Social policy, social science and human rights research

Distinctions in the normative orientation and conceptual tools utilised by social policy/social science and human rights researchers has a long history. For some social researchers, a perceived lack of foundations for the idea of human rights within the sociological cannon of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, from whence much academic and empirical social policy research has emerged, and the traditional tension between moral and scientific visions of the social sciences, meant that the study of human rights has until recently remained marginal to the social sciences. Much social policy research instead focused on Marshall's concept of social citizenship through rights tied to citizenship, rather than the universal idea of human rights which Dean argues are perceived as more abstract and in practice more elusive, particularly with respect to economic and social justice (Dean, Reference Dean2007).

Another distinction lies in the strong focus of social policy and social science research on equality (which in itself contains competing conceptions) as a key driver of social progress. While there is a strong relationship between equality and human rights, they are not the same, and their conflation can risk marginalising the importance of other constituent concepts within human rights, such as dignity, respect, diversity and autonomy. While studies addressing inequality regard social justice as arising from relative equality between groups, human rights, at least theoretically, regards equality as a component of human rights which accrues to individuals. Human rights are, as described by Walby, ‘a threshold concept’, in which individuals claim equality in accessing and enjoying their rights (Walby, Reference Walby2009: 8).

Yet if social science and social policy researchers and advocates have been reluctant to engage with human rights, many human rights researchers and practitioners have been equally slow to address issues of class, poverty, inequality and social and economic injustice, instead focusing mainly on civil and political rights (CP). While CP rights violations draw the international attention of human rights advocates when violated, there has traditionally been less attention paid to economic, social and cultural rights (ESC) in developed Western democracies, principally because a distinction has arisen in relation to what constitutes a human rights violation. While CP rights must be respected and ensured, ESC rights are subject to progressive realisation tied to the availability of State resources. This distinction has permeated the international human rights regime ever since they were accorded different statuses within separate treaties in the International Bill of Rights.Footnote ⁵ The UK Human Rights Act (1998)Footnote ⁶ is based on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),Footnote ⁷ which contains no ESC provisions, and while NGOs have been active in monitoring civil and political rights, they have until recently shown less interest in ESC or welfare rights (Hunt, Reference Hunt1995 in Dean, Reference Dean2006).

Despite these tensions, this article argues that, nonetheless, there is considerable scope for social policy/social science research to contribute to human rights promotion and protection, and in particular to the formulation of human rights action plans and strategies. Furthermore, the distinctions between the two outlined above have, in recent years, begun to erode.

As early as the mid-1970s, Townsend argued that much social policy discussion is lacking in that it ‘offers no indication of the mechanisms by which they [social problems] might be reduced or eliminated’ (Townsend, Reference Townsend1975: 6). Dean too has argued that ‘if Social Policy must struggle to understand what's wrong with society and with existing policies, it must also consider the various ways in which these may be put right’ (Dean, Reference Dean2006: 101). Turner's early argument that human rights was a fitting subject of study for sociology (Turner, Reference Turner1993) began an engagement through which social scientists are now grasping the study of human rights with increasing recognition of their importance in addressing issues of social justice in practice and interrogating their social construction in contemporary society (Morris, Reference Morris2006; Morgan, Reference Morgan, Morgan and Turner2009; Short Reference Short and Goodhart2009; Hynes et al., Reference Hynes, Lamb, Short and Waites2011).

Human rights researchers too are placing greater focus on ESC rights and inequalities arising from traditional social concerns with poverty, exclusion and class. This arguably follows international developments in applying human rights approaches to development and poverty reduction in the global south, influenced in the 1990s by Amartya Sen's work on development (Sen, Reference Sen1999) and subsequently taken up in the United Nations Development Programme. At the same time, increasing concern with group rights has challenged the limiting of equality to individuals, and this is increasingly reflected in the growing field of human rights research methods where, for example, human rights impact assessment and measurement addresses the enjoyment of rights by groups (Landman, Reference Landman2006; Landman and Carvalho, Reference Landman and Carvalho2010).

