Book Review: General International Relations Mervyn Frost, Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States (London: Routledge, 2002, 161pp., $80.00 hbk.)

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-344
Author(s):  
Anthony Langlois
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Global Civil Society

The Sovereign Limits of Global Civil Society: A Comparison of NGO Participation in UN World Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women

1998 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Marie Clark ◽  
Elisabeth J. Friedman ◽  
Kathryn Hochstetler
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Global Civil Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
Transnational Relations ◽  
Political Processes

The increased visibility of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements at the international level invites continuing evaluation of the extent and significance of the role they now play in world politics. While the presence of such new actors is easily demonstrated, international relations scholars have debated their significance. The authors argue that the concept of global civil society sets a more demanding standard for the evaluation of transnational political processes than has been applied in prior accounts of transnational activity. Further, most empirical studies of this activity have focused on a limited number of NGOs within a single issue-area. Using three recent UN world conferences as examples of mutual encounters between state-dominated international politics and global civic politics, the authors develop the concept of global civil society to provide a theoretical foundation for a systematic empirical assessment of transnational relations concerning the environment, human rights, and women at the global level.

scholarly journals Global civil society and international ethics: Mervyn Frost's restatement of constitutive theory

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-489
Author(s):  
PETER SUTCH
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Global Civil Society ◽  
Constitutive Theory ◽  
Constructivist Theory ◽  
International Ethics ◽  
The Core ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Oriented Approach

Mervyn Frost's restatement of his constitutive theory of international relations raises a number of crucial points which need elaboration and discussion. Discussing the issues under the key headings used by Frost in his reply to my ‘Human Rights as Settled Norms’, I wish to focus on the following claim which I take to be central to the development of any norm-oriented approach to political and international theory. The claim is simply this; we are required, as a necessary component of post-positivist and constructivist theory, to take account of ethical and political inequalities in the development of any series of ‘settled norms’ that constitute the prevailing domain of discourse. This claim, I believe, accurately captures the core concerns of my earlier article and informs those tensions that remain to be discussed here.

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