States,Nations, and Territorial Stability: Why Chinese Hegemony Would Be Better for International Order

How would a hegemonic China shape international norms related to states, nations, and territoriality? Scholars have noted the conflict between the right of minority nations to self-determine and the right of states to maintain their territorial integrity. An unrestricted application of the former would risk considerable state fragmentation; an unconditional acceptance of the latter would condemn stateless nations to a subordinate status. Powerful actors like the United States have attempted to navigate these norms by specifying the conditions under which one norm should take precedence over the other, but such decisions are difficult to make in an international environment that lacks consensus, and the result is an ambiguous international order where conflict is common. I analyze the future of these norms in a Chinese-led international order, explaining why China would champion territorial integrity over self-determination, and why this would be better for territorial stability.     

Inequality and Human Rights: Who Controls What, When, and How

This article tests the empirical relationship between inequality and the protection of personal integrity rights using a cross-national time-series data set for 162 countries for the years 1980–2004. The data comprise measures of land inequality, income inequality, and a combined factor score for personal integrity rights protection, while the analysis controls for additional sets of explanatory variables related to development, political regimes, ethnic composition, and domestic conflict. The analysis shows robust support for the empirical relationship between income inequality and personal integrity rights abuse across the whole sample of countries as well as for distinct subsets, including non-communist countries and non-OECD countries. The hypothesized effect of land inequality is also born out by the data, although its effects are less substantial and less robust across different methods of estimation. Additional variables with explanatory weight include the level of income, democracy, ethnic fragmentation, domestic conflict, and population size. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the results are not due to reverse causation, misspecification or omitted variable bias. The analysis is discussed in the context of inequality and rights abuse in specific country cases and the policy implications of the results are considered in the conclusion.     

When Killers Become Victims: Diversionary War,Human Rights,and Strategic Target Selection

The diversionary theory largely focuses on the incentives leaders have to use force. However, little attention has been given to the characteristics that make for a good target. We argue that US presidents choose targets that repress human rights since they are the easiest to sell to international and domestic audiences. By targeting repressive states US presidents can justify their use of force by cloaking their motivation in the language of human rights, responding to calls for intervention, pointing to the failure of international actors and institutions to resolve these problems, and building upon emerging norms that allow for intervention in repressive states. Updating US Use of Force data, we empirically test and find support for our hypothesis that presidents target human rights abusers when they face trouble at home. This paper contributes to target selection process by offering a complete theory of diversionary conflict accounting for cost/benefit calculation of presidents. Moreover, we believe that our findings reveal human rights practices’ role in international conflict, as well.     

More Bang for the Buck: Media Freedom and Organizational Strategies in the Agenda-Setting of Human Rights Groups

Studies investigating the agenda-setting of human rights groups disagree on both their prospects of garnering political attention, and the factors that help them in that quest. This study makes the argument that we need to take account of both macro-institutional opportunity structures and actor-level strategies in order to gain a more complete understanding of the group-media interface. Specifically, it posits that the urgency of social problems only drives media attention toward groups if a country’s media landscape is sufficiently free, and that within these institutional constraints, groups themselves can enhance their media access by providing newsmakers with information subsidies. These claims are substantiated by way of a novel cross-nationally comparative data set of more than 1,000 domestic election monitoring and advocacy organizations. Findings show that media attention is structurally limited by the degree to which the news media serve as an open arena, and that even in countries with a free press, few groups achieve media access. At the same time, the most successful groups are not necessarily the most resourceful ones. Rather, strategic choices to invest in media effort, narrow policy engagement, and professionalization substitute for scarce resources, thereby giving groups “more bang for their buck.” The results clarify the causal mechanisms behind the dominance of resource-rich groups on the media agenda and reinforce calls for more globally comparative research into media agenda-setting.     

