Politics and History Division

Richard Valelly, Swarthmore College, rvalell1@swarthmore.edu
Vesla Weaver, University of Virginia, vmweaver@virginia.edu

The Comparative Development of Rights Politics and Its Contradictions

We encourage papers and panels that capture the many paradoxes and varieties of rights politics. In 2010 America legislated an expansion in a social right – health care – yet it restricts health care provisions for new immigrants. America has an African-American president, yet African-Americans face deep economic and educational disadvantage rooted in part in exclusions from social rights for several decades. Are such antinomies common to rights politics -- and if so why? Also, rights politics is a common carrier in subtle ways that deserve exploration -- consider in this connection how the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has become the basis for a conservative rights movement. Such surprises and tensions here and abroad present an opportunity for scholars of both American politics and comparative politics to examine the historical development of rights – why they have flourished at some times, in some places, and for some groups while being curtailed in other moments, countries, and for other groups. We invite papers that explore 1) the roles that different political institutions -- not just courts but also executives, bureaucrats, legislatures, and sub-national governments -- and the roles that different associations -- not just movements but also political parties and interest groups -- play in defining, protecting, or limiting rights; 2) how elite strategies toward democratic development condition the form, scope, and institutionalization of rights; 3) collective action vs. legal mobilization and requirements of private enforcement to protect or develop rights; 4) how collective memory shapes rights claims, 5) whether the politics of rights requires identity politics and a concomitant weakening of broad group alliances, and 6) the attitudinal or behavioral effects of rights struggles, histories, and extensions and their incidence, timing, and variation. Specific topics might also include transitional justice movements and politics; international sources of repression or protest; the scope and persistence of intersectional disadvantage; extreme marginality (we think here of Native-Americans and transgendered people); the role of private firms and human resource professionals in implementing equal opportunity policies and social rights; the counterpoint between growing income inequality and the rights revolution in the U.S. and elsewhere; partial or full reversals of rights advances and their consequences for groups and movements (for example, the disenfranchisement of African-Americans ca. 1890-1910, or the weakening of collective bargaining and the right to strike); the rise of the gay rights struggle; the rights of women now and in the past; immigrant rights; and, differences between liberal expressions of rights claims and conservative movements for rights. We are especially eager to broaden Politics and History to scholars outside of APD. Paper, panels, poster sessions, and roundtables that examine vital data collection and methodological issues around studying the politics of rights are also very much encouraged.