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International
Institutions and Socialization*
Jeffrey T. Checkel**
ARENA, University of Oslo
Abstract
Recent constructivist work on socialization by
international institutions and norms marks a considerable
advance. This research has moved well beyond both
neorealism’s Darwinian and empirically inaccurate
view of it and neoliberalism’s contractual and
methodologically individualist understanding, where
socialization, at most, affects agent strategies.
Instead, constructivism argues and empirically documents
that the effects of socialization reach deeper, to
underlying identities and interests. Yet, this
constructivist socialization dynamic requires further
specification. In particular, it appears premised on a
view of politics as social protest, where national elites
are portrayed purely as reactive, calculating agents.
This view is not so much wrong as incomplete: Politics is
also a process of social learning, where puzzling,
uncertain agents learn new interests. Untangling these
two socialization mechanisms is a central challenge for
constructivists; however, the pay off for doing so will
be high. It will promote an empirically grounded dialogue
between social constructivists, on the one hand, and
rational choice theorists and students of
cognitive/social psychology, on the other.
Introduction
There is a specter, or, better said, buzzword haunting
constructivism: socialization. This word or its close
synonyms -- habitualization, teaching, internalization,
depersonalization, taken for grantedness -- are invoked
throughout the literature; the argument is that
socialization is a (the?) key mechanism that connects
international institutions and norms to states, or to
groups and agents within them. My central objective here
is to unpack this socialization dynamic. I argue that its
usage in current research is often not clear and,
furthermore, that it has led constructivists to bracket
important issues of agency.
The essay proceeds in four steps. First, I consider
the status of agency in recent studies of norm-driven
socialization, advancing three reasons why an exploration
of its possible multiple roles has been neglected.
Second, constructivist, international law and
sociological work on socialization by international norms
is reviewed; from it, I identify two different
socialization mechanisms at the national level -- social
mobilization and social learning. The latter has largely
been neglected in recent studies. Third, drawing upon my
own work-in-progress, a study of normative socialization
in contemporary East and West Europe, I empirically
document the importance of both these mechanisms; the
cases also highlight several evidentiary and
methodological challenges that face constructivists
interested in socialization dynamics. In the conclusion,
I suggest three topics that deserve more attention from
constructivists as they seek to delimit and specify more
clearly their claims about socialization: distinguishing
socialization in or by international
institutions; developing so-called Ascope or boundary
conditions; and elaborating a distinctively
constructivist theory of action.
Agency and Socialization
In studying the relation of international institutions
and norms to domestic socialization, too many
constructivists continue to underspecify the role of
agency, which is unfortunate. Let me be clear: The claim
is not that agents are absent from analyses of
norm-driven socialization -- far from it. Rather, at
issue is their ontological status and a neglect of the
possible multiple roles they may play in this process.
Three factors explain this state of affairs. First, the
structural ontology embraced by some empirical
constructivists is seen as a proper corrective to the
extreme agent orientation of much contemporary American
political science. From this sociology of knowledge
perspective, constructivism, by focusing more on the
structure side of the agent-structure debate, can push IR
beyond the narrow ontological confines of
neorealism-neoliberalism. [1]
Second, for their thinking about the social world,
many constructivists rely upon the insights of
sociological institutionalism (SI). However, the latter
is based upon a version of organization theory that
systematically excludes questions of agency, interest and
power. One critic refers to this bracketing as “the
metaphysical pathos of institutional theory,” while
another argues that SI is “alone
among social science theories in having no explicit or
formal theory of the role that individual interests and
accompanying power differentials play.” [2]
To some extent, it is understandable why sociological
institutionalists took this route. They were battling and
seeking to rectify the excessive dominance of rationalist
and materialist approaches to the study of organizations
(resource dependency theory, for example). However,
constructivists have failed to appreciate several of SI's
more problematic aspects. Most important, it is theory of
outcomes, not process. It purports to show how the
broader institutional/cultural environment of
organizations provides them with certain
purposes/interests. [3]
Moreover, SI lacks a theory to explain
how its preferred macrostructures translate into outcomes
at the level of agents (organizations or individuals). As
a result, it cannot distinguish whether broader
institutional/cultural environments connect to actors, at
the micro-level, via “logics of
appropriateness” (rule-governed behavior -- SI) or
“logics of consequences” (means-ends
calculations -- rational choice). From SI's perspective,
this particular problem is damning, especially as it has
set itself up as an alternative to rational choice.
Missing from sociological institutionalism -- or, better
said, implicit and underspecified within it -- are
cognitive microfoundations. Confusion over how to explain
the micro-level effects of broader macrostructures is
evident throughout the SI literature. [4]
Given their reliance on SI's theoretical insights and
ontological assumptions, it comes as no surprise that one
finds similar weaknesses in the work of many
constructivists. Too often, these scholars have employed
a theory of outcomes (SI) to explore the socialization
process through which norms constitute state identity and
interests. The result is a great lack of clarity on how
global norms actually diffuse to the domestic arena and
socialize agents.
Third and perhaps most important, these
ontological/theoretical reasons for underspecifying
agency’s role have been compounded by an empirical
bias in constructivist work. Too often, scholars studying
socialization consider only the role of international or
transnational Anorm-makers; on the one hand, this is
understandable and important. By helping to create norms,
entrepreneurial activists, international organizations,
policy networks and international NGOs
are changing world politics before our eyes -- witness
the amazing story of individual agency in the emerging
global norm to prohibit landmines. [5]
Yet, this emphasis comes at a cost. By bracketing
theoretically how norms connect with domestic
Anorm-takers, constructivists have been unclear about the
process through which normative socialization occurs. Put
more bluntly, these researchers employing their own
variant of “as if” reasoning (agents operating
as if socialized by norms), to the detriment of
developing process-oriented theories that capture and
explain how socialization, at the agent level, really
works. Equally important, this focus on norm-makers has
led scholars to embrace a biased and unbalanced view of
domestic politics, where normative socialization is
largely driven by mobilization and protest; as argued
below, this view is not so much wrong as incomplete. [6]
International Norms and Domestic
Socialization: Social Mobilization and Social Learning
Here, I consider various mechanisms of socialization
in work on the domestic empowerment and causal impact of
norms. However, to begin, a definition and a
clarification are needed. I define socialization as a
Aprocess of learning in which norms and ideals are
transmitted from one party to another”; the endpoint
of this process, most students of political socialization
would agree, is the internalization of norms. [7]
The clarification regards time scale. My concern is to
explore socialization driven by exposure to international
institutions and norms in the near-term -- that is,
periods of days, months or perhaps a few years. Both
empirical and theoretical rationales motivate such a
focus. Empirically, my interest, in a larger
work-in-progress, is possible normative change in
contemporary, post-Cold War Europe; the particular
regional norms considered are quite recent in origin.
They thus present an ideal opportunity to explore how
norms play into and affect what the public-policy
literature would call the politics of agenda setting --
how, in other words, they first connect with domestic
agents and, possibly, begin a process of socialization.
Theoretically, my short-term focus is an effort to
complement other constructivist work on socialization,
which typically adopts a much longer time-scale --
decades say. While this latter perspective is important
for understanding how norms may enable and empower whole
new categories of domestic agents or
repertoires of action, the not insignificant analytic
drawback is to obscure key questions of domestic agency. [8]
A review of the broader political science, sociology,
transnational advocacy movements and international law
literatures reveals two different mechanisms that lead to
norm-driven socialization at the domestic level: social
protest and social learning. The former comes in two
variants. A first argues that domestic social actors such
as NGOs, trade unions or the like exploit international
norms to generate pressure on state decisionmakers or to
reframe the terms of debate, and do so in relative
isolation from broader transnational ties. Here,
empirical examples are typically drawn from the
industrialized West, with the argument apparently being
that these well established and, in some cases,
militarily powerful states are less susceptible to
transnational pressures. [9]
Recently, a more sophisticated variant of the protest
dynamic has been elaborated. In this case, non-state
actors and policy networks, at both the national and
transnational level, are united in their support for
norms; they then mobilize and coerce decisionmakers to
change state policy. Norms are typically not internalized
by the elites. The activities of Greenpeace exemplify
this political pressure mechanism. [10]
In terms of agent socialization, what
is occurring in this protest dynamic? For elites, the
answer seems clear: Norms are simply a behavioral
constraint and not internalized. Their socialization
effects are thus best captured by standard rationalist
models (regime theory or neoliberal institutionalism in
IR), which view social structures in this behavioral,
constraining sense. At the grass-roots, activist,
NGO-level, systematic effects of normative socialization
are much less clear. In some cases, norms seem genuinely
to constitute these agents in the sense meant by
constructivists, with the former providing actors with
new understandings of interest/identity. However, in many
other instances, norms “socialize” in ways
better captured by rationalist arguments -- for example,
by creating focal points in the domestic arena, or simply
being used instrumentally by agents (NGOs, say) to
advance given interests. [11]
Work on this social mobilization dynamic also contains
an implicit three-fold bias against the state and state
decisionmakers. Normatively, elite policymakers are
portrayed as bad; empirically, they are viewed as passive
and reactive; ontologically, they are viewed solely as
calculating agents. Consider the forthcoming Risse, Ropp
and Sikkink volume that explores the connection between
international human rights norms and domestic
socialization. Their starting point is the
“boomerang” model elaborated by Keck and
Sikkink, whereby recalcitrant state elites are caught in
a vise of transnational and domestic social mobilization.
Here, the preferences of elites do not change at early
stages; rather, the focus is their changing behaviors and
strategies. Temporally expanding the model, Risse, et
al, argue that at later points in the process
(perhaps five years to a decade), elites become less
reactive and, indeed, may internalize
new preferences. While, analytically, this is an
important step forward, it is unclear why state
decisionmakers get to play this (more intelligent) role
only after an initial “softening up” by
networks and activists. [12]
These two variants of the mobilization/protest
mechanism have received more attention in studies of
norm-driven socialization. In part, this is
understandable. The shaming activities of Greenpeace or
Amnesty International, say, are very much in the public
and scholarly eye, and undoubtedly play a major role
socializing domestic agents. Yet, the danger in
overemphasizing this particular mechanism is not only
empirical (missing other possible normative effects at
the national level), but ontological. It overlooks the
obvious fact that political/state agents do not simply or
always calculate how to advance given interests; in many
cases, they seek to discover those interests in the first
place, and do so prior to significant social
mobilization.
In fact, the broader literature points to just such a
dynamic, in what I call a social learning mechanism.
Here, it is not political pressure but learning that
leads agents to adopt prescriptions embodied in norms,
which become internalized in the near-term and constitute
a set of shared intersubjective understandings that make
behavioral claims. This process appears to be based on
notions of complex learning drawn from cognitive and
social psychology, where individuals, when exposed to the
prescriptions embodied in norms, adopt new interests. I say “appears” because
scholars have remained vague on the precise cognitive
model underlying this type of socialization. [13]
Four points should be made on this social learning
mechanism. First, its socialization dynamic is different
from that of the social mobilization/protest studies: It
is not civil society or grass-roots activists doing the
domestic agenda setting, but often elites and state
officials. Such a process only strikes one as odd because
constructivists have for the most part ignored it; yet,
it is entirely plausible. Empirically, there still exist
many polities in which civil society is largely
disenfranchised; and, even where enfranchised, there are
still many issues in which it takes little interest.
Theoretically, Hugh Heclo in the comparative literature,
and John Ruggie, Emanuel Adler and Ernie Haas within
international relations, remind us that politicians and
elites are not always bad, dumb bureaucrats who only
“power”; rather, they also “puzzle.” [14]
Second, organizational/decisionmaking research and
more recent work on epistemic communities suggest these
agents puzzle because they are engaged in cognitive
information searches. Typically, it is policy failure or
an uncertain policy environment that trigger such
searches, and not dynamics of social protest or
mobilization. As a result, the strategies and, perhaps,
underlying preferences of these agents are in flux. If it
is only strategies at stake, then the process of agent
socialization can be modeled as so-called simple
learning: Agents acquire new information from the norm
and alter strategies to pursue given ends. If underlying preferences are being reformulated,
then social/complex learning seems the more appropriate
model: Agents acquire new understandings of
interests/identities when exposed to the norm’s
prescriptions. [15]
Third, constructivists invoking this learning
mechanism as the means of agent socialization provide
inadequate evidence to document such claims. Consider two
examples, the first of which comes from Finnemore’s
excellent book. Lacking field work at the national level,
it is impossible to tell how the norms she studies are
socializing national actors (“teach,” in her
words). More recently, Dick Price has explored the
emerging prohibitionary norm against the use of
anti-personnel mines, where his principal analytic goal
is to examine how norms socialize states -- in
particular, the mechanisms and processes through which
this occurs. Throughout this important study, Price
refers to teaching, learning and persuasion as
fundamental to socialization; yet, these concepts are
never operationalized in a way that allows for systematic
empirical testing. [16]
Fourth, lurking in the background of this learning
dynamic is an element of power/coercion often missed in
constructivist accounts, where domestic agents accept
norms when they are hegemonically imposed. This
particular socialization mechanism is captured nicely by
consequentialist theories of action, with calculating
agents strategically adapting to prevailing international
understandings. Constructivist work on human-rights norms
has documented precisely such a near-term socialization
dynamic in a number of less powerful countries --
Argentina, for example. [17]
Summary. The foregoing
documents two mechanisms of domestic socialization driven
by international institutions and norms. On the one hand,
norms can heighten levels of social mobilization and
contention, as societal actors exploit them to pressure
elites and reframe the terms of debate; in the jargon,
they empower. On the other, norms may also “teach
old dogs new tricks,” as they help agents discover
or learn what, precisely, their preferences are in the
first place. When these agents are state elites, such
learning may re-empower them as well, as their cognitive
horizons expand. However, proponents of this latter
mechanism have been remiss in theorizing and documenting
the actual process undergirding socialization. [18]
Aside from the ontological and theoretical reasons
noted earlier, these last-noted lacunae have likely
arisen because too much constructivist research has
focused on a particular policy area when exploring the
relation between international institutions and domestic
socialization: human rights. Clearly, this area is
important -- all the more so because mainstream IR has
for the most part ignored it. Yet, it is unique in three
respects, making generalizations suspect. For one, the
global human-rights regime -- both at the regional and,
increasingly, universal level -- is one of the strongest
normative systems in effect today. It is thus precisely a
most likely case for the social
mobilization/protest mechanism that one sees stressed in
much constructivist work. In addition, it truly is a
policy area where, for the most part, the good civil
society - bad state dichotomy implicit in many accounts
does hold. Finally, the gradual evolution and
institutionalization of the global human rights system
throughout the Cold War years has led many
constructivists studying its national-level impact to
adopt a similar long-term perspective, which has had the
unfortunate effect of bracketing how normative
socialization plays out in the near-term. [19]
Regional Norms and the Dynamics of Domestic Socialization
in Pan-Europe
This section is a first-cut at rectifying several of
the biases discussed above. It seeks to distill from my
own work-in-progress insights on how norm-driven
socialization at the domestic level works in the
near-term. A second concern is to demonstrate that
methods and techniques do exist for exploring the
micro-level in this socialization process. I begin with a
brief review of the regional norms of interest here;
next, methodological issues at the agent (norm taker)
level are addressed. Third and most important, I provide
illustrative evidence of normative socialization in three
countries: unified Germany, independent Ukraine and
Post-Soviet Russia.
Emerging European Norms of
Citizenship/Membership. Questions of membership
have become central to the construction of identity in
post-Cold War Europe. Laws on citizenship and national
minorities create fundamental categories and
distinctions. Is the membership principle jus
sanguinis (citizenship passed along blood lines) or jus
soli (citizenship accorded to anyone born on state
territory)? What rights do states grant to migrants? Are
they viewed as citizens-in-waiting or aliens? How are
national minorities treated? Are they urged to assimilate
or is their separateness recognized? All these issues are
matters of public debate in a wide range of European
countries.
I address these questions by exploring the normative
context affecting the construction of identity.
Contemporary Europe, with its institutionally thick
environment, is a likely setting for the promotion of
norms. Moreover, the last decade has seen a significant
increase in scholarly and non-governmental organization
interest in citizenship and minority rights. These discussions have advanced to the point
where specific propositions -- for example, on the
desirability of dual citizenship -- have gained wide
backing. [20]
Proponents of such arguments have linked them to the
norms of the European human rights regime centered on the
Council of Europe (CE). Far from being a passive player
in this process, the Council has actively influenced it,
seeking to create shared understandings of citizenship
and the rights of minorities. In December, 1994, it
adopted a Framework Convention for the Protection of
National Minorities; in November 1997, the Council
approved a European Convention on Nationality that
addresses issues of citizenship and immigrant
naturalization. The former promotes norms on the
legitimacy of minority rights and identities; until now,
such a consensus had never existed at the European level.
Council officials see the Framework Convention's most
important function precisely as a tool for exerting
normative pressure. As one put it, the “important
thing is that countries accepting it, promise to
implement its principles -- and know the spotlight will
be turned on them if they fail to do so.” [21]
The European Convention on Nationality revises norms
on citizenship that were embodied in a 1963
Council-sponsored treaty. On the question of multiple
nationality (often referred to as dual citizenship [DC]),
this earlier treaty had taken an explicitly negative
view: Dual citizenship was something to be prevented. It
thus privileged state interests; from the vantage point
of the state, dual citizenship was bad news, leading to
split loyalties and complicating military service
obligations. Seeking to exploit a growing awareness among
scholars, NGOs and European governments that multiple
nationality is often necessary and desirable, the new
convention takes a neutral view on dual citizenship. In
reality, however, this neutrality, by removing the earlier explicit negative sanction,
is designed to pressure states to be much more open to
multiple nationality. [22]
The mid-1990s have thus witnessed an accelerating
period of normative change. The old, anti-DC
understanding has eroded, being replaced by a
European-level norm that is neutral to slightly positive
on questions of multiple nationality. More generally,
earlier, restrictive (ethnic) European understandings of
national membership are now competing with norms
promoting more inclusive conceptions (civic). This
contention between old and new will come as no surprise
to constructivists: They have identified norm
contestation as typical of periods when older norms are
being replaced by new ones. [23]
Methods: Talking to People, Reading Things and
Institutionalization. Recall that my empirical
concern is to document the process through which these
emerging regional norms are connecting with domestic
agents, that is, how normative socialization begins. The
basic method is process-tracing, where one seeks “to
investigate and explain the decision process by which
various initial conditions are translated into outcomes
[socialization, in this case].” I operationalize the
method through use of three techniques. [24]
First, I interview participants in contemporary policy
debates, seeking to ascertain their awareness of emerging
European norms on membership and citizenship, and, more
important, how they respond to them. In all instances, I
utilized a similar interview protocol, starting with the
general: “How, if at all, does
German-Ukrainian-Russian national identity relate to the
country's citizenship policies?” “Are you aware
of European-level work on such issues?” “If so,
how did you become aware of these norms -- media
coverage, network participation, professional
associations, personal contacts, etc?” These
were followed by more specific questions, for example:
“How do these norms affect your thinking about and
work on citizenship/membership?” “Do they
prompt you to rethink the issue, and, if so, why?”
“Do you see them as tools in political battles, and,
if so, in what ways?”
My questions were designed to tap an individual's
basic beliefs about citizenship/membership and what might
be motivating him/her to change them. On the latter, I
gave interviewees several possibilities, including both
their own cognitive uncertainty as well as external
social pressure. I also suggested answers that addressed
materialist incentives (changing citizenship practice
might allow more immigrants to access a decreasing
social-welfare pie), as well as identity concerns
(changing citizenship practice would dilute the
Germanness -- say -- of the country).
Second, as a supplement and check on interview data, I
carry out a content analysis of major media and
specialist publications (international law journals,
reports produced by the NGO community, for example). This
not only allowed for checking the beliefs and motivations
of particular individuals (when that person was both an
interviewee and participant in public debates); equally
important, it helped me determine the general public
discourse about citizenship.
Third, I model a key temporal dimension: the evolution
of domestic norms regarding citizenship and minority
rights. Why this particular focus? Given my interest in
normative socialization of domestic agents, I thought it
important also to ask what might create barriers to such
processes. My hunch -- inspired by sociological
theoretical logic and accumulating
constructivist-ideational empirical research -- was that
an important barrier would be historically constructed
domestic identity norms, which could act as a filter
preventing agent socialization by regional/systemic
norms. Drawing upon institutionalist insights, I argue
that these domestic norms gain
particular staying power and political influence when
they become institutionalized. Institutionalization is
measured through indicators that are both bureaucratic
(norms embedded in organizations) and legal (norms
incorporated into judicial codes, laws and
constitutions). [25]
Together, these three techniques allow for a degree of
triangulation when assessing the degree to which, and
through what mechanism(s), domestic agents are being
socialized by new regional norms, thus increasing
confidence in the validity of my results. This use of
process-tracing along with a consideration of
counterfactual explanations, where appropriate, allow me
to minimize reliance on “as if” assumptions at
the national level (agents acting, speaking as if
influenced, socialized by norms). [26]
The Federal Republic of Germany.
In my German field work (as well as that for Ukraine and
Russia), I look for evidence of normative socialization
at various levels in the polity -- among elite
decisionmakers, in the legislature, trade unions,
political parties, NGOs, immigrant/minority groups, for
example. My logic was straightforward: To examine whether
the two dominant international --> domestic
socialization pathways invoked in earlier research were
at work, and in what combination. An additional concern
was to unpack and explore the role of agency in each
pathway.
The examples given below are just that -- examples and
not fully elaborated case studies. Instead, I am drawing
upon -- and, in some cases, reassessing -- my own
previously published work to document that norm-driven
socialization at the national level is both a politics of
contention/mobilization and a process of learning, thus
expanding the constructivist tool kit in this area.
