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2 Human Rights, Social Movement, and Asylum Seeking
- University of Pennsylvania Press
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Chapter 2 Human Rights, Social Movement, and Asylum Seeking No [other} paradox of contemporary politics is filled with more poignant irony than the discrepancy between the efforts of well-meaning idealists who stubbornly insist on regarding as "inalienable" those human rights which are enjoyed only by the citizens ofthe most prosperous and civilized countries, and the situation ofthe rightless themselves. -Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1973 How are human rights developed for specific populations that lack them? Human rights, and human rights abuses more broadly, are increasingly said to be both driven by and driving globalization (Schwab and Pollis 2000; Evans 2001; Brysk 2002; Howard-Hassmann 2005). Indeed, theories of globalization have had a marked impact on human rights scholarship. The following explores different types of human rights change in the broader context of globalization in order to capture variations that current models neglect . This illuminates how human rights scholarship has absorbed the false dichotomies that plague reigning theories of globalization and helps to explain the blind side toward significant cases of human rights change such as the one considered in this book. I devote significant attention to explaining this blind side, whose implications for theory have been ignored. Social movement analysis offers a means of overcoming these false dichotomies and needs to be brought more squarely into studies of human rights change. I elaborate an analytical framework for the human rights change considered in this book, applying well-established resources of social movement theory specifically to the structural context of international migration systems and refugee movement and exposing the links between refugee movement and human rights change. This enables a systematic examination of political processes in the case studied. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the research strategy. Human Rights, Social Movement, and Asylum Seeking 31 Human Rights Change Under Globalization Globalization drives economic, political, informational, cultural, and environmental trends that are increasing the interconnectedness of societies, cultures , and states around the world. Held and McGrew describe it as: "the expanding scale, growing magnitude, speeding up and deepening impact of interregional flows and patterns of social interaction. [Globalization] refers to a shift or transformation in the scale of human social organization that links distant communities and expands the reach of power relations across the world's major regions and continents" (2003:4). In this, globalization is self-reinforcing; global forces drive the development of global level infrastructure that further facilitates and shapes global forces and trends. In this, increasing international interconnectedness makes international laws and norms increasingly relevant. The latter in turn increase interaction among the world's nations, creating and reinforcing common global patterns of interaction, understanding, and increasingly shared value systems. Globalization also remains deeply contested, both praised and condemned due to competing perspectives regarding the overarching political agendas that characterize it. What Held and others characterize as "hyperglobalists " largely support the current neoliberal free-market ideological framework often said to drive modern globalization and see globalization optimistically as defining the modern era (Held et a1. 2003). On the other hand, "anti-globalists" and neoliberal critics agree that major economic forces are key drivers of globalization but interpret outcomes as reinforcing the dominance of some states and cultures over others, deepening inequality and ultimately driving what are actually rather unglobal outcomes. In this context, Evans (2001:3) argues that in human rights scholarship, "while some studies have attempted to recontextualize human rights as an important aspect of globalization, most, if not all, adopt a neoliberal approach, which tacitly assumes that globalization presents new opportunities for strengthening human security (e.g., Donnelly 1993). Neoliberals tend toward a view of globalization that projects a vision of inexorable progress towards ever increasing levels of 'moral integration,' which parallels processes of economic integration, as normative and moral aspirations converge." Less commonly, some scholars suggest human rights may actually be less effective under neoliberal globalization trends because purportedly 32 Chapter 2 "global" institutions actually reflect traditional, competItIve statist logic. Some even posit that if globalization undermines state authority, as many neoliberals claim, "then international law, the law that governs relations between states, has less potential in regulating the practices of non-state transterritorial actors;' with negative implications for human rights (Evans 2001:4; see Evans and Hancock 1998). Finally, globalization skeptics often argue that the idea of universal consensus about human rights may not bear out in reality. Rather, Western neoliberalism may treat its own culturally relative doctrine as universal while promoting new global class hierarchies (Evans 2001:4-5...