Although liberty has been valued in various ways in many times and places, only in Europe did it become a central preoccupation before the nineteenth century, and a subject of widespread public reflection. Appeals to liberty and concerns about it found expression in two idioms: a singular one that harked back to Rome and Greece, and regarded liberty as universal or innate; and a plural one associated with the overlapping jurisdictions of ‘feudal’ society that saw liberty as an assemblage of separate rights or privileges (often taken as synonyms), attributed sometimes to custom and sometimes to higher authorities that granted them. Although distinct, the two languages were seldom seen as in tension before the eighteenth century. The chapter examines their relations in different contexts and concludes by noting that the very pervasiveness of claims to enjoy, embody, or represent liberty led to a recognition of how easily invocations of it could become rhetorical tools to justify control over others, leading to Machiavelli’s incisive reflections on the dialectical relations between liberty and domination.

Chapter 1 addresses the false belief that prejudice and discrimination are individual in nature and not systemic or institutional. Many people believe that racism, sexism, or homophobia comprise an individual’s negative feelings toward marginalized groups – a person has hate in their heart and discriminates against the relevant target. It is certainly the case that people can hate members of certain groups and that hate can manifest in discrimination. However, inequality is also refleted in insitutions. It is systemic and structural. That is, inequality is reflected in laws, policies, and practices, and is baked into insititutions such as health care, the criminal legal system, marriage, education, the military, and so on. Chapter 1 describes the key terms associated with systemic inequality, and describes the process by which systemic inequality is established and maintained. The chapter concludes with strategies to reduce systemic and structural inequality.

The Conclusion describes the stakes of ignoring the impact of bigotry. In particular, the ways in which bigotry impacts the lives of those who benefit from it are a focus.

I conclude with a review of my findings in Chapters 3–7. I elucidate the relationship between “oil” and “Islam” and what that relationship teaches us about politics in Gulf monarchies. The overwhelming message is that with their abundant wealth, Gulf rulers have been exploiting not only oil rents but also religious doctrine and its (re-)formulations to function as tools of social management and social control. Their aim is to bolster their authoritarian ambitions: ruling families’ capacity to both dominate and shape their societies and retain their monopoly over resources. For the sake of maintaining – and enriching – dynastic states and constructing the nation, oil and Islam are their principal tools.

Whereas in the rest of Europe World War II brought about the rapid decline in residential domestic service, the Soviet Union saw a significant growth of the domestic service sector. Even though many Soviet citizens felt uneasy about the class inequality that was at the heart of domestic service, there were no public discussions of the issue during the last decade of Stalin’s rule. Only after Stalin’s death did the country’s new leader Nikita Khrushchev allow for more open conversations about social problems. In these debates, domestic service became a vehicle to discuss class inequality in Soviet society. Gender inequality, however, was never questioned. On the contrary, the debates around paid domestic labor only reinforced the notion that was fundamental to gender inequality in the Soviet Union: that housework was women’s work. The failure to question the gendered division of labor in the home demonstrated the limits of the Bolsheviks’ program of women’s emancipation during a crucial period when the regime sought to reimagine socialism.

The chapter is dedicated to the active career of the eighteenth-century printseller Jane Hogarth, widow of the painter and engraver William Hogarth. It looks at the means Jane employed to face competitors, namely by turning to copyright law in an effort to protect her property. In doing so, she set an important precedent in copyright law, whereby she obtained a special provision that would grant her the exclusive right to sell her husband’s prints. Letters, newspaper advertisements, legal reports, and even satirical prints by contemporaries offer insight into Jane’s commercial dealings, her powers of persuasion and the impact of her achievements.

School safety is a focus throughout all of society. Districts and communities have numerous plans and policies in place regarding having to address threats that may occur. This case study looks at a scenario where privilege and racism confront policy and response.

