Speaking Rights to Power
Constructing Political Will
1st Edition
Published on 1. August 2013
256 pages
978-0-19-998268-4 (ISBN)
Description
How can "Speaking Rights to Power" construct political will to respond to human rights abuse worldwide? Examining dozens of cases of human rights campaigns and using an innovative analysis of the politics of persuasion, this book shows how communication politics build recognition, solidarity, and social change. Building on twenty years of research on five continents, this comprehensive study ranges from Aung San Suu Kyi to Anna Hazare, from Congo to Colombia, and from the Arab Spring to Pussy Riot. Speaking Rights to Power addresses cutting edge debates on human rights and the ethic of care, cosmopolitanism, charismatic leadership, communicative action and political theater, and the role of social media. It draws on constructivist literature from social movement and international relations theory, and analyzes human rights as a form of global social imagination. Combining a normative contribution with judicious critique, this book shows how human rights rhetoric matters-and how to make it matter more.
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ALISON BRYSK is the Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance in the Global and International Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has authored or edited 10 books on international human rights. Professor Brysk has been a scholar and lecturer in Argentina, Australia, Ecuador, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan, and has held Fulbright Fellowships in India and Canada. In 2013-2014, Brysk will be a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
Content
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION: Rhetoric For Rights
1) SPEAKING RIGHTS
a. Why We Care: Constructing solidarity
b. The message: Human rights as global social imagination
c. Hearts and Minds: The politics of persuasion
2) HISTORICAL REPERTOIRES: ATTENTION MUST BE PAID
a. Solidarity: The Dreyfus Affair
b. Internationalism: The Spanish Civil War
c. Symbolism: The Holocaust
d. Globalization: Revolution 2.0
3) VOICES: HEROES, MARTYRS, WITNESSES, AND EXPERTS
a. Heroes and martyrs
i. Nelson Mandela
ii. Aung San Suu Kyi
iii. Mothers of the Disappeared
b. Witnesses and experts
i. Doctors Without Borders
ii. Amartya Sen
iii. Paul Farmer
c. "The dog that didn't bark": Death penalty campaigns in the U.S.
4) THE MESSAGE MATTERS: FRAMING THE CLAIM
a. Poster children and sex slavery: framing human trafficking
b. Reframing FGM: "Our bodies, our selves"
c. Human rights in Colombia: when frames fail
d. The rhetoric of recognition: Darfur vs. Congo
5) PLOTTING RIGHTS: THE POWER OF PERFORMANCE
a. From tragedy to testimonial:
i. Voices of Witness
ii. The Vagina Monologues
b. Allegory as protest performance: Indian Summer
c. The Power of Parody
1. From Putin's penis to Pussy Riot
2. Speaking "truthiness" to power: the Colbert challenge
6) MOBILIZING MEDIA: IS THERE AN APP FOR THAT?
a. Iran: The revolution will not be televised
b. China: The Long March to human rights
c. The Arab Spring: The Face book path to freedom
d. Kony 2012: When buzz is not enough
7) AUDIENCES: CONSTRUCTING COSMOPOLITANS
a. Building communities of conscience: Scholars at Risk
b. Inter-ethnic solidarity: "My brother's keeper"
i. The Japanese-American Citizens' League and Arab-Americans
ii. African-Americans and the anti-apartheid movement
iii. American Jews and Darfur
iv. Armenian-Americans
v. Dueling diasporas and burning bridges: Israel-Palestine
c. Across the great divide: Men who care about violence against women
i. Norm entrepreneurs: "a few good men"
ii. Role change through small talk
iii. Global Good Samaritans and gender-based asylum
8) CONSTRUCTING POLITICAL WILL
a. Another world is possible
b. The power of persuasion: The Liberian civil war
c. Acting globally
REFERENCES
