Introduction: Human Rights in the Study of Politics
| Author | David Beetham |
| Date | 01 March 1995 |
| Published date | 01 March 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1995.tb01696.x |
| Subject Matter | Introduction |
Political Studies
(1995),
XLIII,
1-9
Introduction: Human Rights in the
Study
of
Politics
DAVID
BEETHAM
The idea of human rights, together with the institutions and practices that give
it expression, constitute one of the pervasive features of our political world. Yet
the subject is one that has to date occupied only a marginal position within the
discipline
of
political science.’ Although a few scholars have devoted their
research to it, and although the conceptual analysis of ‘rights’ has been an
important theme within political theory, the study of
human
rights can hardly
be said to belong to the mainstream of the discipline. Symptomatic of this
marginal position is the paucity of politics courses devoted to it, whether in
whole or in part. An international survey of human rights courses undertaken
in 1989 underlined the very limited contribution of political scientists to the
subject.2 And an analysis made in 1991
of
the place of human rights within
US
textbooks on international relations concluded that, despite the increasing
impact of human rights considerations on foreign policy, most American
political scientists ‘do not think human rights
is
an important part of
international
relation^'.^
The reasons for this marginal position are not hard to find. Most obvious is
a persistent scepticism about the status of human rights within all the main
branches of the discipline: political theory, comparative politics and
international relations alike. Where political theorists remain uncomfortable
with the philosophical presuppositions of human rights, and students of
comparative politics may question the appropriateness of Western derived
rights-concepts and standards to societies with different political traditions and
levels of economic development, the study of international relations
emphasizes the practical limitation of any human rights project in a world in
which national and ethnic loyalties remain pervasive, and individual states still
control the means of effective law enforcement.
Of these different sources of scepticism about human rights, that of political
theory has the longest history, dating from a variety
of
critical responses
to
the
declaration
of
the rights of man
in
the French revolution. Conservatives from
Burke onwards have argued that meaningful rights can only be protected in the
context of the distinctive national .traditions and legal orders within which they
I
I
use the term ‘science’ here
in
the widest sense.
K.
Pritchard, ‘Political science and the teaching
of
human rights’,
Human
Rights Quarterly,
11
D.
P.
Forsythe,
The
Internationalization
of
Human
Rights
(Lexington
MA,
Lexington Books,
(1989), 459-75.
1991),
p.
174.
Q
Political
Studies Association
1995
Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108
Cowley Road, Oxford
OX4
IJF,
UK
and 238 Main
Street, Cambridge, MA 02142,
USA.
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