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Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Political Regimes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Rhoda E. Howard  and
Jack Donnelly
Rhoda E. Howard
Affiliation:
McMaster University
Jack Donnelly
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Abstract

It is often argued that internationally recognized human rights are common to all cultural traditions and adaptable to a great variety of social structures and political regimes. Such arguments confuse human rights with human dignity. All societies possess conceptions of human dignity, but the conception of human dignity underlying international human rights standards requires a particular type of “liberal” regime. This conclusion is reached through a comparison of the social structures of ideal type liberal, minimal, traditional, communist, corporatist and developmental regimes and their impact on autonomy, equality, privacy, social conflict, and the definition of societal membership.

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Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 801 - 817
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1986

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