Clifford Bob – författare

This book is an eye-opening account of transnational advocacy, not by environmental and rights groups, but by conservative activists. Mobilizing around diverse issues, these networks challenge progressive foes across borders and within institutions. In these globalized battles, opponents struggle as much to advance their own causes as to destroy their rivals. Deploying exclusionary strategies, negative tactics and dissuasive ideas, they aim both to make and unmake policy. In this work, Clifford Bob chronicles combat over homosexuality and gun control in the UN, the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. He investigates the 'Baptist-burqa' network of conservative believers attacking gay rights, and the global gun coalition blasting efforts to control firearms. Bob draws critical conclusions about norms, activists and institutions, and his broad findings extend beyond the culture wars. They will change how campaigners fight, scholars study policy wars, and all of us think about global politics.

This book is an eye-opening account of transnational advocacy, not by environmental and rights groups, but by conservative activists. Mobilizing around diverse issues, these networks challenge progressive foes across borders and within institutions. In these globalized battles, opponents struggle as much to advance their own causes as to destroy their rivals. Deploying exclusionary strategies, negative tactics and dissuasive ideas, they aim both to make and unmake policy. In this work, Clifford Bob chronicles combat over homosexuality and gun control in the UN, the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. He investigates the 'Baptist-burqa' network of conservative believers attacking gay rights, and the global gun coalition blasting efforts to control firearms. Bob draws critical conclusions about norms, activists and institutions, and his broad findings extend beyond the culture wars. They will change how campaigners fight, scholars study policy wars, and all of us think about global politics.

How do a few Third World political movements become global causes célèbres, while most remain isolated? This book rejects dominant views that needy groups readily gain help from selfless nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Instead, they face a Darwinian struggle for scarce resources where support goes to the savviest, not the neediest. Examining Mexico's Zapatista rebels and Nigeria's Ogoni ethnic group, the book draws critical conclusions about social movements, NGOs, and 'global civil society'.

How do a few Third World political movements become global causes célèbres, while most remain isolated? This book rejects dominant views that needy groups readily gain help from selfless nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Instead, they face a Darwinian struggle for scarce resources where support goes to the savviest, not the neediest. Examining Mexico's Zapatista rebels and Nigeria's Ogoni ethnic group, the book draws critical conclusions about social movements, NGOs, and 'global civil society'.

An in-depth look at the historic and strategic deployment of rights in political conflicts throughout the worldRights are usually viewed as defensive concepts representing mankind’s highest aspirations to protect the vulnerable and uplift the downtrodden. But since the Enlightenment, political combatants have also used rights belligerently, to batter despised communities, demolish existing institutions, and smash opposing ideas. Delving into a range of historical and contemporary conflicts from all areas of the globe, Rights as Weapons focuses on the underexamined ways in which the powerful wield rights as aggressive weapons against the weak.Clifford Bob looks at how political forces use rights as rallying cries: naturalizing novel claims as rights inherent in humanity, absolutizing them as trumps over rival interests or community concerns, universalizing them as transcultural and transhistorical, and depoliticizing them as concepts beyond debate. He shows how powerful proponents employ rights as camouflage to cover ulterior motives, as crowbars to break rival coalitions, as blockades to suppress subordinate groups, as spears to puncture discrete policies, and as dynamite to explode whole societies. And he demonstrates how the targets of rights campaigns repulse such assaults, using their own rights-like weapons: denying the abuses they are accused of, constructing rival rights to protect themselves, portraying themselves as victims rather than violators, and repudiating authoritative decisions against them. This sophisticated framework is applied to a diverse range of examples, including nineteenth-century voting rights movements; the American civil rights movement; nationalist, populist, and religious movements in today’s Europe; and internationalized conflicts related to Palestinian self-determination, animal rights, gay rights, and transgender rights.Comparing key episodes in the deployment of rights, Rights as Weapons opens new perspectives on an idea that is central to legal and political conflicts.

An in-depth look at the historic and strategic deployment of rights in political conflicts throughout the worldRights are usually viewed as defensive concepts representing mankind’s highest aspirations to protect the vulnerable and uplift the downtrodden. But since the Enlightenment, political combatants have also used rights belligerently, to batter despised communities, demolish existing institutions, and smash opposing ideas. Delving into a range of historical and contemporary conflicts from all areas of the globe, Rights as Weapons focuses on the underexamined ways in which the powerful wield rights as aggressive weapons against the weak.Clifford Bob looks at how political forces use rights as rallying cries: naturalizing novel claims as rights inherent in humanity, absolutizing them as trumps over rival interests or community concerns, universalizing them as transcultural and transhistorical, and depoliticizing them as concepts beyond debate. He shows how powerful proponents employ rights as camouflage to cover ulterior motives, as crowbars to break rival coalitions, as blockades to suppress subordinate groups, as spears to puncture discrete policies, and as dynamite to explode whole societies. And he demonstrates how the targets of rights campaigns repulse such assaults, using their own rights-like weapons: denying the abuses they are accused of, constructing rival rights to protect themselves, portraying themselves as victims rather than violators, and repudiating authoritative decisions against them. This sophisticated framework is applied to a diverse range of examples, including nineteenth-century voting rights movements; the American civil rights movement; nationalist, populist, and religious movements in today’s Europe; and internationalized conflicts related to Palestinian self-determination, animal rights, gay rights, and transgender rights.Comparing key episodes in the deployment of rights, Rights as Weapons opens new perspectives on an idea that is central to legal and political conflicts.