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Rights, Power and Civic Action

Rights, Power and Civic Action. Gordon Crawford University of Leeds, 3 December 2010 . Background. Rise of rights-based approach Focus on empowering organisations to claim rights

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Rights, Power and Civic Action

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  1. Rights, Power and Civic Action Gordon Crawford University of Leeds, 3 December 2010

  2. Background • Rise of rights-based approach • Focus on empowering organisations to claim rights • Neglect of power as constraint, ie “deeply embedded power relations and structural barriers to securing rights” (Pettit and Wheeler 2005: 5)

  3. Introduction • The missing dimension of power in the human rights and development literature • Emphasis on empowerment but not on power as obstacle to securing rights • “deeply embedded power relations and structural barriers to securing rights” (Pettit and Wheeler 2005: 5)

  4. Aim • To understand the interrelationship between forms and uses of power and the securing of human rights

  5. Objectives • To examine the socio-political contexts in which rights initiatives are undertaken, identifying structures of power at local, national and international levels. • To examine the approaches and strategies of rights promoting organisations. • To identify the obstacles and constraints on securing rights embedded in existing power structures. • To explore whether rights promoters have challenged and altered power structures. • To examine the capacity and agency of rights promoters, inclusive of whether empowerment has occurred. • To synthesise lessons through comparative analysis. • To contribute to debates about the relationship between cpr and escr, and between democracy and human rights promotion.

  6. Methodology • Qualitative. In-depth studies of selected rights-promoting organisations within distinct country contexts. • Country selection: differing political contexts with regard to political regime and degrees of democratisation, and thus differential ‘opportunity structures’ for civic action.

  7. Country cases • Ghana and South Africa: relatively successful democratic consolidation, protection of civil and political rights. • Kenya: hybrid regime, partly democratic and partly patrimonial and autocratic • Cambodia: democratic hopes not realised after chaos and civil war; elements of autocracy coexisting with fragile democratic foundations.

  8. Country cases [cont.] • Zimbabwe: civil and political rights abuses combined with a severe deterioration in economic and social rights. • China: authoritarian, Party-state running a liberalised market economy with rapid economic growth.

  9. Organisational studies • Within each country case, we selected three social movements and/or advocacy NGOs, and explore the power dynamics involved.

  10. What is Power? • Complex and contested concept • Exercised minds of famous social theorists • Lukes (1974) and the three dimensions of (coercive) power • visible power: “A has power over B to the extent that s/he can get B to do something that B would not do otherwise”, • hidden power: control over the agenda of political decision-making, including what’s excluded. • Invisible / internalised power: by “influencing, shaping or determining” people’s very wants

  11. Typology of power • Power over: the strong over the weak, including the power to exclude others [ie Lukes’s 3 dimensions] • Power to: the capability to decide actions and carry them out. • Power with: collective power, through organisation, solidarity and joint action. • Power within: personal self-confidence and self-esteem • [Empowerment] • See Rowlands 1998, VeneKlasen and Miller 2002, Eyben 2005

  12. Power analysis • Power analysis means identifying and exploring the multiple power dimensions that affect a given situation, so as to better understand the different factors that interact to reinforce poverty [or constrain the securing of human rights]. • As power is not static, it will often cut across the different forms, spaces and levels, and show itself in more than one way. Rough Guide to Power Analysis - Oxfam

  13. Power

  14. Forms • Combines both structure and agency. • Focus on ‘power over’, with forms of power representing Lukes’s visible, hidden and invisible power [ie structural dimension]

  15. Spaces • Closed spaces: formal decisions made by closed groups • Invited spaces: selected people asked to participate but within set boundaries • Claimed and created spaces: “claimed by less powerful actors from or against the power holders, or created more autonomously by them” and where determine own agenda (Gaventa 2006: 27).

  16. Levels • Global, • National • Local • Household • “The dynamics of power depend on the type of space in which it is found, the level at which it operates and the form it takes” (Gaventa 2006: 30, emphasis added).

  17. Applying power cube • Dynamics of power investigated examination of activities of rights-promoting organisations • Research questions: • In what ways have struggles for human rights been constrained by power relations and structural inequalities? • In seeking to secure rights, how and to what extent have rights-promoting organisations been able to challenge power structures at both local and national levels? • To what extent have rights-promoting organisations been successful in building countervailing power and in transforming power structures and securing rights?

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