Understanding Social Action, Promoting Human Rights

In Understanding Social Action, Promoting Human Rights, editors Ryan Goodman, Derek Jinks, and Andrew K. Woods bring together a stellar group of contributors from across the social sciences to apply a broad yet conceptually unified array of advanced social science research concepts to the study of human rights and human rights law. The book focus on three key methodological and substantive areas: actors, or social and political perspectives, including behavioral economics; communication, covering linguistics, media studies, and social entrepreneurship; and groups, via organizational theory, political economy, social movements, and complexity theory. Their goal is to provide a more comprehensive and more practical theory of social action, which necessarily requires a better understanding of individuals, organizations of individuals, and the ways in which both relate to other individuals and organizations.

1. Introduction: Social Science and Human Rights; Ryan Goodman, Derek Jinks, and Andrew K. Woods; 2. The Psychology of Social Norms and the Promotion of Human Rights; Deborah A. Prentice; 3. Why Can't We Sell Human Rights Like We Sell Soap?; Robert C. Hornik; 4. The Reasons for Compliance with Law; Margaret Levi, Tom Tyler, and Audrey Sacks; 5. Can International Law Stop Genocide When Our Moral Intuitions Fail Us?; Paul Slovic and David Zionts; 6. Human Rights: An Evolutionary and Behavioral Perspective; Herbert Gintis; 7. Moral Grammar and Human Rights: Some Reflections on Cognitive Science and Enlightenment Rationalism; John Mikhail; 8. Parochialism as a Result of Cognitive Biases; Jonathan Baron; 9. Networks and Politics: The Case of Human Rights; David Lazer; 10. Barriers to Dispute Resolution: Reflections on Peacemaking and Relationships between Adversaries; Byron Bland, Brenna Powell and Lee Ross; 11. The Difference It Makes; William F. Schulz; Bibliography; Index

Ryan Goodman is the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law and Co-Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law. Derek Jinks is the Marrs McLean Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. Andrew K. Woods is a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.