Suzanne Katzenstein and Jack Snyder are calling for “human rights pragmatism” in this month’s The National Interest. Their article, "Expediency of the Angels," draws on quantitative human rights literature showing the limits of “naming and shaming” and specifying the conditions under which human rights strategies can be most effective – in particular when activists speak to the power and interests of “spoilers” and construct schemes that enable local communities to “escape perverse incentive traps.”This argument is right on the money. But Katzenstein and Snyder miss an important element in a...