Norm Diffusion

Sport is being increasingly recognized for the contribution it can make to the development and peace. This way sporting organizations (SOs), being functionally irrelevant to politics, have been involved in the process of changing political reality. This thesis investigates the process of norm diffusion in SOs on the example of the norm of development and peace. The main attention has been paid to investigation of the promoters of the sport for development and peace norm among SOs, the motives of latter to adopt the norm, and mechanisms of the norm promotion, as well as the conditions under which the norm is most likely to be adopted
by an SO.
The research shows that the theories accounting for the diffusion of international norms and their impact on state practices are applicable to the analysis of the process of norm diffusion in functionally irrelevant organizations. Empirical analysis shows that for a given organization agents promoting the norm are mainly determined by the scope of the
organization per se. The results suggest that the major motivations for SOs to adopt the norm are game promotion, legitimation, conformity and esteem. It has also been shown that the dominant mechanism of norm promotion is socialization, which is enabled by the sustainable
cooperation and monitoring by the norm promoters. Finally, the conditions, under which the norm is more likely to be embraced, are shown to be the intrinsic characteristics of the norm, norm prominence, and the context of the crisis situation. At the same time, characteristic of an SO, as well as the status of the norm promoters proved important in defining the likelihood of embracing the norm. This thesis makes a theoretical contribution to the existing research on norm diffusion and deepens the understanding of the process and conditions under which
organizations adopt new norms.

Since WWI, militaries and armed groups have used remote and autonomous explosive traps – landmines, booby traps and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) – as a kind of deadly architecture to reengineer terrain inhospitable. Until recently, minefields remained analog, static, and fixed. But technological development and changes in the nature of war have made remote and autonomous violence increasingly mobile, dynamic, and robotic and, rather than being contained in a bounded Cartesian plane, diffused through the very spaces and flows that sustain civilian life. Such “unmanned” weapons are increasingly able to navigate, communicate with each other, identify targets and even kill with minimal human involvement. Mirroring broader changes in the spatial configurations of war, the architectural form of remote and autonomous killing is thus shifting from the two-dimensional minefield to multi-dimensional minespace. This poses challenges to those engaged in humanitarian efforts to demilitarize space. To illustrate these changes, the paper draws on Derek Gregory’s notion of “Everywhere War” and engages in a discursive “archeology” of the minefield as described by US Army mine, booby trap and IED warfare field manuals.

This study seeks to examine the impact of the EU on Turkish counter-terrorism policies towards the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It analyses what impact it has had within three distinct periods: the pre-Helsinki European Council (1984-1999) period, the post-Helsinki European Council (1999-2004) period, and the post-Brussels European Council (2004-2013) period. It conceptualizes and empirically investigates the EU’s norm diffusion role by relying on the concept of “Rule Adoption”, and by utilising two norm diffusion mechanisms: the “Conditionality” and the “Socialization” mechanism, and their domestic and EU level determinants. The thesis argues that when the EU has promoted democratisation in Turkey, it has also implicitly impacted on Turkey’s counterterrorism policies. It argues for this thesis by generalizing from the following empirical findings: When the EU has provided a credible membership prospect to Turkey, and when the PKK attacks have been at a low-level, then the EU conditionality mechanism has been influential on Turkey’s adoption of EU promoted norms. However, when there has been no membership prospect and high levels of PKK violence, it has been the openness of Turkish political actors that has resulted in rule adoption, in which the social learning of the Turkish political actors has led to the adoption of EU promoted norms as an appropriate way to solve existing terrorism problems.

Over the last two decades, informal Islamic networks have been re-establishing themselves as formal NGOs and building transnational coalitions. These newly formed faith-based NGOs retain their original agendas: promoting Islamic revival and global solidarity by supporting Muslim communities around the world. However, they now reposition themselves as 'civil society initiatives' and selectively appropriate the liberal civil society discourse. In this article, I analyse the discursive strategies that local actors undertake when they vernacularize external idea packages that challenge their cognitive preconceptions. The empirical findings of the article demonstrate that the ideological self-positioning of the local norm-taker is a key determinant of the vernacularization of micro processes. To reconcile the perceived normative conflict between political Islamist and liberal civil society frameworks, vernacularizers prune the civil society concept down to its associational and communi-tarian elements, discard its Western connotative associations, reconstruct the concept to match their institutional and cultural preconceptions, and claim its original ownership.

