Session 18: Capacities of norms in reshaping world politics

Finnemore and Sikkink in their article, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change" argue that the rules and practices that define the state behavior are significant to be theoretically analyzed, because their change could explain the reasons for alteration in expectations, interests and beliefs of states. They also maintain that it is worthy to identify the origins of the norms that exist in world politics and to understand the elements that constitute them. They suggest that all the international norms were first created in the domestic settings of the states, and when the struggle to endorse these norms in the routine affairs of people became successful, these norms were adjusted in the international arena. They mention that a particular number of states comply with a norm to make it internationally acceptable. 

One believes that this paper peeks into the theoretical dimensions of norm formation in the realm of international politics and suggests that one must be clear about the understanding of norms so that empirical research on the effects of the norms could be carried out adequately. For instance, the authors clarify the distinction between a norm and an institution. They believe that scholars use norm and institution interchangeably, but that is incorrect. One agrees to their distinction when they demonstrate that a norm is a single appropriate rule about a certain behavior. However, an institution is a collection of rules and practices that renders appropriateness to various behaviors.

The paper has also interesting insights on the norm promoters that provide a framework to think about how norms that states adopt are the creation of certain people, who manufacture these norms according to their value-system and moral principles. One maintains that this brings to the conclusion that in the international arena the preconceived notions of states for each other are not merely organic, rather these notions depend upon the perspectives of people that have certain notions about other states.