International records / Internet Archive

Spiral Model of Human Rights Change (International Trade Regimes)

Spiral Model of Human Rights Change: "This article examines the issue of state compliance with universal human rights norms, focusing on a social constructivist model suggested by Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (1999). This spiral model outlines five stages of socialization in which different forces work together to bring a change in the policies of repressive governments. I argue that the model suffers from three major theoretical shortcomings. It (1) is over-deterministic and idealistic in its proposition that once progress toward human rights compliance has started there is…