Governance and Development in South Asia: Book Talk Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

Mainstream human rights activists typically attribute the signature successes of their movement—anti-slavery, Gandhi, Martin Luther King—to their uncompromisingly principled stance on behalf of the weak and the exploited. “Naming and shaming” and “ending impunity” loom large in their lore. This attitude works well to recruit idealistic activists, but their moralism, legalism, and secular universalism miss the central role of the self-interest of the majority in powering the progress of human rights. A core of idealists defined aspirational goals, but progress depended on support from majority mass movements and reform parties that gained power through expedient compromise.