Construction Of Rights Research Articles

The (unprivileged) polluter pays: Conflict of Rights in Delhi’s stormwater drain-adjacent ‘informal’ settlements

ABSTRACT The juridical construction of India’s Right to Life has recognized right to water and sanitation in ‘informal’ settlements but not right to clean environments, the latter instead applied to label them as polluters. Given past evictions based on nuisance law in Delhi, and the emerging juridical construction of Rights of Nature for River Yamuna – polluted by waste disposal – the biophysical impact of ‘formal’ vs. ‘informal’ settlements needs clarification. Water quality and land use analyses at stormwater drain-adjacent settlements in Delhi show pollution occurs upstream but becomes visible here, lending settlement residents environmental agency in an emerging Conflict of Rights scenario.

Study on Human Rights and Their Implications in Post-Modernity

This work aims to present some considerations on human rights, reinforcing the idea of a system composed of dimensions of rights and with mutations in the definition of ‘human’ as per the historical evolution of human thought. What we see is a construction of rights, bearing in mind that there are no time limits for the various achievements of humanity, as this is a historical process, and there is a process of continuity between the classes of these fundamental prerogatives. It should also be emphasized the analysis of Human Rights and the change in the concept of ‘Man’ as thinking evolves. In this consumer society and in post-modernity, is there still the same rationale and definition of that man as seen in Kant?

The Historical Construction of Social Rights

It is chosen to develop this topic as a relevant object to the study now undertaken, which is a current and extremely important topic for the political and economic moment currently experienced in the world in light of the principle of prohibition of social retrogression as a result of the dignity of the human person.
 For a good understanding of the issue about social rights, it was necessary to draw some preliminary considerations about the historical construction of rights and the relationship with the intervention of the democratic State in the individual sphere as an agent in charge of carrying out and effecting the fulfillment of social values.
 This article sought to demonstrate, in a systemic way, the Historical Construction of Fundamental Social Rights. The main objective of this study was to demonstrate the applicability of human rights at the constitutional level, as well as to justify the need for Brazilian society to enforce these rights for the egalitarian construction of a Social State. The doctrine and the Law support and justify this work, which adopted the perspective of Human Rights. The research line is that of Human Rights, while the scientific article is a bibliographic review that used the deductive method, qualitative and descriptive research. As a reference, we used scientific literature and published materials that were pertinent to the purposes discussed here.

The Sociology of Children's Rights. By BrianGran. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. ISBN: 978‐1‐509‐52784‐7, 259 pp. $64.95 (hb)

Academic publications on children’s rights––undertaken from different perspectives––have witnessed significant growth in recent years. The book under review is one such, where the author 'employs sociology to study children's rights'(Gran 2021: 1). Sociology is the common, broader field of reference for the issues analysed in this book. The sociological perspective brings new questions and allows the author to introduce new, critical aspects of researching and analysing the practice of children’s rights. The author draws attention to the double standard with regard to the legal framework, which on the one hand, is designed to protect children's rights and on the other hand, makes it difficult for children and young people themselves to have and enjoy those rights. The author has managed to combine quite diverse issues concerning the construction of rights, key theories for understanding what children's rights are and why they are so important, into one coherent whole. The book is a harmonised polyphony of content dedicated to reflecting on key questions: what rights young people have, whether these rights promote equality, as well as how these rights affect children's identities, freedoms and their participation in society; whether we need children’s rights in the world of human rights. The author has divided the material into six chapters, alongside an Introduction and Appendices. The layout of the book is clear, which means that every reader, regardless of their familiarity with these scholarly debates will find the book’s content important and inspiring. The first chapter ‘What Are Children's Rights?’ takes a closer look at the historical background, roots and stages of the emergence of children's rights and the bundles and typologies of rights. The analysis indicates that despite the wide range of children's rights, there is a perceived lack of political rights and few of the available rights are privileges or entitlements of children. The next two chapters focus on the role and condition of institutions and structures that have been established to monitor and promote children's rights, and what defines children's rights policy and its implications for children's rights. The author explores the status of children's political rights, draws attention to ageism and the marginalisation of these rights and what political rights can potentially do for young people. Chapter four deals with the meanings that young people attribute to their rights, the areas in which they perceive the impact of their rights and the role and significance that young people’s rights have in relation to societies they are part of. The author introduces selected pathways, approaches and methods from across the social science, thanks to which we can learn what young people think about their rights. These important themes are continued in another chapter highlighting the right to have rights and the impact of rights on children. Reviewing the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, other UN bodies, UN agencies, UN Special Procedures, the author looks at what children can achieve through their rights, particularly in terms of their interests and welfare. He also raises the question of the benefits that accrue to adults as a result of children's rights. The consideration is sealed by the sixth chapter structured around the search for an answer to the question ‘What Is Right with Children's Rights?’. The author reveals and justifies the arguments for and against children's rights (e.g. the dilemmas of the movement to advance children's rights, relativism, the divergence of children's interests and those of adults, the dependence of young people on others for their rights). We have become accustomed to the 'presence' of children's rights in international and national legislation, hence, it is difficult for us to imagine what would happen if they were not there. It is even more difficult, as the author concludes, to realise that children's rights have not been systematically conceptualised and legislations fail because many of the rights contained in international legislations are not present in the UN CRC or remain in contradiction. Children, as human beings, are entitled to all human rights, yet, there is a lack of global research today that includes children's voices on what they think about their rights. Research in a participatory approach based on an ethical symmetry that takes into account the perspective of children and adults seems to be one of the available solutions. This book is an excellent compendium for all social scientists and students working on children's rights in sociology, political science, social policy, childhood studies, education studies and legal sciences.

