Alison Brysk
Biographic Data
| ID | 650897 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alison Brysk |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alison |
| FAMILY NAME | Brysk |
| SIGNATURE | BRYSK A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0789-7143 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 466 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 6 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Abortion across borders: The globalization of rights access and civil resistance
Populism and Human Rights in a Turbulent Era
How can we interpret and respond to the rise of populist regimes that infringe on human rights? This incisive book analyses illiberal, repressive, and patriarchal logics of rule, identifying critical catalysts in the meteoric growth of populist agendas. Contributors scrutinise the records of authoritarian and nationalist leaders in Brazil, Hungary, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and the United States.
Abortion Rights Attitudes in Europe: Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, or Pro-Nation
Despite modernization in women’s public roles, reproductive rights attitudes and policies are becoming more restrictive in some societies. While existing literature depicts abortion opinion as a clash of feminist pro-choice vs. religious pro-life frames, feminist analysis suggests that nationalism may influence reproductive attitudes. Yet no cross-national research has empirically examined the relationship between ethnonationalist sentiments and …
Pandemic patriarchy: The impact of a global health crisis on women’s rights
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a surge in patriarchal repression for women worldwide, with marked increases in gender violence, gendered job loss and deterioration in labor conditions, regression in health care access and reproductive rights, and backlash against feminist consciousness. Beyond intensifying chronic rights gaps and the preexisting conditions of patriarchy, the global health crisis has increased the gendered impact of interdepend…
The future of human rights: A research agenda
The Changing Ethos of Human Rights
Utilizing the ethos of human rights, this insightful book captures the development of the moral imagination of these rights through history, culture, politics, and society. Moving beyond the focus on legal protections, it draws attention to the foundation and understanding of rights from theoretical, philosophical, political, psychological, and spiritual perspectives. The book surveys the changing ethos of human rights in the modern world and tra…
A Research Agenda for Human Rights
Constructing rights in Taiwan: The feminist factor, democratization, and the quest for global citizenship
In an era of worldwide rights regression, beleaguered Taiwan remains Asia’s most democratic, gender equitable, and liberal internationalist nation. What accounts for this seemingly exceptional record—and how does the feminist factor contribute to the construction of rights? Bridging constructivist and feminist scholarship, this essay argues that gender equity is a force multiplier for democratization as it empowers civil society and fosters legit…
Engaged Buddhism as Human Rights Ethos: The Constructivist Quest for Cosmopolitanism
A Discussion of Kathryn Sikkink's Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21 st Century
Since their emergence in the late eighteenth century, doctrines of universal individual rights have been variously criticized as philosophically confused, politically inefficacious, ideologically particular, and Eurocentric. Nevertheless, today the discourse of universal human rights is more internationally widespread and influential than ever. In Evidence for Hope , leading international relations scholar Kathryn Sikkink argues that this is beca…
The Struggle for Freedom from Fear
One out of three women in the world has suffered gender-based violence. Yet from #metoo to Malala to Maria da Penha, women are rising up and pushing back. The purpose of this book is to show how to transform fear to freedom through a combination of international action, legal reform, public policy, mobilization, and value transformation. The Struggle analyzes drivers of violence and strategies for resistance in the semi-liberal countries at the f…
Expanding Rights
Chapter 9 turns to the gendered impact of public policy and the potential of rights-based public policy as a response to violence. First, we will chronicle the diffusion of global models of gendered public policy on urban planning, transportation, sanitation, and social services. Next, we will trace the emergence of new models of policing and social services to address family violence in Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, and El Salvador. Movi…
Freedom: Contesting Violence Against Women at the Frontiers of Globalization
Chapter 5 considers threats to sexual self-determination through case studies of FGM/C in Egypt, trafficking in the Philippines, and child marriage in India.Persisting patterns of denial of self-determination over sexuality and marriage result from state complicity with local patriarchal elites, honor cultures, and suppression of women’s agency. Sexual slavery is most characteristic of patriarchal states, but often lags in sectors of emerging eco…
Precarious Rhetorics
OUR COLLEC TION has come together in the midst of the rise of the global Right.It will likely be received and circulate in a global context wherein this ascendency has been consolidated through an entrenched hard-right populism, marked by xenophobia and racialized social orderings, and characterized by nativist, heteronormative, hypermasculine, and heteropatriarchal leadership styles and structures.Such structures are apparent in the authoritaria…
Expanding Human Rights: 21St Century Norms and Governance
When Development Is Not Enough: Structural Change, Conflict and Gendered Insecurity
