Virtual Library

This article discusses the transformation of the classical nation-state, as articulated in contemporary struggles for recognition. Elaborating neoinstitutional world polity theory, it analyses global institutional changes that underlie those transformations. It is claimed that the worldwide diffusion of the classical nation-state model itself has had paradoxical consequences, which have in the long run generated a new model of multicultural citizenship, legitimating the decoupling of state membership, individual rights and national identity. The argument is based on empirical evidence from a semantic analysis of international legal discourse on human rights, particularly in the field of religion. Documentary sources suggest that the content of human rights has changed in the second half of the 20th century; the close link between human rights and national self-determination was superseded by the idea that the protection of human rights requires states to recognize a diversity of primordial or traditional identity groups.

This article examines the effects of an uncertain legal status on the lives of immigrants, situating their experiences within frameworks of citizenship/belonging and segmented assimilation, and using Victor Turner's concept of liminality and Susan Coutin's "legal nonexistence." It questions black-and-white conceptualizations of documented and undocumented immigration by exposing the gray area of "liminal legality" and examines how this in-between status affects the individual's social networks and family, the place of the church in immigrants' lives, and the broader domain of artistic expression. Empirically, it draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix from 1989 to 2001. The article lends support to arguments about the continued centrality of the nation-state in the lives of immigrants.

The growth of the human rights regime in the Palestinian occupied territories during the last two decades and the spread of visual media have had an extreme effect on the nature of Palestinian politics and society. They have transformed the way Palestinians represent themselves to each other and to the international community, whereby appeals to human rights help to constitute a human subject with certain kinds of rights that are seen to arise not from a political status but from the state of (human) nature. In this article, I explore the "politics of immediation" at work during the second Palestinian intifada, which began in 2000, to explain why social actors mobilize representations of people in states of acute physical and emotional distress as part of their political projects.

This study asks one crucial question: How do Lebanese women apply available social capital and informal social networks to engage in political activism for women’s rights? Building on social- and women’s-movement theories, I argue that Lebanese feminists do not exclusively operate in the public sphere in their fight for political goals, nor do they privilege only the extra-family space. On the contrary, they engage in political activities by using extended family networks as a form of weak social ties. I construct this argument on the basis of interviews, observations, and analysis of Lebanese feminists’ writings. This paper introduces the concept of mahsoubieh as a form of weak social ties generated within connective family networks. Specifically, I examine how elite, intellectual, and middle-class Lebanese women activists use the positive social capital generated by mahsoubieh to gain credibility, diffuse their political stances, and develop countervailing power. Aspects such as the size, reputation, and respectability of their kinship networks aided the Lebanese women in their fight to change the legal structure concerning women’s rights and political representation.

This article defends the claim that human rights is a legitimate subject of inquiry for sociologists, and proceeds to present the case for a particular application of sociological theory to the understanding of gross human rights violations. Sociology, it claims, is equipped to study the dynamics of social institutions – socially constructed language-structures within which social action is framed – and since the mid-20th century, human rights has become such an institution. The article advocates an intellectual project for the sociology of rights, drawing on a diverse range of sources, that recognises how human rights abuses are made possible when the very concept of the ‘human’ is subtly redefined through these language-structures.

I examine the current movement for children's rights in the United States in terms of the history of child saving, and of the recent events concerning human rights. I stress the conflicts between the salvation and liberation of children, especially in the areas of education and justice. I also consider various approaches to children's rights to define the current movement, and review recent concerns so that I may clarify future needs and strategies.

This study of the Mississippi civil rights movement and the War on Poverty examines the relationship between social movements and policy implementation. A "movement infrastructure" model is developed that focuses on organizational structure, resources, and leadership to account for the impact of social movements on policy implementation. A two-tiered research design is employed that includes (1) a quantitative analysis of poverty programs in Mississippi counties from 1965 to 1971, and (2) case studies that show the complex interaction between the civil rights movement, resistance by whites, local powerholders, and federal agencies. The quantitative analysis shows that counties with strong movement infrastructures generated greater funding for Community Action Programs. The case studies show that movements were excluded from the initial formation of these programs as local whites attempted to preempt civil rights activists. However, in counties with strong movement infrastructures, activists were able to gain access to decision-making bodies and shape the content of poverty programs.

The social movement for African-American civil rights is one of most studied and celebrated social phenomena of the twentieth tury. One factor in explaining the movement's successes, howeve usually given little if any explicit attention by civil rights scholars, has not been explained adequately. This is the impact of the Cold on domestic United States race politics, and the process through the Cold War lessened resistance to civil rights movement dem While past studies of the civil rights movement have properly em sized such variables as democraphic shifts, changes in the econom social-movement organizational dynamics, the purpose of this a is (1) to stress the contributing importance of America's Cold W struggle with the Soviet Union in the development of black civil rig and (2) to demonstrate with this important case how the politi process model for the study of social movements can be clarifie made more precise through insights from neoinstitutional theory mostly identified with the cultural analysis of organizations. Coping the political-process model's emphasis on agency and opportu with neoinstitutional theory's stress on legitimacy can help devel language to explain the Cold War/civil rights connection.

Most studies of rape-law reform outcomes focus on single cases. We advance this literature by studying outcomes more systematically—leveraging new cross-national and longitudinal reform data—and showing that reform outcomes have both global and national determinants. Our exploratory analyses show three main findings: (1) Rape-law reforms are strongly associated with elevated police reporting between 1945 and 2005. (2) The strength of the association depends on domestic contexts. The association is stronger in countries characterized by individualism, women's mobilization, wealth, and education; it is weaker in countries with greater democracy and police strength. (3) The strength of the association also depends on global contexts. It is stronger in countries with dense linkages to world society and weaker under conditions of global institutionalization, as widespread diffusion gives rise to both ceremony without substance (i.e., domestic rape-law reforms without subsequent increases in reporting) and substance without ceremony (increased police reporting without antecedent reforms). In multivariate regression analyses, rape-law reforms, women's mobilization, and links to world society all have positive and significant effects on police reporting. It appears that both global and domestic contexts—together and independently—importantly shape policy and practice.

Women's political representation, once considered unacceptable by politicians and their publics, is now actively encouraged by powerful international actors. In this article, the authors ask how the growth and discourse of the international women's movement affected women's acquisition of political power over time. To answer this question, they use event history techniques to address women's political representation in more than 150 countries over 110 years (1893–2003). They consider multiple political outcomes: female suffrage, first female parliamentarian, and achievement of 10, 20, and 30 percent women in a country's national legislature. The findings show that increasing global pressure for the inclusion of women in international politics and the changing discourse of the international women's movement help to explain women's acquisition of these multiple political outcomes. Furthermore, by adding these concepts to traditional domestic models of women in politics, the authors demonstrate that country-level political, social structural, and cultural characteristics cause countries to act in conjunction with, or in opposition to, these global pressures. This is the first time that research on women in politics has considered such a comprehensive list of countries, time points, and outcomes.