Public Diplomacy (PD) is an important tool that Korea uses in reaching its goals in international politics. One of Korea's goals is persuading the global community to favor Korea's position in the territorial dispute with Japan regarding Dokdo islands. In August 2017 government-supported NGOs conducted an event called " Dokdo Global Youth Summit 2017 " (DGYS). As a part of the event more than 100 international students visited Dokdo islands. This study investigates this event, identifying two PD mechanisms that were utilized within this event and demonstrates how they function. Investigation of relevant data reveals that this event, as a part of the PD approach, reached a certain level of success in norm diffusion by increasing legal cases of visiting Dokdo by international students with documents issued by Korean authorities. A further PD mechanism utilized in this event was agenda setting and rhetoric control which was reflected in topics discussed during the event and the program of the summit. DGYS's success in shaping the opinions of selected publics was limited due to some pre-existent opinions about the issue among selected publics and organizational flaws that resulted in misconceptions of the event's original goal by the international students.

This study seeks to examine the impact of the EU on Turkish counter-terrorism policies towards the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It analyses what impact it has had within three distinct periods: the pre-Helsinki European Council (1984-1999) period, the post-Helsinki European Council (1999-2004) period, and the post-Brussels European Council (2004-2013) period. It conceptualizes and empirically investigates the EU’s norm diffusion role by relying on the concept of “Rule Adoption”, and by utilising two norm diffusion mechanisms: the “Conditionality” and the “Socialization” mechanism, and their domestic and EU level determinants. The thesis argues that when the EU has promoted democratisation in Turkey, it has also implicitly impacted on Turkey’s counterterrorism policies. It argues for this thesis by generalizing from the following empirical findings: When the EU has provided a credible membership prospect to Turkey, and when the PKK attacks have been at a low-level, then the EU cond...

The constructivist research agenda on norms has been dominated by international norms research with studies only rarely focusing on domestic norms. The research agenda on domestic norms, however, is dominated by the use of norms in explaining the domestic construction of foreign policies. Domestic norms’ internationalisation and functioning in an overseas setting has thus been a neglected research domain. This research note, based on the experience of the author in his doctoral research on domestic norms, has been written to shed some light on domestic norms research and to encourage more studies in the field. Accordingly, the paper, while reflexively visiting the relevant literature, brings about answers to the issues debated around the following questions: ‘How could an existent norm that is guiding a foreign policy practice be identified’? And ‘how can the overseas diffusion and implications of a domestic norm be traced and reported’? The responses to these questions will show the reader where to start a domestic norm-guided foreign policy enquiry and how to trace internationalisation of domestic norms thus the functioning of foreign policyguiding domestic norms in an overseas setting.

This study seeks to examine the impact of the EU on Turkish counter-terrorism policies towards the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It analyses what impact it has had within three distinct periods: the pre-Helsinki European Council (1984-1999) period, the post-Helsinki European Council (1999-2004) period, and the post-Brussels European Council (2004-2013) period. It conceptualizes and empirically investigates the EU’s norm diffusion role by relying on the concept of “Rule Adoption”, and by utilising two norm diffusion mechanisms: the “Conditionality” and the “Socialization” mechanism, and their domestic and EU-level determinants. The thesis argues that when the EU has promoted democratisation in Turkey, it has also implicitly impacted on Turkey’s counter-terrorism policies. It argues for this thesis by generalizing from the following empirical findings: When the EU has provided a credible membership prospect to Turkey, and when the PKK attacks have been at a low-level, then the EU con...

