Synonyms
Human rights: Natural rights; Civil-political rights; Socioeconomic and cultural rights; Unalienable rights
Liberalism: Emphasis on the individual freedom; Political and civil rights; Proponent of progress and equality
Western imperialism: Western militarism; Domination; Occupation; Aggression on non-western cultures
Definitions
Liberalism is a political theory/philosophy focusing on the rights and freedom of the individual and the inherent equality of persons and peoples.
Western imperialism is the occupation, domination, and exploitation of the rest of the world by the West.
Human rights are inherent and unalienable rights/claims/entitlements that an individual possesses by the virtue of being a social human being living in a socioeconomically and politically organized society.
Introduction
Combining these three concepts – liberalism, human rights, and Western imperialism – under the same title is unfair to all of them, since each has been the object of extensive study. Yet,...
References
Aldrich, R. (2007). Introduction: Imperial overview. In R. Aldrich (Ed.), The age of empires. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.
Anghie, A. (2005). Imperialism, sovereignty, and the making of international law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Anghie, A. (2006). The evolution of international law: Colonial and postcolonial realities. Third World Quarterly, 27, 739–753.
Arendt, H. (1958). The origins of totalitarianism. New York: The World Publishing Company.
Austen, R. A. (Ed.). (1969). Modern imperialism: Western overseas expansion and its aftermath 1776–1965. Lexington: D.C. Heath & Co.
Ayoob, M. (2004). Third world perspectives on humanitarian intervention and international administration. Global Governance, 10, 99–118.
Baxi, U. (2006). The future of human rights (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beitz, C. (2009). The idea of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blair, T. (1999). Speech. Delivered in Chicago on April 22.
Bowden, B. (2009). The empire of civilization: The evolution of imperial idea. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Bricmont, J. (2006) Humanitarian imperialism: Using human rights to sell war (trans: Johnstone, D.). New York: Monthly Review Press.
Burke, R. (2010). Decolonization and evolution of international human rights. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Press.
Cox, D. G. (2013). The age of Liberal imperialism: Twenty-five years of a flawed U.S foreign policy. Orbis, 57, 643–652.
Curtin, P. D. (Ed.). (1972). Imperialism. New York: Walker and Co..
Davies, M. (2015). Realizing rights: How regional organisations socialize human rights. London: Routledge.
Donnelly, J. (1998). Human rights: A new standard of civilization? International Affairs, 74, 1–23.
Fanon, F. (1996). Black skin, white mask. San Francisco: California Newsreel.
Fearon, J. D., & Laitin, D. D. (2004). Neotrusteeship and the problem of weak states. International Security, 8, 5–43.
Finnemore, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). International norm dynamics and political change. International Organization, 52, 887–917.
Fiore, P. (1911). Le droit international codifié et sa sanction juridique. Paris: Pedone.
Fitzmaurice, A. (2012). Liberalism and empire in nineteenth-century international law. American Historical Review, 117, 122–140.
French, H. W. (2014). China’s second continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Galtung, J., et al. (1980). On the decline and fall of empire: The Roman empire and Western imperialism compared. Review of Fernand Braudel Center, 46, 91–153.
Getz, T. R., & Streets-Salter, H. (2011). Modern imperialism and colonialism: A global perspective. Boston: Pearson.
Glendon, M. A. (2001). A world made new: Eleanor Roosevelt and the universal declaration of human rights. New York: Randon House Trade Paperbacks.
Goodale, M. (2006). Introduction to “Anthropology and Human Rights in a New Key”. American Anthropologist, 108, 1–8.
Goodale, M. (2007). The power of right(s): Tracking empires of law and new modes of social resistance in Bolivia (and elsewhere). In M. Goodale & S. E. Merry (Eds.), The practice of human rights: Tracking the law between the global and the local. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hart, J. (2008). Empires and colonies. Malden: Polity Press.
Hausser, H., et al. (1952). Du libéralisme à l’impérialisme. Paris: PUF.
Hinnebusch, R. (2012). Europe and Middle East: From imperialism to liberal peace. Review of European Studies, 4, 18–31.
Hobson, J. A. (1902). Imperialism: A study. London: James Nesbit & Co.
Hogan, L. (2015). Keeping faith with human rights. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Holloway, D. (2009). The war on terror espionage thriller, and the imperialism of human rights. Comparative Literature Studies, 46, 20–44.
Ikenberry, G. J. (2010). The liberal international order and its discontents. Millenium: Journal of International Studies., 38, 509–521.
Ikenberry, G. J. (2018). The end of Liberal international order? International Affairs, 98, 7–23.
Ingiyimbere, F. (2017). Domesticating human rights: A reappraisal of their cultural-political critiques and their imperialistic use. Cham: Springer.
Ishay, M. R. (2004). The history of human rights: From ancient times to the globalization era. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jamison, M. (2011). Humanitarian intervention since 1990 and “liberal interventionism”. In B. Simms & D. J. B. Trim (Eds.), Humanitarian intervention: A history. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Jouannet, E. (2007). Universalism and imperialism: The true-false paradox of international law? The European Journal of International Law, 18, 379–407.
Kagarlitsky, B. (2014). From empire to imperialism: The state and the rise of bourgeois civilisation. London/New York: Routledge.
Kanstroom, D. (2012). Aftermath: Deportation law and the new American diaspora. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Klose, F. (2013). Human rights in the shadow of colonial violence: The wars of independence in Kenya and Algeria. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Koskenniemi, M. (2002). The gentle civilizer of nations: The rise and fall of international law 1870–1960. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Koskenniemi, M. (2011). Empire and international law: The real Spanish contribution. University of Toronto Law Journal, 61, 1–36.
