How do international norms travel, via statebuilding efforts, into post-conflict settings, and how do international and national actors interact in this process? These are the main questions addressed in this thesis. The empirical focus is the spreading and rooting of the norm of women’s political rights in Cambodia and Timor-Leste, two countries in which international actors have played a significant role in statebuilding efforts. Although statebuilding has increasingly become a part of UN peacebuilding missions, we still lack a thorough understanding of how much, and in what ways, the international community can successfully promote change. This is important in view of the fact that the key to success ultimately depends on how the receiving community responds to the presence and efforts of international actors to promote new social norms.  This study analyzes the interaction between international and national actors engaged in the promotion of women’s political rights as part of the effort to advance democracy. Three institutional developments are examined in detail – electoral rules and regulations, the establishment of a national gender equality/women’s machinery and the strengthening of the local government structure. The study uses a modified norm diffusion approach and makes two theoretical contributions to the literature. First, I place the norm diffusion process in a post-conflict context. Second, I add the concept of capability to function in order to conceptualize and study the internalization of the norm. The thesis is based on both an analysis of written material and semi-structured interviews. A total of 65 interviews were conducted during three research trips to each of the countries between 2007 and 2009. In general, the four empirical chapters reveal that the interaction between international and national actors has predominantly been characterized by international actors setting the agenda, with varying degrees of consultation and collaboration with national actors. While norm institutionalization has been rather high in both countries, norm inter­nalization lags behind. This is explained by discriminating ways of life and attitudes, lack of resources and time. Norm internalization is higher in Timor-Leste, in part because national actors have adapted the norm of women’s political rights to fit the local setting, but also due to their openness to international influences. The empirical study underscores that international actors can push for change and norm adherence, but their efforts are not enough. In the end, national actors have to buy into the message that international actors try to convey. The strengths and weaknesses that have been uncovered in the Cambodian and Timorese case studies presented here should be carefully considered as international actors, led by the UN, embark upon future statebuilding missions around the globe.

This thesis argues that contemporary climate justice actions can present a case for how social movements and activists engage as norm entrepreneurs with global politics. Following a case-based approach (McKee, 2003) and combining perspectives of political science with anthropology, theoretical concepts of everyday utopias (Cooper, 2014) and prefiguration (Maeckelbergh, 2011b; 2014) are applied to the case of a village occupation in Germany against a lignite coal mine expansion. It presents a relevant case for global politics as the local protest is transnationally networking with other protest and activist groups. In creating an alternative social and political system in their everyday life, the activists challenge norms of democratic participation, decision-making and beyond. By using prefiguration as a strategic tool, the protest proliferates change beyond the occupation. Through social and public media, the activists participate in the public debate, sharing their narrative and demands, thereby aiming to affect the public discourse and create change.

Since the end of the Cold War, private military and security companies have gained a prominent place on the international battlefield. In an attempt to reduce monetary and political costs, states have not only outsourced some of the defense functions previously performed by uniformed personnel; they have also partly privatised the provision of security. Traditional accounts of the rise of private military and security companies have explained this evolution in terms of changing demand and supply of military force after the Cold War, in a neoliberal ideological environment. This rationalist account, however, overlooks the role of norms, which, as the constructivist research tradition has demonstrated, constrain state behaviour even in the domain of national security. From this constructivist point of view, the rise of private military and security companies is surprising given the existence of an anti-mercenary norm and a norm on the state monopoly on violence, both of which have precluded the private exercise of violence. How, then, should the rise of private military and security companies be understood in light of this hostile normative environment? Against a realist-constructivist background, this text draws upon models of norm change and epistemic communities to show that private military and security companies have used their pragmatic legitimacy and epistemic power to decisively shape the discursive construction of a new regulatory framework that legitimises the exercise of non-state violence.

