"Rising to the Populist Challenge: A new playbook for human rights actors", 06 Apr 2018

The proliferation of populist governments and movements creates serious risks and challenges for human rights around the world... However, their rise could have an unexpected positive effect: to push the human rights movement to carry out transformations in its architecture and changes in its strategy that were imperative…before… and are now urgent… [P]roliferation of illiberal democracies puts considerable pressure on…blind spots of the contemporary architecture of the human rights field… [D]efense and reinforcement of the status quo of the movement—is…ill-advised to confront…“the populist challenge to human rights.” [P]opulist governments have learned from each other, to the point that copycat attacks against human rights have spread to countries in different regions…This book bring[s] together and analyz[es] the repertoire of responses that human rights actors are developing in populist context… [I]n order to push back against populist governments, Tiwana argues that alliances need to be established beyond the usual circles of activism. For instance, there is a need to persuade business leaders to not only adopt a “first do no harm” principle towards civil society, but also to actively defend civil society space, including by using their connections with political leaders and the power of their brands that appeal to the public.