts the notion that cultural pluralism is consistent with democratic principles, the possibility of political hyperpluralism (endless and nonproductive conflicts among groups) is disturbing. This volume, therefore, attempts to address the concerns, examining the background of minority organizations, voting behavior issues, and coalitional possibilities. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students alike in American government and ethnic and minority politics.
This reference provides a comprehensive survey of human rights in Judaism. It includes both theoretical discussions of the nature and substance of human rights and practical applications of that theory either by Jews or to Jews. While numerous dissertations and audio-visual materials focus on human rights and Judaism, the bibliography is limited to books and articles. The majority of the works have been written in English or Hebrew, but significant studies in other languages, chiefly French and German, have also been included. The volume contains more than 700 citations, each accompanied by a descriptive annotation. The book begins with an introductory essay that examines the basic concerns of the works that follow. The annotated entries are then presented in five chapters. The first chapter includes anthologies, references, and periodicals. The second chapter includes studies of human rights in the Bible and Talmud. The third chapter includes works on Jewish theories of human rights. The fourth chapter, broken down into smaller sections, includes works on Judaism and particular human rights. The fifth chapter contains entries for works on contemporary Judaism and human rights. The volume concludes with author, title, and subject indexes.
View the Table of Contents. "In this densely written and tightly argued work, Mead (Northern
Michigan Univ.) presents answers to the often asked question of why
woman suffrage was accomplished in the US West well before it was
in the East." "In this superb study . . . Rebecca J. Mead convincingly
demonstrates the importance of the region to understanding the
success of the national suffrage movement." "This concise book is the most complete overview to date of the
woman suffrage movement in the American West." "Mead has produced a strong case for western women's
well-reasoned, winning plan and has provided a superb foundation
for renewed engagement with an important question. My thanks to
you, Professor Mead." "Thanks to Mead's extensive research and careful weighing of
evidence, no future scholar will be able to work from the
assumption that the East represents the nation in the history of
women's enfranchisement. She has laid the critical foundation for a
genuinely national history of one of the most important
developments in modern America." "Moving beyond the traditional emphasis on the work of radical
women to include the larger political and social context, Mead's
book makes a strong contribution to our understanding of our
history of nineteenth century women, western United States
politics, and issues of gender and law." "Mead...deserves respect for embarking on an ambitious
undertaking that necessitated very extensiveresearch which she
covered meticulously. She has revisited this significant political
transformation with the tools of recent historical scholarship to
the fore and contributed constructively to a complex area of modern
political history." "In this comprehensive estimation, Mead not only answers the
question of why western states were ahead of the curve in granting
women the vote, but also examines the relationships, often tense,
between the local, state, and national suffrage associations as
well as with farm, labor and progressive coalitions." "Rebecca Mead has crafted a detailed history of suffrage
campaigns in the western states." "This book should challenge historians of woman suffrage to look
more closely at other regions and states. . . . But it is Mead's
treatment of a political culture among women with its own history,
burdens, crosscurrents, and innovators that should have the wider
impact." "Rebecca Mead's new synthesis finally de-mystifies the West's
'radical and fundamental challenge to the exisitng political status
of women'." By the end of 1914, almost every Western state and territory had enfranchised its female citizens in the greatest innovation in participatory democracy since Reconstruction. These Western successes stand in profound contrast to the East, where few women voted until after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, and the South, where African-American men were systematically disenfranchised. How did thefrontier West leap ahead of the rest of the nation in the enfranchisement of the majority of its citizens? In this provocative new study, Rebecca J. Mead shows that Western suffrage came about as the result of the unsettled state of regional politics, the complex nature of Western race relations, broad alliances between suffragists and farmer-labor-progressive reformers, and sophisticated activism by Western women. She highlights suffrage racism and elitism as major problems for the movement, and places special emphasis on the political adaptability of Western suffragists whose improvisational tactics earned them progress. A fascinating story, previously ignored, How the Vote was Won reintegrates this important region into national suffrage history and helps explain the ultimate success of this radical reform.
Vietnam has claimed the Paracel and Spratly Island groups for hundreds of years. China's invasion and capture of the Paracels from South Vietnam in 1974, and its ongoing occupation of the Spratlys, have created increasing opposition and anger not only among Vietnamese citizens but worldwide. This book insists that China's illegal violation of Vietnamese sovereignty rights in the Paracels and Spratlys has included serious human rights violations and decelerated the process of human emancipation. Using both realist and critical theories in a comparative framework, China Moves South states that while realism may offer a reasonable approach to explaining China's behavior, critical theory is a more appropriate lens to challenge China's occupations. Employing critical theory and human rights law as methods of evaluation, this book insists that human rights and international law cannot sustain China's continuing violations as defined by the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Additionally, China Moves South aims to provide government officials, international scholars, students, and other interested parties with a better understanding of Chinese's illegal invasion and capture of the Paracels and Spratlys and, more importantly, to counsel urgent action to resist the Chinese occupation as China becomes more assertive in the vital waters of the South China Sea.
Through a collection and analysis of carefully selected readings, Rethinking Debatable Moments in the Civil Rights Movement: Learning for the Present Moment highlights particular issues, tensions, and dynamics within the Civil Rights Movement. The text asks pointed questions regarding debatable moments of the Civil Rights Movement in order to encourage critical study, stimulate thinking about possible consequences then and now, seek answers or refine the questions, and seek direction for the present moment. The readings are organized in chapters according to the debatable moments: 1) Should the NAACP have pursued the case of Claudette Colvin in combating bus segregation in Montgomery?; 2) Should Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., have joined the Freedom Riders when invited to do so in 1961?; 3) Should children have been allowed to participate in the Birmingham Campaign protests in 1963?; 4) Should SNCC's John Lewis have agreed to amend his speech in the 1963 March on Washington?; and 5) Should Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., have turned the marchers around at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma after Bloody Sunday? General and chapter introductions and an epilogue explore the context, the key players, the issues, the nature of the crisis, and the consequences and implications of each debatable moment. Rethinking Debatable Moments in the Civil Rights Movement is an excellent supplementary text for courses in anthropology, sociology, black studies, and related social science disciplines.
View the Table of Contents. Read Chapter 1. aJackson is at his best when exposing the connections of leading
racialists with former Nazi party members and Holocaust-denial
groups.a aA well-researched and well-argued book....Jackson underscored
the nexus of asciencea and arace, a probes the ademarcation between
science and politics, a and questions the very meaning of
aobjectivea scientific inquiry.a aScience for Segregation adds considerably to our understanding
of racist ideologies and their persistance in the post-war era. The
author has done an admirable job of covering a forgotten chapter in
the struggle over segregation and shedding light on how scientific
research can become highly politicized.a "This book asks if science can be divorced from politics. . . .
Recommended." aA fascinating and comprehensive look at a largely neglected
aspect of American history--the role of science and scientists in
supporting and sustaining white racist thought and institutions
during the battle over de-segregation. And like most good social
history, it does not require much strain to draw the relevance to
today's debates about the salience of biological taxonomies of
race.a aA very important book that explores the fuzzy zone between
science and pseudo-science, exposing the political action of
right-wing scientists in the 1950s and 1960s who argued for school
segregation on ostensibly scientific grounds. The role of science
as an authority in society has never been more evident than in the
work and rhetoric of these zealouslyracist scholars. This
well-researched book is a must-read for anyone interested in modern
debates over the study of human diversity or the role of science in
contemporary society.a aA deeply-researched, fascinating, and judicious assessment of
the ascientifica arguments that were marshaled against the Supreme
Courtas landmark school desegregation decision. Jackson has made a
contribution that will endure.a aJacksonas thorough research and a nuanced understanding of the
complexities of race and law provide a disturbing cadence to the
ongoing debate on race in America.a In this fascinating examination of the intriguing but understudied period following the landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, John Jackson examines the scientific case aimed at dismantling the legislation. Offering a trenchant assessment of the so-called scientific evidence, Jackson focuses on the 1959 formation of the International Society for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE), whose expressed function was to objectively investigate racial differences and publicize their findings. Notable figures included Carleton Putnam, Wesley Critz George, and Carleton Coon. In an attempt to link race, eugenics and intelligence, they launched legal challenges to the Brown ruling, each chronicled here, that went to trial but ultimately failed. The history Jackson presents speaks volumes about the legacy of racism, as we can see similar arguments alive and well today in such books as "The Bell Curve" and in otherdebates on race, science, and intelligence. With meticulous research and a nuanced understanding of the complexities of race and law, Jackson tells a disturbing tale about race in America.
