Human Rights and Comparative Politics

Human rights is a central concept in political science, yet it is still poorly understood. This book reviews the literature on human rights and takes into account the different perceptions, asking if human rights can be measured and whether countries can be ranked on the basis of their performance. There is a broad measure of agreement that the concepts involved should be associated with classic freedoms such as freedom of expression and association. The book tries to assess the extent to which different inquiries have successfully dealt with the subject. Divided into three parts, the text deals with definition and content, examines some of the work that monitors human rights, and discusses the extent to which political scientists and the organizations considered have successfully conceptualized the problem of human rights.