Human Rights, Power and Civic Action
Human Rights, Power and Civic Action examines the interrelationship between struggles for human rights and the dynamics of power, focusing on situations of poverty and oppression in developing countries. It is argued that the concept of power is a relatively neglected one in the study of rights-based approaches to development, especially the ways in which structures and relations of power can limit human rights advocacy. Therefore this book focuses on how local and national struggles for rights have been constrained by power relations and structural inequalities, as well as the extent to which civic action has been able to challenge, alter or transform such power structures, and simultaneously to enhance protection of peoples basic human rights. Contributors examine and compare struggles to advance human rights by non-governmental actors in Cambodia, China, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The country case studies analyse structures of power responsible for the negation and denial of human rights, as well as how rights-promoting organizations challenge such structures. Utilising a comparative approach, the book provides empirically grounded studies leading to a new theoretical understanding of the interrelationships between human rights struggles, power and poverty reduction.
Human Rights, Power and Civic Action will be of interest to students and scholars of human rights politics, power, development and governance.
Brd A. Andreassen is Professor and Director of Research at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights at the University of Oslo, Norway, and Visiting Professor at the University of Vietnam.
Gordon Crawford is Professor of Development Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies and Director of the Centre for Global Development at the University of Leeds, UK.
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Comparative analyses of struggles for rights in developing societies
Edited by Brd A. Andreassen and Gordon Crawford
Human Rights, Power and Civic Action
Comparative analyses of struggles for rights in developing societies
Edited by Brd A. Andreassen and Gordon Crawford
First published 2013
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.
2013 Brd A. Andreassen and Gordon Crawford for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contribution.
The right of Brd A. Andreassen and Gordon Crawford to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Human rights, power and civic action : comparative analyses of struggles for rights in developing societies / edited by Brd A. Andreassen and Gordon Crawford.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Human rightsDeveloping countries. 2. Power (Social sciences)Developing countries. I. Andreassen, Brd-Anders. II. Crawford, Gordon, 1952
JC599.D44H8725 2013
323.09172'4dc23
2012044265
ISBN: 978-0-415-66903-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-52582-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
GORDON CRAWFORD AND BRD A. ANDREASSEN
ANNE HELLUM, BILL DERMAN, GEOFF FELTOE, ELLEN SITHOLE, JULIE STEWART AND AMY TSANGA
BRD A. ANDREASSEN AND TIBERIUS BARASA
GORDON CRAWFORD AND NANA AKUA ANYIDOHO
MALCOLM LANGFORD, BILL DERMAN, TSHEPO MADLINGOZI, KHULEKANI MOYO, JACKIE DUGARD, ANNE HELLUM AND SHIRHAMI SHIRINDA
TANG LAY LEE
STEPHEN P. MARKS AND RAMYA NARAHARISETTI
BRD A. ANDREASSEN AND GORDON CRAWFORD
Brd A. Andreassen is Professor of Human Rights and Director of Research at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights at the University of Oslo, Norway, and Visiting Professor at the University of Vietnam. His research focuses on human rights in processes of democratization in ethnically divided societies (Eastern Africa), human rights-based development, development assistance and human rights, international election monitoring, economic and social rights and transitional justice. He is editor-in-chief of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights.
Nana Akua Anyidoho is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana. She is interested in the intersection of policy processes and human lives how the lives of ordinary people are shaped by policy and how they, in turn, interpret, adopt, adapt and resist policy.
Tiberius Barasa is Lecturer in Political Science at the Maseno University in Kisumu, Kenya. He is a public policy analyst and has carried out research on governance and public policy in Africa for more than ten years.
Gordon Crawford is Professor of Development Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds, and Director of the Centre for Global Development. His research focuses on issues of democracy, human rights and development, especially in Africa, and Ghana in particular, and he has published widely on these issues. He was previously co-editor of the journal Democratization and is currently co-convenor of the Governance and Development Working Group of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI).
Bill Derman is Professor in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of the Life Sciences. He is an anthropologist by training and has carried out research in southern Africa on land and water issues for the past 25 years.
Jackie Dugard is Visiting Senior Fellow at the School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand. She is also Senior Researcher at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), which she co-founded in January 2010 and was the executive director of until December 2012. As an activist academic, she has published widely on socio-economic rights, access to justice and the role of courts in transitional democracies. She is an editor of the
