In this pathbreaking contribution to debates about human rights, democracy, and society, distinguished social scientists from Latin America and the United States move beyond questions of state terror, violence, and similar abuses to embrace broader concepts of human rights: citizenship, identity, civil society, racism, gender discrimination, and poverty. 

Introduction: Human Rights and the Construction of Democracy -- Settling Accounts with the Past: Human Rights in Processes of Regime Transition -- Adjusting the Armed Forces to Democracy: Successes, Failures, and Ambiguities in the Southern Cone -- Human Rights in Democratization Processes -- The International Scene: Networks and Discourses -- The Emergence, Evolution, and Effectiveness of the Latin American Human Rights Network -- The Looting of Democratic Discourse by the Guatemalan Military: Implications for Human Rights -- Citizenship in Democracy: Some Conceptual Issues -- Citizenship Revisited: Solidarity, Responsibility, and Rights -- The State, the Market, and Democratic Citizenship -- Structures of Discrimination: Individual and Collective Rights -- Indigenous Rights: Some Conceptual Problems -- Racial Inequalities in Brazil and Throughout Latin America: Timid Responses to Disguised Racism -- Women, Gender, and Human Rights -- Crime and Individual Rights: Reframing the Question of Violence in Latin America -- Conclusion -- Convergence and Diversity: Reflections on Human Rights