The ambivalence of good : human rights in international politics since the 1940s
Jan Eckel
Bok · Engelsk · 2019
| Originaltittel | [ Ambivalenz des Guten .] Engelsk
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| Omfang | 446 sider
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| Opplysninger | Betydelig forkortet og oppdatert utgave av forfatterens bok, Die Ambivalenz Des Guten, gitt ut på tysk i 2014. -Hentet fra bokens introduksjon. - Introduction: The ambivalence of good ; Prologue: The "pre-history" of human rights as a historiographical problem ; Human rights policy in the United Nations ; Human rights in the Council of Europe and in the Organization of American States ; NGOs and human rights ; Human rights and decolonization ; Amnesty Interntional and the reinvention of Western human rights activism ; Human rights in Western foreign policy ; The Pinochet dictatorship in international politics ; Human rights, communism, and dissidence in Eastern Europe ; Human rights in the postcolonial world ; Conclusion.. - The Ambivalence of Good' examines the genesis and evolution of international human rights politics since the 1940s. Focusing on key developments such as the shaping of the UN human rights system, decolonization, the rise of Amnesty International, the campaigns against the Pinochet dictatorship, the moral politics of Western governments, or dissidence in Eastern Europe, the book traces how human rights profoundly, if subtly, transformed global affairs. 0Moving beyond monocausal explanations and narratives prioritizing one particular decade, such as the 1940s or the 1970s, The Ambivalence of Good argues that we need a complex and nuanced interpretation if we want to understand the truly global reach of human rights, and account for the hopes, conflicts, and interventions to which this idea gave rise. Thus, it portrays the story of human rights as polycentric, demonstrating how actors in various locales imbued them with widely different meanings, arguing that the political field evolved in a fitful and discontinuous process. This process was shaped by consequential shifts that emerged from the search for a new world order during the Second World War, decolonization, the desire to introduce a new political morality into world affairs during the 1970s, and the visions of a peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War. Finally, the book stresses that the projects pursued in the name of human rights nonetheless proved highly ambivalent. Self-interest was as strong a driving force as was the desire to help people in need, and while international campaigns often improved the fate of the persecuted, they were equally likely to have counterproductive effects.0'The Ambivalence of Good' provides the first research-based synopsis of the topic and one of the first synthetic studies of a transnational political field (such as population, health, or the environment) during the twentieth century.
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| ISBN | 9780198783367
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