This article presents a novel analytical framework to study transnational activism in the context of today's international governance architecture. While there is a considerable amount of literature on the emergence, development and effects of transnational activism, an integrated framework that analyses the dynamic interplay between activism, transnational institutions and domestic contexts is still lacking. The framework of transnational pathways of influence intends to help close this gap. It integrates insights from social movement research and insights from institutional theorists. This article outlines this framework and exemplifies it by taking the case of transnational activism within the current global governance architecture. It shows that the study of activism across different trans-national pathways over time helps to understand the combined effects of activist interventions , institutional co-evolution and interaction as an explanation for the process of selective convergence between global norms and local practices.

According to prevailing diffusion approaches, norms and institutional models in the international realm emerge and are diffused through transnational advocacy networks. According to localization research, they are adopted and changed by local actors, who adjust them to fit their interests and normative context. Neither approach takes into account the cyclical element of translation. Rather, they both present unidirectional models of diffusion. Focusing on Guatemala, this article shows how institutional models for international rule-of-law commissions in post-conflict states were translated in a cyclical process between different domestic and international contexts. It outlines two modes of cycles in this process: (1) norm application and (2) international norm change.

‘Food sovereignty’ emerged from grassroots peasant mobilisations, and has been spread globally by a democratically organised social movement, la Vía Campesina. This process has seen food sovereignty influence global political discourse, transform national constitutions and be incorporated into a proposed United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. By examining the role of grassroots actors in the global South in the construction of this emerging global norm, I militate against tendencies of West-centrism and elitism in existing literature on the contemporary diffusion of norms. By also discussing the potential marginalisation of grassroots peasant voices in recent United Nations discussions, I suggest that these elitist and West-centric tendencies may also exist in the norm diffusion process itself.

It is evident that the issue of sex trafficking has undergone a tremendous development from being a largely ignored issue to a widely accepted and serious policy-issue.  The debates surrounding the issue of trafficking and prostitution have been around for decades, then how was the issue brought to the forefront in the 1990s? What led to the discursive shift in policies, not only on the European level, but in Sweden as well? What factors became key players in galvanizing the need and urgency to address this issue? These are some of the questions that shall be tackled in the paper through the assistance of global movements as anchors in some form or another that helped in the mobilisation of these issues.  Through this paper, I argue that the reasons for this sudden rise in the issues and the shift in policies was a result of the [then] ongoing wave of global norms that spread in this region. And, simultaneous grassroots activism caught hold of this opportunity to frame issues accordingly and reach out on a larger scale.

Recent decades have witnessed a global cascade of restrictive and repressive measures against nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). We theorize that state learning from observing the regional environment, rather than NGO growth per se or domestic unrest, explains this rapid diffusion of restrictions. We develop and test two hypotheses: (1) states adopt NGO restrictions in response to nonarmed bottom-up threats in their regional environment ("learning from threats"); (2) states adopt NGO restrictions through imitation of the legislative behavior of other states in their regional environment ("learning from exam-ples"). Using an original dataset on NGO restrictions in ninety-six countries over a period of twenty-five years (1992-2016), we test these hypotheses by means of negative binomial regression and survival analyses, using spatially weighted techniques. We find very limited evidence for learning from threats, but consistent evidence for learning from examples. We corroborate this finding through close textual comparison of laws adopted in the Middle East and Africa, showing legal provisions being taken over almost verbatim from one law into another. In our conclusion, we spell out the implications for the quality of democracy and for theories of transition to a postliberal order, as well as for policy-makers, lawyers, and civil-society practitioners.

This article argues that Spain has been the driving external force in the advancement of LGBT rights in Latin America, from marriage in Argentina to the regional recognition of “sexual diversity rights” as human rights. Acting as “norm entrepreneurs,” Spanish activists and organizations, relying on development aid, have promoted their perspectives through two approaches: strategic consulting and resource transfer. Their diffusion is illustrated primarily by the Argentine case. There, activists underwritten by Spanish resources have borrowed Spanish strategies to achieve “the same rights with the same names.” Besides broadening our understanding of the struggle for LGBT equality in Latin America, this article deepens the explanation of norm diffusion, focusing on emergence. In this stage, specific individuals and organizations deliberately select appropriate “targets” for and moments of intervention. But norm “receptors” must also be ready for action.

