Norm Entrepreneurs Research Articles

The Ties that do not Bind: The Union for the Mediterranean and the Future of Euro-Arab Relations

What impact does the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) have on the future evolution of Euro-Arab relations? This contribution first reflects on Arab reactions to the UfM, and subsequently analyses what alterations the UfM brings to existing Euro-Arab relations in terms of actors, institutional arrangements, and policy contents. In sum, the UfM caters well to Arab regimes’ priorities, namely the maintenance of authoritarian rule: The UfM tends to exclude societal voices and leads to a re-governmentalization of relations; the institutional set-up elevates Arab regimes to become formal veto-players, and the prioritized policy areas have – from an Arab regime perspective – the advantage of being de-politicized and stripped of any ambitious macro-political goals such as democratization. The UfM can thus be considered a triple victory for authoritarian Arab rulers in re-shaping their relations with Europe, and casts serious doubts on the hypothesis of the EU acting as a norm entrepreneur.

The EU and climate security: a case of successful norm entrepreneurship?

This article analyses the development of the European Union (EU) as a global actor in the area of climate security. Building on this, it explicitly draws on constructivist concepts such as norm entrepreneurship and epistemic communities. To this end, it adopts the framework of epistemic communities, as developed by Peter Haas, in order to suggest that there is a group of EU officials, EU member states and think-tank activists, who drive the climate security agenda of the EU. Thus, it examines the precise actors involved in this EU epistemic community for climate security. This group promotes a reason for action at the global level, resulting in the attempt to diffuse this norm: climate change has consequences for international security; thus, it requires the development of appropriate policies and capabilities within the EU and globally. This article suggests that the epistemic community on climate security has been effective at diffusing this norm at both levels, albeit with differences.

Catch Us If You Can: Election Monitoring and International Norm Diffusion

Why has the decision to invite foreign election observers become an international norm? More generally, how do international norms develop in the absence of incentives for cooperation or activism by norm entrepreneurs? Motivated by the case of election observation, I argue that international norms can be generated through a diffusely motivated signaling process. Responding to increased benefits associated with being democratic, international election observation was initiated by democratizing governments as a signal of a government's commitment to democracy. Increased democracy-contingent benefits gave other “true-democrats” the incentive to invite observers, resulting in a widespread belief that all true-democrats invite election monitors. Consequently, not inviting observers became an unambiguous signal that a government was not democratizing, giving even pseudo-democrats reason to invite observers and risk a negative report. I evaluate this theory with an original global dataset on elections and election observation, 1960–2006.

The EU as a Norm Entrepreneur: the case of lifelong learning

The EU has become one of the most prominent promoters of lifelong learning policies. Inside the European single market, EU member states have strong incentives to adopt similar approaches to lifelong learning and recognition of educational attainments in order to foster labour mobility. More surprisingly, countries neighbouring the EU also develop costly and radical reforms of their lifelong learning policies similar to those of EU member states. They do this despite the uncertain outcome of these policies on their specific labour markets and even though they are not likely to benefit from the potential gains of labour mobility. For making sense of this puzzle, this article conceptualises the underpinning mechanisms that led to these similar approaches to lifelong learning. The European Commission has created a specific script for lifelong learning that became an accepted norm inside the EU and was then diffused to neighbouring countries. Policy change according to this norm may be driven by competitive pressure, coercion, the pursuit of legitimacy or learning. While the EU seeks to diffuse its norm to neighbouring countries, these efforts initiated quite different processes in recipient countries. An illustration from neighbouring countries highlights two of these mechanisms. Remarkably, those countries that are potential candidate countries of the EU rather unreflectively emulated the norm because they strive for more legitimacy on their way to EU membership. In contrast, most neighbouring countries without any prospect of becoming EU members engaged in a process of bounded learning in which they adopt single aspects of the EU norm that fit their context and capacities.