Chapter 2 defines efficiency. The efficiency criterion here is cost-benefit analysis, where cost is institution cost (including information and transaction costs) and benefit is what is called “allocative efficiency” in the literature. My efficiency criterion builds on 60 years of law-and-economics research in property law, but I believe that this is the first time that efficiency has been formulated in this way. Chapter 2 positions efficiency as a first-order value, while welfare is a second-order value that includes efficiency and other first-order values such as distribution of wealth. In addition, Chapter 2 introduces the concepts of ex ante viewpoint and the property rule versus the liability rule, both of which will be drawn on in later chapters.

This chapter concludes by revisiting the literature on local transitional justice to demonstrate the importance of looking at social structures and individual agency to better understand these processes and programs. I will elaborate on how recognized mechanisms in Sierra Leone were, in fact, both physically and psychologically distanced from people’s everyday priorities, further begging the question for whom these institutions implemented and why? Therefore, engaging with transitional justice mechanisms is both conceptually and practically privileged. This goes beyond simply critiquing transitional justice mechanisms to interrogate its conceptual and institutional foundations. The alternative ways people engaged with and outside of these programs demonstrate how people enacted transitions and justice on their own, often individual terms, both in relation to the conflict and other, more contemporary issues. Therefore, justice is not something to be done to or for people, as is often how the discourses have been framed with individuals as passive participants for whom justice is being served; rather, justice is something you can mobilize and do for yourself to address individual and communal needs.

The concluding chapter highlights the contributions of this edited volume’s chapters in terms of advancing and expanding critical consciousness theory and measurement. We recap the two parts of the volume – one focused on issues relevant to theory and the other focused on issues relevant to measurement – and briefly review the ways in which each chapter appearing in the volume addresses key issues related to theory and measurement.

This introduction chapter provides an introduction to critical consciousness and articulates the rationale for why an edited volume on critical consciousness theory and measurement is needed. We highlight the structure of the book, which has two parts: one focused on issues relevant to theory and the other focused on issues relevant to measurement. A brief review of each of the chapters appearing in the volume’s two sections is provided. This chapter concludes with the presentation of a "schema" we provide to support navigating the contents of this volume – and other critical consciousness scholarship– and explicate how this schema represents some of the most complex and challenging issues faced by scholars working in critical consciousness theory and measurement today.

In this chapter, we briefly introduce critical consciousness and social empathy frameworks, which have both been used to analyze and address inequitable societal conditions, structural disparities, marginalization, and oppression. We then present an integrated framework that brings the two together. After introducing the integrated critical consciousness–social empathy framework – which may elucidate one means by which critical reflection–action–motivation praxis is enhanced or augmented – we present results from an exploratory study testing the framework with data drawn from a US national sample of adults. Study results suggest social empathy may moderate associations between critical consciousness dimensions, or at least the pathway between critical reflection and critical motivation, as tested here. We conclude by considering some implications of this new framework for future research and practice.

This chapter offers a contribution to the discourse on procedural equality in international arbitration by explaining its interaction with other basic norms that govern the arbitral process and proposing a framework to assess equality claims.The principle of equal treatment or procedural equality is a core adjudicative ideal that has a long history dating as far back as the Magna Carta Libertatum. Together with the right to an impartial and independent tribunal and the right to be heard, the principle of equal treatment provides a foundation for the arbitral process that is essential to ensure its legitimacy. The principle of equal treatment pervades every aspect of the arbitral process and must be given due regard at each stage of the proceedings: at the stage of tribunal constitution, when joining additional parties, allocating time, determining the scope of privilege or allowing non-disputing third parties to intervene, among others. While the importance of procedural equality in international arbitration is today well-established, less attention has been paid to how claims of equality ought to be assessed. Drawing on jurisprudence on equal treatment protections in international human rights law, this chapter proposes a two-step inquiry that first considers whether there is a rational basis for any differentiated treatment between the parties, before analysing whether the differentiated treatment creates an unfair disadvantage.

