International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

1998/01/01 by Martha Finnemore, Kathryn Sikkink · 8,153 citations
Social Sciences · #Economics #Epistemology #International Development and Aid #International Relations and Foreign Policy #International relations #Law #Norm (philosophy) #Political Conflict and Governance #Political science #Politics #Positive economics #Rationality #Sociology #Variety (cybernetics)

paper · doi:10.1162/002081898550789

published in International Organization 52(4), 887-917 (University of Cambridge)

openalex publication_date 1998/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

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