Despite two decades of rapid global economic growth and social modernisation, including increases in gender equity, levels of violence against women remain stubbornly high. Moving beyond conventional liberal views, a growing literature has identified how structural change and conflict associated with economic development can exacerbate women's physical insecurity. We examine the relationship between development patterns and variation in the Physi…
Apsa Active and Award Committees
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Speaking Rights To Power
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Do rights at home boost rights abroad? Sexual equality and humanitarian foreign policy
Does women's empowerment strengthen global good citizenship? We test theories of democratic foreign policy and feminist international relations that suggest that more deeply democratic countries with greater gender equity will be stronger international human rights promoters. First, the direct empowerment of women as policymakers and civil society constituencies may shift states' incentives and ability to pursue international human rights initiat…
Speaking Rights to Power: Constructing Political Will
How can “Speaking Rights to Power” construct political will to respond to human rights abuse worldwide? Examining dozens of cases of human rights campaigns, this book shows how communication politics build recognition, solidarity, and social change. The book presents an innovative analysis of the politics of persuasion, based in the strategic use of voice, framing, media, protest performance, and audience bridging. Building on twenty years of res…
The Globalization of Law: Implications for the Fulfillment of Human Rights
How does the globalization of law, the emergence of multiple and shifting venues of legal accountability, enhance or evade the fulfillment of international human rights? The utility of law for the fulfillment of human rights can be summarized as a combination of normative principles, universal repertoire of definitions and boundaries, links to state enforcement, predictable processes for conflict resolution, and a doctrine of equal standing (Kinl…
Sex as Slavery? Understanding Private Wrongs
The era of globalization has been accompanied by an increased awareness of private wrongs as well as acceleration of many forms of cross-border labor exploitation. The essay explores how refined distinctions between forced and free sex work could improve anti-trafficking policies. It addresses the understudied linkages between other forms of migration and sexual exploitation and suggests a triage approach to all forms of labor exploitation—based …
Now we are all globalists
My Brother's Keeper’? Inter-ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights: ‘My Brother's Keeper’? Inter-ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights
Why and how do communities that have been victims of human rights abuse advocate for new, unrelated victims of ethnic persecution? Scattered but persistent inter-ethnic solidarity challenges materialist views of ethnic communities as interest groups, and highlights the importance of social learning and communicative action. In order to trace some promising pathways of inter-ethnic solidarity, we examine human rights campaigns on behalf of other b…
Surrendering to Utopia: An Anthropology of Human Rights by Mark Goodale
From Above and Below: Social Movements, the International System, and Human Rights in Argentina
What role does the international system play in amplifying the impact of domestic social movements on social change? The Argentine human rights movement reached the international system through the projection of cognitive and affective information—persuasion. International response was facilitated by the international human rights regime, and transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played a critical role. This challenge from above and …
Democratizing Civil Society in Latin America
If the twentieth century was dominated by the rise and reach of the state, its close has been marked by the ascendance of civil society. Yet this long-overdue recognition of the importance of civil society has too often evolved into a simplistic equation of democracy with a strong civil society. A strong civil society, however, may not necessarily be a democratic one. For example, popular social forces have recently sought to undermine democracy …
Turning Weakness Into Strength: The Internationalization of Indian Rights
Social movement activists of the 1980s urged their constituencies to integrate grass-roots activity and international consciousness with the slogan Act locally-think globally. But movements to support the rights and better the conditions of indigenous peoples of the Americas have followed the opposite path. A movement that epitomizes local knowledge and consciousness has engaged in extensive international activity with surprising success; the ant…
Hearts and Minds: Bringing Symbolic Politics Back In
Materialist and rationalist models of collective action often fail to explain political outcomes because they ignore the impact of normative and affective representations, a deficiency that can be remedied by paying attention to symbolic politics. This article uses a framework drawn from theories of narrative to explain political struggle as a competition between established canons and counter-hegemonic challenges, to indicate the conditions unde…
The Politics of Measurement: The Contested Count of the Disappeared in Argentina
Measurement is a critical first step in assessing human rights violations, comparing cases, and designing appropriate international and domestic policies. But measurement is not a neutral technical exercise; in public policy, information is contested terrain. Sensitive scholars of human rights have often discussed the political difficulties of collecting and interpreting data on human rights violations.2 These analysts focus on political obstacle…