This paper explores the tensions generated in Chilean politics by Mapuche responses to the promotion of development and the protection of indigenous rights since the end of the military dictatorship in 1990. Working within the norm diffusion model, the present paper will analyze the concept “Indigenous Development” existing at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and its incorporation into government policy for the period 2008-2011, considering its interaction with the national political context. The first section analyzes the transformation of the United Nations position on indigenous peoples, then characterizes the notion of indigenous development and the norm diffusion model. We then analyze government reports to the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review, International Labor Organization, and the United National Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to identify the advances. We conclude with a discussion of the tensions present in Chile

Present chapter is a comparative case study of the role and place of LGBTI communities in the anti-governmental protests in Turkey and Ukraine in 2013/2014. I focus on the ways of interaction of the representatives of LGBTI movement with other protesters as well as with the outer political environment. The aim of the paper is to answer what explains the differences in the strategies employed by LGBTI communities during protests taking place in similarly conservative and homophobic contexts. The common assumption that unfavorable political environment is the main factor preventing LGBTI community from enjoying full public visibility seems to me somewhat misleading and simplistic. My suggestion is that what matters more is the way morality issues, or sexuality, is instrumentalized through political discourse. I argue that (in) visible participation in the protests is not just a consequence but a conscious choice made by the LGBTI community. This choice can be further interpreted as a reaction to a number of factors influencing the ways in which the protests in Turkey and Ukraine emerged and evolved.

This article explores how ideational conflicts can be managed through mediation processes by relying on methods of norm diffusion, in particular by using reframing as a distinct mediation strategy. It starts by offering a novel conceptual framework that operationalizes conflicts as a process of norm contestation. By looking at the conflicts through normative lenses, the paper expounds the link between international mediation and norm diffusion. In particular, the paper addresses how mediators may act as norm entrepreneurs, and how these activities bring to light a rather unexplored mediation strategy of reframing through which norms can be effectively diffused. The broader theoretical puzzle is illustrated through the case of EU mediation efforts in Montenegro, where the mediators used reframing strategies to effectively diffuse an unconventional norm of 55% votes in favor for the referendum to pass, that would regulate the rules and procedure of the country's referendum on independence in 2006.

The four volumes on human rights norms reviewed here investigate a puzzle introduced by quantitative studies, which shows that the expansion of commitments with human rights does not guarantee compliance with these rights in practice. Going beyond the classical opposition between constructivism and rationalism, the volumes explore the conditions and mechanisms that are likely to close this ‘compliance gap’. This essay starts by reviewing the arguments of the books before focusing on two major themes: compliance mechanisms and international denunciations. It argues that the introduction of ‘reintegrative shaming’ and ‘stigma’ to compliance research may help refine current knowledge on normative change and resistance to change.

To what extent are global rule-of-law norms, which external actors promote in post-conflict states, localized? Who decides whether global standards or local particularities prevail? This book offers a new approach to the debate about how the dilemma between the diffusion of global norms and their localization is dealt with in global politics. Studying the promotion of children’s rights, access to public information, and an international commission against impunity in Guatemala, Lisbeth Zimmermann demonstrates that rule‐of‐law promotion triggers domestic contestation, and thereby changes the approach taken by external actors, and ultimately the manner in which global norms are translated. However, the leeway in local translation is determined by the precision of global norms. Based on an innovative theoretical approach and in-depth study of rule-of-law translation, she argues for a shift in norm promotion from context sensitivity to democratic appropriation, speaking to International Relations, peacebuilding, democratization studies, international law and political theory.


http://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/international-relations-and-international-organisations/global-norms-local-face-rule-law-promotion-and-norm-translation?format=HB

