Rights, Power and Civic
Action
Gordon Crawford
University of Leeds, 3 December
2010
Background
 Rise
of rights-based approach
 Focus on empowering organisations to
claim rights
 Neglect of power as constraint, ie “deeply
embedded power relations and structural
barriers to securing rights” (Pettit and
Wheeler 2005: 5)
Introduction
 The
missing dimension of power in the
human rights and development literature
 Emphasis on empowerment but not on
power as obstacle to securing rights
 “deeply embedded power relations and
structural barriers to securing rights” (Pettit
and Wheeler 2005: 5)
Aim
 To
understand the interrelationship
between forms and uses of power and the
securing of human rights
Objectives
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To examine the socio-political contexts in which rights
initiatives are undertaken, identifying structures of power
at local, national and international levels.
To examine the approaches and strategies of rights
promoting organisations.
To identify the obstacles and constraints on securing
rights embedded in existing power structures.
To explore whether rights promoters have challenged
and altered power structures.
To examine the capacity and agency of rights promoters,
inclusive of whether empowerment has occurred.
To synthesise lessons through comparative analysis.
To contribute to debates about the relationship between
cpr and escr, and between democracy and human rights
promotion.
Methodology
 Qualitative.
In-depth studies of selected
rights-promoting organisations within
distinct country contexts.
 Country selection: differing political
contexts with regard to political regime and
degrees of democratisation, and thus
differential ‘opportunity structures’ for civic
action.
Country cases
 Ghana
and South Africa: relatively
successful democratic consolidation,
protection of civil and political rights.
 Kenya: hybrid regime, partly democratic
and partly patrimonial and autocratic
 Cambodia: democratic hopes not realised
after chaos and civil war; elements of
autocracy coexisting with fragile
democratic foundations.
Country cases [cont.]
 Zimbabwe:
civil and political rights abuses
combined with a severe deterioration in
economic and social rights.
 China: authoritarian, Party-state running a
liberalised market economy with rapid
economic growth.
Organisational studies
 Within
each country case, we selected
three social movements and/or advocacy
NGOs, and explore the power dynamics
involved.
What is Power?
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Complex and contested concept
 Exercised minds of famous social theorists
 Lukes (1974) and the three dimensions of (coercive)
power
 visible power: “A has power over B to the extent that s/he
can get B to do something that B would not do
otherwise”,
 hidden power: control over the agenda of political
decision-making, including what’s excluded.
 Invisible / internalised power: by “influencing, shaping or
determining” people’s very wants
Typology of power
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Power over: the strong over the weak, including the
power to exclude others [ie Lukes’s 3 dimensions]
Power to: the capability to decide actions and carry
them out.
Power with: collective power, through organisation,
solidarity and joint action.
Power within: personal self-confidence and self-esteem
[Empowerment]
See Rowlands 1998, VeneKlasen and Miller 2002,
Eyben 2005
Power analysis
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Power analysis means identifying and exploring
the multiple power dimensions that affect a given
situation, so as to better understand the different
factors that interact to reinforce poverty [or
constrain the securing of human rights].
 As power is not static, it will often cut across the
different forms, spaces and levels, and show
itself in more than one way.
Rough Guide to Power Analysis - Oxfam
Power
Gaventa’s (2006) power cube
FORMS
•Visible
•Hidden
•Invisible
SPACES
•Closed
•Invited
•Claimed/
Created
LEVELS
•Global
•National
•Local
Forms
 Combines
both structure and agency.
 Focus on ‘power over’, with forms of
power representing Lukes’s visible, hidden
and invisible power [ie structural
dimension]
Spaces
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Closed spaces: formal decisions made by closed
groups
 Invited spaces: selected people asked to
participate but within set boundaries
 Claimed and created spaces: “claimed by less
powerful actors from or against the power
holders, or created more autonomously by them”
and where determine own agenda (Gaventa
2006: 27).
Levels
 Global,
 National
 Local
 Household
 “The
dynamics of power depend on the
type of space in which it is found, the level
at which it operates and the form it takes”
(Gaventa 2006: 30, emphasis added).
Applying power cube
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Dynamics of power investigated examination of activities
of rights-promoting organisations
Research questions:
In what ways have struggles for human rights been
constrained by power relations and structural
inequalities?
In seeking to secure rights, how and to what extent have
rights-promoting organisations been able to challenge
power structures at both local and national levels?
To what extent have rights-promoting organisations been
successful in building countervailing power and in
transforming power structures and securing rights?