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A deep dive into the mechanics of national human rights institutions and the forces that make or break their success. In the years since World War II, the endeavor to promote human rights has gained momentum and become increasingly important within international relations. Yet these efforts often run into serious problems of enforcement. Many countries formed national human rights institutions (NHRIs) with independent mandates to support and monitor government compliance with international human rights law. Be they commissions, ombudsmen, or tribunals, these institutions vary in their power and impact. For this book, Corina Lacatus surveyed NHRIs in Europe and around the world to determine their effectiveness and explain why some succeed while others fail. The Strength of Our Commitments explores the relationship between the domestic and international support an institution receives and its ability to secure resources, credibility, and tangibly improve human rights conditions. Lacatus shows that NHRIs can be models of resilience, even in the face of opposition from political elites. Although their impact on human rights is difficult to measure, The Strength of Our Commitments shows how NHRIs' strength comes from clearly defined formal powers, strong institutional leadership, and independence from political interference

Abstract
Despite populism being a fast-growing field of inquiry, populist discourse in an African setting is understudied. This paper expands our knowledge of populist communication and foreign policy in a competitive authoritarian context, proposing an analysis of two Ugandan politicians—Bobi Wine and Yoweri Museveni—and their communication on Twitter before the January 2021 election. Counter to expectations, I find that thick ideology has a limited effect on the electoral discourses of both candidates in a competitive autocracy such as Uganda, and this applies also to their communication about foreign policy. When it comes to their position on foreign policy, strategic electoral communication is focused on positioning themselves in relation to the West, signaling a commitment to a strong future linkage with the West and democratization in the event of electoral victory. The content analysis of Twitter-based communication finds that the long-standing incumbent, Museveni, uses tried-and-tested populist tropes to reinforce his regime, emphasizing his government's allegedly strong capacity to maintain a linkage to Western donors and to conduct a successful foreign policy focused on receiving foreign aid and advancing its investment in economic development. In his turn, counter-candidate Wine is a contemporary populist who contests the long-standing regime and promises a truthful commitment to democratization and an authentic and corruption-free linkage with the West if successfully elected. This paper aims to broaden our understanding of how political leaders in competitive autocratic countries of the Global South make strategic use of populist communication about foreign policy to advance their political agendas.

Transnational regional networks of regulatory bodies play a prominent role in complex systems of human rights governance. Despite their growing importance, we still have much to learn about the roles regional networks play as regulatory stewards in the field of human rights. I draw on the literature about regulatory stewardship to analyse a recently formalised regulatory network operating in Europe – the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions. The analysis proposes a model of global governance for human rights that includes networks of national human rights institutions as intermediaries. Moreover, it draws on some of the main concepts of network analysis to assesses the European network's development into a 'network administrative organisation' and applies the model of regulatory stewardship to analyse the institutional network's use of hierarchical and managerial stewardship to: support its member institutions; stimulate intra-network communication and learning; gain access to international networks; and to shape the regional human rights agenda.

Transnational regional networks of regulatory bodies play a prominent role in complex systems of human rights governance. Despite their growing importance, we still have much to learn about the roles regional networks play as regulatory stewards in the field of human rights. I draw on the literature about regulatory stewardship to analyse a recently formalised regulatory network operating in Europe – the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions. The analysis proposes a model of global governance for human rights that includes networks of national human rights institutions as intermediaries. Moreover, it draws on some of the main concepts of network analysis to assesses the European network's development into a 'network administrative organisation' and applies the model of regulatory stewardship to analyse the institutional network's use of hierarchical and managerial stewardship to: support its member institutions; stimulate intra-network communication and learning; gain access to international networks; and to shape the regional human rights agenda.

Much like his candidacy, Donald Trump's presidency has been described as populist par excellence and as fundamentally breaking with the liberal internationalist tradition of American foreign policy. Despite a growing interest in populism and the role it has played in shaping Donald Trump's appeal to the public at election time in 2016, we lack an understanding of how populist rhetoric after his electoral victory shaped his approach to foreign policy. This article proposes a study of President Trump's official campaign communication through rally speeches and Twitter during the 2 months prior to the mid-term election in November 2018 as well as tweets published in the official personal account @realDonaldTrump from September to November 2018. The analysis finds that resurgent Jacksonian populism promoted by the Tea Party shapes President Trump's approach to foreign policy. Fundamentally anti-elitist, Trump's populism opposes migration, multilateralism, and is deeply sceptical of the United States' capacity to support a liberal global order that he perceives as detrimental to the economic interest of the American people. In addition, the analysis finds inconsistencies between his campaign discourse of non-intervention in military conflicts abroad and his foreign policy action.

