Gutterman
2
Non-state actors play a variety of roles in the policy processes by which states
internalize international norms and rules in their domestic practices. A growing wealth of
literature in International Relations indicates that non-governmental norm advocacy
groups, in particular, are crucial to explaining observed patterns of international norm
emergence, institutionalization, and compliance in a range of issue-areas in world
politics.
1
Whether identified as advocacy networks, value-actors, citizen networks, or
moral entrepreneurs, and whether transnational or domestic in nature, these actors
employ a range of strategies to influence the international agenda, pressure states,
constrain policy, and effect political change in the direction of preferred norms.
2
Norm
advocates frame issues and set agendas, establish networks, adopt reasoned discourse,
gather information, provide expertise, harness moral authority, “name and shame”, and
exploit state vulnerabilities in order to exert an influence over international policy
processes.
Although scholars have paid significant attention to the ways in which norm
advocates generate international norms and influence their institutionalization in both
international agreements and domestic policies, somewhat less attention has been paid to
the role of norm advocates in promoting compliance with legalized international norms.
The legalization of international norms and rules has been a growing trend in world
politics over the past decade.
3
On the one hand, scholars have noted that legalization can
enhance the influence of norm advocates, as “the legalization process of international
norms drastically increases the legitimacy of those actors who demand compliance with
them.”
4
At the same time, scant attention has been paid to ways in which the increasing
legalization of an international norm might constrain the role of norm advocates,
especially in the monitoring and enforcement of international rules.
Legalization can have important implications for the role, significance and
effectiveness of non-state advocacy groups in the generation of state compliance with
1
Sikkink 1993; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Price 1998; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999; Khagram, Riker and
Sikkink 2002; Risse 2002.
2
On “moral entrepreneurs” see, for example, Nadelmann 1990 and Price 1998. Deibert 2000 refers to
“citizen networks”; Abbott and Snidal 2001 use the term “value actors.”
3
Goldstein et al 2000a. The concept of legalization used in this paper is that developed by the contributors
to the special edition of International Organization on legalization, in Goldstein et al 2000a. For a critical
view of this approach to legalization, see Finnemore and Toope 2001.
4
Risse 2002, 265.
Convention