Lecture on Rights as Weapons-Instruments of Conflict, Tools of Power

Organizer: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

About the Session

  • When: Friday, 6 May 2022, 4.30 pm IST
  • Platform: Zoom
  • Free, Open to All

Session by: Clifford Bob
Chair: Hilal Ahmed

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Meeting ID: 871 7820 4074
Passcode: csdsdelhi

Rights are usually viewed as defensive concepts, protecting the vulnerable and uplifting the downtrodden. But political combatants also use rights belligerently, to batter despised communities, demolish existing institutions, and smash opposing ideas. Clifford Bob’s book Rights as Weapons focuses on these under-examined ways in which powerful forces deploy rights as aggressive tools against weaker communities. It applies a novel conceptual framework to historical and contemporary cases including nineteenth-century voting rights movements; the American civil rights movement; nationalist, populist, and religious movements in today’s Europe; and internationalized conflicts over Palestinian self-determination, animal rights, LGBT rights, and transgender rights.

Clifford Bob, Ph.D., J.D., is Professor of political science at Duquesne University. Currently a Fulbright Global Scholar researching civil society responses to Covid policies. His books include Rights as Weapons (Princeton, 2019), The Global Right Wing (Cambridge, 2012-International Studies Association Book of the Decade Award) and The Marketing of Rebellion (Cambridge, 2005-ISA Best Book Award).

Hilal Ahmed is Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

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