Much like his candidacy, Donald Trump's presidency has been described as populist par excellence and as fundamentally breaking with the liberal internationalist tradition of American foreign policy. Despite a growing interest in populism and the role it has played in shaping Donald Trump's appeal to the public at election time in 2016, we lack an understanding of how populist rhetoric after his electoral victory shaped his approach to foreign policy. This article proposes a study of President Trump's official campaign communication through rally speeches and Twitter during the 2 months prior to the mid-term election in November 2018 as well as tweets published in the official personal account @realDonaldTrump from September to November 2018. The analysis finds that resurgent Jacksonian populism promoted by the Tea Party shapes President Trump's approach to foreign policy. Fundamentally anti-elitist, Trump's populism opposes migration, multilateralism, and is deeply sceptical of the United States' capacity to support a liberal global order that he perceives as detrimental to the economic interest of the American people. In addition, the analysis finds inconsistencies between his campaign discourse of non-intervention in military conflicts abroad and his foreign policy action.

National human rights institutions have spread rapidly across Europe and its Neighbourhood consolidating their powers to protect human rights. Yet, we know little about the causes for change in the strength of national human rights institutions over time. We propose an analysis of institutional strength along two dimensions of safeguards – durability and enforcement – based on original data for 50 states. We illustrate the quantitative analysis with two case studies – Hungary and Poland. We find that European Union membership conditionality is the strongest predictor of increased strength in national human rights institutions. Additionally, we find evidence of democratic 'lock-in', as newly democratized states seek to increase the durability of their institutions. The influence of the United Nations and the European Union, through state networks, increases the strength of national human rights institutions, particularly their durability. The Council of Europe has a positive impact on the institutional safeguards for enforcement.

ABSTRACTIn the past year, academics and mass media alike have spoken of populism as a necessary condition for Donald Trump's success in the 2016 US presidential election. Despite the growing interest in populism for understanding the election, we have yet to provide a systematic analysis of the official campaign discourse and its use of populist rhetoric. To fill this gap, this article proposes an analysis of official campaign statements based on original text data from press releases published from January to June 2016 on campaign websites and tweets published on the official accounts of the three main presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Data show that the Sanders and Trump campaigns relied on populist discourse to promote two opposing electoral agendas on the left and the right of the political spectrum. Clinton made limited use of populist discourse, mostly in response to the other counter-candidates.

Regulatory networks are increasingly important actors in multi-level systems of human rights governance. Yet we know little about the role that domestic networks play as intermediaries or about the strategies they use to integrate sub-national human rights institutions to ensure compliance at the local level. We draw on the theoretical literature on orchestration to conceptualise network governance and propose a new intermediary for the human rights governance, the multi-level network, which operates inside one country. We apply this theoretical model to the case of a multi-level network operating at the domestic level in the United Kingdom – Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Scottish Human Rights Commission. We discuss how the three commissions use the tools of managerial stewardship to facilitate intra-network collaboration and how they engage in hierarchical stewardship to gain access to international networks and take on a leadership role globally and regionally.

Despite advances in the study of emotions in international relations, we have a limited understanding of the role hope plays in diplomatic practice. We draw on the scholarship on emotions in IR and psychological studies on hope to theorize the workings of hope in diplomacy. We argue that in times of political change, states are more likely to resort to a novel type of diplomacy—diplomacy of hope—to shape their future relationship. We illustrate our argument with a qualitative content analysis of Twitter communication by high-ranking officials in the Biden administration and the EU after the 2020 US election. We find that both parties engage in diplomacy of hope, expressing enthusiasm, promising to renew the transatlantic relationship, and reaffirming their mutual commitment to achieve common goals. Yet the two parties' strategic discourses diverge in their preferred pathways to cooperation and their proposed renegotiation of global leadership roles.

Populist leaders base their electoral appeal on underlying their agenda with claims to authenticity reflected both in the content and in the style of their political communication. Based on a conceptualisation of authenticity as discursive performance, we conduct a comparative analysis of the authenticity claims of two right-wing populist leaders, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. We focus on authenticity claims associated with international politics. International issues are central to populist exclusionary narratives, but also difficult for populist incumbents to narrate authentically. We find that despite differences in their public personas, Johnson and Trump show considerable similarities in both content and style of their authenticity performances. In particular, they 'domesticate' international politics to reinforce domestic issues assumed closer to 'ordinary' voters, all the while employing rhetorical styles suggestive of their authenticity. These findings highlight the centrality of authenticity performances to populist politics and electoral appeal.

AbstractHow do right-wing-populist incumbents navigate rhetorical strategic choices when they seek to manage external crises? Relevant literature has paid increasing attention to the role of 'crisis' in boosting the electoral success of right-wing populist candidates. We know a lot less about the rhetorical strategies used by right-wing populist incumbents seeking re-election. We draw on literatures on populism, crisis management and political rhetoric to conceptualize the rhetorical strategic choices of right-wing populist incumbents in times of crisis. We propose a framework for the choice of rhetorical strategy available to right-wing populist incumbents and illustrate it with a qualitative content analysis of Trump's tweets and White House press briefings during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find limited rhetorical adaptation to crisis and high degrees of continuity with previous rhetoric grounded in right-wing populism. This challenges prevalent assumptions regarding the likelihood of incumbent rhetorical flexibility in the face of crisis.