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Social Rights (social + right)
Selected AbstractsDisability Rights Commission: From Civil Rights to Social RightsJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2008Agnes Fletcher This paper argues that, although originally conceived as part of the ,civil rights' agenda, the development of disability rights in Britain by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is better seen as a movement towards the realization of social, economic, and cultural rights, and so as reaffirmation of the indissolubility of human rights in the round. As such, that process of development represents a concrete exercise in the implementation of social rights by a statutory equality body and a significant step towards the conception of disability rights as universal participation, not just individual or minority group entitlement. The paper considers the distinctive features of that regulatory activity. It asks what sort of equality the DRC set out to achieve for disabled people and where, as a result, its work positioned it on the regulatory spectrum. From the particular experience of the DRC, the paper looks forward to considerations of general relevance to other such bodies, including the new Equality and Human Rights Commission. [source] Social rights and social resistance: opportunism, anarchism and the welfare stateINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 3 2000Hartley Dean This conceptually oriented paper adopts a critical perspective on the question of social rights and asks whether, in contemporary circumstances, claims to social welfare based on rights can provide a meaningful basis for social resistance to poverty or oppression. Past approaches to the question of rights as a means of resistance are characterised as either opportunistic or anarchistic. Opportunistic approaches give rise to ameliorative compromise, anarchistic approaches to nihilistic or inherently hopeless struggle. Nonetheless, it is argued, it is possible to conceptualise rights to social welfare in ways that do not obscure the basis of social exploitation and that do project human need as the basis for social resistance. [source] The Economic Effects of Human RightsKYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 4 2007Lorenz Blume SUMMARY There are three positions concerning the economic effects of human rights discussed among economists. Some economists argue that only property rights matter for economic growth and basic human rights can even make the legal system less efficient. Others argue that negative rights are generally welfare increasing while positive rights tend to reduce income and growth over time. Yet a third group of economists argues that elements of all groups of human rights are a precondition for making productive use of one's resources and are thus efficiency-enhancing. Based on a cross-country analysis, the effects of different groups of human rights on economic growth are estimated in this paper. The transmission channels through which the different rights affect growth are identified by estimating their effects on investment and overall productivity. Basic human rights have indeed a positive effect on investment, but do not seem to contribute to productivity. Social rights, in turn, are not conducive to investment in physical capital but do contribute to productivity improvements. None of the four groups of rights covered in this analysis ever has a significant negative effect on any of the economic variables included. [source] Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East AsiaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2005Huck-ju Kwon This article attempts to explain changes and continuity in the developmental welfare states in Korea and Taiwan within the East Asian context. It first elaborates two strands of welfare developmentalism (selective vs. inclusive), and establishes that the welfare state in both countries fell into the selective category of developmental welfare states before the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The key principles of the selective strand of welfare developmentalism are productivism, selective social investment and authoritarianism; inclusive welfare development is based on productivism, universal social investment and democratic governance. The article then argues that the policy reform toward an inclusive welfare state in Korea and Taiwan was triggered by the need for structural reform in the economy. The need for economic reform, together with democratization, created institutional space in policy-making for advocacy coalitions, which made successful advances towards greater social rights. Finally, the article argues that the experiences of Korea and Taiwan counter the neo-liberal assertion that the role of social policy in economic development is minor, and emphasizes that the idea of an inclusive developmental welfare state should be explored in the wider context of economic and social development. [source] The Law beneath Rights' Feet.EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2002Preliminary Investigation for a Study of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union This article is meant as a philosophical preface to the study of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. In particular, attention is focused on a particular legal positivistic reading of legislation as a political moment which would not allow for transcendental rights. This view is rejected by pointing out how much the notion of citizenship and consequently of fundamental rights is central for the democratic, and in some case even for the legal positivistic, celebration of legislation. In the last section a few conclusions are drawn as far as the scope of the Charter is concerned. In particular, any interpretation of it in the framework of the so,called regulatory paradigm (which gives up the democratic connection between deliberation and representation) is considered incoherent and self,defeating. In addition the principle of indivisibility of rights is evoked in defence of the validity of social rights within the Charter. [source] Universal ideals and particular constraints of social citizenship: the Chinese experience of unifying rights and responsibilitiesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 2 2004Chack Kie Wong This study looks at the perceptions of citizens in a modern Chinese society and explores whether social rights and responsibilities are unified at both ideal and practice levels. It finds that the conception that the