Colonial Redress and the Unintended Consequences of Global Opportunities

Abstract

Abstract Research shows that the rise of political and discursive opportunities enabled by the diffusion of progressive global norms has empowered many aggrieved local actors. Drawing on colonial victims’ transnational redress movements, I add to this literature in two ways. First, rejecting the common association between global opportunities and local movement facilitation and success, I make a counterintuitive argument that the early availability of opportunities can inadvertently hamper a movement’s efficacy in achieving its goals in the long run. Second, contrary to the implicit assumption that large-scale, high-profile transnational movements should fare better than smaller, little-known ones, I demonstrate that the latter can sometimes achieve their goals more easily than the former. In making these arguments, I show that an increasing focus in the norm literature on backlash in target states against norm promotion risks neglecting the flip side of the same coin: Global normative support inadvertently undermining the efficacy of local causes it otherwise helps publicize. Empirically, I look at three Korean colonial victim groups and their divergent paths to transnational redress.