The Diffusion of Norms in International Security:

The Cases of Small Arms and Landmines

Denise Garcia

Graduate Institute of International Studies University of Geneva

4, Rue des Buis 1202 Geneva, Switzerland denisegarcia@hotmail.com

Prepared for delivery at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 29-September 1, 2002. Copyright by the American Political Science

Association.

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It is precisely the control over the use of arms that states guard most jealously.

Martha Finnemore Introduction The "construction"1 of influence in the processes of diffusion of ideas, among different state and non-state actors in International Relations is of interest here. Predominant theories of International Relations mostly focus on the state as a central subject of analysis. However, developments in international politics especially after the end of the Cold War enabled the rise of certain subjects in the international agenda, which may not be fully explained by mainstream International Relations theories. Neorealism (structure-based) and Realism (power and interest-based) do not account for how interests can be also influenced from outside the realm of the state; i.e. by non-state actors. This paper addresses the diffusion of ideas in international security politics, primarily using the case of small arms and light weapons and drawing some parallels with the landmines case2. The analysis of the rise and consolidation of the small arms issue in the international agenda is interesting in terms of the theoretical implications to the study of International Relations. The small arms issue raises significant normative questions to the literature in International Relations that is concerned with the study of norms. A decade ago, there were no concerted efforts to promote standards regulating the production, use, stockpiling and transfer of small arms and light weapons. During the Cold War, the international community devoted its attention to the creation of mechanisms of regulation and regimes to control weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, there is nowadays a normative framework that is in place addressing chemical and nuclear weapons. This regulatory framework of control and disarmament is absent vis--vis conventional weapons, in general, and small arms in particular. Hence for International Relations scholars concerned with norms and the role of principled ideas in changing states interests, it is useful to gain an understanding of how norms and standards related to small arms rise and become salient3. In this process, it is essential to look at which actors are responsible for the diffusion of new normative standards related to small arms. Small arms and light weapons have been growing as a topic of concern in the international agenda since mid-1990s. The first international conference addressing this issue took place in July 2001, under the auspices of the United Nations 4. This was an indicator that the small

* I thank Yasmin Naqvi for her invaluable editorial work. 1 "Construction" is used to allude to a growing constructivist literature preoccupied with the role of ideas and normative standards in the processes of interest formation. 2 According to the First Report of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms of 1997, part of the United Nations Resolution A/52/298, August 27 1997, pursuant to paragraph 1 of General Assembly Resolution 50/70 B of 12 December 1995, Small Arms are: revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub -machine guns, assault rifles, light machine guns; and Light Weapons are defined as: heavy machine-guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tank guns and recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-tank missile and rocket systems, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, mortars of caliber of less than a 100 mm. Ammunition and Explosives: cartridges (rounds) for small arms, shells and missiles for light weapons, anti-personnel and anti-tank grenades, landmines. 3 This study recognizes that the initial stage of norm formation is yet when "policy proposals" are being disseminated to then become norms. 4 The United Nations Report of the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, New York, 9-20 July 2001, A/CONF. 192/15, contains the Program of Action to

