Taking Root

Human rights organizations have grown exponentially across the globe particularly in the global South and the term human rights is now common parlance among politicians and civil society activists. As international donors pour money into global human rights promotion some governments scholars activists and other critics fear a subtle Western-led campaign for political economic and cultural domination. While debates about human rights are waged in elite circles what do publics in the global South think about human rights ideas and the organizations that promote them? Drawing on large-scale public opinion surveys and interview with human rights practioners in India Mexico Morocco and Nigeria Taking Root finds that most people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse trust local human rights groups and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. Pro-human rights constituencies also tend to be highly skeptical of the U.S. government multinational corporations and their own governments. However this general public support for human rights isn''t grounded in strong commitments of public engagement money or local ties to the human rights sector. Publics in the global South do donate to charitable causes and organizations but rarely give to local rights groups. Rights organizations instead seek aid from foreign sources an increasingly untenable strategy as foreign aid to civil society declines. The book also describes the complex relations between religiosity and support for human rights as faith communities worldviews and traditions strongly influence the public''s views of human rights but often in contradictory ways. As the most informative and comprehensive account available of public perceptions of human rights across several regions of the world Taking Root will challenge a number of accepted truths held by human rights supporters and skeptics alike.