Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T09:25:19.069Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Is a “Right to Have Rights”? Three Images of the Politics of Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

JAMES D. INGRAM
JAMES D. INGRAM*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
*
James D. Ingram is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, CanadaL8S 4M4 (ingramj@mcmaster.ca).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article seeks to elucidate some of the difficulties and reversals that afflict human rights by exploring three interpretations of Hannah Arendt's idea of a “right to have rights,” and in particular the images of politics these interpretations presuppose. The first, most conventional interpretation considers this right in terms of the use of power to implement rights; a second, broadly Kantian interpretation understands it in terms of laws and institutions; a third, which I develop through an original reading of Arendt, bases it on the activity of the rights-claimants or -holders themselves. Although each of these conceptions corresponds to different circumstances and speaks to different concerns, the third is especially valuable in helping us understand the problems that plague efforts on behalf of human rights and showing how human rights can best be realized and secured. If it is the most demanding, it alone fully honors human rights' emphasis on autonomy.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 102 , Issue 4 , November 2008 , pp. 401 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1965. On Revolution. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1968a. “Karl Jaspers: A Laudatio,” trans. Clara, A and Winston, Richard. In Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1968b. “What Is Freedom?” In Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1969. “On Violence.” In Crises of the Republic. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1973. Origins of Totalitarianism. New ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1977. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Middlesex: Penguin.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1992. Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, ed. Beiner, Ronald. Paperback ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1993. Was ist Politik?, ed. Ludz, Ursula. Munich: Piper.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1994. Essays in Understanding 1930–1954, ed. Kohn, Jerome. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 2005. “Introduction into Politics,” trans. Woods, John E.. In The Promise of Politics, ed. Kohn, Jerome. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Balibar, Étienne. 1994. Masses, Classes, Ideas. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1996. The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2004. The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2006. “Another Universalism: On the Unity and Diversity of Human Rights.” Presidential Address, American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, December 29.Google Scholar
Birmingham, Peg. 2006. Hannah Arendt and Human Rights: The Predicament of Common Responsibility. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobbio, Norberto. 1996. The Age of Rights, trans. Cameron, Allan. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Bobbio, Norberto. 2000. Liberalism and Democracy, trans. Ryle, Martin and Soper, Kate. London and New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Bohman, James. 1997. “The Public Spheres of the World Citizen.” In Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal, ed. Bohman, James and Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2004. “‘The Most We Can Hope For’: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism.” South Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2/3): 351–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Allan. 2004. Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Canovan, Margaret. 1992. Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her Political Thought. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandler, David. 2002. From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Chandler, David. 2005. Constructing Global Civil Society: Morality and Power in International Relations. New ed.London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
de Waal, Alex, and Omaar, Rakiya. 1994. “Can Military Intervention Be ‘Humanitarian’?” Middle East Report 187/188: 2–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, Jack. 2003. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. 2nd ed. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Douzinas, Costas. 2003. “Humanity, Military Humanism and the New Moral Order.” Economy and Society 32 (2): 159–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 1992. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Calhoun, Craig. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Guilhot, Nicholas. 2005. The Democracy Makers: Human Rights and International Order. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. Rehg, William. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1998. The Inclusion of the Other: Essays in Political Theory, ed. Cronin, Ciaran and De Grieff, Pablo. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2001. The Postnational Constellation, trans. and ed. Pensky, Max. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. The Divided West, trans. Cronin, Ciaran. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. 1985. Leviathan, ed. MacPherson, C.B.. London & New York: Penguin Classics.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Stanley. 1981. Duties Beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethical International Politics. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 2006. “Another Cosmopolitanism? Law and Politics in the New Europe.” In Another Cosmopolitanism, ed. Benhabib, Seyla. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
IDRC. 2001. The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Ottawa: International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2001. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, ed. Gutmann, Amy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2003. “Arendt's Example.” Hannah Arendt Prize, Bremen, November 28.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2004. The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Isaac, Jeffrey. 1996. “A New Guarantee on Earth: Hannah Arendt on Human Dignity and the Politics of Human Rights.” American Political Science Review 90 (1): 61–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Jeffrey. 2002a. “Ends, Means and Politics.” Dissent (Spring): 32–37.Google Scholar
Isaac, Jeffrey. 2002b. “Hannah Arendt on Human Rights and the Limits of Exposure, or Why Noam Chomsky Is Wrong About the Meaning of Kosovo.” Social Research 69 (2): 505–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isin, Engin. 2002. Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1991. Political Writings, ed. Reiss, Hans. Second Ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, David. 2004. The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krause, Monika. 2008. “Undocumented Migrants: An Arendtian Perspective.” European Journal of Political Theory 7 (3): 331–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lefort, Claude. 1986. The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, ed. Thompson, John B.. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Lefort, Claude. 1988. Democracy and Political Theory, trans. Macey, David. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Macintyre, Alisdair. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.Google Scholar
Michelman, Frank. 1996. “Parsing ‘A Right to Have Rights.’” Constellations 3 (2): 200–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1973. “A Few Words on Nonintervention.” In Essays on Politics and Culture, ed. Himmelfarb, Gertrude. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.Google Scholar
Muthu, Sankar. 2000. “Justice and Foreigners: Kant's Cosmopolitan Right.” Constellations 7 (1): 23–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parekh, Serena. 2004. “A Meaningful Place in the World: Hannah Arendt on the Nature of Human Rights.” Journal of Human Rights 3 (1): 41–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, Samantha. 2002. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. 1998. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Rose, Julie. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. 2001. “Ten Theses on Politics,” trans. Bowlby, Rachel and Panagia, Davide. Theory & Event 5 (3). http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v005/5.3ranciere.html (Accessed March 4, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. 2004. “Who Is the Subject of the Rights of Man?” South Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2/3): 297–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieff, David. 1994–95. “The Humanitarian Trap.” World Policy Journal 12: 1–11.Google Scholar
Rieff, David. 2006. At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1993. “Human rights, rationality, and sentimentality.” In On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993, ed. Shute, Stephen and Hurley, Susan. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2003. “Righting Wrongs.” In Human Rights, Human Wrongs: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2001, ed. Owen, Nicholas. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1999. “Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on Human Rights.” In The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, ed. Bauer, Joanne R. and Bell, Daniel A.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2004. Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles, and Tarrow, Sidney. 2006. Contentious Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1985. “The Moral Standing of States.” In International Ethics, ed. Beitz, Charles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1995. “The Politics of Rescue.” Social Research 62: 53–66.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 2005. “Human Rights in Global Society.” Internationale Politik Transatlantic Edition 6 (1): 4–13.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1946. “Politics as a Vocation.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. Gerth, Hans and Mills, C. Wright. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1997. Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. Parsons, A. M. and Parsons, T.. Reprint ed. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon. 1996. “The Liberal/Democratic Divide.” Political Theory 24 (1): 97–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth. 2004. Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar