Archived news

04 April 2011: Asylum, welfare and the cosmopolitan ideal: A sociology of rights

UPDATED:

Prof. Lydia Morris' new book " Asylum, Welfare and the Cosmopolitan Ideal: A Sociology of Rights" was published by Routledge Cavendish in March 2010 and is now also out in paperback.

The book argues that rights must be understood as part of a social process: a terrain for strategies of inclusion and exclusion but also of contestation and negotiation. It shows how human rights can be used as a tool for radical change, and in so doing proposes a multi-layered 'model' for understanding rights.

This model incorporates political strategy, public policy, civil society mobilisation, judicial decision making, and their public impact, and advances a dynamic understanding of rights as part of the recurrent encounter between principles and politics. Rights are therefore seen as both a social product and a social force.