Methodologically, in terms of outcomes -- that is, did
norm-driven socialization lead to
changes in conceptions of identity/citizenship -- the
following also suggests the crucial importance of
employing counterfactual analysis. [27]
Socialization and German Identity - I: History
Matters. As discussed earlier, European norms on
citizenship and membership are evolving. They are moving
in a more inclusive direction, with emphasis on broadened
understandings of both citizenship and the rights of
national minorities; in particular, these CE norms
promote inclusion by facilitating dual citizenship. In
Germany, dual citizenship would promote the assimilation
of the large foreigner population. In most cases, present
German law requires immigrants and foreigners to give up
their original citizenship if they wish to seek it in
Germany; this is an obstacle to integration since many do
not wish to sever all ties to their homeland. The
importance of dual citizenship for large parts of the
foreigner community is so great that they acquire it
through illegal methods that contravene German law. [28]
The lack of fit between these changing regional norms
and understandings of identity and citizenship held by
many Germans is significant. While there are clear
historical reasons why these understandings took hold in
Germany, the important point is that they have been
reinforced over time and are now rooted in domestic laws
and institutions. Legal and bureaucratic indicators as
well as textual analysis and interview data all suggest
the embedded nature of these domestic norms. [29]
To give one example: The German citizenship statute,
as of early 1999, continues to be based on a “Law on
Imperial and State Citizenship” that dates from
1913, and an ethnic conception of identity is maintained
throughout the German legal system -- notably in Article
116 (1) of the Basic Law, the post-war German
constitution. Indeed, the ethnic core of the 1913
citizenship law is reproduced in the Basic Law via a
so-called “Nationalstaatsprinzip” (the
Nation-State Principle), which makes very clear that
there is a material core (that is, blood ties) connecting
a citizen and his/her nation. As one
analyst has noted, this basic principle, despite minor
modifications over the years, “remains effective
until [the] present.” [30]
Why bother with this history and background? For a
simple -- theoretical -- reason: Work on “role
conflict” in cognitive/social psychology and on
“cultural matches” in sociology strongly
suggests that, when one studies the spread of norms, a
crucial variable affecting their ability to spark
dynamics of contention or learning will be the normative
environment into which they diffuse. In particular, for
cases like the German one, where there is a degree of
mismatch between regional and domestic norms, one should
expect heightened levels of normative contestation and a
short-circuiting of social learning as agents find
themselves in multiple (domestic, regional) institutional
settings that evoke conflicting roles. At a cognitive
level, greater numbers of these agents should experience
framing and dissonance problems. [31]
Socialization and German Identity - I I: Social
Mobilization. Recent years have witnessed an
explosion of social protest and mobilization on questions
of citizenship and the situation of foreigners in
Germany, with key roles being played by the liberal
media, churches, trade unions, grassroots citizens'
initiatives, and the commissioners for foreigners'
affairs.
Here, I present two examples of such
mobilization, documenting the extent to which CE/European
norms promote and facilitate it, and, at a micro-level,
exploring how these norms connect to domestic agents. To
begin, the churches have been one important social force
helping to mobilize pressure and peaceful protest. In
recent years, the governing bodies of the Protestant,
Evangelical and Catholic denominations have called for
Germany to adopt an immigration and integration policy
for its resident foreigners, including acceptance of dual
citizenship and a move to greater elements of jus soli
in German law. In Berlin, the Evangelical church has
produced flyers on dual citizenship; these make the case
for it by referring, among other factors, to emerging
European norms and recent work by the Council of Europe.
In the best corporatist tradition, the churches have also
sought to make their views known by participating in
conferences and policy networks on issues of foreigners'
rights. [32]
In a second example, one sees the broader public -- in
the form of a grassroots citizens' initiative -- playing
a key role. Seizing upon a policy window created by the
surge in anti-foreigner violence that accompanied German
unification, a group of activists based in Berlin
orchestrated, beginning in 1992, an initiative that was
specifically focused on the need for dual citizenship in
German law; it gathered over 1 million signatures from a
broad array of public figures. It was a textbook example
of how to mobilize public pressure on a specific policy
issue. The campaign coordinated its actions with other
social actors (specifically, the Evangelical Church),
collected signatures from prominent German academics and
public figures, and secured free
publicity for the initiative in the centrist-liberal
German press (Der Spiegel, Sueddeutsche Zeitung
and Berliner Zeitung, among others). [33]
Moreover, the existence of European understandings
favoring inclusive conceptions of citizenship played an
important role in the campaign. Signature collectors
pointed to the presence of such norms, and, more
generally, the initiative distributed an information
sheet noting that Germany's refusal to recognize multiple
nationality made it “an international
exception.” [34]
These examples confirm what much of the constructivist
literature has already documented: that norms can help
spark a politics of contention and social mobilization.
Yet, exactly how, at the agent level, did this occur? My
interviewing and fieldwork reveal a mixed picture. In the
majority of cases (trade unions, press, churches), these
social agents are using CE norms to pursue given ends;
they are an additional tool which can be instrumentally
used to generate pressure on government policymakers.
Parts of the socialization dynamic, in other words, were
consistent with key elements of a more enlightened
rational-choice argument.
On the last point, let me be clear.
The claim is not that these agents were pursuing material
interests. (Although, this may have been true in some
cases.) Rather, I am suggesting that the behavioral logic
was consistent with a so-called “thin”
rationalist account, where the goals pursued may be
non-material (normative values, say), but the underlying
theory of action is still consequentialist -- means-ends
-- in nature. [35]
Yet, at the same time, several
societal actors in Germany have acquired new interests
via exposure to Council norms -- through a process of
social learning where the underlying behavioral logic is
not in any serious way consequentialist. Such agents are
typically newer ones who are thus still developing
preferences on the citizenship issue. This was clearly
the case with several of the immigrant activists
interviewed. Of the two Berlin groups studied, the older,
well-established one, the Tuerkische Gemeinde zu Berlin,
cares little about emerging European norms; its
preferences are largely fixed and, moreover, it is
committed to working within existing political
structures. In contrast, the newer NGO, the Tuerkischer
Bund in Berlin/Brandenburg, is run by younger Turks who
are activists inclined to work outside the normal
Bonn-Berlin politics; moreover, they are genuinely
puzzling over specific ways in which Germany’s
conceptions/laws on citizenship can be changed. Thus,
normative socialization in the social learning sense is
much more evident with them. [36]
Socialization and German Identity - III: Social
Learning. Beyond the above, there is additional
evidence of learning from norms among a number of elites
and decisionmakers; in several cases, this occurred prior
to the social mobilization dynamics sketched above. Put
differently, active puzzling by state elites -- and not
reactive calculation, as portrayed in most accounts -- is
an additional socialization dynamic at work in the
Federal Republic.
Consider one example: The so-called “young, wild
ones” in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). This
is a group of younger Christian Democratic Bundestag
deputies who advocate, contra the wishes of Party elders,
major reforms to German citizenship laws. In particular,
they favor granting DC, for a
limited period of approximately 18 years, to children
born in Germany of foreigner parents. [37]
Why this behavior? As they are politicians, an obvious
explanation would be instrumental self-interest: It is a
way of advancing their political careers within the
party. However, leading CDU figures still vehemently
oppose any move toward DC, with former Chancellor Kohl
declaring that “if we were to yield on the question
of double citizenship, then in a short time we would have
not three million, but four, five or six million Turks in
our land.” Tellingly, the Chancellor made this angry
statement at a meeting of the CDU Youth Union, where the
young, wild ones enjoy a measure of support. Career
advancement thus does not seem to explain their actions. [38]
A more likely explanation is learning from emerging
norms. In their own writings and interviews, the wild
ones and their supporters in the Party argue that they
are seeking to bring German policy into line with
“European standards”; in a similar fashion,
they claim to be “fitting German citizenship law to
the European context.” Altmaier and Roettgen, two of
the group's leaders, refer to extensive discussions with
foreigners organizations and churches and how these
exchanges have influenced their views on DC. And, as
noted earlier, it is precisely immigrant NGOs and
churches who have played key roles in diffusing changing
European norms on DC to the Federal Republic. [39]
Now, to the extent that these politicians are reacting
to earlier social mobilization, my account is partly
consistent with the more sophisticated norms/protest
argument developed by scholars such as Risse and Sikkink.
Yet, their learning seems to have come about less through
mobilization and confrontation, where agents respond to
external pressures, and more through dialogue and
persuasion, where agents “respond” to their own
cognitive uncertainty -- points to which I return in the
conclusion.
For each instance of learning of this
sort at the state level, however, one finds many cases of
non-learning as well. That is, other elite players have a
radically different conception of German identity, a more
exclusive one that appears shaped by dominant domestic
norms; in turn, these hinder and slow any learning
process. In this regard, it is telling that opponents of
change often cast their arguments in terms of
“Germanness” and “national identity,”
sometimes explicitly referring to the 1913 citizenship
statute. Some might claim this is simply political
posturing, where notions of identity are invoked as a
cover for self interest. In this case, there are problems
with such an argument. It is not at all clear whose
economic or electoral interests are being served given
the growing public consensus on the need to integrate the
large foreigner population. These opponents also make use
of the broader European context to buttress their
arguments, often pointing to the norms of an earlier,
1963 Council of Europe treaty that essentially prohibited
dual nationality. [40]
The foregoing leads to an important observation. Norms
do not only create new opportunities, generate contention
and empower social movements; they can also be a resource
for state elites. Above, I suggested how regional norms
facilitated social learning among puzzling agents. Here,
they serve as a very different kind of resource, with
elites exploiting older norms (those in the 1963 treaty)
to advance given interests. All this suggests the
analytic danger in “reading the state out” of
normative socialization, or, more specifically, in
portraying state agents only and always as passive actors
in this process.
Indeed, the active resistance and
non-learning of governmental elites in Germany led to a
situation where, despite the social mobilization
documented above, there was little evidence of
wide-ranging socialization or of rapid policy change
during the early and mid-1990s -- particularly on the
issue of dual citizenship. With the exception of some
minor changes to citizenship statutes enacted in 1993
that affected children of foreigners, the pace of change
was slow and contested, with five rounds of Bundestag
debate, over a three-year period, ending in deadlock and
recrimination. [41]
Socialization and German Identity - IV: Regional
Norms Triumphant? At this point, the knowledgeable
reader may exclaim “wait a minute”! Surely,
this deadlocked state of affairs changed dramatically
after the September 1998 federal elections, when the
CDU/CSU coalition was replaced by a Social Democratic
Party (SPD) - Green one. As of this writing (early
February 1999), the new government is within days of
legislating the most far-reaching changes to
Germany’s nationality laws since the 1913
citizenship statute was enacted. Among other liberalizing
proposals, these will allow dual citizenship, albeit most
likely for a limited period, after which immigrants must
choose German nationality or that of their
“home” country. From the standpoint of the
arguments advanced in this paper, these changes raise two
important issues: (1) do they herald a dramatic shift in
the socialization dynamics sketched earlier; and (2) are
they evidence of victory for the social movements that
have for so long pushed for such
reforms -- that is, of socialization promoted by a
politics of protest and contention? [42]
On the former, both socialization mechanisms that link
European norms to German politics -- social mobilization
and social learning -- still appear to be at work. To
cite one example: German NGOs, the liberal press and
immigrant groups, since late fall 1998 (that is, after
the federal election), have intensified their pressure
campaign -- again pointing to the laws of other countries
and changing European norms to make the case for
fundamental reforms of German citizenship/identity
conceptions. [43]
There is also additional evidence of social learning.
