Abstract
Elements of a human rights discourse and culture are currently on the rise in the countries of the Middle East, which recognize the value of such norms and practices both internally in their own domestic affairs and internationally. Notably, there is an increased emphasis among Middle East states on ingratiating themselves with international forums, such as the United Nations, which place a high value on human rights as a marker of state legitimacy within international society. This soft power imperative is of particular salience in the post-Arab Spring era, when regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are scrambling to preserve their waning legacies and win back lost political capital. The human rights imperative, more specifically, has become central in the wake of heightened manifestations of mass civic dissatisfaction, which have only acted to highlight region-wide rights deficiencies. When state survival is at stake, the onus of rights responsibility is greater on regimes that have been exposed as the greatest violators of human rights. So, adopting the mantle of human rights is as much a matter of aesthetics as of ethics.
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Notes
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Hosseinioun, M. (2015). Reconceptualizing Resistance and Reform in the Middle East. In: Gerges, F.A. (eds) Contentious Politics in the Middle East. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137530868_3
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