The politics of human rights in Argentina: Protest, Change, and Democratization
Under Argentina's military dictatorship of 1976-83, tens of thousands of Argentine citizens disappeared - having been abducted, tortured, and finally murdered by their own government. This book is the most comprehensive treatment of the emergence, successes, and failures of the Argentine human rights movement - the only force that resisted the unspeakable atrocities of state terror. At the risk of their lives, grieving mothers and grandmothers, c…
Globalization and Human Rights
In this landmark volume, Alison Brysk has assembled an impressive array of scholars to address new questions about globalization and human rights. Is globalization generating both problems and opportunities? Are new problems replacing or intensifying state repression? How effective are new forms of human rights accountability? These essays include theoretical analyses by Richard Falk, Jack Donnelly, and James Rosenau. Chapters on sex tourism, int…
From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America
"This book tells the story of the unexpected impact of the Indian rights movement on world politics, from reforming the United Nations to evicting oil companies. Using a constructivist theoretical approach that synthesizes international relations, social movement theory, ethnic politics, and work on democratic transitions, the author argues that marginalized people have responded to globalization with new, internationalized forms of identity poli…
The Globalization of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights
Globalization is shifting the balance away from membership-based citizenship towards universal human rights, thus we ask: how are new human rights generated? We argue that the movement for human rights follows on the heels of the much older and richer tradition of citizenship, as can be seen from the fact that many of the new claims put forward by human rights activists seek to define traditional citizenship rights as universal human rights. Most…
After Empire: National Identity and Post-colonial Families of Nations
The `special relationships' formed by Spain, France and Britain with their former colonies demonstrate that even ties initially based on political and economic domination transform the identities of both parties. In this study, we show how European post-colonial behavior in Africa, Asia and Latin America has been inspired by historically rooted subjective conceptions of national identity and norms of interstate community. We employ a constructivi…
Pandemic patriarchy: The impact of a global health crisis on women’s rights
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a surge in patriarchal repression for women worldwide, with marked increases in gender violence, gendered job loss and deterioration in labor conditions, regression in health care access and reproductive rights, and backlash against feminist consciousness. Beyond intensifying chronic rights gaps and the preexisting conditions of patriarchy, the global health crisis has increased the gendered impact of interdepend…
Constructing rights in Taiwan: The feminist factor, democratization, and the quest for global citizenship
In an era of worldwide rights regression, beleaguered Taiwan remains Asia’s most democratic, gender equitable, and liberal internationalist nation. What accounts for this seemingly exceptional record—and how does the feminist factor contribute to the construction of rights? Bridging constructivist and feminist scholarship, this essay argues that gender equity is a force multiplier for democratization as it empowers civil society and fosters legit…
Do rights at home boost rights abroad? Sexual equality and humanitarian foreign policy
Does women's empowerment strengthen global good citizenship? We test theories of democratic foreign policy and feminist international relations that suggest that more deeply democratic countries with greater gender equity will be stronger international human rights promoters. First, the direct empowerment of women as policymakers and civil society constituencies may shift states' incentives and ability to pursue international human rights initiat…
Liberalization and ethnic conflict in Latin America
The Globalization of Law: Implications for the Fulfillment of Human Rights
How does the globalization of law, the emergence of multiple and shifting venues of legal accountability, enhance or evade the fulfillment of international human rights? The utility of law for the fulfillment of human rights can be summarized as a combination of normative principles, universal repertoire of definitions and boundaries, links to state enforcement, predictable processes for conflict resolution, and a doctrine of equal standing (Kinl…
Sex as Slavery? Understanding Private Wrongs
The era of globalization has been accompanied by an increased awareness of private wrongs as well as acceleration of many forms of cross-border labor exploitation. The essay explores how refined distinctions between forced and free sex work could improve anti-trafficking policies. It addresses the understudied linkages between other forms of migration and sexual exploitation and suggests a triage approach to all forms of labor exploitation—based …
My Brother's Keeper’? Inter-ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights: ‘My Brother's Keeper’? Inter-ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights
Why and how do communities that have been victims of human rights abuse advocate for new, unrelated victims of ethnic persecution? Scattered but persistent inter-ethnic solidarity challenges materialist views of ethnic communities as interest groups, and highlights the importance of social learning and communicative action. In order to trace some promising pathways of inter-ethnic solidarity, we examine human rights campaigns on behalf of other b…
Communicative action and human rights in Colombia. When words fail
