
- Coming soon
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
- Expected online publication date:
- October 2025
- Print publication year:
- 2025
- Online ISBN:
- 9781009473835
In this richly detailed history, Felix Jiménez Botta traces West German mobilization against human rights abuses in Latin America in the late twentieth century. Initially in the ascendant was a market-critical vision adopted by a loose, left-leaning coalition fighting against right-wing regimes seeking to destroy incipient welfare states and implant market fundamentalism. However, during the later 1970s–80s a market-friendly interpretation gained ground, emphasising negative civil and political rights at the expense of positive economic and social rights. Within these debates, the vocabulary of human rights was a malleable political language that served as a multidirectional point of reference for various actors from civil society, politics, and the churches. By analysing these opposing views of human rights, Jiménez Botta questions the revisionist interpretation of post-1970s human rights as an inherently conservative political and intellectual project. Instead, the triumph of market-friendly human rights in West Germany was contested, contingent and ultimately unfinished.
‘Jiménez Botta has revealed a vital alternative history to the presumed triumph of neoliberalism in our modern era. This book is a must read for those interested in how a human rights movement for social justice and economic redistribution survived in the late Cold War and beyond.'
Ned Richardson-Little - ZZF Potsdam
‘Felix Jiménez Botta carefully charts how grassroots organizations sought to pierce West German foreign policymakers' indifference to rights rhetoric-to ultimately quite diverse results in how human rights became deployed. Extensively researched, the book links groups' work on South and Central America, making a critical contribution to understanding how human rights emerged and evolved in rhetoric, definition, and practice during a crucial period in West German and global history.'
Debbie Sharnak - Rowan University
‘This book puts human rights visions into their political context. Latin American exiles and West Germans crafted human rights visions against a backdrop of rapid domestic and international change. Jiménez Botta's vital distinction between ‘market-critical' and ‘market-friendly' human rights strategies and deep research show us how the latter prevailed-for now.'
Lora Wildenthal - Rice University
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