Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat

Analyzing Child Labor as a Human Rights Issue: Its Causes, Aggravating Policies, and Alternative Proposals

The international community has been concerned about child labor for a long time and attempted to curb it at the first session of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1919 by establishing fourteen years as the minimum age for children to be employed in industry.1 In 1973, the Minimum Age Convention of the ILO (Convention 138, or C138) defined child labor as economic activity performed by a person under the age of fifteen, and prohibited it for being hazardous to the physical, mental, and moral well-being of the child as well as for preventing effective schooling.2 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General

Human Rights Ideology and Dimensions of Power: A Radical Approach to the State, Property, and Discrimination

This article advances the argument that there is a distinct ideology of Human Rights embedded in the International Bill of Rights (IBR). Instead of contrasting ideologies in terms of their stance on equality and liberty, it suggests employing three dimensions of power—political, economic, and social that are defined in relation to the positions taken on the state, property, and discrimination, respectively—in assessing the extent to which ideologies oppose the concentration of power and promise emancipation. It then analyzes the three documents that constitute the IBR as the textual sources of a distinct Human Rights Ideology on these three dimensions to reveal its radical and emancipatory characteristics, which tend to be missed or deliberately undermined. It questions the aptness of liberal democracy, the welfare state, and the capitalist economy for fulfilling the main premise of this ideology—equality in dignity.

Globalization, Feminisms, and Women's Empowerment: Comments on Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann's Article, “Universal Women's Rights Since 1970”

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann’s “Universal Women’s Rights Since 1970: The Centrality of Autonomy and Agency” is a timely, expansive, powerful, and thought-provoking article. Dealing with various important issues regarding women’s rights and making some broad assertions, it inevitably raises probing questions that call for further discussion. Thus, I appreciate the journal’s editor Richard Hiskes’ invitation and hope my brief and intertwined comments will trigger some interest in exploring gender and women’s rights issues with attention to the diversity of women’s experiences, intricacy of feminist concerns, and complexity of causal links. I would like to start with the complications surrounding the concept of globalization.

Where to look for the truth: memory and interpretation in assessing the impact of turkish women's education

Abstract Concerned about the muted voices of women in traditional history, feminist scholars have sought methods that would unearth womens voices. Oral history and interviews are seen as useful tools and frequently employed in feminist research. Womens experience, as told by themselves, is expected to contradict the male version and show the complexity of events. But, what if the two voices coincide, and together they contradict the feminist interpretations? Using the educational experience of the Turkish women who were the first generation of the educated daughters of the Republic, this article discusses the function of memory and interpretation. In exploring how these womens assessments of their own educational experience might have affected the empowerment of women in Turkey, the article addresses the tension between two goals of feminist research—letting womens voices be heard and locating the social and cultural determinants of gender relations and their reproduction.

On the Uses and Misuses of Human Rights: a Critical Approach to Advocacy

The evolution of human rights norms reveals a complex and uneven story. On the one hand, there have been unquestionable achievements, especially in the post-1945 period, which have challenged some of the traditional prerogatives of sovereignty.2 More specifically, since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948, the setting of standards in human rights has advanced rapidly. Both the United Nations and regional human rights regimes have adopted declarations and treaties, many of which have been ratified by a significant majority of participating states. New constitutions, amendments, and legislative reforms tend to make explicit references to the promotion and protection of human rights (Daly, 2013). Treaty obligations and national laws have led states to establish national human rights institutions with wide-ranging mandates (Mertus, 2009).3 Advocacy organizations have proliferated, some of the perpetrators of serious violations have been brought to justice, people and activists have increasingly articulated their claims by employing a language of human rights, and very few people would openly admit to being hostile to the idea of human rights. This has led some analysts and commentators to refer to human rights as the “lingua franca of global moral discourse” (Beitz & Goodin, 2009, p. 1).