SPD leader and Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine, for
example, has recently argued that a central goal in
allowing dual citizenship in the Federal Republic is
“to europeanize German nationality law.”
However, as before, other agents continue to exploit, in
a proactive way, different European norms and practices
to advance their own -- unchanging -- views on
citizenship; this is especially true for members of the
CDU/CSU opposition. Most important, they have announced
plans to challenge, in the German Constitutional Court
and European Court of Justice, the constitutionality of
any move toward dual citizenship, arguing that it would
contravene norms embedded in both German tradition and
the Maastricht Treaty’s European citizenship
provisions. [44]
Theoretically, recent events confirm the relevance of
my earlier discussion of role conflict and cultural
matches, with historically constructed and ethnic
conceptions of German identity clashing with new,
emergent and more civic understandings. Indeed, the
SPD/Green citizenship reform proposals have both
intensified this clash and revealed its deeper,
underlying normative dimension. The result has been a
wide-ranging public debate in Germany unlike any -- with
the exception of those over the Holocaust -- seen in many
years. It is a heated and impassioned disagreement over
the normative constitution of what it means to be German.
For sure, some of the rhetoric is just that: Rhetoric
employed strategically in an ongoing political contest.
However, in many other cases, it goes beyond this, to
what Free Democratic Party (FDP)
general secretary Westerwelle has called
“immigration policies from the gut” -- that is,
behavior driven not by politics and strategizing, but by
more fundamental identity conceptions. [45]
This said, one still needs to address the second issue
raised above: Are the recent changes evidence of the
power of norm-driven socialization, especially through a
politics of protest and mobilization? After all, there is
a striking correlation between the content of the
SPD/Green proposals, on the one hand, and the
prescriptions embedded in emerging European norms and the
reforms earlier advocated by numerous groups/movements in
Germany, on the other. Yet, correlation is not causation,
and while my research is still very much in progress, I
am skeptical of any strong claims along these lines. For
one, the shift in policy also correlates with a rather
dramatic changeover at the elite level. SPD Chancellor
Schroeder is not simply a “third way,” Blairite
social democrat; equally important, he signals the
arrival in power of a truly post-war generation of German
politicians. And generational change of this sort is
often a key causal variable behind radical policy shifts,
especially at the ideational/normative level highlighted
here. [46]
More important, it is crucially important, from a
methodological perspective, to ask the counterfactual:
Absent the development of new regional norms and absent
domestic social mobilization, would liberalizing changes
to conceptions of citizenship in any case be occurring in
a modern industrial democracy such as Germany? That is,
would it look like socialization had occurred when it
fact it had not? While it is beyond the limits of the
present paper to conduct a thorough analysis of this
sort, there are reasons to expect that the answer might
be “yes.” For example, it has been persuasively
argued that immigration/nationality policy in liberal
states has an in-built bias towards becoming more
expansionist and inclusive over time: It
is dominated by client politics, where small and often
well-organized employer, human-rights and ethnic groups
work with state officials outside public view to promote
more inclusive membership policies. While the sentiment
of the general public is typically anti-immigration, this
interest is diffuse; in contrast, the interests of
immigrant advocacy groups tend to be concentrated.
Collective action problems thus explain: (a) the
public’s inability to bring about more restrictive
change; and (b) why the preferences of the better
organized liberal interest groups tend to prevail. [47]
Indeed, the very process of exploring this
counterfactual helps me sharpen the argument. In
particular, I would reconcile the three causal strands
identified above -- social mobilization and social
learning spurred by regional norms, generational turnover
and client politics -- in the following manner. For one,
it is very likely that the SPD election victory and
accompanying generational shift simply accelerated a
process of change that was already under way, due to the
mobilization and learning dynamics sketched earlier.
Moreover, the “concentrated interests” of the
advocacy groups engaged in client politics were likely
more “mobilizeable” due to the existence of new
regional norms, and, in some cases, learned in the first
place via exposure to them.
My more general point is that
detailed process tracing along with careful consideration
of counterfactuals are crucial components of any argument
about norm-driven socialization. Use of both techniques
will allow students of socialization to delimit more
carefully the scope of their explanatory claims, thus
stimulating dialogue with theoretical opponents. [48]
Socialization and Ukrainian Identity. In
Ukraine, one is immediately struck by the small role of
protest and mobilization as a mechanism of norm-driven
socialization; CE norms have mattered most at the
elite/state level, where the demand for new principles
and norms has been high. Now, perhaps this result is
skewed by the absence of a key independent variable:
transnational networks promoting normative change.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. Since
1989 and, in many cases, long before, human-rights
practices in post-Soviet states -- including Ukraine --
have been targeted by a wide range of actors:
international organizations such as the CE, OSCE and,
more recently, the European Union; numerous international
NGOs; and wealthy industrialized democracies who have
crafted assistance programs specifically designed to
empower new social actors in these transition polities.
Thus, in principle, the network was
in place to spur socialization through a process of
contention and mobilization. [49]
However, the latter has not occurred. Instead, due
primarily to the efforts of a small number of individuals
and units within the state, Ukrainian discourse and law
on citizenship and rights issues have changed in ways
consistent with emerging CE norms on national membership.
In contrast to many other post-Soviet states (the
Baltics, say), Ukraine has moved to create a civic
definition of citizenship. This inclusive conception of
national identity has helped policymakers craft one of
the more liberal minority-rights regimes in the former
Soviet area. A decree and a law on national minorities
that permit a high degree of cultural autonomy have been
promulgated. In addition, civic conceptions of
citizenship and minority rights are explicitly embraced
in the new constitution adopted in June 1996. [50]
Three factors -- two institutional and one
idiosyncratic -- were key in promoting this process of
socialization “from above.” First, there was
the establishment in June, 1993, of an Interdepartmental
Commission for Questions of Ukraine's Admission to the
Council of Europe. It was based at the Foreign Ministry
and headed by then First Deputy Foreign Minister Boris
Tarasyuk. The Commission came to play a major role on
citizenship and rights issues; within
it, Tarasyuk was a progressive force. Those who dealt
with Tarasyuk described a creative thinker who encouraged
subordinates to seek out new ideas and approaches. His
own unclear preferences led him to use the Commission as
a vehicle for soliciting a wide range of advice on rights
issues within Ukraine as well as from the international
community. [51]
Second, the head of the Citizenship Division within
the Presidential Administration, turned out, largely by
chance, to be a liberal-minded former academic: Petro
Chaliy. Chaliy and those he gathered around him were very
open to regional norms and the prescriptions they
embodied. Their learning mattered because in the
top-heavy Ukrainian state, the presidential
administration -- even more so than post-Soviet Russia --
plays a dominant role in policymaking. [52]
According to Ukrainian participants in the work of
both Tarasyuk’s Commission and Chaliy’s
Division, Council of Europe expertise and the norms it
promotes were central to shaping nationality laws and
policies. Several components of the minorities law, for
example, are modelled on the Council's European
Convention on Human Rights. Process tracing of this sort
allows me to move beyond correlations and establish a
causal role for Council norms. More important, it reveals
the mechanism empowering norms in the Ukrainian domestic
arena: learning. Tarasyuk and Chaliy are examples of
moral entrepreneurs -- individuals open to learning from
new norms and willing to promote them. Moreover, the
promoters of these norms were not
activists external to the state utilizing a politics of
contention/mobilization, but regional experts (mainly
from the CE) engaged in a calm dialogue within state
structures. [53]
Third, pre-existing institutional structure played a
central, causal role in promoting the success of this
norm-driven social learning, and did so in two ways. For
one, the autonomous nature of Ukrainian state
institutions, which lessoned the amount of political
friction to which administrative elites were exposed,
gave agents like Tarasyuk and Chaliy the possibility of
learning new preferences on citizenship and minority
rights. However, a crucial question -- from both an
empirical and theoretical perspective -- is why this
possibility turned into a reality. What motivated these
agents to learn? One factor, readily admitted in
interviews was a simple combination of Western coercion
and Ukrainian strategic interest. Given its large and
unpredictable neighbour to the east (Russia), Ukraine had
a clear interest in joining “Euro-Atlantic
structures,” as Ukrainian policymakers never tire of
declaring. To join required membership in Western
Europe’s key institutions -- most notably, for my
purposes, the Council of Europe. Yet, this membership was
withheld for several years (1991-93), in a direct attempt
to coerce Ukraine into adopting and implementing CE
principles. [54]
At the same time, this strategic adaptation argument
fails to capture important parts of the story. Much of
the elite learning occurred in 1993 and early 1994; it
thus predates Kuchma's election as president in July,
1994, when Ukraine made a strategic decision to seek
closer ties with various Western institutions. Relatedly,
the years 1993-94 saw an extensive debate in Ukraine over
the “neutrality option” -- seeking a position
independent of both West Europe and Russia. At that
point, there was thus no consensus on a balancing
strategy against Russia, which clearly would have made it
in Ukraine's self interest to instrumentally adopt
Council norms. Thus, it is
empirically incorrect to assert that
instrumental/rationalist arguments alone are adequate for
explaining the outcome. [55]
Instead, an additional factor driving the learning
process was cognitive uncertainty, with underlying
preferences in flux. Consider Dr. Chaliy in the
Presidential Administration. Before taking this position,
he was a researcher at the Institute of State and Law of
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; his scholarly work
focused on constitutional law and local self-governance.
Thus, like many other new elites in post-communist
states, Chaliy found himself in an unfamiliar position,
dealing with issues of first principle: the fundamental
normative guidelines for Ukraine’s conception of
citizenship and membership. In fact, testimony from those
who observed him in various meetings/workshops makes
clear that persuasion and argumentation, based on
prescriptions embodied in regional norms, promoted
learning. [56]
A comparison with post-Soviet Russia is instructive.
For the latter, many “new” elites are holdovers
from the Soviet era, a fact explained by the massive size
of the Soviet/Russian apparatus. In contrast, the USSR
bequeathed Ukraine a vastly smaller personnel
inheritance, as most key decisions during the Soviet
period were taken in Moscow. Thus, in relative terms,
Ukraine was forced to recruit more outsiders for
positions such as Chaliy’s, which, in turn, has
increased the probability of agent learning -- due to the
“noviceness” of these individuals. As will be
seen below, it is precisely this difference that helps
explain a key blockage in Russia to socialization spurred
by CE norms.
Moving beyond the elite level, an important issue,
from an analytic perspective, is the absence in Ukraine
of socialization spurred by protest and contention. As
already noted, in Europe one has a robust and large
human-rights network; thus, the necessary conditions for
the mobilization of transnational/domestic pressure --
the “boomerang” -- would seem to be in place.
However, for three reasons such mobilization has failed.
First, the Ukrainian NGO community, when compared to
its Western, Asian or even Russian counterparts, is
extraordinarily young, with most NGOs only 4-5 years old.
