|
|
|
Sort Order |
|
|
|
Items / Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
139777
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This paper conceptualises appropriation as an analytical tool to capture the contradictory nature of human rights localisation. Here appropriation is understood as the intentional reinterpretation of ideas across cultural, spatial and temporal contexts aimed at definitional power. In the first part of the paper I lay out the concept and develop an operationalisation. In the second part I apply the framework to the case of contested gender reform in Nigeria. The analysis highlights the localisation of human rights norms as an amalgam of different competing appropriating acts, leading to a hybrid and contradictory outcome that bears both transformative and stabilising potential.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
185559
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the diffusion of the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ (CBDR) from the United Nations (UN) to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Despite its varying interpretations in international negotiations since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), CBDR’s meaning hardly experienced any change in ASEAN. ASEAN’s different interpretation of CBDR from the UN matched the unchanging internal and external role expectations of ASEAN, which were a product of member states’ learning and conditioned by cognitive priors in the region. Cognitive priors in the climate change context included the ‘ASEAN Way’ of collaboration and member states’ deep-seated aspirations for development. The empirical study shows that internally, ASEAN acted as an interactive space for information exchange and a relationship facilitator; externally, it has embraced the position as the voice amplifier for member states in international negotiations. Maintaining the UNFCCC version of CBDR tallied well with ASEAN’s role expectations to: 1) provide member states with room to develop national actions that meet their respective priorities (internal); and 2) put member states in a better position to defend their interests in negotiating adaptation and mitigation responsibilities with extra-regional states (external).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
ID:
133475
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2014.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Inclusive participation by all states is now taken for granted in many global governance efforts, but this was not always the normal practice. Nineteenth-century multilateralism, embedded in a world of "great powers," actively rejected broad participation, valuing small numbers, hierarchy, and status in coordinating action. Construction of broader participation norms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a joint project that owes much to innovations in the Americas and regional norms developed within that group as it organized meetings among the American states. Central to these norms was sovereign equality that, in the American context, entailed universal participation of all American states and voting on a one state-one vote basis at conferences. This article traces the spread of these norms from the Americas to the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, and highlights the varied sources for many of our contemporary multilateral practices in these early events.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
ID:
178692
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Despite the apparent consensus that European Union (EU) normative power embodies a Kantian cosmopolitan approach to world politics, such a consensus is typically presupposed by scholars, rather than being critically examined by them. By offering macro-historical reflections, this article argues that EU normative power deviates from the Kantian cosmopolitan ideal and in fact replicates the Hobbesian logic of normative homogenization. Renouncing the medieval Vatican’s ambition to construct a united Europe anchored in uniform normativity, Kantian theory celebrates multiple normalcy as the basis for human freedom, perpetual peace, and mutual transformation. In contrast, Hobbesian theory is driven by the conviction that a peaceful value-based community could be built only through normative homogenization, behavioural conformism, and moral unity. In Hobbesian theory, the Leviathan exercises a transformative power to socialize others, eliminate discords, and build a commonwealth through norm diffusion and public education. In this vein, the EU’s aspiration to build a normatively homogenous Europe seems to reflect Hobbes’s vision of normative unity, rather than Kant’s vision of cosmopolitan diversity. Should the EU aspire to pursue a cosmopolitan foreign policy, it needs to pay more attention to the power-political implications of its drive toward normative homogenization and shift its focus from socialization to mutual transformation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 5 |
ID:
148132
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In the EU accession literature, there is a tendency to downplay the role of discourse in facilitating norm diffusion, particularly when domestic resistance towards European norms is strong. The assumptions in this thinking are that critical deliberations and civil society activism simply lack the potency required to elicit norm conforming behaviour in accession states and that the only realistic hope for achieving this rests with the introduction of material incentives that make the costs of normative adaptation lower than its rewards. I focus on developments in the field of LGBT politics to challenge these assumptions and to specify the conditions under which discursive strategies are likely to stimulate the domestic uptake of contentious norms. I highlight shared identity as a crucial factor in the success of discursive influence, contending that under conditions of identity convergence, a cultural environment prevails in which norm promoters can more effectively ignite a process of deliberative reflection, shame norm-violators into conformance and cultivate resonance around controversial ideas. I develop these arguments through an analysis of LGBT and accession politics in Croatia and Serbia, contending that Croatia’s strong identification with Europe accelerated LGBT recognition there while Serbia’s relatively weaker identification with Europe slowed it down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6 |
ID:
160883
