The Political Sociology of Human Rights

A sociological approach to human rights, showing how rights language is used to address structural injustices around the world.

Kate Nash (Author)

9780521197496, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 July 2015

232 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.5 cm, 0.5 kg

'The study of human rights is inevitably confronted by conundrums: who can enforce them? Who can pay for them? Are they universal? Kate Nash boldly addresses these problems with a sure command of the literature and brings a fresh sociological perspective to these legal and political issues. The Political Sociology of Human Rights is a textbook that will enlighten students but equally guide the research of established scholars.' Bryan S. Turner, Graduate Center, City University of New York

The language of human rights is the most prominent 'people-centred' language of global justice today. This textbook looks at how human rights are constructed at local, national, international and transnational levels and considers commonalities and differences around the world. Through discussions of key debates in the interdisciplinary study of human rights, the book develops its themes by considering examples of human rights advocacy in international organisations, national states and local grassroots movements. Case studies relating to specific organisations and institutions illustrate how human rights are being used to address structural injustices: imperialist geopolitics, authoritarianism and corruption, inequalities created by 'freeing' markets, dangers faced by transnational migrants as a result of the securitization of borders, and violence against women.

1. The social construction of human rights
2. (A) human rights movement(s) and other organisations
3. States of human rights
4. The United Nations: not a world state
5. Humanising capitalism
6. Women's rights are human rights
7. Do migrants have rights?
8. What works? Paradoxes in the human rights field.

Subject Areas: Sociology [JHB]