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Human Rights, Imperialism, and Corruption in US Foreign Policy pp 7–17Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Knowledge Production and Cultural Imperialism

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Part of the book series: Human Rights Interventions ((HURIIN))

Abstract

This chapter highlights the importance of knowledge production for the exercise of power in global politics. It begins by discussing cultural imperialism as a significant apparatus important for the US foreign policy. In this context the importance of the discourse on human rights is stressed. The last part of the chapter looks at how the discourses on neoliberalism and human rights have evolved hand in hand since the 1970s.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Edward W. Said (2003) ‘Blind Imperial Arrogance’, Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-20-oe-said20-story.html.

  2. 2.

    David Harvey (2016) ‘A Commentary on A Theory of Imperialism’, in U. Patnaik and P. Patnaik (eds) A Theory of Imperialism. New York: Columbia University Press.

  3. 3.

    Ilia Xypolia (2017) British Imperialism and Turkish Nationalism in Cyprus, 1923–1939: Divide, Define and Rule. London: Routledge. Ilia Xypolia (2021) ‘Imperial Bending of Rules: The British Empire, the Treaty of Lausanne, and Cypriot Immigration to Turkey’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 32(4), 674–691. https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2021.1996711.

  4. 4.

    Ilia Xypolia (2016) ‘Divide et Impera: Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions of British Imperialism’, Critique, 44(3), 221–231. http://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2016.1199629.

  5. 5.

    Laleh Khalili (2018) ‘How Empire Operates: An Interview with Laleh Khalili’, Viewpoint Magazine. Available at: https://viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/empire-operates-interview-laleh-khalili/.

  6. 6.

    Antonio Gramsci (1971) Selection from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

  7. 7.

    Laleh Khalili (2018) ‘How Empire Operates: An Interview with Laleh Khalili’, Viewpoint Magazine. Available at: https://viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/empire-operates-interview-laleh-khalili/.

  8. 8.

    Max Weber identified three types of legitimate rule in society the rational-legal, the charismatic, and the traditional.

  9. 9.

    Jeffrey Reiman (2013) ‘A Moral Equivalent of Consent of the Governed’, Ratio Juris, 26(3), 358–377.

  10. 10.

    Emanuel Adler and Steven Bernstein (2005) ‘Knowledge in Power: The Epistemic Construction of Global Governance’, in Power in Global Governance. Cambridge University Press, pages 294–318.

  11. 11.

    Duncan S. A. Bell (2002) ‘Language, Legitimacy, and the Project of Critique’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 27(3), 327–350.

  12. 12.

    Shane P. Mulligan (2006) ‘The Uses of Legitimacy in International Relations’, Millennium, 34(2), 349–375.

  13. 13.

    Jennifer Gronau and Henning Schmidtke (2016) ‘The Quest for Legitimacy in World Politics—International Institutions’ Legitimation Strategies’, Review of International Studies, 42(3), 535–557.

  14. 14.

    Arthur Isak Applbaum (2019) Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  15. 15.

    Wendy Brown (2008) ‘Power: After Foucault’, in John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne Phillips (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 78.

  16. 16.

    Michel Foucault (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon, page 52.

  17. 17.

    For a fascinating discussion on Indigenous Peoples, knowledge and power, see Jan Peter Laurens Loovers (2020) Reading Life with Gwich'in: An Educational Approach. London: Routledge.

  18. 18.

    Daniel Immerwahr (2019) How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. London: The Bodley Head.

  19. 19.

    Ray Kiely (2010) Rethinking Imperialism. London: Palgrave.

  20. 20.

    Vassilis K. Fouskas and Bulent Gokay (2019) The Disintegration of Euro-Atlanticism and New Authoritarianism: Global Power-Shift. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, page 7.

  21. 21.

    Costas Douzinas (2007) Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism. Oxford and New York: Routledge-Cavendish.

  22. 22.

    Jean Bricmont (2006) Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War. New York: Monthly Review Press.

  23. 23.

    Makau Mutua (2002) Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., page 20.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., page 6.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., page 11.

  27. 27.

    Fidèle Ingiyimbere (2017) Domesticating Human Rights: A Reappraisal of Their Cultural-Political Critiques and Their Imperialistic Use. Cham: Springer, page 13.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., page 49.

  29. 29.

    Bonny Ibhawoh (2007) Imperialism and Human Rights. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, page 3.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    Anne Orford (2002) ‘Feminism, Imperialism and the Mission of International Law’, Nordic Journal of International Law, 71(2), 275–293.

  32. 32.

    Ranjoo S. Herr (2019) ‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights and Cultural Imperialism’, Feminist Formations, 31(3), 118–142.

  33. 33.

    Emanuel Adler and Steven Bernstein (2005) ‘Knowledge in Power: The Epistemic Construction of Global Governance’, in Power in Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pages 294–318, 294.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., page 298.

  35. 35.

    Antonio Gramsci (1971) Selection from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

  36. 36.

    Robert W. Cox (1983) ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method’, Millennium, 12(2), 162–175, 171–172.

  37. 37.

    Tony Evans (1996) US Hegemony and the Project of Universal Human Rights. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

  38. 38.

    Lewis Call (1998) ‘Anti-Darwin, Anti-Spencer: Friedrich Nietzsche’s Critique of Darwin and “Darwinism”’, History of Science, 36(1), 1–22.

  39. 39.

    Peter Busch (2000) ‘Nietzsche’s Political Critique of Modern Science’, Perspectives on Political Science, 29(4), 197–208.

  40. 40.

    Aimé Césaire (2000) Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

  41. 41.

    Thomas S. Kuhn (2012) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

  42. 42.

    Michel Foucault (2001) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London and New York: Routledge, page 183.

  43. 43.

    De Neufville makes arguments about the importance of incorporating statistics in the ACRs. Statistics as a policy tool “The incorporation of statistics in the Reports has helped to alter the politics of human rights outside the Department by giving proponents opportunities to be heard and resources to be effective. The discussion of the statistics has helped to place human rights in the public eye and on the political agenda. Moreover, the numbers provide leverage to N.G.O.s and congressional supporters of human rights to question administration policies” (Judith Innes De Neufville [1986] ‘Human Rights Reporting as a Policy Tool: An Examination of the State Department Country Reports’, Human Rights Quarterly, 8[4], 681–699, page 696).

  44. 44.

    Daniel Stedman-Jones (2012) Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  45. 45.

    Edward Nik-Khah and Robert Van Horn (2012) ‘Inland Empire: Economics Imperialism as an Imperative of Chicago Neoliberalism’, Journal of Economic Methodology, 19(3), 259–282.

  46. 46.

    David Harvey (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  47. 47.

    Simon Springer (2016) The Discourse of Neoliberalism: An Anatomy of a Powerful Idea. London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield, page 1.

  48. 48.

    Sean Phelan (2014) Neoliberalism, Media and the Political. London: Palgrave Macmillan, page 41.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., page 44.

  50. 50.

    Samuel Moyn (2010) The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  51. 51.

    Jessica Whyte (2019) The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism. London: Verso, page 4.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., page 10.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., page 30.

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    Ilia Xypolia

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Xypolia, I. (2022). Knowledge Production and Cultural Imperialism. In: Human Rights, Imperialism, and Corruption in US Foreign Policy. Human Rights Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99815-8_2

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