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.