Universal Human Rights in theory & practice by jack Donnelly tries to grapple with different aspects of human rights, and he does so quite successfully.
Donnelly takes a universalist, but minimalist position on human rights, arguing that human rights are universal, but that different ways of implementation leaves room for cultural impact. He denies, however, that [...]
Posts Tagged ‘realism’
9 Sep
Universal Human Rights
25 Jun
Minilateralism = realism? = word games?
Both Stephen Walt and David Rothkopf are picking up on a rather inelegant Foreign Policy article launching the term ‘minilateralism.’
Minilateralism is launched as a concept opposed to multilateralism. Multilateralism, to the author, seems to mean consensus-style diplomacy between the world’s 200+ states. I would rather call it ‘UN lowest common denominator-diplomacy,’ and keep multilateralism as [...]
20 Jun
A lawful post-American world
I enjoyed reading Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World almost as much as his The Future of Freedom. Zakaria in both books draws up clear-sighted comparisons between the past and today. In the Post-American, he argues that America, like the British empire before the Boer wars, has already reached its pinnacle. This is not because America’s [...]
3 Apr
Taming American Power
I read Stephen Walt’s Taming American Power on the plane forth and back from Norway this spring. The book describes different reactions to how American uses its power (which is also eminently described), arguing that preserving and/or reinforcing US hegemony is the aim.
According to Walt, countries follow a range of strategies to either endorse or [...]
11 Feb
Do realists have monopoly on dealing with problems?
I have followed Stephen M. Walt’s blog for a while now, and I still can’t get what he means by his subtitle ‘I’m a realist in an ideological age.’
Obviously it refers to Walt being a realist, believing more in the force of material factors than ideas/ideologies. But I think his balance-of-threat theory includes too many [...]