Lafont, C. (2013). Global governance, human rights and the responsibility to protect. Paper presented at Boston College Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.
Lal, D. (2004). In praise of empires: Globalization and order. New York: Palgrave.
Laurens, H. (2009). L’empire et ses ennemis. La question impériale dans l’histoire. Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Lawrence, D. R. (2014). The naturalist and his ‘Beautiful Island’: Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific. Canberra: ANU Press.
Lenin. (1975). Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism: A popular outline. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Lorimer, J. (1883). Institutes of international law: A treatise of the Jural relations of separate political communities (Vol. 1). Edinburgh/London: Blackwood.
Mahoney, J. (2007). The challenge of human rights: Origin, development and significance. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Mamdani, M. (2009). Saviors and survivors: Darfur, politics, and the war on terror. New York: Pantheon Books.
Mamdani, M. (2010). The responsibility to protect or right to punish? Journal of Intervention and State Building, 4, 53–67.
Mantena, K. (2010). Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the ends of liberal imperialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McCarthy, T. (2009). Race, empire, and the idea of human development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Mégret, F. (2009). Beyond the ‘Salvation’ paradigm: Responsibility to protect (others) vs the power of protecting oneself. Security Dialogue, 40, 575–595.
Mehta, U. S. (1999). Liberalism and empire: A study in nineteenth-century British liberal thought. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
Merry, S. E. (2005). Human rights and gender violence: Translating international law into local justice. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Merry, S. E. (2006). Transnational human rights and local activism: Mapping the middle. American Anthropologist, 108, 38–51.
Mill, J. S. (1971). In M. Lerner (Ed.), On liberty in essential works of John S. Mill. New York: Bantam Books.
Mill, J. S. (1998). In J. Gray (Ed.), On liberty and other essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mommsen, W. J. (1980). Theories of imperialism (trans: Falla, P.S.). New York: Randon House.
Mommsen, W. J. (1986). The end of empire and the continuity of imperialism. In W. J. Mommsen & J. Osterhammel (Eds.), Imperialism and after: Continuity and discontinuity. London: Allen & Unwin.
Morsink, J. (1999). The universal declaration of human rights: Origins, drafting, and intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Moyn, S. (2012). Imperialism, self-determination, and the rise of human rights. In A. Iriye (Ed.), The human rights revolution: An international history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Münkler, H. (2007). Empires: The logic of world domination from ancient Rome to the United States (trans: Camiller, P.). Malden: Polity Press.
Mutua, M. (2002). Human rights: A political and cultural critique. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Orford, A. (2003). Reading humanitarian intervention and the use of force in international law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Orwin, C. (2006). Humanitarian military intervention: Wars for the end of history. Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation, 23, 196–217.
Parmar, I. (2018). The US-led liberal order: Imperialism by another name? International Affairs, 94, 151–172.
Pitts, J. (2005). A turn to empire: The rise of imperial liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pitts, J. (2010). Political theory of empire and imperialism. Annual Review of Political Science, 13, 211–235.
Rajagopal, B. (2003). International law from below: Development, social movement and third world resistance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rajagopal, B. (2006). Counter-hegemonic international law: Rethinking human rights and development as third world strategy. Third World Quarterly, 5, 148–169.
Rawls, J. (1999). The law of peoples, with “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited”. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rieff, D. (1999). A new age of liberal imperialism? World Policy Journal, 16, 1–10.
Robinson, R. (1972). Non-European foundations of European imperialism: Sketch for a theory of collaboration. In E. R. J. Owen & R. B. Sutcliffe (Eds.), Studies in theory of imperialism. London: Longman.
Ryan, A. (2012). The making of modern liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Scally, R. J. (1975). The origins of the Lyoyd George coalition: The politics of social-imperialism, 1900–1918. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Schumpeter, J. (1971). Imperialism, social classes: Two essays (trans. Norden, H.). New York: The World Publishing Company.
Smith-Cannoy, H. (2012). Insincere commitment: Human rights treaties, abusive states and citizen activism. Washington, DC: Georgetown University.
Sørensen, G. (2011). A liberal world order in crisis: Choosing between imposition and restraint. Ithaca: Cornell University press.
Sullivan, E. P. (1983). Liberalism and imperialism: J. S. Mill’s defense of the British empire. Journal of the History of Ideas, 44, 599–617.
Tesón, F. R. (1988). Humanitarian intervention: An inquiry into law and morality. New York: Transnational Publishers.
Tesón, F. R. (2005). Ending tyranny in Iraq. Ethics and International Affairs, 19, 1–20.
Robinson, R. (1986). The Excentric Idea of Imperialism, with or without Empire. In J. M. Wolfgang & J. Osterhammel (Eds), Imperialism and after: Continuity and discontinuity. London: Allen & Unwin.
Thornton, A. P. (1977). Imperialism in the twentieth century. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Walzer, M. (2006). Just and unjust wars. A moral argument with historical illustrations (4th ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Westlake, J. (1894). Chapters on the principles of international law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wotipka, C., & Tsutsui, K. (2008). Global human rights and state sovereignty: State ratification of international human rights treaties, 1965–2001. Sociological Forum, 23, 724–754.
Young, K. (2012). Constituting economic and social rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Ingiyimbere, F. (2019). Liberalism, Human Rights, and Western Imperialism. In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_80-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_80-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91206-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91206-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference HistoryReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities