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Making Rights Claims A Practice of Democratic Citizenship

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This book is available in Oxford Scholarship Online - view abstracts and keywords at book and chapter level.

Related Categories

Democracy

Political Science & Theory

Human Rights

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Making Rights Claims

A Practice of Democratic Citizenship

Karen Zivi

OUP USA

192 pages | 235x156mm

978-0-19-982641-4 | Hardback | 19 January 2012

Also available as: Paperback

Price: £60.00

This item will be ordered from OUP USA. Items ordered from OUP USA are despatched and charged as soon as we receive them, which is normally within 2 weeks

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Bridges a gap between theoretical and empirical analyses of rights
Sheds light on how political agency and social transformation is enabled by rights claiming
Advances a theory of rights as speech acts

While the 1960s marked a rights revolution in the United States, the subsequent decades have witnessed a rights revolution around the globe, a revolution that for many is a sign of the advancement of democracy. But is the act of rights claiming a form of political contestation that advances democracy? Rights language is ubiquitous in national and international politics today, yet nagging suspicions remain about the compatibility between the practice of rights claiming and democratic politics. While critics argue that rights reinforce ways of thinking and being that undermine democratic values and participatory practices, even champions worry that rights lack the legitimacy and universality necessary to bring democratic aspirations to fruition.

Making Rights Claims provides a unique entrée into these important and timely debates. Rather than simply taking a side for or against rights claiming, the book argues that understanding and assessing the relationship between rights and democracy requires a new approach to the study of rights. Zivi combines insights from speech act theory with recent developments in democratic and feminist thought to develop a theory of the performativity of rights claiming. If we understand rights claims as performative utterances and acts of persuasion, we come to see that by saying "I have a right," we constitute and reconstitute ourselves as democratic citizens, shape our communities, and transform constraining categories of identity in ways that may simultaneously advance and challenge aspects of democracy. Furthermore, we begin to understand that rights claiming is not a wholly rule bound practice. To illustrate her theory, Zivi discusses different sides of two recent rights debates: mandatory HIV testing of pregnant women and the new immigration laws.

Readership: Scholars and students of democratic theory, political theory, human rights, sociolegal theory, gender studies, queer theory, performance studies

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

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Making Rights Claims

A Practice of Democratic Citizenship

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