This book adds impetus to the nexus between human rights, human rights education and material reality. The dissonance between these aspects is of growing concern for most human rights educators in various social contexts. The first part of the book opens up new discourses and presents new ontologies and epistemologies from scholars in human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies to critique and/or justify the understandings of human rights' complex applications. Today's rapidly changing social contexts and new languages attempting to understand ongoing dehumanization and violations, put enormous pressure on higher education, educators, individuals working in social sciences, policy makers and scholars engaged in curricula making.The second part demonstrates how global interactions between citizens from different countries with diverse understandings of human rights (from developed and developing democracies) question the link between human rights and it's in(ex)clusive Western philosophies. Continuing inhumane actions around the globe reflect the failure of human rights law and human rights education in schools, higher education and society at large. The book shows that human rights education is no longer a blueprint for understanding human rights and its universal or contextual values presented for multicomplexial societies. The final chapters argue for new ontologies and epistemologies of human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies to open-up difficult conversations and to give space to dissonant and disruptive discourses. The many opportunities for human rights education and literacies lies in these conversations.
A detailed biography written soon after its subject's tragic death. The appendixes include texts of some of King's most famous speeches.
This study established an intellectual profile of Albert Gallatin through his vision of government's role in a democratic republic and the republic's role in the community of nations. Only through a comprehensive analysis of Gallatin's political and diplomatic activities can the student of history learn to see his actions as expressions of clearly formulated principles. Gallatin was much more involved in the shaping of administrative policy than has been recognized. Moreover, he followed his unique Gallatinian approach to domestic policy as well as international diplomacy, always in pursuit of one paramount objective: the preservation of individual liberty within the context of a republic.
The voyage of the 'coffin ship' Ajax, from Dublin to Grosse Ile, the Canadian quarantine station as described in the contemporary diary of one of the passengers, Robert Whyte. Whyte was a Protestant gentleman of education and position, as well as being a professional writer who intended to publish his diary. The diary appeared in 1848. It is signed in the author's own handwriting and features vivid descriptions of the spectacular scenery along the way and the striking delineations of the passengers, the crew and the suffering travellers.
In "The Last Crusade, " Gerald McKnight examines the Poor People's Campaign, the last large-scale demonstration of civil rights-era America, and the systematic efforts of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his executive officers to subvert King's ambitious effort to force the federal government to live up to its promises of a Great Society. The book also looks at King's last days as he helped Memphis sanitation workers in their labor-cum-civil rights struggle with a recalcitrant and racist city government. Although there is no persuasive evidence that the FBI and the Memphis police conspired to assassinate King, McKnight marshals evidence to show that neither agency was blameless.The conventional view of the Poor People's Campaign is that it was a self-inflicted failure. The blame rested squarely on the shoulders of the second-raters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who failed to fill the leadership vacuum after King's assassination. But, as McKnight shows, there was a hidden, dark counterpoint to the accepted version--namely, the triumph of the 1960s American surveillance state and its repressive power and flagrant violation of protected freedoms. In fact, whatever the FBI wanted to do to disrupt the Campaign, it did, aided and abetted by local police agencies and elements of the federal government, including military intelligence.
In many respects, the United States remains a nation of immigrants. This is the first book length treatment of the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on a wide range of immigrant groups in North America. Contributors to the book draw on ethnographic fieldwork, government data, and original survey research to show how welfare reform has reinforced socio-economic hardships for working poor immigrants. As the essays reveal, reform laws have increased the social isolation of poor immigrant households and discouraged large numbers of qualified immigrants from applying for health and welfare services. All of the articles highlight the importance of examining federal policy guidelines in conjunction with local enforcement policies, labor market dynamics, and immigrant attitudes toward government agencies.
While the supervision of the European Court of Human Rights constantly grows in importance, little is known about the people, especially the judges, inside the Court. To what extent are human rights sensitive to different traditions and is their work burdened through the plurality of legal, historical-political or vocational experiences among the judges? Looking at the first three years of permanent operation of the Court, this book suggests that it is the legal culture that brings the judges together. Based on interviews, field study observations and an analysis of case law, this book takes a novel approach on European human rights law and provides researchers and practitioners with an important basis for a full understanding of the Strasbourg case law.
