Editorial. It’s complicated. Social Struggles and the Entanglement of Political Participation and Fundamental Rights

Abstract

The phrase ‘democracy and human rights’ is ubiquitous today, and it seems self-evident that the two concepts presuppose and advance each other. However, it is not that simple; on the contrary, it’s complicated. This issue of OeZG therefore focuses on ‘social struggles’ in the broadest sense: intense forms of social practice that involve both political participation and fundamental rights. This makes it possible to thoroughly historicize the abstract ideas of rights and political orders. Rather than focusing on the history of ‘breakthroughs’ or the extension of supposedly universal rights, the authors are interested in the decentring of this history. How was the relationship between fundamental rights and political participation negotiated or contested in social struggles? To answer this question, the authors focus on practices in which equality and participation were demanded and/or established, and which very often produced new exclusions in the process. Their contributions show that equal rights and equal participation are not necessarily compatible.