Turkey's Norm Diffusion Policies toward the Middle East: Turkey’s Role of Norm Entrepreneur and Norm Transmitter

This paper examines how Turkey has established and transformed particular norms as norm entrepreneur and norm transmitter toward the Middle East from constructivism perspectives. At first part, this study reviews previous studies about norm and norm spread, especially contributions of Florini, Finnemore and Sikkink, and Acharya. In second part, this paper presents framework of Turkey’s norm entrepreneur and norm transmitter roles, and applies it to specific examples. As the examples of norm entrepreneur, Ankara Forum and Turkish model are taken. On the other hand, Turkey’s activities in Democratic Assistance Dialogue and in OIC were examples of norm transmitter

Les porteurs discrets de la surveillance financière

International anti-money laundering standards have been spreading across the planet for over two decades. This development obviously reflects the involvement of Western governments in the domain as well as the interest shown in the issue by private financial establishments. But it is worth examining the role played in spreading these standards by the transnational private firms that have developed services in connection with the diffusion of anti-money laundering practices : certification, advice and the provision of specialized computing tools. Research carried out in France in anti-money laundering circles reveals the extent to which, apart from the commercial aspect of their activities, these new “norm entrepreneurs” have imposed themselves by creating learning affects among professionals that ultimately reinforce the legitimacy and effectiveness of intergovernmental standards. ■

A select list of articles on Africa appearing in Non-Africanist periodicals: April to June 2010

Adogame, A. Editorial: Religion in African literary writing. Studies in World Christianity16, 1 (2010), pp. 1–5. Ambrosetti, D. Beyond the ‘norm entrepreneur’ model: Rwanda, Darfur and social sanction among UN diplomats. Global Society24, 2 (2010), pp. 157–71. Asamoah-Gyadyu, J. K. United over meals, divided at the Lord’s table: Christianity and the unity of the church in Africa. Transformation27, 1 (2010), pp. 16–27. Boone, C. and Kriger, N. Multiparty elections and land patronage: Zimbabwe and Côte d’Ivoire. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics48, 2 (2010), pp. 173–202. Caruso, R. Butter, guns and ice-cream: theory and evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Defence and Peace Economics21, 3 (2010), pp. 269–83. de Maria, W. Why is the president of Malawi angry? Towards an ethno-graphy of corruption. Culture and Organization16, 2 (2010), pp. 145–62. Deme, M. K. The supernatural in African epic traditions as a reflection...

How Do Crises Lead to Change? Liberalizing Capital Controls in the Early Years of New Order Indonesia

How do crises lead to change? Rationalist approaches to the question that emphasize inexorable structural responses and the pursuit of distributive preferences by newly dominant coalitions are inadequate because they obscure the social mediation of material events and the pervasive uncertainty that follows destabilization of the precrisis status quo. The latter constrains actors from fully grasping their distributive preferences. Until uncertainty is reduced, persuasion emerges as a key mechanism of change. Although constructivist approaches emphasize persuasive practices, they have yet to adequately specify the scope conditions underpinning the selection of new ideas. This article goes beyond much of the constructivist focus on domestic legitimacy and static notions of resonance by emphasizing external credibility and dynamic processes of resonance-building by norm entrepreneurs. The author specifies four features—what he calls the four Cs of crisis resolution—that shape the process of idea selection: carriers, composition, crossover appeal, and credibility. Developing these arguments in the case of the early years of New Order Indonesia, the article suggests that whenever a prominent and cohesive group of advocates promotes an idea that has sufficient ideational and distributive appeal and the endorsement of external actors whose seal of approval is perceived as important, intersubjective belief change, and thus institutional and policy change, is more likely.

Ideas, tradition and norm entrepreneurs: retracing guiding principles of foreign policy in Blair and Chirac's speeches on Iraq

AbstractThe significance of ideas to foreign policy analysis remains contested, despite a plethora of empirical studies applying ideational frameworks. Drawing on social constructivism, this article proposes a causal understanding where ideas derived from tradition define the political space for contemporary debates and effect foreign policy behaviour. This ideational approach is substantiated by a historical study of guiding principles in British and French foreign policy, which establish a set of baseline expectations for the analysis of Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac's speeches on Iraq. The empirical study shows that whereas Chirac largely stayed within a French ideational framework, Blair applied a more complex combination of ideas from both traditions. Conceptualising Blair as an aspiring (but ultimately unsuccessful) norm entrepreneur is a fruitful interpretation of this role.

