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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Backlash: Defiance, Human Rights and the Politics of Shame Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6cd8w9w8 Author Terman, Rochelle Layla Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Backlash: Defiance, Human Rights and the Politics of Shame By Rochelle Layla Terman A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science and the Designated Emphasis in Gender and Women’s Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Ron E Hassner, Chair Professor Jason Wittenberg Professor Steven Weber Professor Raka Ray Summer 2016 Backlash: Defiance, Human Rights and the Politics of Shame Copyright 2016 by Rochelle Layla Terman Abstract Backlash: Defiance, Human Rights and the Politics of Shame by Rochelle Layla Terman Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Ron E Hassner, Chair This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of international “naming and shaming”: a ubiquitous tactic used by states and civil society to improve interna- tional human rights. When does international shaming lead to the improvement in hu- man rights conditions, and when does it backfire, resulting in the worsening of human rights practices or a backlash against international norms? Instead of understanding transnational norms as emanating from some monolithic “international community,” I propose that we gain better analytic insight by considering the ways in which norms are embodied in particular actors and identities, promoted and contested between specific states in relational terms. Starting from this approach, I apply insights from sociology, social psychology, and criminology to develop a theory of international “defiance,” or the increase in norm offending behavior caused by a proud, shameless reaction against a sanctioning agent. As detailed in Chapter 2, defiance unfolds through domestic and international logics that incentivize elites to violate international norms for political gain. Anticipating these political effects, regimes often provoke and manipulate shaming for strategic purposes. In the long-term, defiance can attach oppositional norms to collective identity, trans- forming domestic and international normative orders. I argue that international pres- sure is more likely to provoke defiance under three conditions: (1) the target has weak social ties with the shamer (e.g. economic, political, or ideological); (2) the shamer lacks credibility due to bias or inaccuracy; and (3) the shame is stigmatizing, denigrating the actor instead of the behavior. Existing empirical studies on “naming and shaming” tend to focus exclusively on the country being shamed, obscuring the relational dynamics at the core of the shaming process. My empirical work, in contrast, explores these relationships head-on. In Chap- ter 3, I evaluate the role of social ties (the first condition driving defiance) in both the causes and consequences of interstate shaming using novel data from the Universal Pe- 1 riodic Review, a process conducted by the United Nations wherein states “peer review” one another’s human rights practices. I show that not only is shaming driven by the re- lationship between sender and target, but states will accept or defy shaming based on this relationship, regardless of the norm in question. In other words, when it comes to human rights shaming, the critic matters just as much as the criticism. Chapter 4 shines the spotlight on the shamer, exposing the political biases that shape human rights reporting. I argue that if human rights reporting is stigmatizing, it can risk defiance and backlash. How can one measure and compare stigma in media portrayals in a systematic way? I propose a solution using new data on U.S. news cov- erage of global women’s rights, 1980-2014 along with novel computational text analysis tools. Chapter 4 presents evidence suggesting that American media stigmatizes Mus- lims in their coverage of women’s rights abroad by propagating the stereotype that Muslims are uniquely or particularly discriminatory against women. While I cannot address the impact of such coverage writ large, I follow up on one particular story that captured widespread media attention in 2010-11: the “Save Sa- kineh” campaign, which involved a massive, global shaming operation directed at Iran for sentencing a woman to stoning for adultery of 2010-11. Chapters 5 and 6 conduct an in-depth qualitative study of the case, leveraging in-depth interviews and extensive ar- chival research to trace the micro-politics of defiance. I illustrate the role of social ties, credibility, and stigma in the development of the campaign, as well as the co- constitutive relationship between Western shaming and Iranian defiance. Chapter 7 concludes by sketching some additional implications of my argument, directions for fu- ture research, and policy recommendations. 2 To J.M. i Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1 International Norms: An Intellectual History ................................................................ 3 2 Shortcomings and Corrections to the Norms Literature .............................................. 8 3 Concepts, Argument, and Empirical Approach .......................................................... 12 4 Road Map .......................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2 Shaming, Identity & Defiance ............................................................................. 18 1 Shaming and Compliance ............................................................................................... 18 2 Shaming and Defiance ..................................................................................................... 22 3 Defiance and International Norms ................................................................................ 28 4 The Domestic Politics of Defiance .................................................................................. 32 5 The International Politics of Defiance ........................................................................... 38 6 Drivers of Defiance .......................................................................................................... 44 7 Implications and Conclusion .......................................................................................... 47 Chapter 3 The Macro-Politics of Defiance: Shaming and Relational Ties in the Universal Periodic Review ....................................................................................................... 49 1 The Universal Periodic Review: Background and Theory ......................................... 50 2 Argument and Predictions .............................................................................................. 53 3 Data and Descriptive Findings ....................................................................................... 56 4 Empirical Approach ......................................................................................................... 62 5 Results ................................................................................................................................ 65 6 Implications and Conclusions ........................................................................................ 72 Chapter 4 Shame and Stigma: Islamophobia and Women’s Rights in U.S. News Coverage ...................................................................................................................................... 74 1 Islamophobia and Gendered Orientalism .................................................................... 75 2 Hypotheses and Data ....................................................................................................... 77 3 Testing Hypothesis 1 ....................................................................................................... 80 4 Testing Hypothesis 2 ....................................................................................................... 86 5 Extensions .......................................................................................................................... 94 6 Implications and Conclusions ........................................................................................ 96 Chapter 5 The Micro-Politics of Defiance: Iran and the Sakineh Affair, Part 1 ............. 98 1 Sakineh as a Case ............................................................................................................ 100 2 Sakineh as a Cause ......................................................................................................... 108 3 Sakineh as a Dilemma .................................................................................................... 115 4 Summary Thus Far ......................................................................................................... 121 Chapter 6 The Micro-Politics of Defiance: Iran and the Sakineh Affair, Part 2 ........... 122 1 Sakineh as Damage Control .......................................................................................... 123 2 Sakineh as a Marketing War ........................................................................................

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