By the 21st century, in most of Latin America a phased combination of international and civil society pressure has produced notable if incomplete human rights reform. Yet in Colombia, continuing assassinations, kidnappings, forced displacement, and torture have received limited international attention and met with a checkered state response. This essay will argue that the symbolic structure of the violations and political environment in Colombia,…
Beyond Hegemony: U.S.-Latin American Relations in a “New World Order
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
Beyond Framing and Shaming: Human Trafficking, Human Security and Human Rights
No accessJournal of Human SecurityOther Journal Article01 January 2009Beyond Framing and Shaming: Human Trafficking, Human Security and Human Rights Authors: Alison Brysk Authors: Alison Brysk Professor, Political Science and International Studies, University of California, Irvine, and Director, UC Irvine Human Rights Program, email: [email protected] Google Scholar More articles by this author SectionsAboutPDF/EPUBExport CitationsAdd to Favourit…
Global Good Samaritans? Human Rights Foreign Policy in Costa Rica
When and why do certain states help to promote and enforce human rights at the level? As the constructivist approach suggests, for citizen states the principled pursuit of human rights is not exceptional altruism, but rather a consciously constructed alternative pathway of national interest. Costa Rica's record of human rights influence in multilateral institutions and processes is enduring, multifaceted, and contributes to globally significant i…
Abortion across borders: The globalization of rights access and civil resistance
The future of human rights: A research agenda
When Development Is Not Enough: Structural Change, Conflict and Gendered Insecurity
Despite two decades of rapid global economic growth and social modernisation, including increases in gender equity, levels of violence against women remain stubbornly high. Moving beyond conventional liberal views, a growing literature has identified how structural change and conflict associated with economic development can exacerbate women's physical insecurity. We examine the relationship between development patterns and variation in the Physi…
Speaking Rights To Power
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Beyond Hegemony: U.S.-Latin American Relations in a “New World Order
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
From Above and Below: Social Movements, the International System, and Human Rights in Argentina
What role does the international system play in amplifying the impact of domestic social movements on social change? The Argentine human rights movement reached the international system through the projection of cognitive and affective information—persuasion. International response was facilitated by the international human rights regime, and transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) played a critical role. This challenge from above and …
The politics of human rights in Argentina: Protest, Change, and Democratization
Under Argentina's military dictatorship of 1976-83, tens of thousands of Argentine citizens disappeared - having been abducted, tortured, and finally murdered by their own government. This book is the most comprehensive treatment of the emergence, successes, and failures of the Argentine human rights movement - the only force that resisted the unspeakable atrocities of state terror. At the risk of their lives, grieving mothers and grandmothers, c…
The Politics of Measurement: The Contested Count of the Disappeared in Argentina
Measurement is a critical first step in assessing human rights violations, comparing cases, and designing appropriate international and domestic policies. But measurement is not a neutral technical exercise; in public policy, information is contested terrain. Sensitive scholars of human rights have often discussed the political difficulties of collecting and interpreting data on human rights violations.2 These analysts focus on political obstacle…
Other books in review
Hearts and Minds: Bringing Symbolic Politics Back In
Materialist and rationalist models of collective action often fail to explain political outcomes because they ignore the impact of normative and affective representations, a deficiency that can be remedied by paying attention to symbolic politics. This article uses a framework drawn from theories of narrative to explain political struggle as a competition between established canons and counter-hegemonic challenges, to indicate the conditions unde…
Turning Weakness Into Strength: The Internationalization of Indian Rights
Social movement activists of the 1980s urged their constituencies to integrate grass-roots activity and international consciousness with the slogan Act locally-think globally. But movements to support the rights and better the conditions of indigenous peoples of the Americas have followed the opposite path. A movement that epitomizes local knowledge and consciousness has engaged in extensive international activity with surprising success; the ant…
The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina
Revised edition of 1994 out-of-print Stanford University Press study of human rights protest, social change, and democratization in Argentina. A symbolic politics analysis of the truth commission, trials, and policy reform in Latin America's most sweeping transition of the 1980's
Activities and Appointments
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Liberalization and ethnic conflict in Latin America
Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations. Peter H. Smith
From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America