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arms question is firm on the international agenda. Another indicator is the creation of the Small Arms Survey in 1999. This is a non-governmental think tank located at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. The Swiss government, among others, mostly supports the project which is mainly aimed at generating knowledge about all aspects related to the production, transfer, and stockpiling of small arms. I want to briefly explain how small arms and light weapons have risen as a topic of concern in the international agenda. I contend that contrary to what is commonly supposed, the landmines issue did not encourage the rise of the issue of small arms. In fact both issues were rising in parallel. Overarching changes in perceptions of security and other post-Cold War phenomena created the normative space for such issues to receive more attention from governments and policy makers. This paper will present a non-comprehensive survey of the literature concerned with norms diffusion and formation5. The objective is to outline the main tenets and concerns about norms diffusion within these bodies of literatures. The understanding of the processes of diffusion of norms in international security politics cannot be dissociated from the actors involved; i.e., the agents of change per se. Therefore, the author of this paper considers that the most fruitful approaches in the analysis of norm diffusion, are the ones that associate the study of actors with the processes in which norms and ideas rise and get diffused. I conclude by arguing that the current literature on the diffusion of ideas in International Relations is relatively silent about the crucial importance of the utilization of the Internet in the processes of norm diffusion to promote normative change. Finally, we found that teaching, socialization and coalition-building, mainly through means of conferences and of the Internet, are the most important mechanisms used, for the diffusion of norms related to small arms and also to a great extent, landmines. The Rise of the Issue of Small Arms The rise of the issue of small arms and light weapons in the international agenda took place throughout the 1990s, especially in the later part of the decade. Governmental action concerning small arms happened in parallel with the landmines issue. Changed understandings of security taking place since the end of the Cold War enabled issues such as landmines and small arms to reach prominence in the international agenda. Several factors in the early 1990s provoked a reassessment of the Cold War non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament regime. This reassessment allowed small arms to rise as a multilateral policy problem 6. Probably, the most important incentive was the changed matrix of conflicts in the post-Cold War that enabled intra-state conflicts to assume a bigger importance than inter-state conflicts. Related to this is the multiplication of peacekeeping operations to deal with these conflicts. Such operations had to confront the destabilizing situation of a flood of weapons left unaccounted for by the end of these conflicts. Changes in the international arms trade patterns taking place after the Cold War, all across the world, released considerable parts of arms in surplus arsenals in the market. These elements can be coupled together with a broadened conception of security that came to include human and

Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, A/CONF. 192/L.5/Rev.1. The Program of Action is a politically binding document issued by the conference. 5 The literature analyzed here is mostly restricted to the 1990s and of a constructivist branch of International Relations. 6 This assertion and the enumeration of the factors was made by Krause, Keith, "Norm-Building in Security Spaces: The Emergence of the Light Weapons Problematic", GERSI/REGIS Working Papers (Quebec) 2001.

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societal concerns 7. Therefore, the factors that led to the rise of the small arms issue into the international agenda found resonance within an enabling new normative framework that was not in place before. There are several reasons that explain the overflow of small arms and light weapons, which took place especially after the Cold War. This perception of a "flood" of weapons he lped to thrust action to counter the problems that began to appear as a result of the massive availability of weapons. The very characteristics of the post-Cold War international arms trade have made it possible for small arms and light weapons to become so widespread. Simplifying matters greatly, there was a shift from a Cold War situation of a handful of weapons suppliers to many more suppliers, in the post-Cold War. This contributed to an increase in the parallel arms market as well as an expansion of gunrunners and private arms dealers. There are five particularly noteworthy reasons for this8. First, after the end of the Cold War, large amounts of American and Soviet and ex-Warsaw Pact arms were made available. This was a result of the end of the Cold War requirements of high levels of military preparedness and readiness. In addition, the expansion of NATO membership has placed great demands on new-member States to update their military capacities. Thus the old and surplus arsenals are accessible at cheap prices or as grants to developing countries. The history of the rise of the parallel market provides part of the explanation for the abundance of small arms and light weapons throughout the world. Its history can be traced back to the 1970s. Few events were as important as the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact9. This was perhaps the most important episode that led to the disintegration of the supply-side control over the weapons10. There were several attributes of the Soviet Military-Industrial Complex that had resulted in devastating effects at both regional and international levels. Since 1989, Russia's deep economic crisis caused its economy to diminish by half. However, most significant for the present analysis is the fact that there was a total economic rupture between Russia and other former Soviet Republics, and the Military-Industrial Complex was not equipped to deal with the sudden conversion to a market economy. Previously, the Military-Industrial Complex consumed 15-25% of the economy, as compared to all major Western countries where it occupied 3-6%11. In the first forty years following World War II, a vast amount of capital was consumed by Soviet military production. The sheer size, therefore, of the post-1989 uncontrolled arsenal in the former Soviet Union meant that the arms trade was overwhelmed. As a result, the arms trade at both the regional and the international levels, proved unable to handle the burden and these arms became the epicenter of the black market. Nowadays what is more troublesome are private gunrunners who feed the parallel market rather than the covert supplies carried by states. Covert operations assumed a less important role after the Cold War. Nonetheless, private gunrunners and brokers can hamper efforts to control the proliferation of small arms on an international level. They profit from weak legal

