Conflict, Terrorism, and the Socialization of Human Rights Norms: The Spiral Model Revisited

Abstract

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 overdeterministic and idealistic in its proposition that once progress toward human rights compliance has started there is no turning back; (2) treats a country's human rights practices as a homogenous block and does not leave room for disaggregation of different practices; and (3) fails to sufficiently account for the role of serious conflicts and security threats in shaping state's repressive policies. Nevertheless, drawing largely on the Israeli case I show that the spiral model should not be discarded. When substantially modified and complemented with other sociological and international relations approaches, the model remains useful for understanding the processes of change in specific violations.