The myth of the local

Debates about the diffusion of international norms have increasingly focused on norm appropriation, highlighting the agency of local actors. The proliferation of international organizations in the Global South raises the question of whether and how they practice local norm appropriation. This article uses ethnographic methods to investigate the appropriation of development norms in an intergovernmental development organization located in Bangladesh. Established theories like localization and sociological institutionalism would expect local actors to allude to a global norm but not to adhere to it. On the contrary, this study finds that, while development organizations may allude to local development norms and dismiss UN-led initiatives as “Western,” their practices remain in line with global concepts such as the Millennium Development Goals and the Human Development Index. These actors perform to localize, but the rhetoric is not matched by their everyday practices. The local therefore functions as a myth.     

Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms

Why do states create enforceable international human rights norms that empower third parties to prevent and sanction domestic human rights abuses? Recent theories suggest that international institutions are shaped not only by power and interests but also by the content of arguments during intensive communication and argumentation processes. Moving beyond the simple notion that "communication matters," I argue that states are likely to be persuaded by arguments that draw on widespread taken-for-granted norms, in particular, prohibitions on bodily harm, the importance of precedent in decision making, and the link between cooperation and progress. This model extends previous theories by specifying mechanisms and scope conditions for international change through persuasion. I illustrate the argument by examining the convention against torture, a costly international institution that allows domestic courts to prosecute crimes that occur in the territory of other states (universal jurisdiction). Because of its enforcement mechanisms, the torture convention poses a difficult case for theories explaining international institutions. If persuasion models can explain even costly institutions, they should be more widely considered as explanations for all kinds of international institutions.     

Symbolic reflections of the environmental crisis: Some International Implications

In the present age of burgeoning population growth, world‐wide famine, worsening energy crises, and natural resource depletion, two realizations have become evident: the earth's resources are finite; and the world community is very interdependent. This finity, the interrelatedness, and their implications for the global environment can be studied by using three models: (1) the environmental crisis model, depicting the impact linkages between crisis areas; (2) an international feedback model, illustrating possible repercussions on the international political system if restorative‐preventive environmental measures are procrastinated; and (3) the United Nations machinery model, setting out the functional apparatus designed to deal with the eco‐crisis on a global scale.

We have reached an environmental cross‐roads‐a time for deliberate decision‐making and policy implementation. We must accomplish a readjustment of social, economic, and technical priorities and perspectives‐in short, a functional approach where national governments and international organizations act in concert to restore and safeguard the human environment.     

Norms from the periphery: tracing the rise of the common but differentiated principle in international environmental politics

Abstract

Over the last three decades, constructivist scholars of international relations have created a rich body of literature on the influence of global norms. Until recently, the vast majority of that work focused on norms originating in the developed world and neglected the ideational impact of developing countries. This article confronts this oversight in the literature by tracing the rise of the “common but differentiated responsibility” (CBDR) norm in international environmental politics. The CBDR principle traces its origins to the developing world and today it is part of the framework principles of international environmental agreements. Thus, it represents a global norm promoted by, rather than diffused to, the developing world. In the process of tracing this norm’s rise, this article generates a set of hypotheses about the conditions under which developing countries create global norms.     

The psychological effects of state socialization: IGO membership loss and respect for human rights

We present an interdisciplinary theory that considers how loss of membership in international organizations affects states’ human rights practices. Drawing mostly from social psychology and international relations research, we argue that states are socialized into the international community through a process of social influence, whereby they are incentivized to comply with group norms by the promise (threat) of social rewards (punishments). Social influence occurs when states form social bonds through interactions with other states. When social bonds are severed, fewer opportunities for social influence occur due to lower information to both the remaining states and the state that lost those social bonds. Thus, we hypothesize that the loss of membership from IGOs reduces incentives to comply with group norms and adversely affects human rights practices at home. A combination of propensity score matching/regression and autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) models on a global cross-section across the years 1978–2012 supports the theory. Specifically, losing at least one IGO membership leads to a long-run drop in human rights respect of about one quarter to one half standard deviation.     

Rapid response or evasive action? Regional organization responses to peace operation demands

Abstract

Scholars have largely overlooked a critical influence on the effectiveness of organizations in their conduct of peace operations: response duration. The consequences of prolonging the time between the demand and supply of a peace operation often include a rise in the death toll on the ground and a fall in the operation's legitimacy in the eyes of the local population. This paper aims to present and explain surprising variation among regional organizations' response rates – a critical influence on operations' prospects for success. The evidence that I have collected shows that despite its relative superior capacity, the European Union responds more slowly than the African Union and other less affluent regional organizations conducting similar peace operations. Applying theories of international organization pathologies, the paper argues that institutional design problems of bureaucratic dysfunction hinder organizations' abilities to rapidly respond.     