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article aims to show the added value of studying transnational advocacy networks through a discursive approach in order to better understand the outcomes of norm diffusion in postconflict contexts. I argue that constructivist approaches to norm diffusion fall short as an explanation of norm adoption because they assume an automatic process of norm propagation through socialisation mechanisms. The first goal of the article is then to discuss how the internal dynamics of discourse negotiation in transnational advocacy networks impact the diffusion and implementation of international norms. The second goal is to propose the concept of the rebound effect and to explore the conditions under which it takes place. Through data collected during extended fieldwork, the article examines a prominent case, namely the transnational campaign for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security in Burundi and Liberia. I ask why and how the campaign was understood as a success in Liberia and as a failure in Burundi. I argue that there is another way of looking at these cases in less dichotomised ways. Crucially, my findings demonstrate how in both cases a very particular discourse on gender security is (re)produced through power relations between local and transnational activists limiting the type of policies that are advocated for and depoliticising the grassroots.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 7 |
ID:
163070
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Norm contestation by local actors has emerged in recent years as an explanation for the failure of norm diffusion. This article contributes to the literature on norm contestation by analysing how norms diffused by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pertaining to election observation and free and fair voting are re-constituted and contested by domestic actors in Kazakhstan. The study contributes to the idea of ‘constitutive localisation’ by emphasising a more fundamental level of disagreement beyond just congruence between the diffused norm and local beliefs; by demonstrating contestation can occur in the later stages in the norm diffusion cycle; by focusing on the micro-politics of contestation by local actors involved in the implementation of diffused norms; and by revealing how norm contestation is not necessarily a process of emancipatory politics, but a strategic act to serve authoritarian consolidation. Utilising a four-fold framework, the analysis illustrates how norms, while initially accepted by Kazakhstani authorities, are reconstituted through political discourse and/or practice, creating the moment of contestation. While this contestation is instrumentalised by political elites for their own advantage, it also remains an important element of agency within a normative order which they had little previous control over.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 8 |
ID:
141061
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Academics and policymakers often argue that global health policy greatly affects and influences national health systems because these policies transfer and implant ‘best practice’ norms and accountability techniques into local health systems. On the whole these arguments about the ‘diffusion of norms’ have merit since there is considerable evidence to suggest the existence of a positive correlation between global norms and national behaviour. Nevertheless, this article argues that traditional analytical frameworks to explain norm diffusion underplay the fact that norms are significantly ‘glocalised’ by national actors and further discount the role that national leadership plays in strengthening health systems. In response, this article presents a ten-year comparative paired study of the participatory governance mechanisms of the South African health system and its health strengthening measures. In doing so, the role of the national government in their relations with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM) will be examined and how key ‘partnership’ norms were amalgamated into health governance mechanisms. It will be argued that although global policy plays an important guiding role, health norms are never transcribed straightforwardly and a central element to successful health governance remains vested in the nation and the leadership role it exerts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 9 |
ID:
168869
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
For decades, the world's smallest states – the structurally weakest members of the multilateral system – have been considered incapable of influencing international organisations (IOs). So, why has the label small state risen to prominence over the last two decades and become institutionalised as a formal grouping in multiple IOs? Drawing on more than eighty in-depth interviews, we explain the rise of Small Island Developing States in the United Nations system, the expansion of their agenda to the Small and Vulnerable Economies group at the World Trade Organization, and then to other IOs. The adoption of the labels is evidence of small state norm diffusion. We identify the competent performance of vulnerability within multilateral settings as the key to explaining this norm emergence and diffusion. The lesson is that diffusion ‘from below’ is not always driven by a desire to increase rank. In this case small states have gained benefits by maintaining a lowly position in a hierarchy in which large is stronger than small.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 10 |
ID:
182626
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Would existing norms be vulnerable to degeneration due to the noncompliance behavior of some members, especially that of norm entrepreneurs? Standard accounts of norm studies focus on the negative influences of norm noncompliance on norm diffusion. This article starts with a critical thinking about norm noncompliance and argues that norm noncompliance, as well as norm compliance, constitutes a normal and necessary part of our social system. It develops hypotheses on why and how norm noncompliance leads to norm diffusion. To illustrate this argument, it takes free trade norms as a case to explore the different attitudes held by the United States, European Union (EU), and China. China has been motivated by US noncompliance behaviors to take the lead in diffusing free trade norms, while the EU tries to prevent China from taking the championship, which combined have promoted the diffusion of free trade norms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 11 |
ID:
185795
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article problematises the status quo bias in IR socialisation research, and develops an alternative concept of competitive socialisation, through which subaltern actors internalise dominant norms, enhance their competitive edge, and enact more equalised power relations in global politics. The dominant strand of IR socialisation research mostly conceives of socialisation as a status-quo-oriented practice that reinforces the existing power hierarchy, such as teacher-student relationship. This has resulted in a one-sided theory neglecting the importance of proactive and self-directed socialisation efforts embarked upon by subaltern actors themselves. Based on an alternative sociological approach that defines socialisation as a practice of self-enhancement, this article develops the concept of competitive socialisation and articulates alternative pathways to the internalisation of dominant norms. It applies this framework to the cases of Chinese socialisation into the peacekeeping community, and Russia's socialisation into the multilateral development community. These case studies demonstrate that the holistic internalisation of dominant Western norms has enabled Beijing and Moscow to challenge the existing global power hierarchy. This, in turn, resulted in fundamental changes in their behaviours from initial norm rejection, to passive acceptance, and finally to active learning and norm internalisation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 12 |
