Correlates of Human Rights: Global Tendencies

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to ascertain general tendencies according to which human co-vary with social, cultural, and political characteristics. Although rigorous causal inferences may be methodologically unwarranted at this point, some propositions as to which macro-social conditions serve as facilitators of (or impediments to) human in the global community may be derived. Furthermore, through such empirical analysis, we can perhaps shed some light on the controversy over the conceptual universality versus conceptual relativism of human and human practices. The study, then, is an effort to generate answers to some central questions in the area of human including: (1) what conditions promote human rights? (2) is the concept ofhuman rights as currently understood a concept biased against non-Western and non-Christian civilizations? and (3) what policy measures might be recommended in order to improve human conditions?