http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6498-174X
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the methodological challenges for a small nation, with a view to reforming and realising human rights. The paper begins with a review of traditional measures that capture comparative data and the limitations of indicators generally and for capturing violations in Scotland: particularly those that are hidden (because they happen in private spaces or to those without power) need to be clearly understood to decide on what reform is required. This creates methodological challenges in collecting data, which is perhaps not understood within a human rights framework and so is not reported adequately. The paper will focus on Scotland’s national action plans as vital for creating a space allowing for data collection and solution generation, shared by those who experience violations and those with the power to challenge. Diffusing responsibility for action to Rights Holders and Duty Bearers engaged in creating the space facilitates reform. This approach lends legitimacy to those who are violated, as they appear in spaces where their experiences are recognized within a human rights framework, while also exposing violations not captured by comparative indicators. It also highlights that a state must be committed to reform regardless of the methodology used if it is to realise rights.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the teams across Scotland that have contributed to SNAP and shared the process with the authors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Jo Ferrie is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow specialising in teaching methods across the social sciences, and spanning qualitative and quantitative methods. She is Director of Glasgow Q-Step and Deputy Director – Training of the Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences. Her research focuses on the experience of disabled people, the intersection between disability and other protected characteristics, and aims to identify and dismantle barriers to doing and being.
Alison Hosie is the research officer at the Commission. She supports the Commission’s research needs by developing and managing external contracts and undertaking primary and secondary research. She has a current interest in Human Rights National Action Plans, Human rights Measurement Frameworks and the Sustainable Development Goals. Alison completed her PhD in the field of Social Policy at the University of Stirling.
ORCID
Jo Ferrie http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6498-174X
Notes
1 FAIR: F – Facts: What are the important facts to understand?
A – Analysis: What are the human rights or issues at stake?
I – Identifying shared responsibilities: What changes are necessary? Who has responsibilities for helping to make the necessary changes?
R – Recall: Over time have the necessary changes occurred? If not, who is to be held accountable?
Using the FAIR methodological framework throughout this programme of work has allowed SHRC to identify the facts and provide a common framework for exploration and analysis.
2 OHCHR human rights-based indicator methodology allows for three types of human rights indicators, namely structural, process and outcome indicators. Together they address the essential aspects of human rights implementation, namely commitment, effort and result. See Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/documents.aspx.
3 S.E. Merry, A World of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence and Sex Trafficking (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 10.
4 B. Maurer, Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); see also D.M. Trubek and L.G. Trubek, ‘Hard and Soft Law in the Construction of Social Europe: The Role of the Open Method of Co-ordination’, European Law Journal 11, no. 3 (May 2005): 343–64.
5 T. Landman, Measuring Human Rights (Oxon: Routledge, 2009), 137.
6 Merry, World of Quantification, 13.
7 See W.N. Espeland and M.L. Stevens, ‘A Sociology of Quantification’, European Journal of Sociology 49, no. 3 (2008): 401–36.
8 G.C. Bowker and S.L. Star, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).
9 For example, the UK Census measures household data every 10 years and aims to capture the entire population. Gender has traditionally been reduced to only two categories, making it synonymous with the bi-categorisation of sex.
10 See M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1979); also M. Power, ‘Counting, Control and Calculation: Reflections on Measuring and Management’, Human Relations 57, no. 6 (2004): 765–83; and Merry, World of Quantification.
11 Merry, World of Quantification, 33.
12 Ibid.
13 US Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2016). Example graph on p. 19 (2016); Reports from 2001–2016 inclusive available: https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/.
14 Merry, World of Quantification.
15 B. Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
16 D. McNulty, N. Watson, and G. Philo, ‘Human Rights and Prisoners’ Rights: The British Press and the Shaping of Public Debate’, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 53, no. 4 (2014): 360–76.
17 Latour, Science in Action.
18 Ibid., 57–8.
19 H. Dean, ‘The Ethics of Welfare-to-Work’, Policy & Politics 35, no. 4 (2007): 573–89.
20 The sociological canon of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber has been criticised for over-representing dead white men. They include a disabled man and a migrant so they may not be as privileged and mainstream as they first appear. Nevertheless, their theorising, while enormously influential to contemporary social scientists, has limited use for understanding rights.
21 S. Walby, ‘Is Citizenship Gendered?’, Sociology 28, no. 2 (1994): 379–95.
22 N. Fraser and A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political-Philosophical Exchange (New York: Verso Press, 2004).
23 M. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice; Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press, 2006).
24 Rawls wrote about ‘eligibility for citizenship’ – the social contract theory – throughout his career, but notable references include: J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); and J. Rawls, ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’ (Dewey Lectures), Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980): 515–71.
25 See J. Ferrie, ‘What has Human Rights got to Say about Care and Dignity?’, International Journal of Human Rights – Special Issue: Sociology and Human Rights 14, no. 6 (November 2010): 865–79.
26 S. Walby, Globalization & Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities (London: Sage Publications, 2009); see also T. Burchardt and P. Vizard, Definition of Equality and Framework for Measurement: Final Recommendations of the Equalities Review Steering Group in Measurement, CASE Paper 120 (London School of Economics, 2007).
27 Walby, Globalization & Inequalities.
28 A. Hosie and M. Lamb, ‘Human Rights and Social Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Research and its Use as Evidence in the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Scotland’, Social Policy and Society 12, no. 2 (2013): 191–203.