One often encounters NGOs that are basically one
individual; moreover, even for genuine NGOs, lack of
experience and poor networking with like-minded
organizations have resulted in many false starts and
weakened their ability to mobilize public pressure.
Compounding these internal problems is the poorly
developed state of the Ukrainian press: Even when NGOs do
orchestrate pressure campaigns, the media, due to
inexperience, often fails to cover them. Thus, even
though there is evidence of significant norm-driven
learning among many Ukrainian NGOs, which
is explained by their young age and still fluctuating
preferences on many key issues, this has mattered little.
[57]
Second, NGOs in Ukraine are operating in a fiscal and
political environment that, to say the least, is
inhospitable. On the former, the taxation and
incorporation laws currently in effect make it virtually
impossible for NGOs to survive -- unless, that is, they
engage in commercial activities that consume valuable
time and energy. The political setting as well has
worsened in recent years, with many NGOs and activists
complaining of a growing gap that separates governmental
structures from civil society. The legislature (Rada), in
particular, reacts very negatively to any overt NGO
pressure campaigns. [58]
Third and related to my earlier point on the recent
recruitment of so many state/elite decisionmakers,
Ukrainian NGOs have a strategic disincentive to engage in
mobilization, pressure-type campaigning. Why? With good
ties to individuals newly installed in state
institutions, it simply makes good strategic sense to
exploit these personal contacts, seeking to exert
behind-the-scenes influence. Unfortunately, this is an
unreliable mechanism through which to pursue norm-driven
socialization, given the rapid personnel turnover in so
many government departments. Indeed, NGOs were ecstatic
when Serhiy Holovaty, who is considered one of the
founding fathers of the Ukrainian civil-society/NGO
movement, was appointed Minister of Justice in September
1995; yet, he was removed from this post less than two
years later in a government reshuffle. [59]
A final point on normative
socialization in Ukraine is the lack of significant
cognitive obstacles to it. Put differently, the learning
effects documented above were facilitated by the absence
of domestic norms acting as cognitive filters. Indeed, a
central legacy of the Soviet period is the country's lack
of a developed sense of national identity. More
accurately, one should speak of a combined Soviet and
Tsarist Russian legacy: It has been over 300 years since
Ukraine had anything approaching an independent
existence. The picture that emerges from interviews in
Kyiv and Strasbourg is of elites who are extraordinarily
open to learning from CE norms on citizenship and
membership. [60]
The result has been a greater willingness by elites
and other actors (the Rukh independence movement, for
example) to recognize the complexity and multi-ethnic
roots of Ukrainian identity, derived from both the
Tsarist and Soviet experiences. My point here is that the
lack of an institutionalized -- and hence politically
influential -- Soviet conception of identity has removed
a potent barrier to norm-driven learning, while allowing
more inclusive understandings of identity to re-emerge in
contemporary Ukrainian discourse. [61]
In sum, one has a clear correlation between CE norms
and a process of social learning that has led to
important changes in Ukrainian citizenship and minority
rights policy. Furthermore, process tracing confirms a
significant causal role for these regional norms.
Nonetheless, to delimit more clearly my explanatory
claims it is essential to explore the counterfactual.
Specifically, would Ukrainian policy on citizenship and
membership be any different in the absence of
socialization promoted by CE norms? Given that over 25%
of its population consists of national minorities, could
not self interest alone explain the adoption of liberal
policies? The weak answer is that, yes, self interest
explains why new policies were considered in the first
place, but that Council-sponsored norms tell much about
their content.
The strong answer begins by observing that a country's
objective interest in dealing with minority populations
is not always clear -- witness the differing ways in
which Croatia, Hungary and Latvia have dealt with
minorities within their borders. Compared to other
similarly situated countries with similar problems,
Ukraine has reacted with a much more liberal and
inclusive conception of minorities' place within the
state. This indicates a stronger role for norms in
shaping the very definition of interests.
None of this is to deny the role
that strategic calculation has played in the
socialization dynamics discussed above. At the same time,
my results point to the clear limitation of rationalist
analyses of the CE/European-rights regime, which argue
that its norms affect domestic politics only by
constraining the behavior of actors with fixed
preferences. Something else is occurring at the agent
level -- social learning that attests to the constitutive
power of norms. More generally, the Ukrainian case
suggests that recent constructivist studies of
socialization may have over-emphasized, in causal terms,
the role played by a politics of protest and contention
at the expense of a process of learning. [62]
Socialization and Russian Identity.
Similar to the Ukrainian case, the dominant socialization
mechanism linking CE norms to the Russian domestic arena
has been at the level of state decisionmakers. Policy on
citizenship and rights issues and, more generally,
contacts with the CE have been centralized and controlled
by units in the Presidential apparatus and Foreign
Ministry. In such a policymaking environment, NGOs have
played little role in mobilizing pressure in support of
Council norms. If they get access at all to government
meetings with CE officials, it is only because the
Foreign Ministry so decides. [63]
The Moscow School of Political
Studies, the one NGO with which the Council has extensive
contacts, is widely praised for its innovative curriculum
and networking activity. Yet interviews make clear the
School's limited ability to foster normative
socialization via mobilization and contention. Indeed,
despite a conscious effort on the part of the Council to
promote, via a series of intensive seminars, precisely
this type of norm-driven change, such undertakings have
mattered little. The workshops themselves have worked
well, but the problem is what happens afterwards --
nothing. The civil society and NGO activists in
attendance are excluded from the process. Given these
blockages, it is no surprise that the most consistent
efforts to apply normative pressure on rights/citizenship
issues in Russia come from outside -- international NGOs,
the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly and CE
Secretary General Tarschys. In the spring of 1997, it was
just such a combination of external actors that was
successful in pressuring Russia to suspend use of the
death penalty, whose prohibition is a fundamental Council
norm. [64]
With this protest/mobilization mechanism partly
blocked, social learning might perhaps be a more causally
important socialization dynamic in post-Soviet Russia.
However, similar to the German case, the effects of this
mechanism seem limited by deeply held and countering
domestic identity norms. These embedded norms have
created a conception of national membership in Russia
that is more exclusive than that found in Ukraine. In
particular, they prescribe a dominant role for ethnic
Russians -- despite the presence of over 100 other
nationalities within Russia's borders. These shared
beliefs are evident across the political spectrum, which
suggests they cannot be explained simply by reference to
interest-based or political survival theories. With the
cognitive frames of key elites powerfully shaped by such
understandings, the uncertainty that might spur learning
has been low; as a result, socialization triggered by
more inclusive CE-sponsored norms has been greatly
hindered. My strong hunch is that such cognitive
dissonance -- and its notable lack in Ukraine -- is
partly explained by elite turnover/replacement
(Ukraine) or its absence (Russia and, to some extent ,
Germany as well). [65]
Observers of Russian policy might question these
assertions, noting, in particular, a shift since 1992
toward a policy favoring dual citizenship. In the fall of
1993, an earlier citizenship law was amended to allow
multiple nationality. This correlation suggests a
positive effect of CE-sponsored socialization on Russian
policy. Nothing, however, could be further from the
truth. [66]
For one, Russia is undertaking efforts specifically
designed to minimize the Council's ability to promote
normative socialization within the country. Thus, it is
sponsoring international initiatives central to the CE's
work on minority rights and citizenship, but doing so in
an organization it dominates: the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS). In October 1994, a CIS treaty
on rights of national minorities was initialled; a CIS
human rights agreement was signed in Minsk in May 1995.
Both treaties deeply concern Council officials since they
duplicate important parts of the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR) as well as the more recent Framework
Convention on National Minorities. [67]
More important, there is clear
evidence that Russia is instrumentally exploiting Council
norms to solidify its hegemony in the former Soviet
space. This is a case where elites in weaker states are
being forced to buy into norms articulated by a hegemon.
In particular, Russia is using the norm of dual
citizenship to undermine the sovereignty of states where
ethnic Russian populations are located. [68]
Russian behavior of this sort has had feedback effects
at the Council. In particular, the nationality treaty was
revised to prevent Russia from exploiting its normative
understandings in this manner. One thus sees norms being
reshaped through interaction with pro-active, calculating
agents; indeed, constructivist arguments stressing the
passivity of elite decisionmakers caught in a vice of
transnational/domestic mobilization appear largely
irrelevant for explaining any ongoing process of
“socialization” in the Russian Federation. [69]
Conclusions
In a recent article, it was argued that the study of
international institutions faces two key challenges --
specifying in a systematic manner the mechanisms through
which they have effects on states, and unpacking the
implicit and often underspecified models of domestic
politics employed in earlier research on them. Oddly, or
better said, encouragingly, that article was written by
two rational-choice institutionalists. Indeed, strikingly
similar challenges confront the constructivist study of
international norms and institutions; to meet them,
constructivists will need to delimit and specify more
clearly their claims about socialization. In turn, this
suggests three directions for future work: (1)
distinguishing socialization in or by
international institutions; (2) explaining variance in
the mechanisms through which socialization occurs; and
(3) developing theories of action that can supplement
those embedded in rationalist analyses. Addressing such
issues will allow constructivists to build bridges to
important subject areas (studies of
the European Union), to other approaches (rational
choice) and to the broader disciplines (cognitive
psychology). [70]
Socialization In or By International
Institutions. As constructivists have developed
arguments linking international institutions and norms to
processes of agent socialization, it is surprising that
little notice has been taken of a long tradition of
similar studies on the European Union (EU) -- arguably
the most powerful international institution/organization
in existence today. Starting with the work of Ernie Haas
and other neofunctionalists, students of the EU have
always been centrally concerned with modeling and
empirically mapping its putative socialization effects.
Admittedly, early work along these lines was marred by
serious theoretical and methodological flaws, which
largely discredited it. [71]
A newer generation of scholarship, however, marks a
considerable advance, utilizing more sophisticated data
collection methods (in-depth interviews, in combination
with carefully designed questionnaires and archival
research, say) and a broader set of analytic tools
(theories of persuasion and small group dynamics). A
consideration of these more recent studies alerts one to
a crucial distinction that should be made when exploring
socialization dynamics: socialization in or by
international institutions. Constructivists in IR have
been concerned mainly with the latter, examining
socialization by international institutions writ large:
the efforts of NGOs, advocacy networks, powerful states,
committed activists, international organizations,
etc, to diffuse new norms to states or agents
within them. As argued, this has led scholars to
overemphasize a view of socialization as a politics of
protest and mobilization. [72]
In contrast, students of the EU have often been
concerned with studying socialization within
international institutions writ small: dynamics of
deliberation in the EU Commission, working groups of its
Council of Ministers, or within the dense bureaucratic
networks that connect Brussels with national capitals.
Given this focus, it comes as no surprise that they
conceptualize socialization in different terms from most
constructivists, emphasizing argumentation and persuasion
within relatively insulated settings and over shorter
time periods. Put differently, their implicit view is one
of socialization driven by social learning. [73]
A consideration of this work could have two benefits
for constructivists. First, it will broaden the empirical
data set on norm-driven socialization, with the added
benefit of simultaneously expanding our understanding of
socialization -- that is, as both a politics of
protest/mobilization and a process of social learning.
