Menschenrechte als demokratische Praxis: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Hannah Arendt

In this chapter, Janika Spannagel critically engages with Hannah Arendt’s ambivalent stance toward human rights, exploring how Arendt’s political thought challenges conventional liberal conceptions of human rights while also offering resources for rethinking them as democratic practice rather than abstract ideals. Spannagel begins by presenting Arendt’s historical critique: Arendt viewed the post-war human rights project with suspicion, famously describing its language as overly sentimental and disconnected from political reality. Arendt’s scepticism was rooted in her experience of statelessness, leading her to emphasize the “right to have rights” — the idea that human rights only become meaningful within a political community where individuals are recognized as members with mutual obligations. Spannagel argues that Arendt’s focus on inter-subjective recognition and public political engagement reframes human rights not merely as legal entitlements but as practices rooted in democratic interaction and shared world-building. This reframing highlights the democratic foundations of rights and underscores that rights gain effectiveness through collective acknowledgment and political action, not just formal declarations. By placing Arendt in conversation with current human rights discourse, the chapter invites a reconsideration of human rights as embedded in everyday democratic praxis.

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