No systematic study discusses the evolution of fair and equitable benefit-sharing across various areas of international law (environment, human rights, oceans), as well as at different levels of regulation (regional and national laws and guidelines, private law contracts, transboundary codes of conduct, cus- tomary laws of indigenous peoples and local commu- nities). This article explores the usefulness of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of norm diffu- sion for understanding how and why fair and equit- able benefit-sharing is articulated in different sites. The article discusses mechanisms, actors and frames in norm diffusion, drawing on literature from socio- logy, international relations and law. The article uncovers underlying similarities in scholarship on norm diffusion across the disciplines considered. It also reflects on the value of an interdisciplinary approach that encourages legal scholars to consider the implications of power structures in the diffusion of law, while the nuances of legal knowledge may lead other social scientists to revisit accepted findings on norm diffusion. These findings appear particularly useful for informing an assessment of the potential of fair and equitable benefit-sharing to promote the con- servation and sustainable use of natural resources in a fair and equitable manner in the face of power asymmetries.

Norm diffusion scholarship analyzes how states come to agree and adopt new international norms. Yet, formal adoption of a new norm does not in itself guarantee that a government will also implement it domestically, and very little international relations scholarship drills down deep enough to examine whether and how new international norms are subsequently integrated, incorporated, and translated at sub-state level. This article initiates a research agenda on norm "domestication" through the first in-depth study of how international norms in the field of global health are locally incorporated by community-based organizations (CBOs). Drawing upon multi-sited international fieldwork in Uganda, Ukraine, and El Salvador, the paper uncovers three norm domestication strategies used by CBOs of people affected by HIV/AIDS: harnessing political divisions within national governments, circumventing government policy with international help, and mounting legal challenges to government policy. The article argues that these CBO strategies represent "glocal" forms of power capable of forging local-global connections through combined practices of norm allying, norm implementation, and norm intertwining. These subtler processes of norm domestication, the article concludes, ultimately require a reconceptualization of norm diffusion not just as a transnational phenomenon, but as a "multi-local" process during which norms are concurrently localized across diverse geographic locales.

This article suggests the relevance of diffusionism in discussing the past, the present, and the future of the International Relations (IR) norm diffusion literature. The paper argues, thus, that IR norm research has reproduced the diffusionist and beyond-diffusionist mechanisms and epistemologies that the anthropological research on culture diffusion has developed, and this has been consequential for the discipline. Accordingly, the diffusionism dominant in the mainstream IR norm research has led to the normalisation of normative hierarchies and power asymmetries between geographies in the diffusion context. The critical norm research, complementarily, while extensively criticising such biased scholarly practices, failed to diagnose the problem as diffusionism and thus failed to benefit from the informed conclusions the anthropological schools offered regarding beyond-diffusionism in diffusion research. The paper takes this as a basis for highlighting the necessity to further extend the dialogue between IR and social sciences and humanities on issues including diffusion.

This article examines the diffusion of the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ (CBDR) from the United Nations (UN) to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Despite its varying interpretations in international negotiations since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), CBDR’s meaning hardly experienced any change in ASEAN. ASEAN’s different interpretation of CBDR from the UN matched the unchanging internal and external role expectations of ASEAN, which were a product of member states’ learning and conditioned by cognitive priors in the region. Cognitive priors in the climate change context included the ‘ASEAN Way’ of collaboration and member states’ deep-seated aspirations for development. The empirical study shows that internally,
ASEAN acted as an interactive space for information exchange and a relationship facilitator; externally, it has embraced the position as the voice amplifier for member states in international negotiations. Maintaining the UNFCCC version of CBDR tallied well with ASEAN’s role expectations to: 1) provide member states with room to develop national actions that meet their respective priorities (internal); and 2) put member states in a better position to defend their interests in negotiating adaptation and mitigation responsibilities with extra-regional states (external).

