Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195343387 ISBN 13: 9780195343380

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Are human rights universal or the product of specific cultures? Is democracy a necessary condition for the achievement of human rights in practice? And when, if ever, is it legitimate for external actors to impose their understandings of human rights upon particular countries? In the contemporary context of globalization, these questions have a salient religious dimension. Religion intersects with global human rights agendas in multiple ways, including: whether ''universal'' human rights are in fact an imposition of Christian understandings; whether democracy, the ''rule of the people,'' is compatible with God's law; and whether international efforts to enforce human rights including religious freedom amount to an illicit imperialism. This book brings together leading specialists across disciplines for the first major survey of the religious politics of human rights across the world's major regions, political systems, and faith traditions. The authors take a bottom-up approach and focus particularly on hot-button issues like human rights in Islam, Falun Gong in China, and religion in the former Soviet Union. Each essay examines the interaction of human rights and religion in practice and the challenges they pose for national and international policymakers.

About this title

About the Author

TB: Director, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University RW: Andlinger Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University

Review

"For three decades, scholars have shown that religion and human rights need each other. The volume opens an important new chapter of scholarship by illustrating precisely how religion and human rights interact today. Judiciously edited and strikingly original, the volume combines case studies of local communities with broad surveys of major religions and regions of the world that illustrate the complex and diverse controversies that remain, especially over women's rights, religious freedom, and the rights to life and bodily integrity."
-- John Witte, Jr., Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Emory University

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0195343387
• ISBN 13: 9780195343380
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324
• Editor: Banchoff Thomas, Wuthnow Robert