Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization

by Monshipouri,Mahmood

• ISBN13: 9780765611376
• ISBN10: 0765611376
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Both human rights and globalization are powerful ideas and processes, capable of transforming the world in profound ways. Notwithstanding their universal claims, however, the processes are constructed, and they draw their power from the specific cultural and political contexts in which they are constructed. Far from bringing about a harmonious cosmopolitan order, they have stimulated conflict and opposition. In the context of globalization, as the idea of human rights has become universal, its meaning has become one more terrain of struggle among groups with their own interests and goals. Part I of this volume looks at political and cultural struggles to control the human rights regime -- that is, the power to construct the universal claims that will prevail in a territory -- with respect to property, the state, the environment, and women. Part II examines the dynamics and counterdynamics of transnational networks in their interactions with local actors in Iran, China, and Hong Kong. Part III looks at the prospects for fruitful human rights dialogue between "co

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction: Observing Human Rights in an Age of Globalization	ix
Neil A. Englehart, Mahmood Monshipouri, Andrew J. Nathan, and Kavita Philip
Part I. The Struggle to Control the Human Rights Regime	1	(110)
1. Who Owns Our Culture? Intellectual Property, Human Rights, and Globalization	3	(31)
Caren Irr
2. The Consequences of a Constructed Universal: Democracy and Civil Rights in the Modem State	34	(21)
Neil A. Englehart
3. Reflections on the Intersections of Environment,Development, and Human Rights in the Context of Globalization	55	(34)
Kavita Philip
4. Translating a Liberal Feminism: Revisiting Susan Okin on Freedom, Culture, and Women's Rights	89	(22)
Ellen M. Freeberg
Part II. The Dynamics and Counterdynamics of Globalization	111	(126)
5. The Politics of Culture and Human Rights in Iran: Globalizing and Localizing Dynamics	113	(32)
Mahmood Monshipouri
6. Outside Actors and the Pursuit of Civil Society in China: Harnessing the Forces of Globalization	145	(33)
Rebecca R. Moore
7. Globalization and Human Rights for Workers in China: Convergence or Collision?	178	(36)
Dorothy J. Solinger
8. Localizing Human Rights in an Era of Globalization: The Case of Hong Kong	214	(23)
Linda Butenhoff
Part III. Setting the Terms of Debate: Pursuing Global Consensus	237	(102)
9. The Challenges to International Human Rights	239	(20)
Joanne Bauer
10. Obstacles on the Road to an Overlapping Consensus on Human Rights	259	(29)
Charles Lockhart
11. Globalizing Cultural Values: International Human Rights Discourse as Moral Persuasion	288	(20)
Chenyang Li
12. Suffering as Common Ground	308	(21)
John K. Downey
Conclusion: Reconstructing Human Rights in the Global Society	329	(10)
Andrew J. Nathan, Mahmood Monshipouri, Neil A. Englehart, and Kavita Philip
About the Contributors	339	(4)
Index	343