Constructing rights in Taiwan: the feminist factor, democratization, and the quest for global citizenship

In an era of worldwide rights regression, beleaguered Taiwan remains Asia’s most democratic, gender equitable, and liberal internationalist nation. What accounts for this seemingly exceptional record—and how does the feminist factor contribute to the construction of rights? Bridging constructivist and feminist scholarship, this essay argues that gender equity is a force multiplier for democratization as it empowers civil society and fosters legitimacy at home and abroad. In a three-level game, states at the margin of the international system may benefit from rights reform that expands the national interest and delivers material and reputational rewards. The case of Taiwan illustrates the dynamics of the double transition to liberal democracy and a liberal gender regime and its projection to world politics. The rewards of rights for Taiwan suggest a wider range of options even in small states facing regional challenges—and greater attention to the feminist factor in world politics.

Pipe Dream for the Ladies: Constructs of Rights of Prostituted Women among Social Actors in the Sex Industry of Olongapo City, Zambales

Although recognized as illegal, prostitution in Olongapo is widely practiced, even actively backed by the state. Euphemisms related to sex trade activities and personas such as guest relations officers, entertainers, clients, and managers were employed as cloaks to legitimize its operation. Bars, massage parlors, street solicitations, and private escort services are among the few settings that sustain the sex industry. The historical, political, and economic dimensions of prostitution have been widely researched; however, there remains a dearth of social inquiry pertaining to the sociocultural dimension of the trade, specifically the social construction of rights afforded to the women by those involved in the industry. Underpinned by constructivism theory, this article explores the constructs of the social actors in the prostitution sector pertaining to the rights of prostituted women. It asserts that reality is consistently being shaped through the making, sharing, and reciprocation of a construct system among the social actors in a series of definitive events. The article juxtaposes these constructs with the policies and laws and examines how these translate to social structures and materialization of rights. Findings reveal that the laws and policies on prostitution are largely dissociated from the construct system of the prostituted women. The material conditions in Olongapo, combined with the punitive nature of these ordinances, legitimize exclusion, enable sexual predation, sustain sex buying, stifle the materialization of the rights of prostituted women, and deprive them of legal remedies. A comprehensive and extensive evaluation of the said laws based on the construct system of prostituted women and active involvement of prostituted women in crafting new measures are highly recommended.