Improving Access to Essential Medicines: International Law and Normative Change

This paper seeks to gain insights into the struggle to improve access to essential medicines from the empirical and conceptual contributions to the study of normative change in international law and international relations scholarships. When considering the way in which the debate over increased access to essential medicines has unfolded so far, it becomes evident that the forces behind the significant normative shifts have not been only states but networks of non-state actors as well. The paper aims to locate this involvement in the broader context of international normative change and suggest what the way forward should be. Section II begins by examining studies which aim to predict under what conditions international normative change is likely to take place, and focuses on two of the propositions that this body of work has generated. The first proposition is that value-laden, contested international norms often emerge as a result of concerted efforts of norm entrepreneurs who advance their agenda and succeed in mobilizing support around it. Their power often lies in their moral authority rather than military or economic might, yet they successfully engage other international actors in an attempt to either convince or coerce them to accept the new normative standard. Section III shows that this hypothesis is largely confirmed by the case under study. Faced with a sustained campaign led by like-minded activists, states and corporate actors have slowly begun to accept the right to health as an emerging normative standard and the responsibility for implementing it is increasingly recognized. The second proposition is that opening up institutions of global governance to the input of all those who may be affected by their decisions will enhance the legitimacy of these institutions and the norms that they generate. More to the point, the responsibility of corporations for the human right to health would be greatly enhanced if both human rights groups and corporate actors will be able to partake in the processes through which the right to health is given meaning to, interpreted, elaborated and revised. In section IV I suggest that while this hypothesis may have been confirmed in other issue areas of global governance, it may not apply with equal force to the case under study. When the pre-conditions for discursive engagement are not likely to be met within a lawmaking institution, opening up this institution to civil society input should proceed with caution because it is not likely to produce the desired effect.

The social construction of the participatory turn: The emergence of a norm in the European Union

AbstractAt the beginning of the 1990s a new discourse emerged at the European Union level, insisting on the necessity of ‘civil society’ participation in decision‐making processes. Based on a ‘strategic‐constructivist’ research design, this article addresses the question of the emergence of this participatory turn in the official discourse and its transformation into a norm. It argues that the continued activism of an elite forum, consisting of political and administrative actors as well as academics, created the momentum that brought the concerned actors to accept the participatory norm and to play the roles required by it. However, due to internal competition amongst norm entrepreneurs, and a changed political situation, this norm is still contested, making it difficult to assess how its implementation will function.

Beyond the “Norm Entrepreneur” Model: Rwanda, Darfur, and Social Sanction among UN Diplomats

When investigating why state decision makers opt for intervention in the heart of armed violence abroad, many scholars refer to new humanitarian norms appearing among state officers, particularly within the UN. In these approaches, “norm entrepreneurs”, and the high risks of public opprobrium they are supposed to induce, stand at the front stage of normative change. Compliance with newly promoted normative ideas seems totally bereft of professional risks, though. This paper intends to bring back in a dimension of norms that is central in sociology: social sanction. Investigating how social sanctions are practically enacted among diplomats at the United Nations precisely provides useful data to detect the many norms that prosper beyond—and before—normative enterprises, and to assess why the humanitarian idea and the recent “responsibility to protect” still have weak normative effects, practically speaking. The international failures in Rwanda and more recently in Darfur deserve re-examination in this prospect.

The UN Peacebuilding Commission and Gender: A Case of Norm Reinforcement

In recent years, increasing reference has been made to the issue area of ‘women, peace and security’, reflecting a set of norms that are gradually becoming institutionalized within the UN. This article explores the validity of such claims through an empirical study of the relatively newly established UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the extent to which gender language and concerns have been integrated into the latter's founding resolutions and deliberations on peacebuilding strategies. The article suggests that ‘women, peace and security’ concerns have emerged as a legitimate normative framework in the peacebuilding context. The PBC has served an important role in reinforcing this normative framework. However, the actual inclusion of women in strategic thinking and policy development is still dependent on the lobbying of dedicated norm entrepreneurs among member states, UN bureaucrats and nongovernmental organizations.

