Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights
Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy

Demonstrates how the Reagan administration and members of Congress shaped US human rights policy in the late Cold War.

Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard (Author)

9781108797184, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2022

324 pages, 7 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.439 kg

'The book will make a lasting contribution to our understanding of the foreign policy continuity across the final decades of the Cold War … Søndergaard reminds us that American politics is sometimes compromised but often advantaged by its endemic contestation over moral questions.' Timothy J. Lynch, Journal of Contemporary History

This book traces the role of human rights concerns in US foreign policy during the 1980s, focusing on the struggle among the Reagan administration and members of Congress. It demonstrates how congressional pressure led the administration to reconsider its approach to human rights and craft a conservative human rights policy centered on democracy promotion and anti-communism - a decision which would have profound implications for American attention to human rights. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard combines a comprehensive overview of human rights in American foreign relations with in-depth case studies of how human rights shaped US foreign policy toward Soviet Jewry, South African apartheid, and Nicaragua. Tracing the motivations behind human rights activism, this book demonstrates how liberals, moderates, and conservatives selectively invoked human rights to further their agendas, ultimately contributing to the establishment of human rights as a core moral language in US foreign policy.

Introduction
1. After the breakthrough: human rights in American foreign relations in the 1980s
2. The Reagan turnaround on human rights
3. The Congressional human rights caucus and the limits of bipartisanship
4. The right to leave: Soviet Jewish emigration
5. 'A universal human rights issue': South African apartheid
6. Two tales of human rights: US policy toward Nicaragua
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International organisations & institutions [LBBU], Human rights [JPVH], Diplomacy [JPSD], International relations [JPS], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], History of the Americas [HBJK]