Rekonstruksi Konsep Hak dan Kewajiban Suami Isteri dalam Perundang-undangan Perkawinan Indonesia

The end of this study concluded that there are similarities and differences between them on the issue of euthanasia, ie they both forward the elements kemashlahatan, that prevent a disease is an obligation that must be done by each individual. While the difference was more depressed on the way to apply euthanasia, namely on how to end the suffering of patients. In Islam known healing of a scientific nature and the divine, whereas in Medical Sciences, simply healing that is' aqliyah alone and also on the basis of elements of an emergency. In principle deliberate murder against those who are sick means precede destiny. God has set the deadline of the age of man. By accelerating death, patients do not benefit from Allah exam given to him, in the form him tawakal.Akhir dari penelitian ini disimpulkan bahwa terdapat persamaan dan perbedaan di antara keduanya dalam masalah euthanasia, yakni keduanya sama-sama mengedepankan unsur kemashlahatan, bahwa mencegah suatu penyakit adalah suatu kewajiban yang harus dilakukan oleh setiap individu. Sedangkan sisi perbedaannya lebih tertekan pada cara mengaplikasikan euthanasia tersebut, yakni pada cara mengakhiri penderitaan pasien. Dalam Islam dikenal penyembuhan yang bersifat ilmiah dan ilahiyah, sedangkan dalam Ilmu Kedokteran, hanya penyembuhan yang bersifat 'aqliyah semata dan juga atas dasar unsur darurat. Pada prinsipnya pembunuhan secara sengaja terhadap orang yang sedang sakit berarti mendahului takdir. Allah telah menentukan batas akhir usia manusia. Dengan mempercepat kematiannya, pasien tidak mendapatkan manfaat dari ujian yang diberikan Allah Swt kepadanya, yakni berupa ketawakalan kepada-Nya.

The European Union and the absence of fundamental rights in the Eurozone: A critical perspective

Despite the development of fundamental rights mechanisms in the European Union, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the governance of the Eurozone has led to policies that have undermined basic social rights. The purpose of this article is to explain why it is that the European Union has been able to act in this manner despite the assurances supposedly enshrined in its own rights guarantees. To do this, recent advancements in critical integration theory that posit European integration as the outcome of competing hegemonic projects are drawn upon. The construction of fundamental rights is conceptualised within the context of the institutional framework of the European Union and the current dominant neoliberal project. It is argued that the process of construction of rights has led to a highly restrictive understanding of what the concept of fundamental rights entails in the European Union. This has allowed European Union institutions to rhetorically commit to rights while simultaneously acting to undermine rights in practice.

Where You Stand Depends Where You Sit: Bureaucratic Politics in Federal Workplace Agencies Serviing Undocumented Workers

This Article integrates social science theory about immigrant incorporation and administrative agencies with empirical data about immigrant-serving federal workplace agencies to illuminate the role of bureaucracies in the construction of rights. More specifically, it contends that immigrants’ rights can be protected when workplace agencies incorporate immigrants into labor law enforcement in accordance with the agencies’ professional ethos and organizational mandates. Building on Miles’ Law that “where you stand depends on where you sit,” this Article argues that agencies exercise discretion in the face of contested law and in contravention to a political climate hostile to undocumented immigrants for the purpose of protecting workers. Consequently, strongly pro-immigrant policies in the political branches are not necessary for the recovery of immigrants’ rights. Instead, entrenched institutional commitments to professional ethics and recognition of organizational mandates constrain politics resulting in a hybrid form of bureaucratic politics. Empirical evidence of regulatory responses to immigrant workers after Hoffman Plastic v. NLRB in three federal agencies serve as comparative case studies: the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board.

Providing Rights Through Individual Compassion: <i>The ambivalent rights talk within refugee resettlement work</i>

The article analyses the social constructions of rights as they come about through Swedish delegations preparing refugees for resettlement in Sweden, under the Cultural Orientation Programme (COP). ...

Antipoverty Measures: The Potential for Shaming and Dignity Building through Delivery Interactions

The special issue focuses on the impact of antipoverty measures—accounting for social and structural dimensions in the poverty experience and moving beyond an income-only focus—in five country cases: China, India, Norway, Uganda, and the United States. Particularly, we focus on the implications of shame in the delivery of antipoverty measures, as an individual and social phenomenon that relates to feelings of self-inadequacy, as well to a lack of dignity and recognition. We analyze delivery interactions through an analytic framework of rights, discretion and negotiation, as this enables us to parse out how policy delivery interactions presumed or enabled individual choice, ability, control, and voice. We suggest social citizenship can structure the relationships between welfare recipients and administrators. As a concept, it expands the objects of social rights beyond the materiality of human life (e.g., housing, pensions) to include intangible processual elements (e.g., dignity) in the construct of rights.

Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland by Jennifer Curtis (review)

Reviewed by: Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland by Jennifer Curtis Timothy J. White (bio) Jennifer Curtis, Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), ISBN 978-0-8122-4619-3, 283 pages. Jennifer Curtis, in Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland offers an important and innovative analysis of the peace process [End Page 561] in Northern Ireland through the lens of human rights analysis and discourse. One of the great strengths of Curtis’ book is her exploration and elaboration of how rights are contingent and subjective. She focuses on how one could perceive the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland through the traditional lens of human rights by focusing on claims of injustice and the denial of rights that caused the conflict, and how the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement (The Agreement) and efforts to implement it were the process by which these historical injustices were corrected and remedied. Instead of pursuing this facile and traditional narrative, Curtis offers a much more sophisticated and subtle analysis based on years of fieldwork that highlight the exceedingly contentious and evolving construction of rights in the context of peace politics in Northern Ireland. As a result, her work should be of great interest to those who study human rights, and should be seen as a major contribution to our understanding of the pursuit of peace in Northern Ireland. Her fieldwork enabled her to explain how members of each of the communities in Northern Ireland appropriated “rights talk” to pursue their collective political goals. Thus, rights discourse became a part of the conflict that could potentially play a role in pursuing peace but could also continue to entrench existing identities that perpetuate the conflict. While this ambiguity and paradox might make many uncomfortable and not conform to a more traditional understanding of a human rights agenda, it provides a more empirically satisfying explanation of human rights discourse in Northern Ireland. The research methodology used by Curtis, participant observation, allowed her to make first-hand observations of how local community groups were often organized and motivated by the goal of achieving their economic, political, and social rights, including her observation of gay groups in recent years. Her findings corroborate the work of many other scholars; the peace process in Northern Ireland has been very successful in lowering the scale of political violence, but this achievement has been made by “balancing the collective rights of opposed community groups … and institutionalizes ethnopolitical conflict in the mechanics of post-conflict politics.”1 Thus, a “minimalist” peace has been achieved, and Curtis argues that discussions of human rights in Northern Ireland continue the war between the communities by other means. This conclusion may seem excessively negative and cynical, but many would agree with Curtis that it is necessary, not only to understand what has been achieved, but to avoid exaggerating the lessons of the peace process. The negotiations that led to The Agreement had many admirable qualities that should be worthy of emulation elsewhere. However, the continuing sectarian divide in Northern Ireland clearly suggests that elite level negotiations or agreements cannot by themselves undermine a conflict that exists among people in their local communities. Thus, like a growing number of scholars, Curtis questions whether the consociational model of conflict management that is used to describe the governing arrangements established by The Agreement perpetuates conflict and undermines prospects for reconciliation between the communities. Curtis summarizes and explores how many in the nationalist community came to view the Good Friday Agreement as [End Page 562] guaranteeing them rights that had heretofore been denied to them. Her fieldwork with long and numerous discussions with those living in nationalist areas of Belfast provide compelling testimony as to how nationalists understood the changes that came with The Agreement. Curtis suggests that this narrative may have begun with Sinn Féin politicians but was rapidly adopted by many in the nationalist community. This understanding of The Agreement as an achievement of rights for Catholics coincided with and was reinforced by a simple desire to end the violence that had characterized the previous...

Alternatives for the enforcement of the right to health in Brazil

In this article, the right to health is discussed as a social right and an essential requisite in the construction and guarantee of human rights, more precisely human dignity, considering this right as a complex but effective process in the transformation of the social reality. In the first place, the activities of the public power and its difficulties to guarantee universal access to health are highlighted. This scenario ends up inhibiting the practice of the right to health and prevents users from enjoying and using it. In that sense, this article challenges and explores some alternatives to solidify and put in practice the right to health in Brazil. Departing from the analysis of the Unified Health System (SUS) and social participation in Brazil, this article discusses the judicialization of health in the country, highlighting the difficulties the State faces to equitably offer universal healthcare to society. This context offers an opportunity for reflection and a paradigm change, from the "judicialization of health" to the "judicialization of health policies." Finally, the public health policies adopted by other countries are emphasized, in the attempt to construct the empowerment of human beings in the practice of their rights, particularly social participation and the discussion about the States' responsibility to put their citizens' right to health in practice. In conclusion, the political and collective construction of the right to health needs to be encouraged, distinguishing the legitimate interests of the different interlocutors involved.