"The Ambivalent Welcome" describes how leading magazines and the New York Times covered and interpreted U.S. immigration policy, and public attitudes about the impact of immigrants on the American economy and social fabric. Rita J. Simon and Susan H. Alexander examine print media coverage of immigration issues from 1880, the onset of the new immigration, to the present, and find that most magazines, like most Americans, have vehemently opposed new immigrants. Part One begins with a chapter providing statistics on the number of immigrants and refugees by country of origin from 1810 to 1990, and estimates of the number of illegals who have entered the United States. Chapter 2 discusses U.S. immigration acts and summarizes the major political party platforms on immigration from the mid-nineteenth century through the present. Results of all national poll data regarding immigrants and refugees since the availability of such data (1930s) are reported in Chapter 3. Part Two discusses in detail particular magazines, including "North American RevieW," "Saturday Evening Post," "Literary Digest, Harper'S," "Scribner's, Atlantic Monthly," "The Nation," "Christian Century," "Commentary," "Commonweal," "Reader's Digest," "Time," "Life," "Newsweek," "U.S. News and World Report," and the editorials of the "New York TimeS." Following a summary chapter, Appendix A provides a profile of each of the magazines, including the date of its founding, its editors and publishers, circulation, characteristics of its readers, and an assessment of its influence on immigration. Appendix B describes the major American anti-immigration movements.
Garret deals with the issue of humanitarian intervention, of which the recent Kosovo conflict provides a prime example. Even though the writing of this book was completed before NATO began its intervention on behalf of the Kosovars, the book provides a valuable background for assessing the Kosovo issue--it lays out the history of previous humanitarian interventions and analyzes the controversies surrounding them. Garret provides a sophisticated framework by which such interventions can be evaluated both morally and pragmatically. His book offers some particularly relevant material on the American role in humanitarian interventions. This book is valuable for those who wish to make sense of the pros and cons of humanitarian efforts in international hot spots, like Kosovo. After an analysis of the legal and philosophical issues bearing on the idea of humanitarian intervention, defined as the use of force by one or more states to remedy severe human rights abuses in a particular country--this study focuses upon the moral duties that individual members of the international community have toward the welfare of others. Recent events have indicated that humanitarian intervention will likely play a larger role in international relations in the future. Examples in the contemporary period include Kosovo Somalia, Liberia, Haiti, the Kurds in Iraq, Uganda, and East Pakistan. This book emphasizes the role of the United States in humanitarian intervention and argues that increased American involvement is essential. Garrett suggests that the American people as a whole may be more prepared to see the United States take an active role in humanitarian intervention than are certain media and government elites. Strong national leadership that stresses the moral duty of the United States will be necessary to tap this latent altruism in order to contribute to higher standards of international human rights. Individual topics include assessment criteria for the moral legitimacy of intervention, unilateral versus multilateral efforts, and factors that appear to persuade or dissuade states from participating in such intervention. This volume focuses on certain themes and patterns in humanitarian intervention, which are then illustrated by using historical data taken from a variety of different examples.
At the height of the civil rights movement in Mississippi, as hundreds of volunteers prepared for the 1964 Freedom Summer Project, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) compiled hundreds of statements from activists and everyday citizens who endured police abuse and vigilante violence. Fifty-seven of those testimonies appear in Mississippi Black Paper. The statements recount how white officials and everyday citizens employed assassinations, beatings, harassment, and petty meanness to block any change in the state's segregated status quo. The testimonies in Mississippi Black Paper come from well-known civil rights heroes such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, and Rita Schwerner, but the book also brings new voices and stories to the fore. Alongside these iconic names appear grassroots activists and everyday people who endured racial terror and harassment for challenging, sometimes in seemingly imperceptible ways, the state's white supremacy. This new edition includes the original foreword by Reinhold Neibuhr and the original introduction by Mississippi journalist Hodding Carter III, as well as Jason Morgan Ward's new introduction that places the book in its context as a vital source in the history of the civil rights movement.
Citizenship Education in Conflict-Affected Areas examines the practices of learning and teaching citizenship in Lebanon, and explores the implications of the research findings for those working in other sites affected by conflict. Bassel Akar analyses rich empirical data, such as semi-structured interviews with teachers and open-ended survey packs with children in classrooms, which reveal conflicts in notions of citizenship and pedagogical approaches. These in-depth explorations of classroom learning and teaching show the hidden and subtle factors that often subvert intentions to promote social cohesion and active citizenship through education. Examining how individual conceptualizations of citizenship influence approaches to learning and teaching and vice versa, the author argues that learning citizenship in schools can undermine aims of democratic participation, dialogue and critical thinking. He concludes and considers why classroom learning of civic education in Lebanon can actually be more harmful than beneficial. Offering new insights for educators and policy-makers working beyond the Lebanese context, Citizenship Education in Conflict-Affected Areas is a valuable addition to the research in this growing field. |
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