'The Power of Human Rights' (published in 1999) was an innovative and influential contribution to the study of international human rights. At its center was a 'spiral model' of human rights change which described the various socialization processes through which international norms were internalized into the domestic practices of various authoritarian states during the Cold War years. 'The Persistent Power of Human Rights' builds on these insights, extending its reach and analysis. It updates our understanding of the various causal mechanisms and conditions which produce behavioural compliance, and expands the range of rights-violating actors examined to include democratic and authoritarian Great Powers, corporations, guerrilla groups, and private actors. Using a unique blend of quantitative and qualitative research and theory, this book yields not only important new academic insights but also a host of useful lessons for policy-makers and practitioners.

This book celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nation's passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by showing how global human rights norms have influenced national government practices in eleven different countries around the world. Transnational human rights pressures and policies have made a significant difference in bringing about improvements in human rights practices in diverse countries around the world. The book describes a model of socialization processes that can be broadly applied to other processes and policy areas where global ideas have an impact on domestic affairs.

The growth of institutional capacity in the developing world has become a central theme in twenty-first-century social science. Many studies have shown that public institutions are an important determinant of long-run rates of economic growth. This book argues that to understand the difficulties and pitfalls of state building in the contemporary world, it is necessary to analyze previous efforts to create institutional capacity in conflictive contexts. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the process of state and nation building in Latin America and Spain from independence to the 1930s. The book examines how Latin American countries and Spain tried to build modern and efficient state institutions for more than a century - without much success. The Spanish and Latin American experience of the nineteenth century was arguably the first regional stage on which the organizational and political dilemmas that still haunt states were faced. This book provides an unprecedented perspective on the development and contemporary outcome of those state and nation building projects.

This book celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nation's passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by showing how global human rights norms have influenced national government practices in eleven different countries around the world. Transnational human rights pressures and policies have made a significant difference in bringing about improvements in human rights practices in diverse countries around the world. The book describes a model of socialization processes that can be broadly applied to other processes and policy areas where global ideas have an impact on domestic affairs.