A final distinction between the two approaches lies in their aims and outcomes. While both seek to contribute towards greater social and political justice, human rights research places particular emphasis on identifying a duty bearer for the fulfilment of human rights. This is because, historically in human rights research, the State (judiciary, legislature and executive) has been identified as the focus of its policy interventions. At the centre of international human rights is the ability of the State to both protect and violate human rights, and thus a key characteristic of human rights research has been that it identifies the State and the responsibility of state actors as ‘duty bearers’ who are accountable for upholding their international obligations. Research on human rights identifies whether human rights are being respected, protected, promoted and fulfilled; in what cases they are being violated; how, why and when. It asks the State to be accountable for their protection and promotion in accordance with international norms, holds it accountable for remedying breaches of human rights and assesses and measures in a variety of ways how State actors do this in principle, policy and practice (Landman and Carvalho, Reference Landman and Carvalho2010: 17). In contrast, much social policy research does not focus solely on the unitary state but on the variety of social relations necessary for human wellbeing and the ways in which they can be promoted (Dean, Reference Dean2006: 1). These can be structural, systemic, attitudinal and behavioural, and involve a variety of mechanisms for progress and change, from voluntary and private sector intervention to structural analysis, redistribution and social planning (Williams, Reference Williams1989: 11) towards the realisation of well-being.

Against this backdrop, the project initiated by the Commission in 2010 to combine social policy, social science and legal research with human rights standards in order to understand the current state of human rights protection in Scotland was an innovative step in expanding the work of both research sectors and in placing human rights firmly at the centre of Scottish government policy. The direction of governmental support for human rights has begun to diverge throughout the UK in recent years and the Conservative Party within the current coalition government at Westminster propose to replace the Human Rights Act (HRA) (1998) with a weaker UK bill of rights with reduced government accountability. The Scotland Act (1998)Footnote ⁸ and the HRA (1998) combine, however, to firmly place human rights at the centre of a constitutional framework in Scotland, and this, combined with more than a decade of devolution, as Miller (Reference Miller2011) argues, ‘has given Scotland a more mature understanding of human rights and their rightful place in a modern, inclusive and outward looking society’.

Since its creation, the Commission has taken a human rights based approach to all of its work, as a means to empowering people to know, understand and claim their rights as well as to increase the ability and accountability of individuals and institutions who are responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling rights. The Commission believes that involving all corners of Scottish society to develop Scotland's National Action plan for Human Rights (SHRC, 2012) is an appropriate means of delivering the promotion and progressive realisation of ESC as well as CP Rights.

Phase One: human rights research in Scotland since 2006

In March 2010, Lamb and colleagues were commissioned to produce an annotated bibliography of grey and non-grey non-legal literature on human rights in Scotland since 2006, focusing on issues within the Scottish Parliament's competency. During the initial planning phase, in consultation with the Commission, the researchers identified the range of sources to be used which included statutory, quasi-statutory and non-governmental organisations, and academic sources.Footnote ⁹ As the project focus was on non-legal literature, its principal sources were to be the social sciences, and specifically social and public policy, political science, health and human sciences, anthropology and sociological research.

The bibliography was to include research that referred to human rights both explicitly and non-explicitly, that is research that addressed human rights-related concepts such as equality or dignity, even while not specifically referring to ‘human rights’ or ‘rights’ (Table 1). The range of terms to be used in the literature searches were agreed by the Commission and University of Roehampton prior to the commencement of the project, however these terms were also expanded throughout Phase One of the project as the literature was reviewed – this will be discussed later.

Table 1

Themes, keywords and equality strands

However, as the first phase of the project progressed, it became clear that the conceptual issues identified in the introduction to this article had to be addressed methodologically before the project searches could proceed. While the researchers were identifying a great deal of research on issues germane to human rights advocacy, in that vulnerable groups were addressed and inequalities exposed, there was little research explicitly drawing on the language of human rights that could be simply classified under the rubric ‘human rights research’.