The following dissertation discusses the role of norms and norm entrepreneurs in the foreign policy-making of the Czech Republic, Poland and Bratislava after the downfall of communism. In at attempt to unpack the mechanics and appliance of “soft power” in foreign policy practice in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, it identifies conditions and analyzes processes via which norms come to play the role of intermediary variable in the articulation and enactment of national interest. Capitalizing on the agency-oriented strand of norm diffusion theory in international relations and discursive institutionalism scholarship in comparative politics, the dissertation argues that normative frameworks advocated by value-bound networks of so-called norm entrepreneurs can play a regulative function in foreign policy-making by setting boundaries for discourse and sustaining logics of appropriateness that constrain the pool of available foreign policy choices at critical junctures. In the first part, “the mission and conversion” (1989-1999), the dissertation focuses on the early stages of norm emergence and habituation in the three states in the 1990s, asserting that ideational influence incurred by American “missionaries” on Czech, Polish and Slovak “converts” to democracy via a range of socialization processes related to NATO enlargement and Western democracy promotion efforts in the region gave rise to norm entrepreneur groups bound by a shared commitment to a normative framework dubbed “dissident geopolitics”. In part two, “the zeal”, the dissertation concentrates on the later stages of norm internalisation, demonstrated by norm enforcement in foreign policy. Using case studies of Czech, Polish and Slovak foreign policy during the Iraq War (2002-2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004-2005) and the Russia Reset (2009-2011), the dissertation shows how sustained advocacy by norm entrepreneurs with or without structural power, who skillfully use framing to push their normative agendas in discursive competition with other norm entrepreneurs, factors “dissident geopolitics” in the decision-making process that produces activist and value-laden foreign policy outcomes that might not have been expected of “weak” states. Ultimately, the dissertation argues that dominant norms and norm entrepreneur networks can thrive in transition settings when they are less disputed, but they tend to lose coherence and unity, respectively, as the foreign policy landscape diversifies upon completion of democratic consolidation.

This dissertation investigates regime-based efforts by states to cooperate in providing assistance and protection to refugees since 1648. It argues from a constructivist perspective that state interests and identities are shaped both by other actors in the international system - including norm entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations - and by the broader normative environment. Refugees are a by-product of this environment. Fundamental institutions - including territoriality, popular sovereignty, and international law - formed a system in which exit was one of the few mechanisms of survival for those who were religiously and politically persecuted. This led states to recognize that people who were so persecuted were different from ordinary migrants and had a right to flee their own state and seek accommodation elsewhere. States recognized this right to leave, but did not recognize a requirement that any given state had a responsibility to accept these refugees. This contradiction creates a dilemma in international relations, one which states have sought to solve through international cooperation. The dissertation explores policy change within the United States and Great Britain at the international and domestic levels in order to understand the tensions within current refugee protection efforts. Three regimes, based in different normative understandings, have framed state cooperation. In the first, during the 19th century, refugees were granted protections under domestic and then bilateral law through extradition treaties. The second, in the interwar period, saw states taught by norm entrepreneurs that multilateral organizations could successfully assist refugees, though states remained unwilling to provide blanket assistance and be bound by international law. These issues led to the failure of states to accommodate Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany in the 1930s. The third, since the Second World War, had a greater consistency among its norms, especially recognition by states of the need for international law. Once again, this process was shaped by other actors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This regime has been challenged by increased refugee numbers and restrictions on the part of states, but its central purpose remains robust due to the actions of actors such as the UNHCR.