Cooperation between China and Germany in Safeguarding and Realizing Human Rights

I. Background for cooperation between China and Germany in the area of human rights(1)China has made great achievements in economic and social development since the reform and opening upi. Basic achievements. Over the past 50-plus years since the founding…     

人权还是知识产权:美国对华政策的一个重要转折

克林顿政府初期处于对华政策的十字路口。冷战结束,美国全面调整对外政策,把经济放到对外战略的首位,知识产权问题凸现。而对华政策背离这一主旨,把人权作为首要目标,并与最惠国待遇问题挂钩。这种矛盾决定其必然改弦更张。以经贸为立足点的接触政策的确立,使知识产权问题再次回到中美关系的中心,美国经历了对华政策的一次重要转折。     

亚洲区域性人权机制:理念与构建

本文从归属认同、利益依赖、救济便利等方面,对区域性人权机制与联合国人权机制进行了比较。文章认为,亚洲区域性人权机制缺乏实质性制度安排,其根源在于政治、经济、历史、文化差异的障碍,冷战的消极影响,跨区域组织的“离心力”,次区域组织的“越位”,统一性、综合性区域组织的缺位等因素的综合作用。文章还对亚洲人权合作制度性建设等问题提出了看法。     

The Contributions of International Exchange and Cooperation to the Human Rights Studies in China

Since the foundation of the People＇s Republic of China in 1949, the human rights situation in China has changed dramatically. Especially in the past three decades, along with the reform and opening-up and the remarkable political, economic, legal, social and cultural developments, the human rights cause in China has also made great achievements. In the development of human rights cause,     

Protecting Human Rights in Times of Conflict: An Indian Perspective

ABSTRACT

Human rights embody universal values that cannot be compromised but there are regional specificities and times of conflict when adherence to absolute values may not be possible. This is not to suggest that human rights in conflict zones can be trampled upon. What is argued here it that circumstances need being given due weight if an impartial view is to be adopted. This hypothesis is argued by reviewing the human rights situation in Kashmir, noticing the parties in contention, and the legal and judicial routes available for redress, before suggesting several remedies to improve the protection of human rights in this zone of conflict.     

The Paradox of American Unipolarity: Why the United States May Be Better Off in a Post-Unipolar World

The decline in the United States’ relative position is in part a consequence of the burdens and susceptibilities produced by unipolarity. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. position both internationally and domestically may actually be strengthened once this period of unipolarity has passed.     

Human Rights Dilemmas in Using Informers to Combat Terrorism: The Israeli-Palestinian Case

ABSTRACT

Using informers is a basic tool in preventing terror attacks and the nature of current terror threats makes it even more crucial. This use, however, often leads to human rights violations, both of the informers and by them, and to many problematic ethical questions. Drawing on the Israeli–Palestinian example—where a main strategy of Israeli intelligence activity in the Palestinian areas has been an extensive use of informers—this article presents the main human rights dilemmas in the field, divided into three stages: recruitment, operation and post-operation obligations, and also points to the possible counter-productive consequences of such a use.     

Putting Principle into Practice: The Role of Human Rights in Foreign Policy

This commentary by Robin Cook reflects upon what was accomplished during his four years as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs after the new Labour government in 1997 placed the promotion and protection of human rights at the heart of its foreign policy. The paper emphasises this partnership by introducing a programme of exchanges and secondments between human rights NGOs and the Foreign Office, focusing on the pursuit of human rights in both principle and practice. While discussing the role of the British government the author provides an overview of many of the most important examples of attempts at ethical foreign policy over the last five years. It is argued that that national interest is promoted, not hindered, by a commitment to human rights and suggests new rules for when the UN can intervene to keep peace within states rather than among states.     

When More Media Equals Less News: Patterns of Content Homogenization in Argentina's Leading Print and Online Newspapers

This article examines content homogeneity, understood as the degree to which different media focus on the same stories during a particular news cycle, in Argentina's leading print and online newspapers. It focuses on the role of technical practices across media and over time—during a decade for print and during 24 hours for online. The analysis shows three main patterns of homogenization: (a) an increase in the level of homogeneity in print newspapers tied to their online counterparts' practice of publishing breaking and developing stories during the day, (b) an increase in the level of homogeneity in online newspapers as the day unfolds, and (c) a densely interconnected web of homogeneity across print and online newspapers in 2005. We draw from these findings to make contributions to research on online news and media sociology and to reflect upon the direction and meaning of changes in journalistic form in the current media environment.     

Democracy and Human Rights in the Mexican States: Elections or Social Capital?

