Human rights have become a central object of international and global history, with research focusing on the question where the origins of the central position of human rights language in our own time lie. The aim of ... more abstractHuman rights have become a central object of international and global history, with research focusing on the question where the origins of the central position of human rights language in our own time lie. The aim of this article is to take stock of this debate and discuss possible future avenues of research. The existing literature has shown, the article argues, that the 1970s were a crucial time for the rise of human rights, but it also warns against declaring this decade or any other time the definite breakthrough for human rights. Underlining how human rights have always been influenced by their past, discussing how tenuous the international position of human rights remains well into our own time and exposing different meanings human rights acquired historically, the article concludes that the identification of multiple chronologies of post-war human rights history and a focus on the great variety of human rights vernaculars provide more promising avenues along which to push this project ahead than the quest for an elusive human rights breakthrough.

Human Rights, International History, History of International Relations, Global History, History of Human Rights, and 3 more

International respect for individual rights experienced a tremendous boost by the revolutions of 1989. Many of the revolutions protagonists – the so-called “dissidents” – had been involved in a broader human rights re... more abstractInternational respect for individual rights experienced a tremendous boost by the revolutions of 1989. Many of the revolutions protagonists – the so-called “dissidents” – had been involved in a broader human rights revolution since the late 1960s. Is respect for human rights thus a legacy of their struggle and thus of 1989? To answer this question, the essay seeks to reconstruct the specific meanings human rights acquired in the writings of East-Central European and Soviet dissidents and contrasts it with the social “imaginaire” underpinning the human rights culture of our time. The article is thus a contribution to a new historiography of human rights which understands them as a contested notion.

Human Rights, Cold War, Cold War (History) (History), and History of Human Rights

Publication Name: Remembrance and Solidarity Studies 3 (June 2014), 157-188

This article explores connections between the rise of human rights groups in Eastern Europe and changes on the Left in Western Europe in the late 1970s. It also seeks to go beyond existing accounts of culture during t... more abstractThis article explores connections between the rise of human rights groups in Eastern Europe and changes on the Left in Western Europe in the late 1970s. It also seeks to go beyond existing accounts of culture during the Cold War by highlighting the important role ideas and discussing ideological interconnections between groups in East and West.

Eastern European Studies, French History, Human Rights, Polish History, Cold War and Culture, and 5 more

More Info: Journal of Cold War Studies 15: 4, Fall 2013

This article analyzes discussions between West German, French, and American supporters of the Polish Solidarity movement. Characterizing the early 1980s in which central notions of the Western value system were re-neg... more abstractThis article analyzes discussions between West German, French, and American supporters of the Polish Solidarity movement. Characterizing the early 1980s in which central notions of the Western value system were re-negotiated, it demonstrates how Solidarity became a powerful symbol unto which its Western supporters sought to project their political ideas.

Polish History, Cold War and Culture, Transatlantic History, Cold War, Transatlantic relations, and 2 more

Publication Name: Kiran Patel/Ken Weisbrode (eds.), European Integration and the Atlantic Community in the 1980s, Cambridge UP, 2013

This paper adresses the paradox that, just at the time when the concept of totalitarianism had fallen out of favor among western scholars, dissidents in the Soviet bloc started to use it widely in their writings. Anal... more abstractThis paper adresses the paradox that, just at the time when the concept of totalitarianism had fallen out of favor among western scholars, dissidents in the Soviet bloc started to use it widely in their writings. Analyzing the ways in which Adam Michnik used the concept in debates with the Western Left, the thesis of the paper is that the concept's decline in the West and its rise in the East were related phenomena.

Cold War, Eastern European history, History of Human Rights, and Poland

Publication Name: East European Politics and Societies, 25: 2, May 2011

This article argues for a historicization of the year 1989 by studying how the Central European revolutions were interrelated.

Cold War, Central and Eastern Europe, and International Relations Post 1989

Publication Name: European Journal of Social Theory 12: 3, 2009

Eastern European Studies, Polish History, Eastern European history, Postcommunist studies, Postcommunism, and 2 more

Publication Name: East European Politics and Societies, vol. 23, no. 1, May 2009

Starting in the late 1960s, a new form of political protest emerged in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Usually referred to as 'dissent' or 'dissidence', it was characterised by a legalist and non-ideological appr... more abstractStarting in the late 1960s, a new form of political protest emerged in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Usually referred to as 'dissent' or 'dissidence', it was characterised by a legalist and non-ideological approach. Focused on the defense of civic and human rights, the dissidents did not seek to overthrow the communist governments, but to broaden the sphere of a free public discourse. The contributions to this book are part of a broader effort to invigorate and modernize the history of dissent. Sharing a transnational perspective on dissent, they uncover the networks, discourses and perceptions that connected the dissidents with each other and with groups of supporters in the west. Thus, they demonstrate how movements of dissent were shaped by mutual perceptions and interactions and how they partook in broader changes that transformed international politics during the 1970s and 1980s: the eclipse of Marxism, the rise of human rights or the emergence of transnational forms of activism focused on peace or the preservation of the environment.

Cold War, History of Human Rights, and History of Dissent

Publisher: Fibre, 2013