The first phase of this project thus had to confront the following question: ‘What constitutes human rights research and what should be included in the Bibliography?’. Initial literature searches of the source databases identified 2,500 pieces of research which could be designated as non-legal research on Scotland since 2006. But did that make it human rights research? On the other hand, only including research that explicitly addressed human rights would not have yielded sufficient literature for the purposes of the Commission, which was to understand the content and range of relevant research and identify gaps and good practice in the enjoyment of human rights by people in Scotland. Thus, the researchers took the decision to develop a mechanism by which to classify literature for inclusion in the bibliography as human rights research.

The researchers firstly identified the explicit and intentional use of human rights language and concepts, alongside clear identification of a duty bearer, as the primary criteria for inclusion in the bibliography. The second criterion for inclusion was research which focused on vulnerable groups, which, while not explicitly referring to human rights, used ‘non-human rights related themes and key words’ (Table 1) and implied a duty bearer. In addition, two other criteria, ‘vulnerable groups’ and ‘equality strands’, were included to capture the purpose of human rights in protecting those groups that are most vulnerable to being marginalised and discriminated against. The resultant bibliography was divided as follows:

1. 1. research that is explicitly human rights focused and identifies a duty bearer (11 per cent of total bibliography);

2. 2. research that addressed core human rights themes or violations (identified in Table 1) but where authors do not use the language of rights/human rights although a duty bearer was implicit (32 per cent);

3. 3. research that did not mention human rights or a duty bearer but was focused on vulnerable groups subject to human rights protection (25 per cent);

4. 4. research that is not human rights related, that is it is attitudinal or behavioural etc., but the content has the potential to enhance future human rights research by providing context or additional information on lifestyle that may be impacted upon by inequalities or other sources of deprivation (21 per cent).Footnote ¹⁰

These criteria were applied to each piece of research alongside an evaluation of its methodological robustness, and confirmed that, despite shared concerns for social justice, there is an on-going gap between social policy and human rights research in terms of content, language and policy recommendations. Only 11 per cent of the research included in the bibliography of 531 pieces of literature explicitly intended to use a human rights framework, or identified a rights violation or duty bearer responsible for the fulfilment of the right, a finding that reflects an important distinction between approaches described in the first section. In 32 per cent of the bibliography, rights were not referred to but the responsibility of State actors as duty bearer to address issues identified was implied and they were thus included. However, in 46 per cent of the research (categories 3 and 4) no duty bearer was identified. By failing to identify the duty bearer the literature left open the question of who or what body is responsible for fulfilment, an omission that echoes the concerns expressed by Townsend (Reference Townsend1975) and Dean (Reference Dean2006) of the usefulness of social policy and social science research where a duty bearer is not identified. In research where the language of ‘human rights violations’ was used, it was limited to specific sectors such as homophobia, domestic violence/rape, detention and trafficking − all sectors which have been quicker to employ the language of human rights as a result of their successful internationalisation of these sectors by campaigning groups. Again, bearing in mind the earlier discussion, it was unsurprising that ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion/exclusion’ were the categories most utilised in the bibliography, and, with the exception of ‘maternity’, all the equality strands listed by the Commission at the start of the project were identified, with gender and disability being most frequent, and religion and sedentary/mobility (Gypsy/Travellers) being least.Footnote ¹¹ Less than 10 per cent of the final bibliography addressed issues facing travellers, human trafficking, privacy, climate change and the environment − all issues which are emergent areas of social and political attention and human rights advocacy, and indicating that the concerns of both groups remain divergent. Finally, there was no research that addressed ‘adequate standard of living’ as an explicit category despite this being identified as a human right within numerous human rights conventions.Footnote ¹² As the following section demonstrates, however, much of the research included within the final bibliography has the potential to provide evidence of its contravention.

