Straus FEllow

Academic Year 2012-2013

Adam BeckerJack Snyder

Jack L. Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the political science department at Columbia University. His books include Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (MIT Press, 2005), co-authored with Edward D. Mansfield; From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (Norton Books, 2000); Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell University Press, 1991); and Religion and International Relations Theory, editor (Columbia University Press, 2011). He co-authored “The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” American Political Science Review, August 2011, with Erica Borghard. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Snyder received a B.A. from Harvard in 1973 and a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1981.

Research

Human Rights Pragmatism in Political Transitions

Legal and moral universalism based on liberal Western traditions has given a compelling focus to campaigns of the global human rights movement. That stance, though, has sometimes hampered efforts to improve rights outcomes in communities with different cultural traditions whose political and cultural leaders have a vested interest in resisting an alien normative revolution. Systematic studies show that the strongest correlates of improved rights are an end to war and the consolidation of democracy. As a consequence, pragmatic strategies that prioritize peace and the empowerment of a strong democratic political coalition may work better than universalistic legalism to accomplish the objectives that rights activists seek. These pragmatic approaches include interest-based bargaining with potential spoilers of reforms, strengthening the hand of constituencies that have a self-interest in democracy or rule of law, persuasion by engaging with the community’s own ethical values, investing in professional administrative capacity, and addressing underlying causes of poor human rights outcomes such as poverty, illiteracy, war, and state failure.