This book provides a novel account of the role of human rights discourse in the US foreign policy. The book analyses the US State Department's Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as a means to monopolise and, more importantly, legitimise a specific framing of the human rights agenda to further US foreign policy. The US agenda's deviation from established international human rights standards has very serious implications considering the preponderant global influence exercised by the US. Furthermore, more recently, the reports have added a separate section on "corruption" as a human rights issue. Corruption, a controversial concept from the outset, is understood in a narrow way as a public sector issue that largely prevails in and subverts the so-called developing and transition countries. This book shows how this recent inclusion ultimately serves the US global neoliberal imperialist agenda and becomes the hegemonic discourse in international organisations.

Examines the role of human rights discourse in the imperialist US foreign policy Provides a sophisticated and original contribution to the hegemonic human rights discourse Offers a novel reading of the intersection of corruption as a human rights issue with neoliberalism

Autorentext

Dr. Ilia Xypolia is Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, UK, and the reviews editor for the Journal of Global Faultlines.

Inhalt
Panopticon: the architecture and the theatre of human rights.- Knowledge Production and Cultural Imperialism.- Human Rights and American Exceptionalism.- Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.- Corruption as a Human Rights Issue.- Global Political Implications: Demonizing the Public Sector.