Socializing Development

Why did You chose this topic?

I am driven by the following question: how can we realize human rights globally, despite authoritarian regimes, areas of (extremely) limited statehood and the lack of centralized human rights enforcement. Though multilateral development banks (MDBs) are key to this endeavor, they have often violated human rights in the past. My aim was to find out how social movements can get them to accept responsibility for their human rights impact and how those negatively affected get access to justice.

2. What new perspectives does your book offer?

My book reveals how a certain ›sequence‹ of movement tactics – not a random application of different tactics in parallel – leads to success. At the same time, it also discloses how human rights-based movement activism still needs to adapt to a changing world order in order to be effective. Finally, the book highlights the importance of liberal-democratic counter mobilization to overt, but also subtle and indirect authoritarian tendencies within international organizations.

3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates?

I synthesize existing works to build and test a novel causal mechanism of movement effectiveness, link that to the current contestation of the liberal democratic script, offer new insights into the dynamics of movement cooptation by the World Bank and derive consequences for successful advocacy in the future. Interesting for researchers on norm contestation: in my work, international organizations are norm ›addressees‹ (not enabling platforms).

4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with!

Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank at the time of the Safeguards reform. He was Barack Obama's pick, an anthropologist, doctor and a proven track-record of fighting disease and poverty worldwide, the safeguards reform from 2012-2016 let to the World Bank's largest

human rights accountability roll-back since the 1990s. I would like to understand his motivations better.

5. Your book summary in one sentence:

In times of authoritarian backlash, social movements increasingly require the support of courageous liberal democratic states to enhance the human rights accountability of multilateral development banks.