Speaking Rights to Theory

Abstract

The status of constructivism as an open and accommodating intellectual approach is at odds with its aim of becoming the most appropriate site for a theory-practice synthesis. As an exemplar of the social concern that forms the ontology of constructivism, human rights is well placed to provide the context of a critique. More often than not, human rights are taken to be an unreliable variable within differently conceived international political schema. It is now an appropriate time to look again at the opportunities that human rights offers in establishing the cohesion of constructivism. Challenging the limitations of preconceived notions of social knowledge, the focus of the article will be on the human-rights side of the equation; namely, its features as a universal and its manifestation as a power, and what they tell us about the requirements for “becoming theory.”