Policy Analysis beyond Personal Law: Muslim Women's Rights in India

Granting legal rights to groups in deeply divided societies is important and necessary, but the cost of awarding these rights—in terms of their negative impact on civil rights, and particularly on women's rights—are key issues affecting the politics and policy of diverse polities. The article explores the implications for Muslim women of applying minority autonomy in India. In parallel, it delves into India's policy of religious autonomy for minorities as viewed by the political and legal authorities, and through the eyes of different sectors of the minority community. Analyzing the complex construction of rights within a communalized polity, this article attempts to transcend the ongoing debate on the implications of Muslim Personal Law in India and suggests policy directives aimed at empowering minority women. The Indian case provides a constructive microcosm for studying these tensions comprehensively and comparatively, and holds important lessons for other multicultural societies worldwide.Related Articles Harel‐Shalev, Ayelet. 2009. “.” Politics & Policy 37 (): 951‐970. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00206.x/abstract Pearson‐Merkowitz. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 258‐295. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2012.00349.x/abstract Sisk, Timothy D. 1992. “.” Southeatern Political Review 20 (): 1‐27. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00206.x/abstract Related Media . 2006. “.” Government of India. http://minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/upload_files/moma/files/pdfs/sachar_comm.pdf Nayar, Usha. 2009. “.” Government of India, Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD). http://www.jeywin.com/wp‐content/uploads/2009/12/An‐Analytical‐Study‐of‐Education‐of‐Muslim‐Women‐and‐Girls‐in‐India.pdf

Durkheim on Moral Individualism, Social Justice and Rights: A Gendered Construction of Rights

A standard interpretation of Durkheim’s theory of individualism is that he advocated the rights and dignity of the individual, and a social order based on the principles of equality and justice. Contemporary scholars discuss his notion of individual rights in neutral terms, as if Durheim applied it equally to both sexes, ignoring the fact that women are excluded from Durkheim’s vision of a just society. This article places Durkheim’s theory of moral individualism and social justice in the context of his views on women, and offers a critique both of his theory and its present-day interpretation. It is argued that while Durkheim refers to the “individual” in generic terms, his approach to a just social order and universal rights is essentially articulated around the male individual. While Durkheim never problematized gender inequality, he strongly objected to class stratification and proposed practical solutions to lessen economic injustices and inequality.

Minority Identities and the Construction of Rights in Post-Soviet Settings

This article looks at the emergent policies and legal constraints shaping identity constructions within and for minority groups in Estonia and in northwest Russia, in order to investigate the processes of ‘minority-building’ and emergent state policies through cultural entanglements. The case studies discussed comprise legal regulations and measures for the promotion of minority identities in Estonia with special focus on Estonian Russians, the country’s biggest and most diverse minority; the Seto, their cultural heritage construction and the question of intangible rights in the border zone between Estonia and Russia; and the Votians and the process of claiming a minority status in Russia in the context of recent socio-economic developments. These three studies enable us to explore the reverberations of Soviet nationality policy as well as new hybrid policies, strategies and self-conceptions emerging in a particular region. This collaborative article proposes a supplement to the study of identity constructions in the post-Soviet setting of minority-buildings that are inherently interdependent and complementary for understanding the possible developments in this sphere.

Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit: Bureaucratic Incorporation of Immigrants in Federal Workplace Agencies

This article integrates legal scholarship on immigrant workers with social science theory about the role of bureaucracies in the construction of rights. More specifically, it contends that immigrants' rights can be protected when workplace agencies integrate immigrants into their law enforcement activities, in accordance with their professional ethos and without regard to personal politics. Building on the concept of bureaucratic incorporation, I argue that regulatory agencies will resist contractions of workers' rights when their staff's commitments as civil servants and lawyers clash with judicial interpretations of immigrants' rights. The implication is that strongly pro-immigrant politics are not necessary for the recovery of immigrants' rights. Instead, entrenched institutional commitments to the rule of law and legal ethics sometimes suffice. Empirical evidence of regulatory responses to immigrant workers after Hoffman Plastic v. NLRB in three federal agencies serve as comparative case studies: the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board. Characterizing the regulatory responses to Hoffman Plastic variously as buffering, mitigating, and reconfiguring, the article contends that social science theory and empirical data about bureaucracies illuminate opportunities for understanding and protecting immigrant workers' rights missed by immigration scholars in the legal academy.