29 Walby, Globalization & Inequalities.
30 Burchardt and Vizard, Definition of Equality and Framework for Measurement.
31 P. Townsend, Sociology and Social Policy. 1st ed. (London: Allen Lane, 1975); see also H. Dean, Social Policy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006).
32 See Boyle and Hughes, this special edition.
33 J. Ferrie and N. Watson, ‘The Psycho-social Impact of Impairment: The Case of Motor Neurone Disease’, in Disability Research Today: International Perspectives, ed. T. Shakespeare (Abingdon, OX: Routledge, 2015), 43–59.
34 W.H. Simon, ‘Toyota Jurisprudence: Legal Theory and Rolling Rule Regimes’, Columbia Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper 0479, 2004, http://lsr.nellco.org/colunbia_pllt/0479.
35 Ibid.
36 For a general overview of the approach, see B. Dick, ‘Action Research’, in Qualitative Methodology: A Practical Guide, ed. J. Mills and M. Birks (London: Sage, 2014), 51–66. For a classic example of this approach in action, see P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Penguin Books, 1972).
37 Merry, World of Quantification.
38 Y. Erturk, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, the Next Step: Developing Transnational Indicators on Violence against Women’ (addendum), in Promotion and Protection of all Human Rights, Civil, Politial, Economic, Social and Cultural, Including the Right to Development (Human Rights Council, 2008), 7th Session, 25 February, A/HRC/7/6/Add.5.
39 OHCHR, Human Rights Indicators.
40 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 1–5 and 16.
43 SNAP Scottish National Action Plan, http://www.snaprights.info/. See also A. Hosie and E. Hutton. ‘The Contribution of National Action Plans for Human Rights to the Pursuit of Equality and Social Justice: Lessons from Scotland’, in Beyond 2015: Shaping the Future of Equality, Human Rights and Social Justice. A Collection of Essays from the Equality and Diversity Forum and EDF Research Network (London: EDF, 2015), 145–55. http://www.edf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/EDFJ3259_Beyond_2015_publication_22.07.15_WEB.pdf (accessed October 29, 2017).
45 FAIR framework; see note 2.
46 Dick, ‘Action Research’.
47 Twenty-four groups were selected, of which 17 groups agreed to participate. Some groups contained individuals who preferred to be interviewed on a one-to-one basis rather than participate in a focus group.
48 This process was facilitated by the use of the qualitative analysis software NVivo, which allows for thematic coding and the integration of focused inquiry and data analysis. As the Phase 1 data had already been coded into NVivo, the process of combining the analyses of Phase 1 and Phase 2 data was relatively simple.
49 See http://uhri.ohchr.org/.
50 SHRC, Getting It Right? Human Rights in Scotland, 2012, http://www.snaprights.info/how-snap-was-developed/getting-it-right.
51 Ibid.
52 SHRC, Participative Consultation Report, 2013, http://www.snaprights.info/how-snap-was-developed/participation.
53 The initial project plans involved a further range of participative methods including a photography competition and a national diary day.
54 M.F. Chan, ‘Factors Associated with Perceived Sleep Quality of Nurses Working on Rotating Shifts’, Journal of Clinical Nursing 18, no. 2 (2009): 285–93.
55 A. Hosie and M. Lamb, ‘Human Rights and Social Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Research and its use as Evidence in the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Scotland’, Social Policy & Society 12, no. 2 (2013): 191–203.
56 Ibid.
57 H. Dean, Social Policy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006).
58 Ibid., 101.
59 OHCHR, Human Rights Indicators.
60 The National Performance Framework is a series of indicators, that provide a broad measure of Scottish national and societal wellbeing, incorporating a range of economic, social and environmental indicators and targets which are updated as soon as the data are available. More information can be found at http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms (accessed October 29, 2017).
61 J. Ferrie et al., In-Depth Examination of the Implementation of the Disability Equality Duty in England: Report to the Office for Disability Issues (London: Department for Work and Pensions, 2008); see also C. Pearson et al., ‘Mainstreaming the Disability Equality Duty and the Impact on Public Authorities’, Social Policy and Society 10, no. 2 (2011): 239–50.
62 see E. Webster and D. Flanigan, this issue.
63 S. Driver, M. Lamb, and C. Wilson, Annotated Bibliography of Published and Grey Non-Legal Literature on Human Rights in Scotland since 2006 (London: The Crucible Centre and Social Research Centre, Roehampton University, 2010).
64 R. Smith et al., Mapping the Law of Scotland in Relation to International Human Rights Treaties: CAT & CPT (Newcastle: Northumbria Law School, 2010).
65 A. Normand and E. Webster, E. Mapping the Law of Scotland in Relation to International Human Rights Treaties – Civil and Political Rights (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde, 2010).
66 D. Flanigan, Mapping the Law of Scotland in Relation to Economic, Social & Cultural Rights (Glasgow: Scottish Human Rights Commission, 2011).
67 SHRC, Building a Strategic Plan: Consultation Report (Glasgow: Scottish Human Rights Commission, 2009).
68 J. Candler et al., Human Rights Measurement Framework: Prototype Panels, Indicator Set and Evidence Base (London: LSE, CASE, BiHR, SHRC, EHRC, 2011).
69 The groups were developed in partnership with Article 12 and the Scottish Gypsy/Traveller Law Reform Coalition, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, Glasgow Disability Alliance, Inclusion Scotland and Voices of Experience, the Poverty Truth Commission and the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability.
70 Some of the responses from organisations drew on their own consultation and outreach experiences; for example, the response from the Scottish Youth Parliament reflected the policy priorities identified in their own consultation that gathered the views of 42,804 young people.