Organized by IPK Visiting Scholar Nicolas Guilhot, this interdisciplinary seminar will map the multiple processes that have led to the constitution of a field of international practices structured around the promotion of democracy and human rights. The purpose of the seminar will be to develop a comprehensive understanding of these new forms of social engineering and of the conceptual and normative framework under which they operate. It will be informed by a historical approach to the phenomenon of democracy promotion and resituate it in the context of the transformations of international law, human rights doctrines, and international politics. It will develop a sociological analysis of the institutional arenas – human rights organizations, NGOs, UN agencies, foundations and academic institutions – where this new global expertise is produced. At a more theoretical level, it will also look at how these new practices have transformed the concepts of democracy and human rights.
For more information on this event series, please read the full seminar description (PDF).
In this first session of the Full Spectrum Seminar, participants will gather to discuss a presentation by Nehal Bhuta (University of Toronto and New York University School of Law) who will discuss state-building, democratization and politics as technology.
Full Spectrum: Democracy and...
This presentation clarifies the origins of the field of transitional justice and its preliminary conceptual boundaries. In the article discussed, Dr. Arthur argues that the field began to emerge in the late 1980s, as a consequence of new practical conditions that human rights activists faced in countries, such as Argentina, where authoritarian regimes had been replaced by more democratic ones....
Professor Cohen will give a talk drawn from her paper "The Role of International Law in Post-Conflict Constitution-Making: Toward a Jus Post Bellum for 'Interim Occupations'" published in the New York University Law Review (Volume 51; 2006/2007).
This paper is available for download on this website to the right.
Please note that this presentation was originally scheduled for 4/30/09 with Benedict Kingsbury, who unfortunately will be unable to present on this new date.
This talk explores the significance of indicators as modes of producing knowledge about the world and as mechanisms for global governance. It focuses in particular on the development of indicators used in human rights monitoring,...
Samuel Moyn is Professor of History at Columbia University. Professor Moyn works primarily on modern European intellectual history, with special interests in France and Germany, political and legal thought, historical and critical theory, and Jewish studies. Currently, he is working on a study provisionally entitled A New Theory of Politics:...