Chinese have a weak image of social rights is no longer true. The Chinese are generally ,right-deficit' at the practice level. It is also found that there are wide gaps between ideal rights and practice rights, and between ideal responsibilities and practice responsibilities, except in components affected by cultural, contextual and institutional factors. The findings suggest that, for a full understanding of social citizenship, it is necessary to look at both ideal and practice levels of social citizenship. Cultural, contextual and institutional factors are identified as moderating people's behaviour and preferences in regard to social citizenship. [source] Western European welfare states in the 20th century: convergences and divergences in a long-run perspectiveINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 4 2003Bela Tomka The study investigates the welfare systems in Western Europe in the course of the so-called ,short 20th century' (1918,1990) from a long-term comparative perspective and focusing on the convergent versus divergent features of development. Various indicators examined show that in terms of relative level of welfare expenditures, features of welfare institutions and social rights, there were significant differences between Western European countries in the first half of the 20th century, but diversity significantly decreased by the 1950s, and the tendency of convergence continued steadily in the next two decades. Subsequently, changes in variation between countries from the 1970s onwards displayed a somewhat less clear-cut pattern, but in several areas the convergence continued. As a result, in 1990 the differences between the Western European countries can be regarded as less significant in that respect than in the middle and especially at the beginning of the 20th century. [source] Social rights and social resistance: opportunism, anarchism and the welfare stateINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 3 2000Hartley Dean This conceptually oriented paper adopts a critical perspective on the question of social rights and asks whether, in contemporary circumstances, claims to social welfare based on rights can provide a meaningful basis for social resistance to poverty or oppression. Past approaches to the question of rights as a means of resistance are characterised as either opportunistic or anarchistic. Opportunistic approaches give rise to ameliorative compromise, anarchistic approaches to nihilistic or inherently hopeless struggle. Nonetheless, it is argued, it is possible to conceptualise rights to social welfare in ways that do not obscure the basis of social exploitation and that do project human need as the basis for social resistance. [source] Disability Rights Commission: From Civil Rights to Social RightsJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2008Agnes Fletcher This paper argues that, although originally conceived as part of the ,civil rights' agenda, the development of disability rights in Britain by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is better seen as a movement towards the realization of social, economic, and cultural rights, and so as reaffirmation of the indissolubility of human rights in the round. As such, that process of development represents a concrete exercise in the implementation of social rights by a statutory equality body and a significant step towards the conception of disability rights as universal participation, not just individual or minority group entitlement. The paper considers the distinctive features of that regulatory activity. It asks what sort of equality the DRC set out to achieve for disabled people and where, as a result, its work positioned it on the regulatory spectrum. From the particular experience of the DRC, the paper looks forward to considerations of general relevance to other such bodies, including the new Equality and Human Rights Commission. [source] Unsuitable Suitors: Anti-Miscegenation Laws, Naturalization Laws, and the Construction of Asian IdentitiesLAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2007Deenesh Sohoni In this article, I use state-level anti-miscegenation legislation to examine how Asian ethnic groups became categorized within the American racial system in the period between the Civil War and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. I show how the labels used to describe Asian ethnic groups at the state level reflected and were constrained by national-level debates regarding the groups eligible for U.S. citizenship. My main point is that Asian ethnic groups originally were viewed as legally distinct,racially and ethnically, and that members of these groups recognized and used these distinctions to seek social rights and privileges. The construction of "Asian" as a social category resulted primarily from congressional legislation and judicial rulings that linked immigration with naturalization regulations. Anti-miscegenation laws further contributed to the social exclusion of those of Asian ancestry by grouping together U.S.-born and foreign-born Asians. [source] Empowerment and State Education: Rights of Choice and ParticipationTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 6 2005Neville Harris Two separate discourses surround the involvement of parents in their children's education in schools. One is concerned with what is often referred to as ,parent power,' based on the conferment on parents of rights to a degree of choice and participation in respect of their children's education, a feature of legislative changes to the governance of state education that started with the Education Act 1980 and which, in part, rests on consumerist and liberal rights based notions. The other focuses on the home-school partnership ideal in which parents and schools have obligations to support each other in realising children's potential. Labour and Conservative 2005 general election campaigns included proposals to ,empower' parents. But social rights such as those in education, which are important to notions of citizenship, tend to be weak. This article concludes that over the past 25 years little power has been ceded to parents, individually or collectively, and that, in the case of rights of choice at least, any further empowerment seems unrealistic. Moreover, the principal mechanism of parental involvement, particularly since 1997, has been the enforcement of parental responsibility, a form of ,technology of citizenship'. The extent to which children hold participation and choice rights is also considered. [source] | |||||||||||||