By focusing on the Western Balkans, this paper asks two questions:
first, how small states that are both EU members and candidates for membership understand their role within this normatively powered order and, second, what their roles and agency mean for the order they are socialised into via democratic norms. The notions of hierarchies and orders are conceptualised in this paper as processes of norm diffusion and understood within the socialisation of democratic norms, which, according to the literature, can be institutionalised, rejected, or modified locally. First, I argue that such measurements can help us understand how the EU’s practices shape the broader understanding of its actorness in normative and strategic terms toward the Western Balkans. Second, I scrutinise national strategies related to the processes of state-building, security, economy, and society to demonstrate how Serbia and Croatia present their agency as supporting and affirming of the prevalent conception of order in norm localisation, or being more critical of
it in the process of localised norm contestation. Third, the effects of EU approaches that provide more tactical and technical views of Europeanisation, rather than (a strategic) full thrust on enlargement, are discussed in the conclusion by bringing the comparative insights together and parsing them by means of the shelter theory for small states.

In this chapter, we explore the ways in which the case of North Korean
human rights activism both confirms and challenges existing scholarship on transnational human rights activism, and the role advocacy networks play in the diffusion of human rights norms, discourse, and practice. In particular, we draw attention to the weaknesses with current models of human rights change and examine how state and nonstate actors challenge highly repressiveregimes by investigating the quintessential “hard case” of North Korea.

We proceed by first offering a brief review of existing models of transnational advocacy networks and human rights change and review their applicability to the task of understanding North Korean human rights advocacy. We then
extrapolate three variables that we argue are critical to understanding the
emergence and evolution of North Korean human rights activism: discourse, network dynamics, and defectors. Finally, we turn our attention to human rights outcomes, exploring the different mechanisms of change that link activism to outcomes. We conclude by recapping our theoretical aims and outlining what is to follow in the remaining chapters of this volume.

Abstract This article examines the diffusion of the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ (CBDR) from the United Nations (UN) to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Despite its varying interpretations in international negotiations since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), CBDR’s meaning hardly experienced any change in ASEAN. ASEAN’s different interpretation of CBDR from the UN matched the unchanging internal and external role expectations of ASEAN, which were a product of member states’ learning and conditioned by cognitive priors in the region. Cognitive priors in the climate change context included the ‘ASEAN Way’ of collaboration and member states’ deep-seated aspirations for development. The empirical study shows that internally, ASEAN acted as an interactive space for information exchange and a relationship facilitator; externally, it has embraced the position as the voice amplifier for member states in international negotiations. Maintaining the UNFCCC version of CBDR tallied well with ASEAN’s role expectations to: 1) provide member states with room to develop national actions that meet their respective priorities (internal); and 2) put member states in a better position to defend their interests in negotiating adaptation and mitigation responsibilities with extra-regional states (external).

Ce court article est issu d’un travail de master recherche en relations internationales.Celui-ci questionne la nature de la puissance européenne. Tour à tour décrite comme étant une puissance tranquille, une puissance civile ou encore institutionnelle ; la puissance de l’Europe demeure pour le moins énigmatique. Il s’agira ici de s’intéresser à la « puissance normative » de l’Union européenne, une conceptualisation apparue dans les années 1990 et principalement développée par Ian Manners. Cette expression fait référence à la puissance d’un acteur dont l'instrument d'action internationale privilégié est la norme. La puissance normative reflète la volonté de promouvoir des normes post-westphaliennes. La puissance de l’Europe se manifesterait ainsi par la capacité de cette dernière à instaurer et à diffuser des normes au sein de l’union mais également de les exporter dans son voisinage et parfois même de leur conférer une portée universelle. La présente réflexion s’attachera à identifier les origines du recours à la norme et les desseins recherchés par l’usage de cette pratique.
Mots-clés : Puissance normative, puissance, norme, influence, Europe, identité, valeurs.

This short article is based on an international relations research master’s dissertation. It questions the nature of European power. Alternately described as tranquil power, civil power or institutional power, the power of Europe remains enigmatic. The core issue in this article is the analysis of European Union’s normative power, a concept that appeared in 1990’s and that was particularly developed by Ian Manners. This expression refers to the power of an actor whose privileged means of international action is the norm. Normative power reflects the will to promote post-westphalian norms. The power of Europe would be thus expressed by its ability to establish and diffuse norms within the Union but also to export them in its neighborhoods or even to provide them a universal scope. This article would treat the subject through the identification of origins of recourse to the norm and the objectives that lead to use this practice.
Keywords: Normative Power, Power, Norms, Influence, Europe, Identity, Values.