Second, because the EU literature on socialization
stresses the institutional pre-conditions under which it
is more likely, this will help constructivists think more
systematically about the role institutions may play in
their own studies. Consider my Ukrainian case. High
levels of social learning were promoted not just by the
noviceness of the agents involved; institutional context
was crucial as well. The centralized, autonomous nature
of Ukrainian political institutions created high levels
of insulation -- that is, a situation were socialization
by an international institution/organization (the CE)
effectively resembled socialization within such an
institution. The result was that predicted by EU
scholars: enhanced roles for persuasion and social
learning as drivers of socialization.
Boundary and Scope Conditions. It is all
well and good to demonstrate empirically that norms spark
multiple -- mobilization, learning -- dynamics; however,
the analytic challenge is to develop scope conditions
that specify when and under what conditions one is more
likely than the other. Moreover, given that the
mobilization mechanism appears largely premised on a
consequentialist behavioral logic, while the learning
dynamic seems based on an alternative one (see below), the elaboration of such
conditions may have the added benefit of promoting
dialogue between rational choice and constructivism. [74]
The growing body of empirical work suggests three
possibilities. First, an important scope condition may be
the structure of domestic political institutions. The
starting point here is the well established fact that
historically constructed domestic institutions shape the
pattern of interaction between state and society in a
systematic way across countries. Of course, this is an
insight drawn from the rich historical institutionalist
literature in comparative politics and its close
theoretical relation in IR: work on domestic structures. [75]
Elsewhere, I have argued that it is precisely the
structure of state-society relations that predicts
variance in the two dominant socialization mechanisms
uncovered by constructivists. In a liberal polity such as
the US, with strong social inputs to policymaking, the
protest/mobilization mechanism is more probable; in
countries with a more complex relation between state and
society (Germany above), I predict a combination of the
protest and learning dynamics. Essentially, an argument
of this type introduces domestic institutions as an
intervening variable, one that structures and channels
the socialization process. [76]
Second, consider issue area, with the argument being
that certain policy domains are more likely to witness
the social protest/mobilization favored in recent
research. When it comes to human rights, say, it would be
surprising not to find such mobilization at work. In
contrast, normative socialization on more technocratic
and obscure topics -- for example, security or the
intricacies of regulatory reform -- might be more a
process of social learning among elites.
Much of the constructivist literature
supports such a hypothesis. In studies of global human
rights, general environmental and racial-equality norms,
these scholars uncover more evidence of socialization
driven by mobilization. However, research on the spread
of international security, welfare or specific (and hence
technocratic) environmental norms suggests a much greater
role for social learning as a key mechanism linking the
international and national levels. Further support for
this issue-area hypothesis comes from recent work on
norm-driven socialization within the EU. Many of the
norms and standards promoted by it are highly
technocratic; not surprisingly, analysts have thus
uncovered considerable evidence of social learning as the
primary motor of socialization. [77]
Third, a key scope factor may be the
degree to which a regional/international norm contains
prescriptive guidance -- robustness. A norm is robust if
it embodies clear prescriptions, which provide guidance
to agents as they develop preferences and interests on a
issue; in turn, clear prescriptions imply a degree of
shared consensus at the regional/systemic level. Thus,
high levels of both specificity and intersubjective
agreement are indicators of a robust norm. A priori,
one might hypothesize that robust norms, precisely
because they are held by a meaningful number of the
relevant international/regional actors and would thus be
carried by broader transnational networks, are more
likely to generate societal mobilization at the national
level. [78]
Towards a Constructivist
Theory of Action. There is an emerging debate on
the relation of constructivism to rationalism, with a
number of different claims being advanced. For example,
some argue that constructivism, by endogenizing interest
formation, supplements rational choice, while others
claim that it “seizes the middle ground”
between rational choice and postmodernism. [79]
This essay argues that constructivism is not just the
inductive study of interest/identity formation, where it
provides the raw material for the standard rationalist
“two-step.” Rather, it represents an
alternative approach to social action, one based on a
behavioral logic different from that embedded in most
rational-choice accounts. Such a stand is motivated by
nothing more than a simple empirical fact: In the real,
here and now social world, there is often something going
on that cannot meaningfully be reduced to strategic
exchange among calculating, self-interested actors. [80]
Many constructivists would appear to agree. Consider
the work of Finnemore, Sikkink and Keck, who talk of the
“the strategic activity of actors in an
intersubjectively structured political universe,”
and of a process of “strategic social
construction.” In terms of the behavioral logic,
agents, here, are making “detailed means-ends
calculations to maximize their utilities,” but these
utilities are shaped by normative commitments. Moreover,
the causal arrows run both ways, with strategic exchange
sometimes leading to the construction of norms, and, at
other times, the social construction of norms making
possible later strategic interaction. This insight is
important. It captures an important slice of the
empirical reality seen in a growing number of
constructivist studies, and also goes well beyond
“the division of labor thesis,” where
constructivism and rational choice are used sequentially
and with a very specific temporal ordering: first
constructivism (endogenization of interests), then
rational choice (strategic exchange
on the basis of those interests). Yet, at the same time,
these scholars fail to challenge rationalism’s
underlying -- consequentialist -- theory of action. [81]
On the last point, it is indeed true that many
constructivists invoke a logic of appropriatness, but
this is not a theory of action. Such a behavioral logic
describes the endpoint of a social dynamic, where norms
have been internalized. Actors are not choosing or
consciously acting in any meaningful sense; they are
following scripts and rules. It is thus not very helpful
if one is interested in the process through which
norm-driven socialization occurs. [82]
This unsatisfactory state of affairs has recently
intersected with an interesting theoretical debate among
German IR scholars, who have argued that Habermas’
theory of communicative action can provide a possible
alternative theory of action through which agents
discover their preferences. Many in the German debate
sensibly argue that communication and persuasion play
central roles in the socialization process through which
norms become internalized, but that we lack adequate
tools to theorize them. As a point of departure, this is
excellent; however, more worrisome is the suggestion that
Habermas’ work is helpful for scholars concerned
with real world, empirical phenomena. [83]
The problem is that Habermas’ approach is
normative. It provides little sense of “the various
social mechanisms that might help us better to understand
how social systems and individuals’ actions
mesh” -- that is, the processes through which norms
may socialize agents. Indeed, much of the German debate
has been at an abstract and meta-theoretical level, which
means that tough issues of empirical operationalization
have been avoided. Even in those instances where Habermas is employed empirically, the
case studies are at best illustrative, suggesting the
heuristic, but not the operational and empirical, value
of his approach. [84]
Of course, it is always easy to be a critic. Can
anything more positive be said? In fact, throughout this
essay, I have argued that a process of social learning
may be helpful in modelling the non-consequentialist
agent actions that lead to norm internalization. At this
point, some constructivists may cry foul: To talk of
learning at the level of particular agents is to start
down the slippery slope toward methodological
individualism. However, social learning, where actors
change their preferences during the process of
interaction, is not methodologically individualist in any
meaningful sense. Moreover, as Kahler has usefully
reminded IR theorists, individualist approaches need not
imply rationality, by which he means a particular theory
of action. [85]
For my learning argument, however, the devil is in the
theoretical details. An empirically grounded theory of
social learning must model the process by which norms
connect to agents, advancing hypotheses for the
conditions under which learning from norms will lead to
preference change, as opposed to consequentialist
strategic adaptation. A start at such a theory would
specify structural pre-conditions, that is the likelihood
that agents in a particular national setting will be
receptive to socialization by prescriptions embodied in a
norm. As I argued earlier, both theoretical logic as well
as accumulating empirical evidence suggest that the fit
between international and domestic normative structures
will play a key role here.
Specifically, where there is a
mismatch or lack of cultural match between systemic and
institutionalized domestic norms in a given policy area,
I would predict a drastic slowing in learning because of
cognitive dissonance or framing problems -- a dynamic
seemingly at work in both my German and Russian cases.
Put more formally, in this situation of conflicting
norms, social learning is less likely than the simple
sort. Since simple learning is premised on a
consequentialist theory of action, there is nothing
particularly new or unique in the behavioral logic
driving normative socialization under such conditions. On
the other hand, where regional/systemic norms face lower
domestic normative barriers, the likelihood of social
learning is increased. In this latter case, agents are
not really making careful means-ends calculations, but,
instead, puzzling. [86]
The foregoing is only a start at developing a
distinctively constructivist theory of action and social
learning; much work remains. For one, the analysis is
still too structural, arguing, in essence, for a fit
between international and dominant domestic norms. Yet,
even in those instances where the mismatch is great (my
German study), one still finds evidence of agent-level
learning and socialization. This suggests my structural
first cut is best viewed as a base line, which is then
supplemented with the more contingent and
context-dependent factors highlighted above: the degree
of agent noviceness (German NGOs established 25 years ago
versus Russian NGOs set up 10 years ago versus Ukrainian
NGOs only 2-3 years old); elite/generational turnover
(Russian-Ukrainian contrast); nature of institutional
setting (insulated or not); etc.
In addition, while criticizing
constructivists for underspecifying their terms, I have
done the same: My arguments about social learning are
themselves incomplete. For example, a very active process
of communication and persuasion may be the dynamic
promoting learning. If so, then there are rich
literatures in communications research and social
psychology waiting to be exploited by constructivists. To
take just one example: This work argues that persuasion
(and, thus, social learning) is more probable with agents
who are novices. In aggregate terms, this hypothesis
likely explains my differential Ukrainian-German results:
Learning was more prevalent in a new country with many
agents in genuinely novel situations (Ukraine) and was
less evident in a well established country where agents
operated in a dense and highly institutionalized set of
material and normative structures (Germany). [87]
Whatever the case, my many references throughout this
essay to learning, role conflict, persuasion and framing
suggest that as constructivists begin to model the
micro-foundations and behavioral logics of norm-driven
socialization, the benefits of an exchange with
cognitive/social psychology would be great. Absent such a
move, these scholars will have no real understanding of
how agents in the near-term here and now are socialized
by systemic norms. Moreover, constructivist models of
socialization will continue to be based on an incomplete
and empirically inaccurate set of theoretical (politics
as only protest/contention) and ontological assumptions
(domestic agents as only reactive strategizers).
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Footnotes
* Paper prepared for
delivery at a seminar sponsored by Cornell University�s
Peace Studies Program (Ithaca, NY) and at the
International Studies Association Annual Convention
(Washington, DC) -- both in February 1999. An earlier
version was presented at the workshop on "Ideas,
Culture and Political Analysis," Center for
International Studies, Princeton University, May 1998.
The financial support of the German Marshall Fund of the
United States and Norwegian Research Council is
gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks to Jim Caporaso
and Andy Moravcsik for spurring to me to address the
issues raised in this paper, and to Martha Finnemore,
Iain Johnston, Johan P. Olsen, Frank Schimmelfennig and
Hans Peter Schmitz for comments on previous drafts.
** ARENA/University
of Oslo, P.O. Box 1143 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway.
E-mail: jeffrey.checkel@arena.uio.no.
URL: http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/presentation/Checkel.htm.