Protection of internally displaced persons: soft law as a norm-generating mechanism

AbstractInternal displacement is increasingly perceived as an international problem. This has led to suggestions that international norms have begun to govern state behaviour towards their own displaced populations. I argue that this change occurred through the innovative use of soft law, in particular the guiding principles on internal displacement, by a consortia of norm entrepreneurs including NGOs and a UN Office, that of the Representative of the Secretary-General for Internally Displaced Persons. As soft law, these principles lack the usual markers which suggest an emerging norm. Instead, the article argues that alternative methods – including the international recognition of the principles and their adoption in domestic legislation – has triggered a change in state behaviour. This is demonstrated by examining two cases of forcible return of IDPs – the closure of the Kibeho Camp in Rwanda in 1995, before the principles were created, and the closure of the Znamenskoye camp in Ingushetia, Russia in 2002, after their creation. Both situations are similar in that the norm appears to have been rejected – forced repatriation did occur. In the Russian case, however, government statements, along with widespread international condemnation of the closures, suggest rhetorical instantiation of a norm of non forcible return for IDPs.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A Short History of the World’s Biggest Promise

This paper provides a chronological account of the evolution of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It examines their historical antecedents; the UN conferences and summits that provided their content; the role of OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in formulating the International Development Goals (IDGs); the influence of the UN’s Secretariat in drafting the Millennium Declaration; and the final negotiations between the UN, DAC, World Bank, and IMF to amend the IDGs into the MDGs in 2001. This account reveals the complexity and unpredictability of global policymaking processes. Although the overarching structures of economic and political power framed all negotiations, so the MDGs are largely a rich world product for rich world audiences, there are opportunities for norm entrepreneurs and message entrepreneurs to exercise personal agency. As the time approaches for the assessment of the MDGs, at the UN General Assembly in September 2010, it is useful to reflect on the ‘chaos of accidents and purposes’ that generated the MDGs in the first place.

IOs as Norms Platforms: The World Bank’s Influence on Environmental Lending at the Islamic Development Bank

In this paper we explore the proposition that changes in international organization (IO) behavior might derive from the IO’s interactions with other IOs. Norm diffusion across IOs may take place via socialization by the norm entrepreneur—which, in early stages, may rely on material incentives or may occur as the norm adopter emulates the norm initiator. We also address non-IO sources of norms: member states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We extend theories of norm diffusion by applying them to interactions between international organizations. We test the hypotheses that derive from this approach using a statistical analysis of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) environmental lending. The IDB provides an ideal setting to evaluate our hypotheses: the originators of most global norms, the advanced industrial democracies, do not have voting shares on the Islamic bank’s executive board. This allows us to focus on the effects of global norms diffused by IOs where the industrial democracies are the most powerful members from the effects of the preferences of IO’s member states, who jointly form the collective principal of the IDB. We find evidence for socialization to IOs through non-material and non-delegated mechanisms. Specifically, international organizations can be socialized through common institutional memberships as well through example of normatively powerful organizations.

The Responsibility to Protect and the Use of Force: Building Legality?

AbstractThe rapid rise of the responsibility to protect provides us with a unique opportunity to consider the impact of a decade or so of determined norm entrepreneurship. The responsibility to protect has not yet become a binding norm of international law, and in this article we examine what factors are holding back or promoting this development. We draw on an 'interactional' account of international law, which focuses on three inter-locking elements. First, legal norms are social norms and as such they are connected to social practice – they must be grounded in shared understandings. Second, what distinguishes law from other types of social ordering is not so much form or pedigree, as adherence to specific criteria of legality. When norm creation meets these criteria and, third, is matched with norm application that also satisfies the legality requirements, international law will have legitimacy and generate a sense of commitment among those to whom it is addressed. After highlighting key steps in the norm building process so far, from the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty to the General Assembly debate in 2009, we offer a brief sketch of our theoretical framework, and employ it to examine the trajectory of the responsibility to protect norm, concluding with an assessment of its current and potential status as binding law. Although the responsibility to protect, including its potential for the collectively authorized use of force, is increasingly supported by globally shared understandings, the norm falls short on several of the legality criteria. Furthermore, given the inconsistent practice on protective use of force, no practice of legality can be said to have evolved. Proponents of the norm face a lot of hard work ahead.

