Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

An increasing amount of attention is being given to the use of human rights measurement indicators in monitoring ‘progress’ in rights and there is consequently a growing focus on statistics and information. This article concentrates on the use of statistics in rights discourse, with reference to the new human rights institution for the European Union: the Fundamental Rights Agency. The article has two main objectives: first, to show that statistics operate as technologies of governmentality — by explaining that statistics both govern rights and govern through rights. Second, the article discusses the implications that this has for rights discourse — rights become a discourse of governmentality, that is a normalizing and regulating discourse. In doing so, the article stresses the importance of critique and questioning new socio-legal methodologies, which involve the collection and dissemination of information and data (statistics), in rights discourse.

Keywords

European Union Foucault Fundamental Rights Agency governance governmentality human rights indicators statistics technologies

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Brown W. ( 1995) States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Brown W. ( 2004) The most we can hope for: Human rights and the politics of fatalism. South Atlantic Quarterly 103: 451-463.

Dauses M. ( 1985) The protection of fundamental rights in the community legal order. European Law Review 10: 398-419.

de Búrca G. ( 2005) New modes of governance and the protection of human rights . In: P. Alston and O. de Schutter (eds) Monitoring Fundamental Rights in the EU: The Contribution of the Fundamental Rights Agency. Oxford: Hart, 25-36.

de Búrca G. (2010) The European Court of Justice and the international legal order after Kadi. Harvard International Law Journal 51: 1-49.

de Schutter O.

(2006-7) Fundamental rights and the transformation of governance in the

European Union. Cambridge Yearbook on European Legal Studies 9: 133-175.

Foucault M. ( 1988) Technologies of the self. In Martin LH , Gutman H and Hutton PH (eds) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 16-49.

Foucault M. ( 1991) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (A. Sheridan, trans). London: Penguin.

Foucault M. ( 2002) Governmentality. In: Faubion J (ed.) Power: Volume 3: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984 (R. Hurley, trans.). London: Penguin, 201-222.

10.

Foucault M. ( 2007) Security, Territory, Population ( M Senellart ed.; G Burchell, trans.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

11.

Foweraker J. and Landman T. ( 1997) Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis. Oxford: OUP.

12.

Fukuda-Parr S. ( 2001) Indicators of human rights and human development: Overlaps and differences. Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 2: 239-248.

13.

Gordon C. ( 1991) Governmental rationality: An introduction. In: Burchell G , Gordon C , and Miller P (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-52.

14.

Hunt P. and McNaughton G. ( 2007) A human-rights based approach to health indicators. In Baderin MA and McCorquodale R (eds) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 303-330.

15.

Inda JX ( 2006) Targeting Immigrants: Government, Technology, and Ethics . Oxford: Blackwell.

16.

Landman T. ( 2002) Comparative politics and human rights. Human Rights Quarterly 24: 890-923.

17.

Landman T. ( 2004) Measuring human rights: Principle, practice and policy . Human Rights Quarterly 26: 906-931.

18.

Landman T. ( 2006) Studying Human Rights. Abingdon: Routledge.

19.

Mitchell N. and MacCormick J. ( 1988) Economic and political implications of human rights violations . World Politics 40: 476-498.

20.

Möllers C. ( 2006) European governance: Meaning and value of a concept. Common Market Law Review 43: 313-336.

21.

Rhodes R. ( 1996) The new governance: Governing without government. Political Studies 44: 652-667.

22.

Scott C. ( 2002) The governance of the European Union: The potential for multi-level control. European Law Journal 8: 59-79.

23.

Scott J. and Trubek D. ( 2002) Mind the gap: Law and new approaches to governance in the European Union. European Law Journal 8: 1-18.

24.

Sokhi-Bulley, B. ( 2011) Government(ality) By Experts: Human Rights as Governance Law and Critique 22_3.

25.

Tridimas PT and Gutierrez-Fons JA (forthcoming) EU law, international law and economic sanctions against terrorism: the judiciary in distress? Fordham International Law Journal. Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1271302 (accessed 1 August 2010).

26.

Williams A. ( 2004) The (im)possibility of the European Union as a global human rights regime. In Brownsword R (ed.) Global Governance and the Quest for Justice. Vol. 4: Human Rights. Oxford: Hart, 69-87.

Governing (Through) Rights: Statistics as Technologies of Governmentality

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References