Rhetoric and Rights: Citizenship and the Politics of Persuasion

Peter Rees*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article examines the relevance of rhetorical analysis for the theory and practice of rights-claiming. Recent work in the field of human rights proposes that what is important about rights is not what they ‘are’ but what they ‘do’. Utilising performative theory, they suggest that rights-claiming is best understood as a perlocutionary practice of persuasion. The question is, ‘How might rights claims be most persuasive?’ This article applies insights from the field of rhetoric to investigate how practices of rights-claiming by migrants in France contest French citizenship. It argues that rights claims are ethico-political negotiations of a political situation and that such practices are persuasive when they mobilise transcendent principles embedded within particular political communities. Rhetorical analysis explains how rights can be both inventive and efficacious. In so doing, this article extends the human rights literature by providing a refined rights-claiming analytic.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1190-1207
Number of pages18
JournalPolitical Studies
Volume71
Issue number4
Early online date10 Dec 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Nov 2023

Keywords

  • citizenship
  • migration
  • performativity
  • rhetoric
  • rights
  • the Sans-papiers

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Rhetoric and Rights: Citizenship and the Politics of Persuasion'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this