[1].
Finnemore 1996a, chapter 1 is quite explicit on this
score. On constructivism’s underspecification of
agency, also see the excellent critique in Moravcsik
1997, 539-40.
[2].
Paul DiMaggio, “Interest and Agency in Institutional
Theory”; and Lynne Zucker, “Where Do
Institutional Patterns Come From? Organizations as Actors
in Social Systems,” both in Zucker 1988, 9-11, 27.
Also see Strang and Chang 1993, 237-38. More
specifically, the critique here is directed at US-based
constructivists who belong to its so-called
“modernist” or “conventional” branch.
European constructivists, in contrast, are more indebted
to French social theory or continental political
theorists (Habermas, say) for their theoretical
foundations.
[3].
Lynne Zucker, “The Role of Institutionalization in
Cultural Persistence,” in DiMaggio and Powell 1991,
88, 103-107, highlights the outcome/process distinction.
Frank Dobbin, “Cultural Models of Organizations: The
Social Construction of Rational Organizing
Principles,” in Crane 1994, chapter 5, situates SI
within the broader organizational theory debates.
[4]. For
example, Swidler 1986; DiMaggio and Powell 1991, chapters
2, 7, 8, 10; Meyer and Scott 1992, 1-7, passim;
Soysal 1994; and Ron 1997. Also see Steve Derne,
“Cultural Conceptions of Human Motivation and their
Significance for Culture Theory,” in Crane 1994,
chapter 11; and Johnston and Klandermans 1995, chapter 1.
Hechter 1983, chapter 1; Coleman 1986; and Hechter and
Kanazawa 1997 are useful critiques of how SI and other
schools within sociology lost sight of agency. The status
of SI as an alternative to rational choice is also a
point of confusion. Compare Paul DiMaggio and Walter
Powell, “Introduction,” in DiMaggio and Powell
1991, 8-14; Ronald Jepperson, “Institutions,
Institutional Effects and Institutionalism,” in
DiMaggio and Powell 1991, 157-59; Walter Powell,
“Expanding the Scope of Institutional
Analysis,” in DiMaggio and Powell 1991, 188-90; and
Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 911.
[5].
Price 1998. Also see Roundtable 1997.
[6].
For a superb critique of “as if” reasoning and
how it has impoverished contemporary IR, see Wendt 1996,
chapter 2. To be fair, constructivists are not the only
ones who, in critiquing rational choice, have fallen back
on implicit “as if” assumptions of their own,
failing to explicate alternative microtheories of
process; similar problems have bedeviled work on prospect
theory, learning theory and analogical reasoning. See
Levy 1997, 101; and Peterson 1997, 266-67.
[7].
Sigel 1965, 1. Also see Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990,
287-92; and Risse and Sikkink 1999, 7-8.
[8].
The longer-term focus is especially prevalent in
constructivist studies of human-rights norms -- Sikkink
1993a, for example. Sociological institutionalists
studying the diffusion of global norms and culture are
also prone to adopt long time scales -- decades or more.
See Meyer 1997a, 1997b.
[9].
See Cortell and Davis 1996 (on the US); and Moravcsik
1995 (on West Europe), for example. On reframing terms of
debate, students of social movements make a similar point
when they discuss how movements create collective action
frames. Tarrow 1998, chapter 7.
[10].
See Nadelmann 1990; Charney 1993, 543-550; Sikkink 1993a;
Brysk 1993; Klotz 1995a; Idem 1995b; Wapner 1995;
Ron 1997; Hawkins 1997; Keck and Sikkink 1998, passim;
and Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999. In the international
law literature, an important synthesizing effort along
these lines is Koh 1997, Part III, passim.
[11].
For evidence of norms constituting domestic societal
agents, see Wapner 1995. Compare this socialization
dynamic with the implicit rationalist account in Ron
1997.
[12].
Risse and Sikkink 1999; see also Keck and Sikkink 1998,
3, 28-29. The latter makes especially clear what my
comments here suggest: There are numerous linkages
between constructivist work of this type and an earlier
generation of research on social movements. On this
point, also see Tarrow 1998, chapter 11.
[13].
Peter Haas 1990; Idem 1992; Soysal 1994; Stein
1994; Risse 1995b; Finnemore 1996a; Robert Herman,
“Identity, Norms and National Security: The Soviet
Foreign Policy Revolution and the End of the Cold
War,” in Katzenstein 1996, chapter 8; Wendt 1996,
chapters 7-8; and Checkel 1997a, chapter 5.
[14].
Heclo 1974, 305; Ruggie 1998, 867-69; Adler 1991; Idem
1997, 337-41; and Ernst Haas 1990, chapter 2. Also see
Underdal 1998, 20-23.
[15].
On agent/cognitive uncertainty, see Moltz 1993, 301-309
(organizational and decisionmaking literatures); and Haas
1992 (epistemic approach). Levy 1994 is a good
introduction to the learning literature.
[16].
Price 1998, 615, 617, 621-22, 627, 639, passim. On
Finnemore, see Finnemore 1996a, passim; and, for a
critique similar to the one advanced here, Johnston
1998a, 12-13.
[17].
On Argentina and human-rights norms, see Brysk 1993; and
Hawkins 1997, both of which undertheorize the role of
power highlighted here. On hegemonic imposition and
normative socialization more generally, see Ikenberry and
Kupchan 1990. Finnemore 1996b offers valuable insights on
why constructivists have been prone to overlook
considerations of hegemony/power.
[18].
The methodologically inclined reader might accuse me of
omitted variable bias here: By organizing the analysis
via the socialization pathways identified in earlier
research, I may miss other possible socialization
mechanisms. However, in this case, the danger of
systematic bias is reduced by constructivists’
largely atheoretical work at the national level, with
their empirical foci varying considerably, as my review
documents. There is thus a reasonable chance they have
identified the major socialization pathways.
[19].
The extraordinary reaction to and coverage of the arrest
of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the UK in
late 1998 vividly attests to the growing strength of the
global human rights regime. See “A Survey of
Human-Rights Law,” Economist, December 5,
1998. Put differently, its norms are robust -- see
concluding section below.
[20].
See Bauboeck 1994, Preface. On the theoretical logic
linking international institutional density to normative
diffusion, see Weber 1994; and Risse-Kappen 1995a,
chapter 1.
[21].
Council of Europe, Forum (December 1994), p.34.
For the treaty, see Council of Europe 1994. On the
European rights regime more generally, see Donnelly 1986,
620-24; and Sikkink 1993b.
[22].
Council of Europe 1997, 15-17, passim. For the
1963 treaty, see Council of Europe 1996, Appendix II.
[23].
See Katzenstein 1993; and Florini 1996, 367, passim.
For full documentation of the claims advanced here, as
well as discussion of the methods used to ascertain the
existence of norms independent of their national-level
effects, see Checkel 1999a, 94-96.
[24].
George and McKeown 1985.
[25].
On the sociological logic, see below. For
constructivist-ideational empirical research that
documents the importance of domestic normative barriers,
see Adler 1987; Sikkink 1991; and Klotz 1995b, chapter 7.
On institutionalization and the political influence of
norms and other ideational variables, see Longstreth
1992; Katzenstein 1993; and Goldstein 1993.
[26].
My techniques replicate Zuern's excellent suggestions for
“using documents” and “asking
experts” when one wants to establish agent interests
independent of behavior, a methodological challenge
analogous to the one faced here. Zuern 1997, 298-302. On
triangulation and norms, also see Raymond 1997, 219-222.
[27].
The German case is fully documented in Checkel 1999a; the
Ukrainian study in Checkel 1999b; and the Russian case in
Checkel 1997b, c. My German field work was conducted in
four rounds: March 1995, June-August 1995, May 1996,
August 1996 - January 1998.
[28].
Martina Keller, “Einbuergern, Ausbuergern,
Einbuergern,” Die Zeit, March 27, 1997.
[29].
For background, see Kanstroom 1993.
[30].
Kreuzer 1997, 2.
[31].
On role conflict, see Stryker 1980; and the related
discussion in Goffman 1974, chapter 10. For an empirical
application, see the excellent analysis in Barnett 1993.
On cultural matches, see Meyer and Strang 1993.
[32].
See Jochen Buchsteiner, “Konzepte, die erst reifen
muessen,” Die Zeit, November 18, 1994;
Interview, Thomae-Venske, Commissioner for Foreigners'
Affairs, Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg, May
1996; and GermNews, January 7, 1999. For the
flyer, see “Handreichung zum Thema: Doppelte
Staatsbuergerschaft” (Berlin, 1995).
[33].
See “Unser Ziel: 1 Million Unterschriften fuer die
doppelte Staatsbuergerschaft” (Berlin, no date);
Interviews, Ismail Kosan, Member of the Berlin
Parliament, Buendnis 90/Die Gruenen Fraction, May 1996;
Andreas Schulze, Staff Member, Office of F.O. Wolf,
German Member of the European Parliament, Berlin, May
1996.
[34].
“Informationen zum deutschen Staatsbuergerrecht:
Doppelstaatsbuergerschaften” (Berlin, no date).
[35].
On thin rationalism more generally, see Green and Shapiro
1994, 17-19. Thanks to Frank Schimmelfennig for
discussion on these points.
[36].
Interviews, Kennan Kolat, President, and Safter Cinar,
Speaker, Tuerkischer Bund in Berlin/Brandenburg, May
1996; Mustafa Cakmakoglu, President, Tuerkische Gemeinde
zu Berlin, May 1996.
[37].
See Peter Altmaier and Norbert Roettgen, “Die Uhr
laeuft: Das Staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht muss noch bis zur
Bundestagswahl 98 reformiert werden,” Die Zeit,
August 15, 1997; and Hans-Joerg Heims,
“Beruhigungspillen fuer die jungen Wilden: Der
Streit um die doppelte Staatsangehoerigkeit spaltet die
CDU,” Sueddeutsche Zeitung, April 23, 1997.
[38].
Helmut Loelhoeffel, “Koalition vertagt ihren
Streit,” Frankfurter Rundschau, October 31,
1997. New CDU leader Schaeuble has expressed similar
sentiments. See “Ich mache mir keine
Illusionen” (interview with Schaeuble), Die Zeit,
January 7, 1999.
[39].
See Horst Eylmann, “Es gibt keine nationale
Blutgruppe,” Die Zeit, April 18, 1997; and
“Schnellere Beratungen gefordert: Juengere
Abgeordnete zur Novellierung des
Staatsangehoerigkeitsrechts,” Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, April 16, 1996.
[40].
Jochen Buchsteiner, “Am liebsten abschirmen,” Die
Zeit, February 2, 1996; Interviews, Cem Oezdemir,
Bundestag Deputy, Green Party, March 1995; Dr. Camelia
Sonntag-Volgast; German Ministry of Interior, March,
August 1995; Dr. Jens Meyer-Ladewig and Detlef Wasser,
German Ministry of Justice, August 1995; Thomae-Venske;
Safter Cinar; Ismail Kosan.
[41].