Phase Two of the project: mapping human rights onto social science and policy research

The second phase of this project involved the application of a human rights analytical lens to the source literature from the bibliography. Where possible and deemed relevant,Footnote ¹³ every source article was retrieved and reviewed. In particular, the focus of the research, the relevant articles engaged, clarification of the state responsibility and any possible actions suggested by the report were summarised (see Figure 1 for an example). Each source article was then coded through NVivo software, article by article in order to make it a simple process to analyse the degree to which this non-legal research literature had relevance to different human rights conventions and the specific articles within them.

Figure 1.

Example of a Rights Analysis Summary of one report.

By identifying the relevant Convention articles that could be engaged within the source literature, a broader picture of the potential focus of different civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights was revealed. As can be seen in Figure 2 below, there is a fairly equal spread between the two streams of rights foci: civil and political (CP) and economic, social and cultural (ESC), with a particular focus on: the rights to: health (ESC), family and private life (CP), adequate standard of living [including housing, water and food] (ESC), fair trial (CP), freedom from torture and degrading treatment (CP), education (ESC and CP), life (CP) and liberty (CP).

Figure 2.

Articles potentially engaged within source literature.

This adds further weight to the proposition that there is indeed much that non-legal social policy and social science research and literature could contribute to human rights promotion and protection in Scotland.

Phase Three: Scotland's National Action Plan for Human Rights

Helping to empower people in Scotland to understand and claim their rights has been a core strategic goal of the Commission since it began its work in late 2008 (SRHC, 2008). In addition to the Annotated Bibliography described above, further data sources included:

1. 1. three legal literature reviews exploring specific conventions/acts in relation to the law in Scotland (Convention against Torture, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment, International [CAT]; International Convention of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [ICESCR]; and Human Rights Act/ European Convention of Human Rights);

2. 2. all individual enquiriesFootnote ¹⁴ received and all general intelligence on human rights issues in Scotland collated by the Commission (2008–10);

3. 3. all responses to the Commission's 2008–9 national consultation;Footnote ¹⁵

4. 4. preliminary Scottish data from the Human Rights Measurement Framework (HRMF).Footnote ¹⁶

All of these data sources were subjected to the same human rights analysis described above in order to draw out potential (over 300) human rights concerns under each of the Articles of the Human Rights Act [incorporating ECHR] and ICESCR. In turn, the main areas of thematic focus for the second phase of the research began to emerge from this analysis − themes, which will be familiar to any social scientist.

Consideration of six contextual areas of focus, namely social, economic, political, legal, environmental and technological will allow for the painting of the ‘bigger picture’ within which the people of Scotland live their lives and can realise (or not) their rights on a daily basis. For example, in considering the economic context to the state of human rights in Scotland, understanding the changing face of public services and the impact of the severe cutbacks in services being introduced as a result of the economic recession will be crucial. Social scientists may focus on what public service cuts are made and the impact on the lived experience of people affected by service cuts. A human rights focus would also look to explore: how local authorities take and justify the decisions they make in relation to their public duty of human rights obligations (transparency), the degree to which such decisions have been assessed for their impact on peoples’ ability to realise their rights (human rights impact assessment and measurement) and also by holding those authorities accountable for the decisions they make (accountability).

In relation to the social context, social science may focus on the extent and impact of poverty in Scotland − with specific focus on the groups most impacted by poverty − or on better understanding the relationship between poverty, ill-health, mortality rates, social deprivation, educational outcome and so on. Every State signed up to ICESCR is under the obligation to progressively realise ESC rights, which means that, while a country may be subject to resource constraints, it must also act as best it can within its available resources. A human rights focus would therefore look to explore these issues further in relation to the State's obligation to ensure that everyone's right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and the right to an adequate standard of living, including access to adequate housing, food and water.

