THE STATE’S POLICY-MAKING AND HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

The ineffectiveness of human rights is a reality in Modern Capitalist States. The concerns about the
enforceability of these rights won greater relevance in the scientific community after World War II,
because of the outrageous human rights violations by the Nazi-fascist totalitarian regimes. Therefore,
this study aims to investigate the role that the State’s policy making plays in the realization of human
rights, conceptualized as normative expectations of universal legal inclusion, that is, the inclusion of
anyone in society, regardless of race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation or any other kind of
discrimination. The symbolic power of these rights is discussed here from the perspective adopted
by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, as well as the teachings of the Brazilian constitutionalist
Marcelo Neves, known for his studies on symbolic constitutionalisation. At the end of this study, we
concluded that to achieve a minimum balance between the symbolic and the normative power of
human rights, and to make them more effective, it is required the reinforcement of the Welfare State
model, through the planning and formulation of a coherent public policies framework that is mainly
aimed to a social improvement.