A Cultural Political Economy of School Desegregation in Seattle

Background/ContextSchool desegregation has been variably conceptualized as a remedy for racial injustice, a means toward urban (economic) revitalization, an opportunity to celebrate human diversity, and an attempt to more equally distribute educational resources. At the center of the debate over the years is the extent to which school desegregation is a matter of class or race, of redistribution or recognition. A cultural political economy of school desegregation begins with a rejection of the popular notion that desegregation is simply, or even primarily, about race. It also eschews the idea that what is needed is a “corrective” interjection of social class and economic justice. In proposing neither a racial nor an economic solution, cultural political economy sheds doubt on the very proposition of a “racial” or “economic” analysis, politics, or remedy and helps us more powerfully explain how the cultural and material force of race and class breathes as one through the historical-political trajectory of school desegregation.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThis article is based on findings from a larger historical-ethnographic research project intended to explicate the cultural-ideological and structural context(s) within which Seattle's Black leaders, educators, and activists made sense of the relationship between school desegregation and the lives and liberation of Black people in the post-civil-rights era. Here, the author uses cultural political economy as an analytical framework to elucidate the relationship(s) between cultural productions such as the construction of rights, justice, and racial progress, and political-economic formations such as the (ab)use of the state and market by certain classes—in this case, middle-class and affluent White Seattleites—to preserve their own privilege through the implementation of social and educational policies that serve to reproduce material inequities.SettingThe study setting is Seattle, Washington.Population/ParticipantsBlack leaders, educators, and activists who participated in the school desegregation struggle in the city of Seattle from the mid-1970s through 2007.Research DesignThis study employed semistructured ethnographic interviews, content analysis, and historical/archival analysis.Conclusion/RecommendationsThe trajectory of school desegregation politics in Seattle, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, reveals a long and systematic political effort to delegitimize and dismantle justice-oriented redistribution of educational resources along racial lines. Cultural political economy provides an analytical framework that contributes to our theoretical understanding of the interimbrication of culture and political economy in education politics and policy-making. The author argues that understanding the interimbrication of class and race in the politics of school desegregation allows us to more clearly theorize how school desegregation policies are undermined in ways that reproduce material and cultural relations of power. Ultimately, critical researchers, educators, and youth and community activists must develop political strategies to shift the very relations of power highlighted in the Seattle case.

Re-conceiving rights revolutions: The persistence of a sociological deficit in theories of rights

Abstract This article argues that the history of sociological theory has been shadowed by the attempt to account for the social status of rights: the analysis of rights revolutions is in fact a question of deeply formative significance for sociological inquiry. Both in classical and contemporary literature, however, the endeavour to explain rights sociologically has not been fully successful. Consequently, an attempt is made here to adjust the conventional paradigm for observing rights and to explain the underlying social dimensions of rights. To this end, this article aims to analyze rights, neither as institutions imposed on political power nor as expressions of primary human emphases or liberties, but as constructs that allow modern societies to articulate the reserves of power on which they rely. The construction of rights is examined as an element in the positivization of modern political power, and the role of rights in producing power is approached through a functional reconstruction of the historical formation of institutions conventionally utilizing political power in modern society. The article concludes by offering a critique of standard assumptions about rights.

Issue definition in rights‐based policy focused on the experiences of individuals with disabilities: an examination of Canadian parliamentary discourse

In issue definition in rights‐based policy Canada stereotypically embraces a more positive, human rights‐centered approach as compared with the American stereotype associated with the USA’s more presumptively negative, civil rights‐based tack. Since exclusionary infrastructures violate the core values of democratic governance, a failure to address unnecessarily exclusive infrastructures presents a rights‐based public challenge surrounding disability akin to those experienced by other non‐elite groups. Analysis of disability policy serves to clarify positive versus negative tendencies in rights‐based policy, including whether the expectation of a primarily positive basis in Canada is confirmed. This article examines the definition of public dimensions of the experiences of individuals with autism as a case reflecting the basis of construction of rights in Canada.