Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-1986

Department

Political Science

Abstract

It is often argued that internationally recognized human rights are common to all cultural traditions and adaptable to a great variety of social structures and political regimes. Such arguments confuse human rights with human dignity. All societies possess conceptions of human dignity, but the conception of human dignity underlying international human rights standards requires a particular type of “liberal” regime. This conclusion is reached through a comparison of the social structures of ideal type liberal, minimal, traditional, communist, corporatist and developmental regimes and their impact on autonomy, equality, privacy, social conflict, and the definition of societal membership.

Comments

This article was originally published in American Political Science Review, 80(3): 801-817. © 1986 Cambridge University Press.

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