Foucault and the Politics of Rights. By Ben Golder. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. 246 pp. $24.95 cloth.

• Date: 01 September 2016
• Published date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12226

cannot be explained on simple ideological terms. Once understood

as an admixture of different interests, coalitions, and strategies that

evolve over the course of American governance and political time,

retrenchment exacts a cost that is not only substantial, but ironic. All

too often the original goals of reform efforts that seek to increase

judicial access for the politically disadvantaged in the rights revolu-

tion have been undermined by the behind-the-scenes practices of

subsequently denying it by manipulating the institutional rules and

processes that govern judicial access and rights or remedies. In

advancing her theory, Staszak successfully navigates beyond conven-

tional studies in American political development that arguably

remain isolated in describing the effects of Supreme Court doctrine

within a myopic interpretation of judicial institutions and American

political development. In doing so, Staszak makes a significant con-

tribution to the law and courts literature by powerfully reminding

us that the arcane realm of jurisdictional rules of courts and proce-

dure is often the proving ground, and substantive foundation, for

securing litigant access to courts and justice.

***

Foucault and the Politics of Rights. By Ben Golder. Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 2015. 246 pp. $24.95 cloth.

Reviewed by George Pavlich, Canada Research Chair in Social

Theory, Culture and Law, and Professor of Law and Sociology,

University of Alberta

Nowadays, liberal political contexts revel in claims to universal

human rights. Their discourses tend to frame the latter as bulwarks

of individual freedom, preventing arbitrary coercion, detention,

torture and worse. Whiggish historical accounts cast rights as inevi-

table outcomes of social progress stretching back to ancient Greece

though the Enlightenment to mid-20th century declarations. But as

Moyn (2012: 3) notes, current understandings of human rights

depart significantly from past iterations; they emerged, “in the

1970s seemingly from nowhere.” Other critics (Brown, Butler, Ran-

cie

`re) echo the contingency here implied, reframing debates to

focus on how rights might explicitly constrain rulers.

Referencing these critics, Golder explores Foucault’s evocations

of rights in his later analyses of political struggles, aiming to unearth

a “critical politics of rights” that is “anti-foundationalist, non-

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