From Victorian Secrets to Cyberspace Shaming

Worrying about privacy is a growth industry. The public is highly concerned about how its personal information is collected, stored, and processed. Technology companies compete to create new applications that will analyze personal data and meet new needs, such as the ability to broadcast one’s GPS data to family and friends (no more lunches alone). The government is interested in access to personal data for law enforcement, regulatory, and administrative purposes. And the media, when not reporting on the latest privacy invasions by companies or government, is publishing “tell-all” stories on anyone viewed as newsworthy, that is, deemed worthy of its attention. Two excellent guides to this cauldron of law, social change, and technology have now been published. These are Lawrence Friedman’s Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets, and Daniel Solove’s The Future of Reputation. In this Review, I discuss and analyze the main arguments of both books. Friedman and Solove make major contributions to our understanding of privacy law. The great benefit of Friedman’s work comes from its rich depiction of the legal and social context of privacy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the uncertain fate of it in the twenty-first century. The merit of Solove’s work is his precise guidance through the new landscape of Internet-based phenomena and his insights into how these affect privacy and reputation - often in a fashion unanticipated by the general public. I also offer critiques of each volume. Regarding Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets, I argue that Friedman’s terminology regarding social structure is looser than it should be, which leads to a sacrifice of some intellectual clarity in the otherwise brilliant landscape of his book. Moreover, Friedman warns that in the future, technology will work as a way to squeeze discretion and privacy out of the legal system. In my view, however, technology is today accompanied by a series of discretionary choices that affect privacy. Technology provides new and complex ways to disguise discretion. In The Future of Reputation, Solove is interested in how norms can affect behavior and even supplement law. I would have liked to have heard more from him, however, about how cyberspace affects the generation of norms, and how his privacy-promotive norms are to be generated. Moreover, Solove largely views law as an independent variable. He approaches law as a norm entrepreneur and calls for a number of changes in it. Yet, in certain instances, I wished his proposals to be more detailed and more fully operationalized. Finally, I suggest a number of new Internet-based phenomena that Solove might consider in the future, perhaps in Reputation 2.0, the (hypothetical) next edition of his book.

The Moscow Patriarchate and the Right to Conscientious Objection

In 2002 the Russian Duma adopted a law regulating the status of the country's conscientious objectors. This study discusses the role of the Moscow Patriarchate – an influential norm entrepreneur – in this process. It shows how the Patriarchate has actively supported some of the more conservative forces – including the Russian Ministry of Defence – in their shaping of a restrictive law designed to make conscientious objection an unattractive alternative to regular military service. By celebrating military service and by questioning the legitimacy of religiously based opposition to conscription the Patriarchate has constructed a particular understanding of what could be termed ‘proper Russian behaviour’ and of how ‘we’ do things. While ‘we’ are willing to defend the Fatherland, ‘they’ are not. In return for its support the Russian Orthodox Church now enjoys a position of visibility and influence within the armed forces that is unrivalled by any other religious group in the country. In this way, a mutually beneficial relationship has been set up in which the military enjoys the spiritual and normative support of the church, while the Patriarchate enjoys the importance accorded to it by ‘official Russia’ as a cornerstone of Russian culture, past as well as current. This relationship serves to make life harder for would-be Russian conscientious objectors. Through its construction of ‘proper Russian behaviour’, the Patriarchate is adding to the stigma attached to conscientious objection, thereby raising the social costs for the young men who prefer not to do regular military service.

Shareholders as Norm Entrepreneurs for Corporate Social Responsibility

This article advances the idea that shareholders who seek to influence corporate behaviour can be understood analytically as norm entrepreneurs. These are actors who seek to persuade others to adopt a new standard of appropriateness. The article thus goes beyond studies which focus on the influence of shareholder activism on single instances of corporate conduct, as it recognises shareholders’ potential as change agents for more widely shared norms about corporate responsibilities. The article includes the empirical example of US internet technology companies who, in their Chinese operations, face conflicts of norm systems in regard to freedom of expression on the internet. Shareholders have been active in seeking to persuade these companies to adopt a norm of adhering to global standards for human rights over restrictions implied by authoritarian regimes to which they deliver services.