The structure of the international telecommunications regime in transition: A network analysis of international organizations 1

This paper examines the structure of the international telecommunications regime in terms of networks of social interaction and institutional affiliation among international actors. Social interaction and overlapping membership data of 69 international telecommunications organizations in the Yearbook of International Organizations 1994/1995 are analyzed to describe the social structure of the international telecommunications system through network analysis. The analysis reveals a center‐periphery structure with the Western industrial countries at the center and the less developed countries at the periphery. The international telecommunications system is also regionally structured suggesting influence by geopolitical and cultural proximity. The results indicate that inter‐governmental global organizations such as the ITU and UNESCO play intermediate and coordinating roles at the central linking‐pin positions (or cut‐points) in the international telecommunications regime. In summary, this research shows that transitional trends in international telecommunications have affected the interaction patterns of international actors.     

Dyadic Effects,Relevance, and the Empirical Assessment of the Kantian Peace

Dyadic effects to a large extent account for the difficulty of explaining and predicting international conflict. In this study, I derive a statistical model to estimate unobserved dyadic effects in the dyadic analysis of conflict. The proposed model employs a hierarchical modeling approach to estimate dyadic effects, thereby avoiding the problems caused by the use of fixed effects models. Furthermore, it simultaneously addresses the important sample selection issue of identifying relevant dyads. I show that the estimation of dyadic effects significantly improves the model fit and generates several interesting findings. Substantively, this study makes an important contribution to the empirical evaluation of the Kantian peace. It argues that international organizations increase the likelihood of conflict of interest between member states but reduce the probability of militarized conflict. I demonstrate that the positive coefficient of international organizations in Oneal and Russett (1999) is biased in the positive direction. When the proposed statistical model is used, international organizations, together with trade and democracy, reduce the probability of conflict.     

From Population Control to Reproductive Rights: Understanding Normative Change in Global Population Policy (1965–1994)

This article examines the process of normative change and nascent norm emergence in areas of global policy making through the convening of UN global conferences. Specifically, the article is a case study of how the norms and discourse undergirding and legitimising global population policy have changed from population control to reproductive rights through the passing decades. The United Nations, as a main site of discursive and normative contestation, provides opportunities for global social movements to lodge oppositional claims against states and other actors in world politics. A constructivist approach is used to identify five processes integral to understanding mutually constitutive and fluid agent-structure processes of normative change and nascent norm emergence in global population policy. This research contributes to the extant constructivist literature on the process of norm emergence by suggesting one processual model that can illuminate other cases of norm formation, maintenance, and change regarding other transnational issues.     

Constructivism and globalisation: from units to encounters in international affairs

In this article I argue that there is a link between constructivism and globalisation, and it is a strong one. Constructivism evolved as part of a more general trend in international relations scholarship, a trend that has seen a shift from the study of the relationship between assumed fixed, given units, nation‐states, to the study of encounter between political entities. The study of the encounter, however, affects a subtle but significant change in the assumed spatial context in which international relationships are taking place. The underpinning image of the geographical space, the envelope in which international relationships take place, has shifted from an image of a divided space made of separate and isolated nation‐states to an image of a global space, an arena that give rise to problems of encounters between social units. Encounter theories, of which constructivism in all its variations is a good example, are predicated, in other words, on an assumed global world (however ambiguous and inchoate this notion of global might be), and in that sense they advance, unwittingly, a theory of globalisation.     

突尼斯妇女法律地位浅析

突尼斯在保障妇女权益方面有丰富的经验。在维护妇女法律地位方面,突尼斯是非洲和阿拉伯国家中取得最大成就的国家之一。主要原因有三:第一是历史原因,突尼斯改革运动为社会解放和知识分子的意识形态变化奠定了良好基础。"凯鲁万婚约"的适用亦有利于国家独立以后执行一夫一妻制;第二是政治原因,妇女解放是突政府最重要的现代化与发展政策之一;第三是社会原因,20世纪80年代以来突尼斯妇女组织对妇女社会地位提高的推动作用。当前突尼斯面临的经济与社会问题可能对妇女现有地位构成一定的挑战。     

The Normative Foundations of Hegemony and The Coming Challenge to Pax Americana

The ongoing reallocation of wealth and power from the West to the “rising rest” promises to produce a new pecking order over the course of the next few decades. Although there is a well-developed body of knowledge on the material dimensions of power transitions, existing scholarship provides a much more embryonic intellectual foundation on the normative dimensions of international change. Transitions in the international distribution of power produce not only novel hierarchies, but also novel brands of international order that rest on the social and ideological proclivities of newly powerful states in the system. This article explores the normative dimensions of hegemony by examining the geopolitical, socioeconomic, cultural, and commercial logics that inform different orders. The normative foundations of hegemony are studied across four great powers: the Ottoman Empire, Imperial China, Great Britain, and the United States. The cases reveal that as great powers rise, they as a matter of course seek to push outward to their expanding spheres of influence the norms that provide order within their own polities. Accordingly, today's emerging powers will not embrace the existing international order erected during the West's watch. On the contrary, China and other rising powers will seek to fashion alternative orders based on their own cultural, ideological, and socioeconomic trajectories. If the next international system is to be characterized by a rules-based order rather than competitive anarchy, it will require a new normative consensus that rests on toleration of ideological and political diversity.     

