The Diffusion of International Norms: Why Identity Matters
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The Diffusion of International Norms: Why Identity Matters Amy Gurowitz Political Science Department and Peace and Conflict Studies Program, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
As the literature on international norms grows beyond documenting that norms matter, scholars have increasingly responded to the challenge that they must account for why and when they matter by looking at variation in the impact of those norms across time and place. This article looks at issues surrounding state identity as one understudied factor in determining why norms matter more in some places than others. We know that domestic and international actors often use norms to back-up and make arguments for which they often have few or weak domestic resources. But the context for the use of those norms is important. Mobilization and invocation of international norms domestically occurs within the context of a state’s identity and the degree to which those norms are helpful to the actors who use them depends, among other things, on the identity of the target state. This article joins the discussion about norm diffusion by examining two cases involving the incorporation of non-citizens: Germany and Japan. A comparison of these cases suggests that identity and identity crises matter in understanding the differential diffusion of international norms. International Politics (2006) 43, 305–341. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800145 Keywords: identity; norms; non-citizens; Germany; Japan
Introduction As the literature on international norms grows beyond documenting that norms matter, scholars have increasingly responded to the challenge that they must account for why and when they matter by looking at variation in the impact of those norms across time and place.1 This article looks at issues surrounding state identity as one understudied factor in determining why norms matter more in some places than others. We know that domestic and international actors often use norms to back-up and make arguments for which they often have few or weak domestic resources.2 But the context for the use of those norms is important. As Keck and Sikkink (1998, 118) note in their discussion of state responses to activist pressure to conform with international human rights norms, ‘certain aspects of national identity or discourse may
Amy Gurowitz The Diffusion of International Norms
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make some states vulnerable to pressures.’ Mobilization and invocation of international norms domestically occurs within the context of a state’s identity and the degree to which those norms are helpful to the actors who use them depends, among other things, on the identity of the target state. This article joins the discussion about norm diffusion by examining two cases involving the incorporation of non-citizens: Germany and Japan. A comparison of these cases suggests that identity and identity crises matter in understanding the differential diffusion of international norms. Germany and Japan have both been relatively homogeneous states historically,
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