ID:
178127
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In Latin America and Southern Africa, norms on violence against women have developed with ups and downs, not simply in reaction to global norms, but sometimes even preceding global norm diffusion or surpassing it in terms of scope, framing and binding character. The classic global-to-local account with a single source of norm creation cannot capture these dynamics. Including the regional level in a dynamic model of norm diffusion enables us to understand the changing contents of a norm and to acknowledge transregional agency. We show (1) how norm contestation is an ongoing, multidirectional and polycentric process; (2) how the regional level opens up opportunities for feminists and femocrats; and (3) under which conditions regional norms can be both more progressive than global ones and more adapted to regional needs, and, in turn, are thus able to strengthen the ‘global’ norm.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 13 |
ID:
168199
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Recent studies on global performance indicators (GPIs) reveal the distinct power that nonstate actors can accrue and exercise in world politics. How and when does this happen? Using a mixed-methods approach, we examine the impact of the Aid Transparency Index (ATI), an annual rating and rankings index produced by the small UK-based NGO Publish What You Fund. The ATI seeks to shape development aid donors' behavior with respect to their transparency—the quality and kind of information they publicly disclose. To investigate the ATI's effect, we construct an original panel data set of donor transparency performance before and after ATI inclusion (2006–2013) to test whether (and which) donors alter their behavior in response to inclusion in the ATI. To further probe the causal mechanisms that explain variations in donor behavior we use qualitative research, including over 150 key informant interviews conducted between 2010 and 2017. Our analysis uncovers the conditions under which the ATI influences powerful aid donors. Our mixed-methods evidence reveals how this happens. Consistent with Kelley and Simmons's central argument that GPIs exercise influence via social pressure, we find that the ATI shapes donor behavior primarily via direct effects on elites: the diffusion of professional norms, organizational learning, and peer pressure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 14 |
ID:
173197
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The diffusion of international human rights norms through the enforcement of international human rights law by courts has been explored by both scholars of international relations and international law. Turkey, which has been a state party to most international human rights treaties despite being a major violator of human rights, is the case in this paper. It examines norm diffusion in the area of women’s rights through court action in a patriarchal culture protected and represented by a deeply patriarchal state and judiciary. By looking at the legal processes, domestic and international, through which the issue of the right of Turkish women to keep their maiden names after marriage has gone, this paper argues that norm diffusion through court action can be triggered even in difficult cases such as changing gendered norms and describes the conditions and mechanisms that make these changes more likely.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 15 |
ID:
145110
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Reactions to the promotion of human rights norms in post-conflict countries often clash with central assumptions of established theoretical approaches to norm diffusion. Socialization scholars expect either resistance when strong veto players are present and when resonance is missing, or extensive adoption of norms when states are vulnerable to transnational advocacy. Others predict decoupling processes when local capacities for implementation are scarce. Research on norm localization, in contrast, foresees the reinterpretation and modification of norms. The concept of localization, however, is often used as a catch-all category. Based on a new three-step model of translation into discourse, law, and implementation, I distinguish different types of translation. This conceptual approach to norm translation gives an interactional account of how certain types of translation emerge and shows the limits of “cures” for missing compliance proposed in existing approaches. The discussion draws on examples of human rights promotion in post-conflict Guatemala.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 16 |
ID:
161345
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Focusing on Sri Lanka, this article complements existing research on the adoption of global norms and discourses around peace education by illuminating the tensions between global and local demands in a multicultural society torn by conflict. In analysing a series of donor-funded official civics textbooks issued during the civil war, it identifies textbooks as sites of the conflictual ‘hybridisation’ of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm and the challenge to it posed by local interests and sensibilities. The analysis of the discourses around ‘good citizenship’ in Sri Lankan textbooks elucidates a case of the political co-optation of donor-driven agendas, traceable in the uneasy blend of a traditional and a global model of citizenship education simultaneously embracing and undermining liberal ideals of peacebuilding through emphases and silences that may risk compromising national reconciliation. The textbook discourses which enact these processes construct notions of social cohesion around civic virtues, frame rights as privileges earned through compliance and gratitude towards authoritative institutions, promote understandings of peace and conflict which highlight individual responsibility while obscuring systemic violence, and affirm social justice, democracy and human rights while evading the realisation of these ideals in practice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 17 |
ID:
072695
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2006.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
International Organizations (IOs) promote and diffuse norms within world politics. This prompts the question: where do these norms come from? This inquiry analyses how IOs have been perceived within the emerging norms literature where IOs are 'norm diffusers' within the international system, and finds that the way in which IOs themselves internalize norms has not been taken into account. This poses a potentially fruitful new avenue of inquiry into why and when IOs behave as norm diffusers. An interpretation of when and why IOs internalize norms is offered by positing that IO identities are not fixed and that they are 'norm consumers' socialized by state and non-state actors.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|