ABSTRACT
The introduction presents the book’s aim and outlines its research design and key findings. After establishing the relevance of the book’s subject matter, it shows that neither political science scholarship nor scholarship from related fields has yet found (nor looked for) answers to the question of why states introduce what we call “extraterritorial human rights safeguards”. Next, the introduction presents a summary of the book’s theoretical framework, method, and case selection. Specifically, it outlines that the book relies on small-N process tracing to uncover which mechanisms of social influence can account for why the United States has introduced safeguards that are to protect non-US citizens outside the United States against harm caused by US counterterrorism policies; it also explains the selection of five cases in which the United States has introduced such safeguards. Eventually, the chapter outlines the book’s key findings – namely that strategic learning and coercion are behind the introduction of safeguards and that each mechanism’s occurrence is facilitated by specific enabling conditions – and touches upon the findings’ broader theoretical implications.