The chapter provides an analysis of the concept of rights. It clarifies the precise object of inquiry of the book. A particular focus is repesented by claim rights or subjective rights. Mayor elements of the analysis of subjective rights are recalled, including historical contributions from Natural Law thinkers, comments by legal positivists, the Hohfeldian framework and the rules and principles approach. The question as to whether it is conceptually impossible to regard social rights as proper rights is addressed. Central elements of a concept of rights are discussed, including the addressees of rights, the holders of rights and the problem of group rights. The relation of legal and moral rights is a further object of inquiry, as are the basic contents of human rights, the copossibility and limitations of rights, the nature of obligations, the peremptory nature of rights and questions of the interpretation of rights.

In this chapter, a clear outline is presented for analyzing confusing or contentious rights issues in business dealings. The case of perilous shipbreaking practices is used to invite intuitions about the minimal rights and entitlements that are owed to workers. Positive rights, where actions must be taken, are distinguished from negative ones, where a firm may not interfere with preexisting rights. Human rights are further contrasted to privileges, which come about through a legal framework. Critically, privileges are liable to revocation at any time by legislation, whereas human rights exist outside the legal sphere. Actions by oil firms in the Niger Delta are discussed as examples of different attitudes to the rights of indigenous peoples. Whether sweatshops conditions are ever voluntary or acceptable is also examined. It is noted that some religious views emphasize the common good rather than individual welfare, and rights claims often reflect a Western perspective where personal choice is paramount. Subsequently, the question is asked whether nonhumans or the environment might be rights-holders. The concluding case assesses the notion of privacy and whether it is a human right or simply a legal construct in the internet age.

Molière’s publishing career highlights the ambiguities and eccentricities of the early modern Parisian book trade, while also demonstrating the author’s concern for his plays’ passage from stage to page. While Molière was initially victimised by unscrupulous booksellers, he eventually became an able participant in the publication process, capable of exploiting print’s possibilities to his own advantage. His career can be roughly divided into three phases: his early and ultimately successful battles against pirated editions that led to a stable publishing approach; his mid career rupture with his initial publishers and the resultant search for new partners; and his subsequent collaboration with Jean Ribou, including the alternative publication measures taken as a result of Ribou’s continued legal troubles. While on occasion Molière disavowed an interest in publication rhetorically, his actual practice reveals an author invested in the circumstances of his works’ printing and inventive in his interactions with Parisian publishers, in some instances even outmanoeuvring the professionals of the book trade. Working in an era prior to modern copyright protections, Molière learned to use publication, the royal privilege system, and personal notoriety to ensure ownership and control over his theatrical corpus.

Contemporary thought on human rights is rooted in significant part in the soil of natural law theory. Some natural law theorists embrace the idea of enforceable rights to a range of desirable socioeconomic outcomes. But natural law theory is best understood as grounding rights that foster these outcomes indirectly. Such rights, as I envision them, qualify as socioeconomic rights because they directly concern the socioeconomic sphere and because they further those aspects of flourishing which alternative schemes of socioeconomic rights are often intended to protect. There is, I suggest, a plausible natural law case to be made for indirectly promoting these dimensions of well-being by enforcing legal rights to bodily integrity, property, and labor, and so accepting robust limits on the use of force. In this chapter, I lay the groundwork for an exploration of that case by elaborating the variety of natural law theory in which I seek to ground my understanding of socioeconomic rights. I go on to discuss norms germane to the institutional context of socioeconomic life and to propose a set of fundamental socioeconomic rights and briefly consider the significance of these rights.

Mediation confidentiality can be characterised as the cornerstone of the mediation process. The legal protection of mediation evidence can emanate from common law privilege, contract and statute. If comprehensive statutory protection is available, parties may not have to protect from disclosure mediation evidence in their contract, or rely on common law privilege with its various exceptions. There is often a lacuna between the general perception that complete confidentiality applies to the participants in a mediation, and the more limited protection conferred by the courts. While a balance is required between supporting mediation and not freezing litigation or upholding illegality, this balance is not easy to achieve. The approach of making mediation confidentiality ‘absolute’ appears to create straightforward rules for an informal process, but it can prove to be either overreaching or inappropriate. While uniform laws offer consistency, experience indicates that they fail to gain sufficient traction or acceptability to have widespread impact. In protecting mediation confidentiality, it is important that courts retain the power to admit mediation evidence in appropriate cases.