Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Norm Life Cycle or Norms Cycle of Life?: Inequality, International Norm Dynamics and Ecologically Sustainable Sufficiency

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Constructivists may have made their case too well in the past decade. In providing norms-based explanations for phenomena in world politics, they have reinforced a notion of social norms as static social facts leading to an ironic undertheorizing of the dynamics of social norms. This paper addresses this concern by focusing on the process of normative contestation. Social norms are contested at every turn?in their emergence, as actors are socialized, and even once they are established and internalized. Contestation is thus inherent in the process through which actors come to understand norms and institutions, act on their understandings and alter norms and institutions. In this paper I develop a framework for examining normative evolution through contestation and I apply it to a brief case study of the governance of climate change. I explain how norm contestation and the consequent evolution of normative understandings has and continues to drive climate change politics and the rift between the United States and most of the rest of the world since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Social Norms Approach (SNA) both stress the important influence that normative perceptions have on behavioral intentions and behavior. These 2 approaches were used to examine the behavioral intention to limit drinking to 0 to 4 drinks. Further, this study examined whether perception of subjective norms, university and U.S. level descriptive norms, and university and U.S. level injunctive norms represented separate dimensions for this behavioral intention. A representative sample of 1110 college students completed a web-based survey. The results confirmed that the 5 types of norms were all unique constructs. This study also found that individuals� intentions to limit their alcohol consumption to 0 to 4 drinks were predicted by positive attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms. Subjective norms also moderated the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intention. University descriptive norms also served as a moderator. This study has important implications for future normative interventions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: International organizations reflect and promote international norms. Changes in international norms are one source of change in international organizations. But before they become hegemonic at the international level, proto-norms must first gain a foothold at the domestic level. Norm entrepreneurs are seldom able to achieve international breakthroughs without the backing of powerful states that have already been converted. Norms become “internalized” and hegemonic only when they are adopted by many other states that may sign on to them without a strong domestic movement supporting this move. Old domestic “norms”, however, never die. Competing memes (Florini 1996) persist even within key states pushing the proto-norm. Social learning inside the state, even states that push the norm internationally, may be shallower than supposed. Internal actors may temporarily support the norm for reasons of their own, and coalitions can break apart when circumstances change. Eddies of outright resistance remain even when a norm appears to be hegemonic. These provide a latent, receptive audience for those who would challenge a norm. These can link up nationally and internationally resulting in a counter-Boomarang effect. Challengers may draw upon distinctive, competing norms, but as Skowronek (2006) and Lakoff (2006) suggest, they may also challenge a dominant norm by cloaking “old norms” in the discourse of the new. The effect is to “redirect” the norm towards result quite different than that originally intended. In the process, the repute of the norm entrepreneurs is challenged as is their position as interpreters of the norm, weakening the key supporters for the original version of the norm. The outcome of this contest, however, may not be a clear victory for either side. Instead, because the terms of debate are altered, this process may well produce a hybrid of the two competing norms.This paper examines the growing popular challenge to the anti-whaling orientation of the International Whaling Commission, where a majority of states recently (in 2006) adopted a resolution condemning anti-whaling NGOs that have dominated it for twenty years. It examines the eddies of resistance in key anti-whaling states and how these have developed and networked with interests beyond their shores. It focuses on the discourse of those who oppose the blanket moratorium on commercial whaling, looking at how they have portrayed themselves and their opposition, how they argue their case today and what allies they have found. In concluding, the paper will address whether these processes are likely to result in the conversion of key anti-whaling states. Are pro-whaling proto-norm entrepreneurs likely to establish a hegemonic norm of their own, will the process yield a new, hybrid norm or is the historically turbulent IWC fated carry on its precarious existence?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since the early 1990s, the emergent norm of humanitarian intervention has allegedly transformed the uses of force and redefined military power. States have been pressed to intervene militarily, and they have indeed launched armed interventions to protect foreign people from violence perpetrated or permitted by the government of the target state. Furthermore, humanitarian principles have been invoked, among others, to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Encouraged and sanctioned by the United Nations and by some non-governmental organizations, legitimized by the advocates of the responsibility to protect, these interventions led to a significant transformation of the uses of force. However, while some military strategists – and some military organizations – accepted and endorsed the humanitarian intervention norm, others rejected it, and others still attempted to shape it while adjusting their professional identity. Why? How can we explain the diversity of military responses to the humanitarian intervention norm? What are the consequences of these different responses for the norm itself and its influence? I argue that these various adaptive paths are likely to depend on the strategies that military organizations undertake to alter the normative situations, domestic and international, confronting them. To explore the politics of military doctrine, this paper notably revisits and puts to the task the resource dependency approach in organization theory (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). The goal of the paper is to identify, compare and comprehend the varied responses of U.S., British, Italian, French and German armies to the humanitarian intervention norm.