Why does the relationship between a government and its citizens deteriorate to violence? Large-N cross-national quantitative analyses of human rights violations have found an inverse relationship between democracy and violations. These analyses, however, have not been able to address the central finding of an influential subnational analysis of democracy that stresses the importance of a single dimension of democracy, social capital. In this article we combine these two streams of research with fresh data from the Mexican states to investigate how and why democracy inhibits violations. Theoretically, we connect a policy interest in protecting human rights to politicians' office-seeking goals and to the level of social capital. Empirically, our data allow us to disentangle two principal components of democracy, elections and social capital, and include important control variables, notably ethnic diversity, which have been largely left out of the cross-national analyses. Our central finding is that the electoral components rather than social capital produce important consequences for the protection of citizens' human rights.     

Defending the Nation: The Role of Nationalism in Chinese Thinking on Human Rights

This article examines the symbiotic relationship between Chinese thinking on human rights and Chinese nationalism. It analyses the three key periods in the Chinese discourse on human rights: late Qing, Republican, and post-Mao. In each case, discussions of rights have often (but not always) taken place within a wider debate about the protection of China's national interests from foreign infringement, although the nature of the foreign infringement has changed over time. During the late Qing debate, with China increasingly threatened by foreign military imperialism, scholars argued enthusiastically for the introduction of a new system of democratic rights as a vital tool of national resistance. During the Republican era that followed, the threat from outside remained the same. However by now many theorists had grown disillusioned with democracy and rights, believing that the only way China could withstand further foreign encroachments was to withhold rights from its people. In the post-Mao debate on rights, the interests of the nation are again at the fore. But with China now an emerging rather than a collapsing power, rights are often analysed – at least from an official perspective – within the context of cultural rather than military imperialism, the new ‘threat’ from abroad. The article then examines the views of China's ‘non-official’ rights thinkers, most of whom tend to be much less affected by nationalist concerns and ends with an assessment of the prospects for democracy and rights in China.     

Gender and Negotiation in the Small: Are Women (Perceived to Be) More Cooperative than Men?

We surveyed research by experimental economists that examines gender differences in negotiation in the context of two simple, two-player games. Our purpose is to uncover empirical regularities in the results that might be useful to teachers or practitioners of negotiation. In the dictator game, one player unilaterally determines the division of a fixed amount of money. In the ultimatum game, one player offers a division and the other must accept or reject that offer; if rejected, both players receive a zero payoff. The results have shown that, on balance, women tend to be more egalitarian than men, to expect and ask for less in the negotiation. Women also seem to be more responsive to the context of a negotiation and are less likely to fail to reach an agreement than men. These differences are small, however, in comparison with differences in expectations about what women and men will do. We conclude that stereotyping is alive and well in negotiations and that this can help or hinder negotiation outcomes, depending on the context.     

From Human to Workers' Rights: The Emergence of a Migrant Workers' Union Movement in Korea

Migrant workers in Korea occupy a low social position because of their objective economic position within the division of labour, hegemonic norms of racial homogeneity, and government policy that seeks to extract the labour power from migrant workers without recognising their substantive human and workers' rights. Despite the existence of an official system for the rotational employment of so-called “industrial trainees”, the dominant system in Korea has been a tacitly accepted market for illegal labour. Despite the emergence of a dynamic civil society movement to support migrant workers, their challenge to the prevailing cultural norms in society and their manifestation in government policy has been somewhat limited. However, a migrant-worker-centred trade union movement has also emerged which, although still in its early stages, has more directly begun to challenge these norms and to achieve a common identity with the Korean working class.     

More Can Be Less: Hyper Plurality of Candidates,the Rationality of Electoral Choice,and Need for Electoral Reform in India

A large number of candidates has become a regular feature of Indian elections. Given the regulatory concerns the problem has evoked, this article reviews the process of candidate entry in select developed countries. The review reveals the presence of diverse approaches, ruling out the necessity for extreme options like debarring fringe candidates—a course suggested by several Indian expert groups. Among various policy options, India had largely relied on electoral deposit. Our results suggest that an increase in deposits had a significant negative impact on candidate entry in India. However, for an effective deterrence, India needs to continue to keep deposits at a very high level compared to the current international benchmark, discriminating political participation of genuinely underprivileged groups. In contrast, the current level of signature requirements, a relatively unused policy tool in India, was found to be too low and could be easily increased further in order to be effective. We argue that given the high variation and lack of stability in candidate structure across regions and over time, a local approach on signature requirements—as in the U.S. —could be an effective deterrent in India. Accordingly, we suggest that the Election Commission of India should not only have the power to determine the deposit before each election; it should also have the power to change the minimum signature requirement across constituencies (subject to some standard checks and balances).