Bringing the outsiders in: an interactionist perspective on deviance and normative change in international politics

Abstract

In this article, we draw on insights from the interactionist perspective in sociology and international relations (IR) norm contestation literature to explore the relationship between deviance and normative change in international politics. In IR, this is still largely unexplored territory: we already know a great deal about how norms change, yet we know much less about the actual role norm violations play in this process. In order to address this gap, we conceptualize three types of normative contestation and affirmation that take place in connection with deviance (re)construction: (1) applicatory contestation and affirmation, reconstructing the meanings of international norms; (2) justificatory contestation and affirmation, challenging and reaffirming the legitimacy of international norms; and (3) hierarchical contestation and affirmation, contesting and reaffirming the relative value and importance of international norms. We discuss how, as a consequence of these dynamics, deviance-making produces both stability and change in the normative structure of world politics.     

Human Security and Constructivism

This article explores the concept of "human security" as an academic and fledgling policy movement that seeks to place the individual—or people collectively—as the referent of security. It does this against a background of evolving transnational norms relating to security and governance, and the development of scientific understanding that challenges orthodox conceptions of security. It suggests that human security is not a coherent or objective school of thought. Rather, there are different, and sometimes competing, conceptions of human security that may reflect different sociological/cultural and geostrategic orientations. The article argues that the emergence of the concept of human security—as a broad, multifaceted, and evolving conception of security—rreflects the impact of values and norms on international relations. It also embraces a range of alliances, actors, and agendas that have taken us beyond the traditional scope of international politics and diplomacy. As a demonstration of change in international relations, of evolving identities and interests, this is best explained with reference to "social constructivist" thought, in contradistinction with the structural realist mainstream of international relations. In a constructivist vein, the article suggests that empirical research is already building a case in support of human security thinking that is, slowly, being acknowledged by decision-makers, against the logic of realist determinism.     

Norms in International Relations: Some Conceptual and Methodological Reflections

Acknowledging the social constructivist turn in the study of norms, this article offers to demonstrate that the notion of norms is useful as an analytical tool and likely to become a lasting element in international relations theory. Ideational causality and the independent explanatory power of norms are methodological issues that have been debated widely. Despite arguing that norms matter, social constructivism has problems making a successful case for the independent influence of norms. This article explores social constructivism as an approach to understanding international norms and their origins.     

论东亚文化合作中的儒学再现

笔者主张基于历史唯物主义原则，在世界多元文化格局中评价、研究和应用儒学。儒学既可以成为东亚文化合作的内容，也可以成为促进东亚社会发展的先进文化。以儒学为中心的文化合作，不仅仅是人文学术的合作，也应该提倡儒学理论与社会实践相结合，使儒学在实践中得到补充、完善和更新。儒学更新与东亚区域文化合作是一种互动、互利关系。东亚社会的和平发展将得益于儒学的更新和合理实践，得益于东亚各国平等而开放的对外文化关系政策。基于儒学的传统和理念，用文化合作观回应文化冲突论必将有利于协调个人与社会、不同的种族、民族乃至于人类与大自然之间的种种复杂关系。     

国际形势回顾与展望

纵观世界历史,科技与经济发展推动人类社会进步,战争与重大危机改变国际政治进程。冷战后,国际体系以和平改良方式破旧立新,处于缓慢过渡的转型时期。其间一次次重大安全危机,成为这一进程的助推器和加速器。新冠肺炎疫情就是最新例证,其冲击力和危害性不亚于以往任何一场传统或非传统安全危机,不仅印证,而且加速,甚至局部塑造着世界变局。2020年因此成为后冷战时期极不平凡的特殊年份。     

论中东市民社会及其特征

中东市民社会是建立在阿拉伯-伊斯兰文化背景下,且是在自愿、自治基础上形成,合法地履行现代政治功能的有组织的社会结构,其组织形式主要包括一些非国家行为者和非政府组织,诸如政党、贸易联盟、职业协会、社团发展协会及其他一些利益集团.中东市民社会是客观存在的,并随着经济的现代转型而渐趋成熟.市民社会和国家并不仅仅是此消彼长的关系,在更多情况下是与民主化进程相一致的.妥当处理二者关系是中东国家民主化面临的共同课题.     

The negotiation burden of institutional interactions: non-state organizations and the international negotiations on forests

The participation of non-state actors in international politics has been investigated since the creation of international institutions. Yet, the rules, principles and norms of global governance are no longer discussed in single isolated institutions. Rather, with the proliferation of international regimes and organizations, international issues are now negotiated in a context of institutional interactions known as ‘regime complexes’. This poses new questions, in particular on the negotiation burden that these new processes place on international actors. To answer this question, this contribution compares non-state participation in both contexts (single regimes and regime complexes), using the international forest negotiations as a case study. It uses quantitative methods to measure the negotiation burden of single regimes and compare it with the negotiation burden of regime complexes. The negotiation burden of single regimes is found to be insignificant, political interest being the major motivation for participation, while the negotiation burden of regime complexes is found to be real, demanding a certain type of material and organizational resources in order for non-state actors to participate. Yet a certain diversity of non-state representation is maintained within regime complexes, non-governmental organizations being dominant with respect to business groups.     

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.