Stay off my field: policing boundaries in human rights and democracy promotion

IF 2.2 1区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Theory Pub Date : 2023-01-23 DOI:10.1017/S1752971922000161

S. Bush, Sarah S. Stroup

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract The study of global politics is frequently organized around fields, but the boundaries of these fields are little understood. We explore the relationship between two proximate fields, human rights (HR) and democracy promotion (DP), in order to understand the emergence and maintenance of field boundaries. The two fields are closely linked in international law and practice, yet they have remained largely separate as fields of action, despite vast changes in global politics over four decades. The disjuncture has been largely maintained by HR organizations who police the boundary to keep DP out. We identify differences in anchoring norms as the key factor driving boundary maintenance. Actors in the two fields hold different foundational ideas about how to protect and advance rights, norms that we describe as cosmopolitan and statist. This account is superior to alternate explanations that emphasize functional demands or resource flows, and complements historical institutionalist accounts. Our research offers a theoretical contribution to the study of fields and practical insight into two important areas of global practice. Our qualitative research is supplemented by digital annotations, supported by the Qualitative Data Repository.

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远离我的领域:维护人权和促进民主的边界

摘要全球政治研究经常围绕各个领域展开，但人们对这些领域的界限知之甚少。我们探讨了人权（HR）和民主促进（DP）这两个邻近领域之间的关系，以了解领域边界的出现和维持。这两个领域在国际法和实践中紧密相连，但尽管40多年来全球政治发生了巨大变化，它们作为行动领域在很大程度上仍然是分开的。这种脱节在很大程度上是由人力资源组织维持的，他们负责管理边界，将DP拒之门外。我们认为锚定规范的差异是推动边界维持的关键因素。这两个领域的参与者对如何保护和促进权利持有不同的基本观点，我们将这些规范描述为世界主义和国家主义。这种解释优于强调功能需求或资源流动的替代解释，并补充了历史制度主义的解释。我们的研究为研究领域提供了理论贡献，并对全球实践的两个重要领域提供了实践见解。我们的定性研究得到了数字注释的补充，并得到了定性数据库的支持。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

International Theory Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Editorial board International Theory (IT) is a peer reviewed journal which promotes theoretical scholarship about the positive, legal, and normative aspects of world politics respectively. IT is open to theory of absolutely all varieties and from all disciplines, provided it addresses problems of politics, broadly defined and pertains to the international. IT welcomes scholarship that uses evidence from the real world to advance theoretical arguments. However, IT is intended as a forum where scholars can develop theoretical arguments in depth without an expectation of extensive empirical analysis. IT’s over-arching goal is to promote communication and engagement across theoretical and disciplinary traditions. IT puts a premium on contributors’ ability to reach as broad an audience as possible, both in the questions they engage and in their accessibility to other approaches. This might be done by addressing problems that can only be understood by combining multiple disciplinary discourses, like institutional design, or practical ethics; or by addressing phenomena that have broad ramifications, like civilizing processes in world politics, or the evolution of environmental norms. IT is also open to work that remains within one scholarly tradition, although in that case authors must make clear the horizon of their arguments in relation to other theoretical approaches.