Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights

Are human rights universal or the product of specific cultures? Is democracy a necessary condition for the achievement of human rights in practice? And when, if ever, is it legitimate for external actors to impose their understandings of human rights upon particular countries? In the contemporary context of globalization, these questions have a salient religious dimension. Religion intersects with global human rights agendas in multiple ways, including: whether ''universal'' human rights are in fact an imposition of Christian understandings; whether democracy, the ''rule of the people,'' is compatible with God's law; and whether international efforts to enforce human rights including religious freedom amount to an illicit imperialism. This book brings together leading specialists across disciplines for the first major survey of the religious politics of human rights across the world's major regions, political systems, and faith traditions. The authors take a bottom-up approach and focus particularly on hot-button issues like human rights in Islam, Falun Gong in China, and religion in the former Soviet Union. Each essay examines the interaction of human rights and religion in practice and the challenges they pose for national and international policymakers.

Thomas Banchoff: Director, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University Rober Wuthnow: Andlinger Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University

- 1.: Introduction
- Thomas Banchoff and Robert Wuthnow
- 2.: The International Human Rights Regime
- Thomas Banchoff
- Part I: Islam and the Global Politics of Human Rights
- 3.: Human Rights and Democracy in Islam: The Indonesian Case in Global Perspective
- Robert W. Hefner
- 4.: Muslims, Human Rights and Women's Rights
- Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
- Part II: Three Regions: Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia
- 5.: Religious Pluralism, Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America
- Paul Freston
- 6.: Gender Justice and Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf
- 7.: Buddhism, Human Rights, and Non-Buddhist Minorities
- Charles Keyes
- Part III: Four Key Countries: India, China, Russia and the US
- 8.: Hinduism and the Politics of Rights in India
- Pratap Bhanu Mehta
- 9.: Religion, State Power, and Human Rights in China
- David Ownby
- 10.: Religious Communities and Rights in the Russian Federation
- Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer
- 11.: Human Rights, the Catholic Church, and the Death Penalty in the United States
- Thomas Banchoff