This dissertation investigates regime-based efforts by states to cooperate in providing assistance and protection to refugees since 1648. It argues from a constructivist perspective that state interests and identities are shaped both by other actors in the international system - including norm entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations - and by the broader normative environment. Refugees are a by-product of this environment. Fundamental institutions - including territoriality, popular sovereignty, and international law - formed a system in which exit was one of the few mechanisms of survival for those who were religiously and politically persecuted. This led states to recognize that people who were so persecuted were different from ordinary migrants and had a right to flee their own state and seek accommodation elsewhere. States recognized this right to leave, but did not recognize a requirement that any given state had a responsibility to accept these refugees. This contradiction creates a dilemma in international relations, one which states have sought to solve through international cooperation. The dissertation explores policy change within the United States and Great Britain at the international and domestic levels in order to understand the tensions within current refugee protection efforts. Three regimes, based in different normative understandings, have framed state cooperation. In the first, during the 19th century, refugees were granted protections under domestic and then bilateral law through extradition treaties. The second, in the interwar period, saw states taught by norm entrepreneurs that multilateral organizations could successfully assist refugees, though states remained unwilling to provide blanket assistance and be bound by international law. These issues led to the failure of states to accommodate Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany in the 1930s. The third, since the Second World War, had a greater consistency among its norms, especially recognition by states of the need for international law. Once again, this process was shaped by other actors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This regime has been challenged by increased refugee numbers and restrictions on the part of states, but its central purpose remains robust due to the actions of actors such as the UNHCR.

This dissertation investigates regime-based efforts by states to cooperate in providing assistance and protection to refugees since 1648. It argues from a constructivist perspective that state interests and identities are shaped both by other actors in the international system - including norm entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations - and by the broader normative environment. Refugees are a by-product of this environment. Fundamental institutions - including territoriality, popular sovereignty, and international law - formed a system in which exit was one of the few mechanisms of survival for those who were religiously and politically persecuted. This led states to recognize that people who were so persecuted were different from ordinary migrants and had a right to flee their own state and seek accommodation elsewhere. States recognized this right to leave, but did not recognize a requirement that any given state had a responsibility to accept these refugees. This contradiction creates a dilemma in international relations, one which states have sought to solve through international cooperation. The dissertation explores policy change within the United States and Great Britain at the international and domestic levels in order to understand the tensions within current refugee protection efforts. Three regimes, based in different normative understandings, have framed state cooperation. In the first, during the 19th century, refugees were granted protections under domestic and then bilateral law through extradition treaties. The second, in the interwar period, saw states taught by norm entrepreneurs that multilateral organizations could successfully assist refugees, though states remained unwilling to provide blanket assistance and be bound by international law. These issues led to the failure of states to accommodate Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany in the 1930s. The third, since the Second World War, had a greater consistency among its norms, especially recognition by states of the need for international law. Once again, this process was shaped by other actors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This regime has been challenged by increased refugee numbers and restrictions on the part of states, but its central purpose remains robust due to the actions of actors such as the UNHCR. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

En l’espace d’une décennie, le concept de « droit à la vérité » est parvenu à s’imposer dans le paysage des institutions et juridictions de protection des droits de l’homme. Il a été initialement reconnu dans le cadre des disparitions forcées par la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l’homme (2000), la Chambre des droits de l’homme de Bosnie-Herzégovine (2003) et dans la Convention internationale contre les disparitions forcées (2006), pour s’étendre aux violations graves du droit international humanitaire et des droits de l’homme (Haut-Commissariat des droits de l’homme aux Nations Unies, 2006; Conseil des droits de l’homme, 2008; Cour pénale internationale, 2010). En plein essor, ce droit est actuellement au cœur de vives discussions à la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, comme l’attestent les opinions séparées des juges dans l’affaire El-Masri c. Macédoine à propos de la restitution extraordinaire d’un citoyen allemand dans le cadre de la « lutte contre le terrorisme » menée par les États-Unis avec la complicité d’États européens (Grande chambre, arrêt du 13 décembre 2012). <p><p>Comment une notion aussi floue a-t-elle pu être consacrée si rapidement auprès de ces institutions, alors qu’elle n’est reprise dans aucun catalogue des droits fondamentaux ?Quelle est la portée de ce nouvel objet en droit international, et quels en sont les usages ?Mis à part son appellation, le « droit à la vérité » aurait-il réellement un contenu propre qui se distinguerait du catalogue des droits existants ?Sa reconnaissance offre-t-elle une illustration de la « rhétorique des droits » ou traduit-elle la cristallisation d’un nouveau droit justiciable?<p> <p>Alors même que le « droit à la vérité » est aujourd’hui convoqué de manière croissante par la communauté internationale pour légitimer la mise en place de nouvelles politiques de pacification internationales, à l’instar des « commission de vérité et de réconciliation » préconisées dans des sociétés affectées par des crimes d’ampleur massive (rapports du Secrétariat général et du Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme des Nations Unies, 2004, et de la Banque mondiale, 2011), cet objet d’étude demeure largement inexploré. Palliant cette lacune, ma thèse consiste en une reconstitution généalogique du « droit à la vérité » dans une perspective chronologique, des luttes sociales concrètes pour sa reconnaissance à ses développements juridiques contemporains, afin de déterminer les enjeux sociaux, politiques et juridiques de sa reconnaissance. <p><p>À travers une méthode interdisciplinaire qui articule l’approche critique du droit à la sociologie politique du droit, mes recherches apportent ainsi des connaissances originales sur deux plans :sur le plan juridique, d’une part, il s’agit de la première étude exhaustive des textes et décisions juridiques sur le « droit à la vérité » qui analyse de manière systématique sa nature, ses bénéficiaires, son contenu et ses contours en droit international; sur le plan de la sociologie du droit, d’autre part, elle offre une cartographie inédite des mobilisations sociales et professionnelles du « droit à la vérité » et propose une analyse des motivations qui les animent, susceptible d’enrichir les débats en sociologie du droit et de la justice sur la création et la diffusion empirique de nouvelles normes en droit international. <p><p>L’hypothèse de travail mise à l’épreuve tout au long de l’étude est la suivante :la reconnaissance d’un « droit à la vérité », notion à contenu variable par excellence, permettrait à une multitude d’entrepreneurs de normes de défendre, derrière la formalisation de ce droit, d’autres causes controversées en droit international. La thèse montre ainsi comment les mobilisations du « droit à la vérité » tentent d’orienter dans des sens particuliers certains débats qui demeurent ouverts en droit international et qui sont liés à des enjeux de justice contemporains :les victimes d’atrocités ont-elles un droit à la punition des responsables ?Les amnisties sont-elles licites en droit international, et le cas échéant, à quelles conditions ?Peut-on restreindre le privilège du secret d’État et contraindre les autorités à communiquer des informations aux victimes lorsqu’elles sont soupçonnées de couvrir des crimes internationaux ?Quelle est l’étendue et la nature de l’obligation des États d’enquêter et de poursuivre les auteurs de crimes de masse ?En cas de circonstances exceptionnelles, comme la menace d’un coup d’État ou l’insuffisance de ressources financières, les gouvernements ont-ils une marge de discrétion sur ces questions ?Emblème des dilemmes de la justice transitionnelle, le « droit à la vérité » est ainsi revendiqué dans des directions opposées.<p> <p>En particulier, la thèse révèle la diversité irréductible des mobilisations du « droit à la vérité » en explorant la polysémie de ses usages, les jeux de compétition entre ses promoteurs et les tensions qui jalonnent sa formalisation en droit international. Cette analyse empirique permet de comprendre pourquoi ce droit fonde aujourd’hui des politiques contradictoires, à savoir tant des politiques de répression des violations graves des droits de l’homme, axées sur la condamnation pénale des responsables, que des politiques mémorielles axées sur la « réconciliation » des sociétés à travers des amnisties au bénéfice des auteurs de crimes, ainsi que des mesures de réparation matérielles et symboliques au bénéfice des victimes. Droit à une vérité judiciaire des victimes, et droit à une vérité « historique » et collective des peuples sur les causes de conflits passés coexistent ainsi au sein du même droit pour justifier un déploiement de la justice pénale international(isé)e ou à l’inverse, pour la paralyser au nom d’impératifs de démocratisation et de concorde civile. <p><p>Ma thèse démontre ainsi l’ambivalence du « droit à la vérité », qui agit tantôt comme ressource, et tantôt comme contrainte pour ses promoteurs :au final, il n’offre qu’une ressource limitée à ses promoteurs en raison de la compétition qui continue à se jouer au sujet de sa définition, sa nature et ses titulaires. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences juridiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished