Social Constructivism: What are norms and how do they influence International Politics?

3 years ago

In the following I will try to explain how Social Constructivism sees the role of norms and values in the arena of International Politics. This article is based on the essay “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change” by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikking as well as on a presentation that I did a few weeks ago at university. Many of the ideas that you will find in this article are ideas that both authors introduced in their essay and that I tried to simplify and summarize.

The main questions that we have to ask ourselves when we are dealing with International Politics in the constructivist sense are ‘What are norms?’, ‘Where do norms come from?’ and ‘How do they change?’. Norms have been central to the study of politics for a long period of time. Philosophers as Aristotle and Plato were very concerned with norms and how they affect our behavior and ultimately the political system we live in. Nevertheless many theories of International Relations fail to include these aspects. Neorealist theories for example are based on the assumption that in an anarchic international system with no central authority above, states try to maximize their own strength in order to secure there existence. In this logic, shared or opposite values are not important.

In contrast, social constructivist theory says that the interests pursued by states are based on norms and values which define their social identity. In this context, norms do matter.

Finnemore and Sikking define norms as “a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity”. We have to distinguish between three different types of norms. Regulative norms order and constrain behavior, constitutive norms create new actors, interests or categories of action and evaluative norms define what is appropriate and what is not.

We only know what is appropriate by reference to the judgments of a community or a society. We judge that behavior is unacceptable because it generates disapproval. In general we know that norms exist when actions need to be justified. The definition that Finnemore and Sikking provide raises one question: Who defines these standards? How many actors have to agree on something before it becomes a norm?

To explain this, I will use the the concept of the Norm ‘Life Cycle’ that was established by both authors. Mainly norm influence is a three-stage-process: norm emergence, norm cascade and norm internalization.

Stage 1: Norm emergence

“Norms do not appear out of thin air; they are actively built by agents (norm entrepreneurs) having strong notions about appropriate or desirable behavior in their community.”[1] The so called norm entrepreneurs call attention to issues that in their belief are not appropriate. But norms never enter an empty space. They emerge in a normative framework and have to compete with existing norms and perceptions. And here comes an interesting point: in order to challenge the existing logic of appropriateness (which can be highly internalized by society actors), activists may need to act explicitly inappropriate. A good example for this are the recent demonstrations of the feminist ‘Femen’-movement, women who expose their body in order to protest against sexism and other social disfunctions related to women.

All norm entrepreneurs need some kind of organizational platform to promote their norms on the international level. Norm entrepreneurs can create platforms to promote specific norms (NGOs as Peace One Day promoting world peace through global campaigns) or they can use existing organizations that have other agendas than simply promoting norms (International Organizations such as the UN, the WTO or the IAEA). Whereas IOs can to a certain degree exert pressure on their member states, NGOs often have to persuade state actors through lobbying. Whatever their platform, norm entrepreneurs need the support of state leaders to adopt their norms and to promote these toward other state leaders.

When a critical mass of states has been persuaded to become norm leaders, the norm reaches the so called ‘Tipping point‘. It is very difficult to anticipate when the norm tipping will occur, but empirical evidence suggests that it rarely happens before 1/3 of the total states in the system adopt the norm.

Stage 2: Norm cascade

After the tipping point has been reached, more states will begin to adopt these norms rapidly and even without domestic pressure. This happens through a process of international socialization which is some kind of ‘peer pressure’ among nations. The identity of states is related to the international structures they belong to and therefore they will adopt norms that are accepted in their specific structures. States that see themselves as democratic for example will adopt norms that are promoted by other democratic states and that are being considered essential for democracies.

Stage 3: Norm internalization

At the end of the process, norms may become so widely endorsed that they achieve a ‘taken-for-granted’ quality. These internalized norms can be extremely powerful but also extremely hard to discern because they are generally accepted without being challenged. The notion that homosexuals are ‘inferior’ to heterosexual people is an example of a norm that has been internalized over a very long period of time and that has been challenged only in recent years.

Our social identities are normative frameworks consisting of many different values and beliefs that have their roots in the environment we live in. Ultimately these identities are the basis of state interests and crucially define the way that state actors behave towards each other. Many states within the European Union learned to cooperate over time due to social interaction (Schengen Agreement, etc.). When states follow the same norms,

cooperation is more likely to happen. When norms are violated, the behavior is considered as inappropriate and conflict is probable.

This aspect is very important when we are dealing with problems that root in other international structures. We should never forget that our normative framework is unique and differs from the one that exists in other parts of the world where the course of history (and therefore norm internalization) led to opposite developments.

 

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text) 1. Finnemore, M./Sikkink, K. (1998): International norm dynamics and political

change, In: International Organization 52 (autumn): S. 887-917.↵