See Spiros Simitis, “Zwei Paesse - warum
nicht?,” Die Zeit, January 27, 1995;
“Auslaenderrechts-Tango im Bundestag,” Sueddeutsche
Zeitung, November 14, 1996; “Debatte zur
Neuregelung des Staatsangehoerigkeitsrechts am 30.
Oktober 1997,” Das Parlament Nr.46, November
7, 1997; and “Die Koalition lehnt die erleichterte
Einbuergerung von Auslaenderkindern ab,” Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, March 28, 1998. On the 1993
changes, see Deutsches Staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht
1993, 63.
[42].
On the proposed changes, see Koalitionsvertrag 1998, Teil
IX; and, for overview and background, “Germany:
Citizenship, Asylum,” Migration News 5
(December 1998); and “Der Kampf um die Paesse,”
Der Spiegel, January 11, 1999.
[43].
Roger de Weck, “Pro: Zwei Paesse,” Die Zeit,
January 7, 1999; and Manfred Ertel, “Regalmaessig
akzeptiert: In den meisten europaeischen Laendern ist die
doppelte Staatsangehoerigkeit kein Problem fuer Politik
und Buerger,” Der Spiegel, January 11, 1999.
My observations here are preliminary: I have conducted no
fieldwork in Germany since the September 1998 election
and thus lack the interview data that is especially
crucial for documenting social learning.
[44].
See “CSU May Challenge SPD’s Citizenship Plans
in Court,” GermNews, January 6, 1999; and, on
Lafontaine, “Possibility for Talks Concerning Dual
Citizenship,” GermNews, January 12, 1999.
[45].
“Opposition Parties Clash over Citizenship
Plans,” Financial Times, January 5, 1999;
also see “Kampagne gegen Doppel-Staatsbuergerschaft:
FDP laesst die Union allein,” Sueddeutsche
Zeitung, January 5/6, 1999.
[46].
Also see the Ukrainian case below. More generally on the
linkages between elite turnover and normative change, see
Stein 1994, 162-63, passim.
[47].
Freeman 1998, 101-104. Also see Joppke 1998. I thank Andy
Moravcsik, Fritz Scharpf and Rey Koslowski for discussion
on these points.
[48].
The forthcoming Risse, Ropp and Sikkink volume, which
represents the state of the art in this area, is much
better than most previous efforts at operationalizing a
process-tracing technique; however, it fails to employ
counterfactuals in a systematic manner. Risse, Ropp and
Sikkink 1999.
[49].
Interviews, Directorate of Human Rights, Council of
Europe, April 1997, November 1998. Also see Mendelson
1998. My Ukrainian fieldwork was conducted in two rounds:
May 1994; June 1997.
[50].
Markus 1996a, 1996b; and “Ukraine: Founding
Father,” The Economist, July 6, 1996.
[51].
Interviews, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Kyiv, May 1994;
Political Directorate, Council of Europe, April 1997. In
April 1998, Tarasyuk was appointed to the post of Foreign
Minister.
[52].
Interviews, Petro Chaliy, Head, Citizenship Department,
Presidential Administration, Kyiv, June 1997; Valeriy
Hrebenyuk, Chief Advisor for International Law and
Organizations, Directorate of Foreign Policy,
Presidential Administration, Kyiv, June 1997.
[53].
Interviews, as in two preceding notes; and Halyna
Freeland, Counsel to the Chairman, Ukrainian Legal
Foundation, Kyiv, June 1997. On moral or norm
entrepreneurs, see Finnemore 1996a; Florini 1996, 375;
and Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 896-901.
[54].
On the link between state structure and learning, also
see Pierson 1993, 617-18.
[55].
Interview, Nikolay Kulinich, Ukrainian Institute of
International Relations, Kyiv, May 1994.
[56].
Interviews, as in notes 51, 52, 53.
[57].
For the analysis here and below, see Interviews, Natalie
Belitser, Coordinator, Center for Pluralism, Pylyp Orlyk
Institute for Democracy, Kyiv, June 1997; Halyna Freeland
and Natalia Kravets, Counsel to the Chairman and
Executive Director, respectively, Ukrainian Legal
Foundation, Kyiv, June 1997; Olga Kornienko, Program
Coordinator, Ukrainian Center for Human Rights, Kyiv,
June 1997; Oleksandr Pavlichenko, Director, Center for
Information and Documentation of the Council of Europe in
Ukraine, Kyiv, June 1997; and Serhiy Holovatiy, Ukrainian
Minister of Justice, Kyiv, June 1997.
[58].
Also see “Human Rights Organization Officially
Registered,” Kiev UNIAN, August 15, 1994, as
reported in FBIS-SOV-94-157, August 15, 1994,
which documents the prolonged efforts of one human rights
NGO simply to gain recognition from the Ukrainian state.
[59].
Chrystia Freeland, “Ukraine Justice Minister
Sacked,” Financial Times, August 22, 1997. My
analysis here intersects with that of Cliff Bob, who has
also argued for more attention to the strategic
incentives of domestic NGOs as an important supplement to
the more standard constructivist account, where
transnational networks reach down and select certain
national NGOs as partners. Bob 1998.
[60].
On the Tsarist/Soviet legacy in Ukraine, see Von Hagen
1995.
[61].
On the historical development of civic, inclusive,
conceptions of Ukrainian nationhood, see Laba 1996,
12-13.
[62].
A good rationalist study of the European rights regime is
Moravcsik 1995.
[63].
Interviews, CE Political Directorate, May 1994, June-July
1995; Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, March 1995. My
Russian fieldwork was conducted in three rounds: March
1995, June 1995, and November 1998.
[64].
On the spring 1997 episode, see Checkel 1997b. For the
other points, see Interviews, Russian Foreign Ministry,
Moscow, March 1995, Strasbourg, July 1995; Dr. Elena
Nemirovskaya, Director, and Aleksandr Sogomonov, Deputy
Director, Moscow School of Political Studies, Moscow,
March 1995; and Office of CE Secretary General,
Strasbourg, July 1995, April 1997. Also see Open Media
Research Institute, Daily Digest, November 19,
1996; January 31, 1997; and March 7, 1997.
[65].
For elite interview and survey data supporting these
points, see Haney 1995. On the dominant role ascribed to
Russians within the multinational Russian Federation, see
the “Concept on the State Nationalities Policy”
adopted in June, 1996, as reported in Chinyaeva 1996.
Also see James Billington, “Let Russia be
Russian,” New York Times, June 16, 1996.
[66].
See Zakonodatel'nye akty Rossiyskoy Federatsii po
voprosam grazhdanstva (Moscow: Komissiya po voprosam
grazhdanstva pri prezidente Rossiyskoy Federatsii, 1994).
[67].
For the treaties and CE commentary on them, see Council
of Europe 1995a, 1995b.
[68].
Interviews, Dr. Mark Entin, First Deputy Director,
Directorate of Pan-European Cooperation, Russian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, June 1995; Yuriy Berestnev,
Vice-Consul, Consulate General of the Russian Federation
in Strasbourg, July 1995; and Dr. Mark Entin, Acting
Consulate General of the Russian Federation in
Strasbourg, November 1998. On the coercive use of norms,
see Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990.
[69].
Interviews, CE Legal Directorate, May 1994, June-July
1995, May 1996 (by telephone).
[70].
For the challenges facing rational-choice work on
international institutions, see Martin and Simmons 1998, passim.
[71].
Haas 1958. For trenchant critiques of this early
EU/socialization work, see Martin and Simmons 1998,
735-36; and, especially, Pollack 1998, passim.
[72].
Checkel 1999c critically reviews this more recent EU work
on socialization. Within it, exemplars include Beyers
1998; Hooghe 1998; and, especially, Joerges and Neyer
1997a, b.
[73].
An important exception to this critique of
constructivists is the work of Iain Johnston, who has
examined socialization dynamics within international
institutions. See Johnston 1998a, b. Also see
Risse-Kappen 1996. Haas’ later work on international
organizations, when his empirical focus was not the EU,
is also relevant here. E. Haas 1990.
[74].
On the need for scope conditions, also see Finnemore and
Sikkink 1998, 913; Kahler 1998, 922, 928, 936-40; Ruggie
1998, 883-85; and Schimmelfennig 1999.
[75].
In the comparative literature, see Katzenstein 1985;
Longstreth 1992; and Bleich 1998. On domestic structures,
see Risse-Kappen 1991.
[76].
Checkel 1997c, which also demonstrates that domestic
structures explain much of the variance in socialization
mechanisms in existing constructivist work.
[77].
On human rights, general environmental and
racial-equality norms, see Ron 1997; Wapner 1995; and
Klotz 1995b. For security, welfare and technocratic
environmental norms, see Thomas Risse-Kappen,
“Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The
Case of NATO,” in Katzenstein 1996, chapter 10;
Strang and Chang 1993; and P. Haas 1990. On the EU, see
above.
[78].
Of course, my phrasing begs the question of how one
operationalizes “a meaningful number of the relevant
international/regional actors.” However, helpful
here may be Finnemore and Sikkink’s analysis of
“tipping” and “threshold points.”
Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 901. Legro 1997 is an
excellent methodological discussion of how to gauge norm
robustness independent of national-level effects.
[79].
Compare Adler 1997; Checkel 1998; Katzenstein, Keohane,
Krasner 1998; and Risse 1998. The quote comes from Adler.
More accurately, this is a debate between
modernist/conventional constructivists and rationalists.
Critical constructivists, for the most part, deny the
possibility of any such debate on deeper epistemological
and ontological grounds. See Hopf 1998; and Price and
Reus-Smit 1998.
[80].
On the rationalist two-step, see Legro 1996.
[81].
Keck and Sikkink 1998, 4-5; and, especially, Finnemore
and Sikkink 1998, 910-11. Recent prominent endorsements
of the division of labor argument include Bates, de
Figueiredo and Weingast 1998, 635, passim; and
Katzenstein, Keohane and Krasner 1998, 679-82.
[82].
See March and Olsen 1989, passim; and Risse 1998,
5-6. Thanks to Johan Olsen for discussions that have
clarified my thinking on these points.
[83].
Risse 1998 provides an excellent summary of this debate.
For the points here and below, I am indebted to
discussions with Michael Zuern.
[84].
Risse 1998, 24-34, provides empirical examples suggesting
Habermas’ heuristic value. The
normative-theory/empirical-process disconnect highlighted
here is particularly evident in Reus-Smit 1997, 564,
569-70, passim. For the quote and other critical
commentary, see Axel Van Den Berg, “Is Sociological
Theory too Grand for Social Mechanisms?,” in
Hedstroem and Swedberg 1998, 206-12, at 212; and Eriksen
and Weigaard 1997.
[85].
Kahler 1998, 923.
[86].
On these differeing cognitive/behavioral logics, see
Cohen and Levinthal 1990. For one effort at
operationalizing cultural matches in a rigorous manner
that is then applied empirically, see Checkel 1999a, 87,
92, passim. Also see the discussion of role
conflict at Note 31 above.
[87].
On persuasion, see Checkel 1999c; Finnemore and Sikkink
1998, 914-15; and, especially, Johnston 1998a.
[Date of publication in the ARENA
Working Paper series: 15.01.1998]
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