ABSTRACT
In the 1990s, democracy and rights have achieved unprecedented prominence. The United Nations and numerous non-governmental organisations monitor human rights, and issues about democratisation and rights even enter into foreign relations and international economic policies. The language of democracy and rights is now spoken in the remotest parts of the world, but is heard most loudly in the USA where the Constitution has ensured that rights have always been central to politics and where claims made in terms of rights have proliferated in recent years. In other Western countries rights talk (as it is sometimes called) has also increased as antidiscrimination measures and other reforms since the 1970s have enlarged the scope of rights.
