7. the human rights discourse remains
dominated by the voices of the
privileged.
- it is rare for the disadvantaged, the
powerless, and the victims of human
rights abuses to be heard in the debate.
- reflects the voices of lawyers,
academics, politicians, diplomats,
religious leaders, philosophers,
theologians, journalists and middle-class
activists (Beetham 1999)
8. the human rights discourse remains a
discourse of the powerful about the
powerless.
- therefore becomes part of the
discourse of domination and
disempowerment.This must be of
fundamental concern
for social workers and suggests
some important priorities for social
work
practice
9. Human rights are a special case, however. The exclusion of the disadvantaged
from the human rights discourse is itself a denial of human rights.
- and so the human
rights discourse, in its
dominant privileged
form, is self-
contradictory. This
contradiction in the
dominant discursive
framing of human
rights has received
very little attention, yet
for social workers as
human rights
practitioners it must
be of central concern.
16. Democracy, like human rights, is a complex and contested concept (Held,
1987)
- positive value attached to the idea of democracy, or ‘rule of the people’,
- In classical Greek democracy, where the idea of democracy is commonly
seen as having originated, women, children and slaves were omitted from
the construction of ‘the people’ (Sinclair 1988);
- in modern democracies, too, not everyone is included
in the decision-making process – children do not have the right to vote,
nor do aliens or ‘non-citizens’
- for many people, ‘democracy’ is a myth that hides the reality of their
effective powerlessness.
17. REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
the role of the people is not to make
democratic decisions but to elect or appoint
representatives to a parliament or some
other assembly, trusting those they have
elected to make decisions of which they will
approve.
The decision making power of the
people is twice delegated, first to the
politicians then to the civil service, and the
input of the citizen is limited indeed.
E.g Canada, the United States of America
and the United Kingdom
18. Representative democracy, has moved a long way from the romantic notion of
‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’.
The role of the individual citizen is minimal and has been further
eroded by the complexity and the mystification of modern government
(Martin & Schumann 1997).
Increasingly policy is defined, and accepted, as so complex that only trained
experts can understand it, and hence ‘public’ policy is removed from the realm of
democratic debate and becomes the exclusive domain of the expert (Fay 1975;
Rayner 1998; Held 1999).
E.g economics
19. Many decisions that are taken are reasonably
uncontroversial as well as highly technical, and most people would
presumably be happy not to be involved in them. However, the form of
representative democracy characteristic of most self-styled ‘democracies’ is
clearly disempowering and tokenistic, and as a result more participatory
models have been proposed. And in the interests of human rights, such a
quest is of considerable importance (Beetham 1999). Four common
proposals can be termed citizens’ initiated referendums, deliberative
democracy, electronic democracy and decentralised democracy.
20. citizens’ initiated referendums
The idea of a citizens’ initiated referendum is that if a sufficient number of
citizens were to sign a petition requesting such a referendum, it would have
to be put to the people and the result would be binding on the government.
Referendums have an obvious superficial appeal, as they clearly increase the
ability of ordinary people to be involved in the decision-making process.
They are used in a number of American states, and commonly in Switzerland.
21. deliberative democracy
the idea that people can make a wise decision if they are given full access to
all relevant information and the time to study and debate the issues in some
depth, amounting to an extension of the jury system into the public policy
arena.
Deliberative democracy concentrates on process; it suggests that it is in the
integrity of the process and the opportunity for people to have genuine input
into deliberative processes that effective democracy can be realised.
22. People are often prepared to accept a decision
that goes against their particular preferences, as long as they can be satisfied
that they have had an opportunity to have effective input (i.e. their voice
has been heard), and that the decision-making process has been open and
Fair.
The key element of deliberative democracy, however, is that citizens are
enabled to be part of the process of studying alternatives, researching
possible outcomes and formulating proposals; they are asked to contribute to
the process rather than simply react to a proposal.
23. Electronic democracy
seeks to use the power of the Internet
to increase levels of citizen
participation.
ADVANTAGES
-Through the Internet, people who
may never meet face to face are able
to discuss issues and even come to a
consensus
-More organised use of the Internet to
facilitate participatory democracy
includes ongoing discussion groups,
computer voting on issues, blogging,
and the use of websites to provide
people with the information necessary
to make informed decisions –a kind of
24. DISADVANTAGES
computers are only available to a minority of the world’s
population (and that is the most advantaged minority), so any democratic
process that relies exclusively on the Internet will exclude the majority of
Humanity.
there are many others who, while they may have access to
a computer, do not have the level of computer skills to make full and effective
use of the Internet.
electronic democracy will undoubtedly
favour the voices of not merely the computer-literate but in particular the
voices of the computer-obsessives.
25. Decentralised democracy
Suggests that the most effective way to have people actively involved in
decision-making over issues that directly affect them is to decentralise
decision-making as much as possible, so that decisions are made in more local
community-based structures which enable people to have much more direct
input (Rayner 1998; Ife 2002)
This can be achieved through more accessible local government structures,
with local governments taking increasing responsibility for a wide range of
issues.
26. This has been a major thrust of community development theory and practice,
which has seen the maximisation of citizen participation as one of its central
aims.
There is a good deal of social work expertise in maximising participation at
local community level, and this is important
in human rights-based social work, this form of practice is seen as
contributing to an overall national or global strategy of encouraging local
participation and decentralising decision-making wherever possible.
27. Human rights are global citizenship rights
Human rights, as we have seen, are the consequence of some notion of global
citizenship, implying that we are all citizens of a global society and that despite
our many cultural and other differences there is a shared humanity that we
hold in common. If human rights are indeed global citizenship rights, one of
the more important of these rights is the right to participation in the body
politic, in this case at the global level. Yet there is little opportunity for
formalised citizen input into global decisions. The opportunities do exist,
however, in less formalised ways, using the more fluid structures of civil
society.
28. What are the implications of the global democracy movement
for social workers?
First, such participation helps to realise human rights:
rights to participate fully as a citizen, rights of self-determination, and so
On.
second, given the discursive nature of human rights, such participation
is actually necessary for there to be adequate debate about whatcount as
human rights, in order to counter the elitist nature of the human
rights discourse already noted.
29. CONCLUSION
The discursive nature of human rights emphasises the importance of the
question of who participates in the human rights discourse. Hence the
encouragement of more participatory forms of democracy, incorporating
the voices of the marginalised and the victims of human rights abuse, is of
central concern. This is an essential component of human rights work, and
if social workers are to be understood as human rights workers the aspects
of practice that deal with the encouragement of participatory democracy,
whether at global or local level, become of primary importance. Social
workers have particular skills and expertise in this arena, both through
community development and also through the negotiation of human rights
definitions with clients.
