Beyond Illiberalism : Rights, Rhetoric, and Reality in a Pluralistic World

Arguing that there has never been a consensus on which rights all people are entitled, Beyond Illiberalism: Rights, Rhetoric, and Reality in a Pluralistic World traces how the concept of human rights is tied to a global project rooted in colonialism and grounded in 19th century liberalism and post-War social democratic principles.

While rights seem to exist universally – existing within societies and states that have not been shaped by nineteenth century liberal values – this book contends that human rights are conceived, imagined, and promoted by dominant states, organizations and activists within a specific liberal framework, and that, after more than 200 years, the dream of a universal history rooted in the worldview of G.W.F. Hegel has been displaced by the stuff of practical reality.

Beyond Illiberalism then shifts our attention to rights as a matter of human practice and emphasizes the importance of the actualization of rights within local contexts, demonstrating the spuriousness of the common Western division of regimes into ‘liberal’ and ‘illiberal’ based on notions of rights. This book will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology, socio-legal studies and cultural studies.