"This book tells the story of the unexpected impact of the Indian rights movement on world politics, from reforming the United Nations to evicting oil companies. Using a constructivist theoretical approach that synthesizes international relations, social movement theory, ethnic politics, and work on democratic transitions, the author argues that marginalized people have responded to globalization with new, internationalized forms of identity poli…
Globalization The Double-Edged Sword
Globalization threatens human rights in Latin America. But at the same time, it is creating unprecedented opportunities to protect and promote those rights
Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru . Kenneth M. Roberts
Democratizing Civil Society in Latin America
If the twentieth century was dominated by the rise and reach of the state, its close has been marked by the ascendance of civil society. Yet this long-overdue recognition of the importance of civil society has too often evolved into a simplistic equation of democracy with a strong civil society. A strong civil society, however, may not necessarily be a democratic one. For example, popular social forces have recently sought to undermine democracy …
Globalization and Human Rights
In this landmark volume, Alison Brysk has assembled an impressive array of scholars to address new questions about globalization and human rights. Is globalization generating both problems and opportunities? Are new problems replacing or intensifying state repression? How effective are new forms of human rights accountability? These essays include theoretical analyses by Richard Falk, Jack Donnelly, and James Rosenau. Chapters on sex tourism, int…
After Empire: National Identity and Post-colonial Families of Nations
The `special relationships' formed by Spain, France and Britain with their former colonies demonstrate that even ties initially based on political and economic domination transform the identities of both parties. In this study, we show how European post-colonial behavior in Africa, Asia and Latin America has been inspired by historically rooted subjective conceptions of national identity and norms of interstate community. We employ a constructivi…
Recovering from State Terror: The Morning After in Latin America
In Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, an individual victim of shattering human rights violations serves as a metaphor for her entire society, as she struggles to recover truth, justice, and stability. Her anguished confrontation with the vagaries of memory, the temptations of vengeance, and the limits of pacted transitions mirrors the political history reflected in these works (Dorfman 1991). In a similar spirit, in the immediate aftermath of …
People Out of Place
Part 1: Framework 1. Globalization and the Citizenship Gap Alison Brysk and Gershon Shafir 2. Citizenship and Human Rights In An Era of Globalization Gershon Shafir Part 2: Producing Citizenship 3. Constituting Political Community Ronnie Lipschutz 4. Latitudes of Citizenship Aihwa Ong Part 3: Constructing Rights 5. Agency on a Global Scale: Rules, rights and the European Union David Jacobson and Galya Benarieh Ruffer 6. International Law and Citi…
Global Good Samaritans? Human Rights Foreign Policy in Costa Rica
When and why do certain states help to promote and enforce human rights at the level? As the constructivist approach suggests, for citizen states the principled pursuit of human rights is not exceptional altruism, but rather a consciously constructed alternative pathway of national interest. Costa Rica's record of human rights influence in multilateral institutions and processes is enduring, multifaceted, and contributes to globally significant i…
The Globalization of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights
Globalization is shifting the balance away from membership-based citizenship towards universal human rights, thus we ask: how are new human rights generated? We argue that the movement for human rights follows on the heels of the much older and richer tradition of citizenship, as can be seen from the fact that many of the new claims put forward by human rights activists seek to define traditional citizenship rights as universal human rights. Most…
Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy
In a troubled world where millions die at the hands of their own governments and societies, some states risk their citizens' lives, considerable portions of their national budgets, and repercussions from opposing states to protect helpless foreigners. Dozens of Canadian peacekeepers have died in Afghanistan defending humanitarian reconstruction in a shattered faraway land with no ties to their own. Each year, Sweden contributes over $3 billion to…
Beyond Framing and Shaming: Human Trafficking, Human Security and Human Rights
No accessJournal of Human SecurityOther Journal Article01 January 2009Beyond Framing and Shaming: Human Trafficking, Human Security and Human Rights Authors: Alison Brysk Authors: Alison Brysk Professor, Political Science and International Studies, University of California, Irvine, and Director, UC Irvine Human Rights Program, email: [email protected] Google Scholar More articles by this author SectionsAboutPDF/EPUBExport CitationsAdd to Favourit…
Communicative action and human rights in Colombia. When words fail
By the 21st century, in most of Latin America a phased combination of international and civil society pressure has produced notable if incomplete human rights reform. Yet in Colombia, continuing assassinations, kidnappings, forced displacement, and torture have received limited international attention and met with a checkered state response. This essay will argue that the symbolic structure of the violations and political environment in Colombia,…
Global good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy
Political science (42 works) · Law (33 works) · Sociology (29 works) · Human rights (26 works) · Politics (24 works) · Law (18 works) · Political economy (14 works) · Human Rights and Development (12 works) · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics (11 works) · Economics (10 works)