In addition to the wider contextual themes noted above, eight specific areas of thematic focus have also been identified for further research during the second phase of the Commission's research programme. These themes will also be familiar to social scientists and complementary to much social science research:

1. 1. Dignity in care: including abuse prevention, protection and response; independent living; quality of care and treatment; support for carers.

2. 2. Health: including access to healthcare complaints; accessibility and non-discrimination within healthcare service provision; health promotion; mental health care and treatment.

3. 3. Private and family life: including domestic abuse; forced marriage; the right to family life for people with learning disabilities; fathers’ rights; parental imprisonment.

4. 4. Where we live: including the right to adequate housing; rights of those living in rural areas; reconciling the rights of Scottish gypsies/travellers.

5. 5. Education and work: including removing barriers in access to education; inclusion in education and equality of outcome; removing barriers in access to work; removing barriers to fair pay.

6. 6. Safety and security: including asylum; hate crime; human trafficking; policing and community safety.

7. 7. Living in detention: including conditions in detention; mental health detention; women in detention; young people in detention or secure accommodation.

8. 8. Access to justice and the right to remedy: including access to legal advice and lawyers, legal aid; victims of crime and vulnerable witnesses; right to legal process of review and/ or appeal.

Phase Two of this programme of research has explored this selection of thematic areas in more depth through further secondary analysis of available sources as well as primary research. The Commission is, at the time of writing, completing its analysis of a series of focus group interactions and individual in-depth interviews. A central aim of this second phase of research has been to draw on the lived experience of, and give a voice to, many of those within Scottish society who are marginalised or struggle the most to have their voices heard and what they have said valued.

Over the last two years, the Commission has developed a specific ‘FAIR’ methodology for its programme and project development and this has four key elements:

1. 1. Facts: What are the important facts to understand?

2. 2. Analysis: What are the human rights or issues at stake?

3. 3. Identifying shared responsibilities: What changes are necessary? Who has responsibilities for helping to make the necessary changes?

4. 4. Recall: Over time have the necessary changes occurred? If not, who is to be held accountable?

Again, much of this process will be familiar to social scientists: determining facts, analysing what they mean and identifying who is responsible for change. Approaching this from a human rights perspective, however, identifies both the State's obligations to the protection of rights and the necessity to go beyond who is responsible and hold those responsible to account for change.

The research programme that the Commission is currently engaged in aims to identify the facts and analyse the human rights issues at stake. As this research reaches its conclusions, the Commission will engage with key stakeholders (government, local government, third sector, private business, academics, amongst others) to identify shared responsibilities through the development of Scotland's National Action Plan for Human Rights during 2012–13 (SHRC, 2012). The monitoring of that Action Plan over its lifetime with evaluation and review throughout will then provide the ability to recognise positive change in the realisation of peoples’ rights across Scotland as well as highlight where further work is required.

The world of social research has many roles to play and much to contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights in Scotland, in relation to in-depth study of certain issues and in increasing our theoretical understanding of wider social problems. In turn, applying a human rights lens to traditional areas of social policy could help to strengthen arguments for State accountability where there is necessity for change, remedy or redress. Further, by combining legal and social policy/social science research, the potential to hold public bodies to account through social and economic rights, in addition or as an alternative to the existing reliance on civil and political violations (Chapman, Reference Chapman1996; Mantouvalou and Gearty, Reference Mantouvalou and Gearty2011), can be enhanced.

Adopting this human rights lens may also be further supported in future years by data from the British Human Rights Measurement Framework, launched in December 2011, including separate indicators and monitoring data for England, Scotland and Wales. Using the UNOHCHR (2008) framework on human rights indicators as a starting point, the development team has produced indicators for eight rights,Footnote ¹⁷ namely the rights to health, family and private life, adequate standard of living [including housing, water and food], fair trial, freedom from torture and degrading treatment, education, life and liberty − all of which were the specific rights that would have been engaged by the majority of the non-legal social policy and sociology research reviewed, had the issues been viewed through a human rights lens.