Human rights and development: putting power and politics at the center

Gordon Crawford, B.A. Andreassen

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

3 Citations (Scopus)
52 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Human rights are not primarily technical-legal issues. While much research and debate has revolved around the legal nature of human rights, comparatively little attention has been offered to their political character. Human rights define basic norms, values and interests in human and social life, but they are, at the same time, always secured or denied in political and social contexts of power, and situations of competition over resources. This article reports on a research project that made detailed empirical analyses of how different forms of power constrain human rights activism in six different countries, and examines the construction of countervailing empowerment to challenge such power structures. It argues that more systematic analytical attention should be paid to power and political analysis of human rights in development contexts.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)662-690
JournalHuman Rights Quarterly
Volume37
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

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Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in Human Rights Quarterly 37:3 (2015), 662-690. Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Keywords

  • human rights
  • political context
  • power structures

Cite this

Human rights and development: putting power and politics at the center. / Crawford, Gordon; Andreassen, B.A.

In: Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2015, p. 662-690.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Crawford, G & Andreassen, BA 2015, 'Human rights and development: putting power and politics at the center' Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 662-690. https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2015.0053
Crawford G, Andreassen BA. Human rights and development: putting power and politics at the center. Human Rights Quarterly. 2015;37(3):662-690. https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2015.0053
Crawford, Gordon ; Andreassen, B.A. / Human rights and development: putting power and politics at the center. In: Human Rights Quarterly. 2015 ; Vol. 37, No. 3. pp. 662-690.
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