Acceso usuarios
Introduction In recent decades, there has been an increase in the volume and sophistication of works on compliance theory in international law in general, and in human rights in particular. This body of work is interdisciplinary, influenced by political science and international relations in substance and method. The typology of compliance theories, once formed of several separate strands, coalesced into two duelling perspectives. These were broadly characterized by rational choice approaches, focused on hegemony, sanctions, incentives, and material self-interest, with Andrew T. Guzman's addition of reputational concerns; and constructivist approaches, which argue that repeated interactions, argumentation, and exposure to norms characterize and construct state practice. Each of the three works reviewed in this essay critically engages with constructivist research and incorporates some analysis of material incentives, suggesting that constructivism is eclectic and rigorous, willing to debate its own assumptions. Taken together, their contributions are evidence of modern constructivism's sophistication and methodological breadth.
The volume under review edited by Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink re-evaluates and broadens the five-stage "spiral model" of human rights change they proposed in their 1999 work, The Power of Human Rights. Whereas their earlier work assumed that violations of human rights could be explained by institutionally capable states' unwillingness to comply, The Persistent Power of Human Rights considers human rights implementation in "areas of limited statehood", by non-state armed groups and transnational corporations; and the potential for retrogressive state practice where a security or culturally-based "counter-discourse" dominates. In Socializing States, Ryan Goodman and Derek Jinks argue that compliance theorists to date have focused on material inducement and persuasion while neglecting a third mechanism of "acculturation": cognitive and social pressures to conform to an in-group (at 25�32).12 Acculturation explains states' "isomorphism" (convergence)
