Models To The Policy Issue Of Human Rights

Among the many current policy issues in the United States, human rights continue to hold ground as a staple for attention. “Human rights provide a cornerstone for fulfilling human needs” (Cox, 2015), and the policies that are put into place for human rights aim to reach that very goal. Additionally, human rights policies by the United States hope to promote human rights in order to “secure the peace, deter aggression, promote the rule of law, combat crime and corruption, strengthen democracies, and prevent humanitarian crises” (U.S. Department of State, 2017). This paper will begin by overviewing two models of public policy, followed by applying those models to the policy issue of human rights.

Models Overview

Group Theory Dye (2015) asserts

As discussed earlier, individuals facing a social issue (e.g. sexual orientation, women’s rights, race, etc.) will have the greatest impact on politics by forming an interest group. With the identified interest there will be the assumption of opportunity for representation, particularly with the group pressing for responses from administration. This will lead the government to respond to those demands in a way to establish equilibrium. As noted above in the group theory overview, managing group conflict will consist of establishing rules of the game, and arranging, balancing, enacting, and enforcing compromises in response to the pressure from the group. To supplement this, Dye (2015) describes the forces necessary to hold together equilibrium: (1) the latent group in society that supports the “rules of the game,” (2) the overlapping group membership that helps to maintain equilibrium “by preventing any one group from moving too far from prevailing values,” and (3) the balance due to group competition, which checks the power of each group and prevents one group from gaining too much influence. In terms of policy related to human rights, while a group may pressure administration to address a policy issue, there must be a balance with the outcome, including a balance of power, influence, and

the interest groups, various institutions, allies, etc.) affecting policymaking. The demands by those pressing for human rights, as well as the groups who are in support of a representative’s stance on current or proposed policies, will impact actions taken by the United States’ departments to investigate and report findings, coordinate human rights activities with allies, and put into place policies and actions to address previous/current abuses and prevent future abuses. While the policies to benefit the human rights group(s) may be for the betterment of society and those groups, it can also be self-preserving for the political system. As mentioned previously, Dye (2015) sees that the political system will respond to the forces from the environment to preserve itself. Through these outputs, the political system will attempt to satisfy the environment while using some level of force to maintain the changes – in this case, sanctions by the U.S. Department of State to hold other departments accountable for not promoting respect and outcomes in human rights. Although there will not be a universally accepted outcome, the support for the outputs will be relatively satisfying given the amount of input from the