Jack Snyder > Quotes

“The success of this revolutionary system depends on the power of its core supporters, the pragmatism with which they advance toward their goals, and the persuasiveness of their ideas to those who remain ambivalent.”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“In short, there is ample evidence that human rights advocacy and other progressive discourse employ some forms of shaming, notwithstanding the well-established risk that backlash to shaming can produce outcomes that are counterproductive for rights.”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“Those who benefit from autocracy and corruption on the way up often succumb to the temptation to block essential reforms and play the nationalist card when economic complications arise.”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“Many studies in the human rights and democracy promotion fields present evidence that shaming works best in easy cases where civil society resistance to the repressive state is already strong,36 where the state is less able to hide compensatory repressive moves,37 where the state has signed a treaty consenting to an obligation,38 or where the state has fewer opportunities to engage in “counter-norming”—for example, invoking sovereignty and illiberal cultural traditions or denouncing the decadence of liberal sex and gender norms”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“Most scholars agree that shame and shaming need to be understood at the individual and the social levels simultaneously.”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“It turns out that women are cross-pressured by conflicting concerns.”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“THE OBJECTIVE of a pragmatic approach to human rights is to prepare the way for the successful establishment of law-based rights. Making headway on human rights requires devising a pragmatic political strategy to enhance the power of constituencies that benefit from an expansion of rights while neutralizing opposition to a pro-rights coalition.”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times

“Can hard-boiled elites be shamed without worrying about triggering a neurotic backlash?”
― Jack Snyder, Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times