The norms diffusion literature played a crucial role in operationalizing the constructivist research project by illustrating how social facts drive and constrain state behaviour. Contra dominant structuralist accounts, the literature was crucial in revealing processes of change in the international system beyond shifts in balance of power. In seeking to carve a space in the discipline, however, the literature implicitly conflated ‘norms’ with normatively good, liberal state behaviour. This tendency has persisted throughout later iterations of norms research. We argue that changes in norms cut both ways. We do so by examining contemporary changes in the International Refugee Regime, and offer a state-centric account of the emergence of ‘bad’ or illiberal norms. Substantively, we examine the practice of refugee warehousing, territorial excision and safe third country agreements, and border and maritime interdictions which cumulatively undermine the peremptory norms of the regime. Importantly for our account, the very states whose illiberal practices we examine are those who were responsible for the liberal architecture of the International Refugee Regime in the postwar era, and therefore represent ‘critical states’ in the diffusion of bad norms. Our conclusion suggests a model of norms dynamics which, instead of focusing on domestic norms entrepreneurs, highlights state behavior as a driver of rather rapid changes in norms of behavior in the international system.

How are global norms translated into local contexts? I examine the translation of three rule-of-law norms in postconflict Guatemala: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right to access public information, and best practices for international rule-of-law commissions. These cases, I argue, do not fit established models for diffusion, such as those associated with standard bargaining approaches, norm socialization frameworks, and norm localization theory. Instead, rule-of-law promotion triggered domestic contestation and, subsequently, what I term an “interactive translation loop.” These processes changed the modes of interaction among rule-of-law promoters and how the norms ultimately translated into the Guatemalan context. I demonstrate that a critical variable, the precision of international norms, conditions the leeway available for such translations. To the extent that my framework travels to other cases, it offers an important corrective to established theories of how global norms translate into local contexts.

What factors inhibit or facilitate cross-subfield conversations in political science? This article draws on diffusion scholarship to gain insight into cross-subfield communication. Diffusion scholarship represents a case where such communication might be expected, given that similar diffusion processes are analyzed in American politics, comparative politics, and international relations. We identify nearly 800 journal articles published on diffusion within political science between 1958 and 2008. Using network analysis we investigate the degree to which three “common culprits”—terminology, methodological approach, and journal type—influence levels of integration. We find the highest levels of integration among scholars using similar terms to describe diffusion processes, sharing a methodological approach (especially in quantitative scholarship), and publishing in a common set of subfield journals. These findings shed light on when cross-subfield communication is likely to occur with ease and when barriers may prove prohibitive.

This paper examines different forms of domestic agency and dynamics of external-domestic interactions in post-conflict peacebuilding at the sub-national level. Mainstream literature on international norm diffusion conceives of post-conflict peacebuilding as a uni-directional process where international actors pressure domestic actors into compliance. In contrast, current critical peacebuilding literature investigates domestic agency in post-conflict peacebuilding as instances of resistances. I argue that domestic agency goes beyond compliance and resistance. Instead, it involves forms of domestic agency such as slowdown or modification. Furthermore, to explain hybrid outcomes of peacebuilding, we have to take a closer look at interactions between external and domestic actors. Domestic agency, external-domestic interaction, and reform outcomes are studied in two Kosovo municipalities, Rahovec/Orahovac and Vushtrri/Vucitrn, using the reform of the Kosovo Police as case study. The article is based on empirical findings from 78 semi-structured interviews with Kosovo government, municipal officials, and staff of international organisations, and 8 focus groups with citizens of the municipalities conducted during a four months field research trip in 2012. I show that the outcome of peacebuilders' norm promotion does not only depend on the external instruments deployed, but also on the reactions from domestic elites, which in turn are closely connected to domestic support for a promoted international norm.