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Domestic Opposition to International Norm Diffusion:
HIV/AIDS Treatment Norm-building in South Africa (1999—2004)
Vlad N Kravtsov
Syracuse University
Abstract
Many studies in international relations have examined the role of transnational actors as
primary agents of domestic change with a special emphasis on the role that foreign norms play in
transforming local contexts. However, the condition of the local opposition to international
norms is rarely explored. Author critically analyses the generic assumptions that guide this
flawed research program and disaggregates several strains of theorizing about transnational norm
diffusion. This paper offers innovative ways to investigate the conditions of local opposition to
international norms in the context of the adoption of the antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS in
South Africa. The nature of substantive components, setting and choice mechanisms have to be
reconsidered. Author empirically shows how different norm entrepreneurs reinvented the idea of
treatment and how they put it in overarching political context. The analysis also explores
alternative empirical arguments about the persisting turbulence of HIV/AIDS politics in South
Africa and the piecemeal outcomes of norm acceptance. In the conclusion, author underscores
the loopholes in the recent constructivist literature on norm diffusion and develops several ideas
to improve it.