Can Democracy Survive Where There is a Gap Between Political and Economic Rights

Political systems and public policies are strongly linked in a reciprocal cause and effect relationship. If the policies refer to human rights, this relationship appears to be even stronger since the recognition and practices of human rights in a society reflect the nature of the political — or even the social — system. This paper seeks to study the balance among different human rights policies, classifying human rights into two groups, namely civil and political rights and social and economic rights respectively. This paper will also attempt to analyze the impact of these two groups of human rights on the stability of democratic political systems.

The United States, Justice, and Human Rights

David Forsythe has been a dedicated Human Rights scholar who contributed to the field in many ways, such as producing prolific and influential writings, inspiring colleagues, mentoring students at all levels, supporting junior scholars, and integrating the study of human rights to the structure of major professional organizations. He is a founding member and former chair of the Human Rights Research Committee of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and has been active in the Human Rights sections of both the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association. I have been a beneficiary of all of these activities of his. Extending his hand at a very early stage in my career, he played a significant role in shaping it. Had he not accepted one of my very first human rights papers for an IPSA conference or encouraged me further by nominating the paper for an award, I wonder if I would have kept human rights on my research agenda and become a part of the community of human rights scholars. Moreover, he has continued with his generous support that has been crucial to the advancement of my scholarship and career. Thank you, David. David Forsythe is well known as a scholar of International Politics and Relations, who approaches international affairs from a human rights perspective and writes extensively on human rights in US foreign policy, among other things. A less known fact is that he is one of the rare International Relations scholars who pay attention not only to foreign policy and human rights conditions abroad but also to what is going on in the United States, offering critical assessments. He describes what is without losing the sight of what ought to be. This article offers a brief review of Forsythe’s treatment of US foreign and domestic policies through the prisms of justice and human rights.

From Omission to Reluctant Recognition: Political Parties’ Approach to Women’s Rights in Turkey

Subordination of women in Muslim communities and states has been problematized by many, ranging from Muslim Feminists who focus on sociohistorical factors to Orientalists who essentialize religion and berate Islam. However, the secularist and republican regime of the predominantly Muslim-populated Turkey has been treated as an exceptional case. Although some improvements in the status of women in Turkey is undeniable, the country is far from granting equal rights to women and approaching gender equality (Arat 1994 and 1998). Major political actors have subscribed to traditional gender notions, and women face all forms of discrimination and human rights violations.

Human Rights and Structural Adjustment

The structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which are imposed on developing countries that apply to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or to the World Bank for loans, have been subject to criticism for a long time. The IMF and the Bank require SAPs as conditions for lending and demand applicant governments to tighten their belts by reducing spending; liberalize their economies through privatization, deregulation, and trade liberalization; encourage exports by devaluating the national currency; increase government revenues by adopting tax reforms; secure property rights to attract foreign investment; and freeze wages to fight inflation. Entailing the elimination or reduction of government subsidies on food and utilities, cuts in social spending, lay-offs, and regressive tax systems, the SAPs affect the fixedand low-income groups disproportionally and thus are referred to as “austerity measures” by their critics. A group of these critics has defined these negative impacts of the SAPs as violations of economic and social rights. Some researchers have further drawn attention to the increased violations of physical integrity and civil rights in countries that enter into agreements with the IMF or the World Bank. Abouharb and Cingranelli provide a review of this literature, which sometimes yields contradictory findings, address the defensive arguments presented by the two financial agencies, and offer a systematic analysis of 131 countries for the 1981– 2003 period to test if the implementation of SAPs is related to human rights conditions. They find that the longer period of living by the IMF and Bank conditionality is correlated with lower levels of economic and social rights, increases in civil conflict, torture, extrajudicial executions, disappearances and political imprisonment, and declines in worker rights. They find the correlation between the number of years under the IMF/Bank rules and procedural democracy to be positive but note that the procedural democracy, limited to holding periodic competitive elections, may lack substance and fail to ensure people’s right to participate in governance and to influence policies that affect their lives.