7 Krause, Idem . 8 Garcia, Denise - "World Politics of Restraint - Curbing the Unrestricted Availability and Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Current International Relations", Mmoire presented at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, October 1999, p. 20-26. 9 Naylor, R. T. - The Rise of the Modern Arms Black Market and the Fall of Supply Side Control in "Society Under Siege - Crime, Violence, and Illegal Weapons", ed. by Virginia Gamba, September 1997, p.55. 10 This is an standard term in the literature on the black market regarding the replacement of a controlled black market to a totally unregulated illicit traffic done mostly by private individuals. 11 The Russian Military-Industrial Complex - The Shock of Independence, at Bonn International Center for Conversion, Report 3: Conversion of the Defense Industry in Russia and Eastern Europe, p. 12-13.

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controls or the absence of them to achieve their business worldwide. The Rwandan genocide that was not only committed with "machetes", as it is often claimed, but with all sorts of small arms and light weapons, was possible thanks to an intricate net of gun runners that managed to break the United Nations embargo to Rwanda12.

Second, there are large amounts of weapons in circulation in troubled regions of the world resulting from conflicts that took place during the Cold War. Large -scale American and Soviet-sponsored arms pipelines - or covert arms deliveries - fuelled Cold War conflicts. These arms are still serviceable and constitute a menacing post-Cold War development. The third reason is the remarkable growth of the black market and private arms gunrunners. This phenomenon had begun by the end of the 1970s and slowly unfolded until the end of the Cold War, with its full impact being felt throughout the 1990s. Fourth, the mosaic of arms suppliers and recipients have been dramatically changing since the 1980s, at which time small arms suppliers were restricted to only a few countries. From the end of the 1980s, this pattern has been modif ied so that there is now a larger array of small arms manufacturers in over 90 countries. Fifth, the continuing pace of unregulated licit governmental transfers constitutes a disturbing trend because it adds to the scope of the overall problem. This is so, among other reasons, because governmental transfers are not transparent and thus result in trade with irresponsible governments who often use arms to commit the most serious violations of human rights13. Raising Awareness and Agenda-Setting In 1993 some studies were published in various international journals by arms control practitioners and scholars, already pointing out the dangers and problems associated with the unrestricted availability and proliferation of small arms and light weapons 14. These articles warned on the destabilizing features of the arms trade after the Cold War, such as the uncontrolled transfer of small arms and light weapons to sub-state groups. There were also case studies, on Pakistan for example, that investigated the reasons for the destabilization in Pakistani society that could be found in the massive accumulation of small arms. Along the same lines, another article denounces the destabilizing effects the American arms pipeline furnished to the Afghani war had in the region after the end of the Cold War. Some of these

12 Dyer , Susannah L. and O' Callaghan, Geraldine "One Size Fits All ? Prospects for a Global Convention on Illicit Trafficking by 2000", British American Security Information Council, BASIC Research Report 99.2, April 1999, p.20. 13 Op. cit , Garcia, Denise "World Politics of Restraint - Curbing the Unrestricted Availability and Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Current International Relations", p. 86. 14 Karp, Aaron, "Arming Ethnic Conflict", Arms Control Today, September 1993; Kartha, Tara, "Spread of Arms and Instability", Strategic Analysis, November 1993; Smith, Christopher, "Diffusion of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Pakistan and Northern India", Defense Studies , September 1993; Dikshit, Prashant "Proliferation of Small Arms and Minor Weapons", Strategic Analysis , May 1994; Karp, Aaron, "The Arms Revolution: the Major Impact of Small Arms", The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 1994; Klare, Michael, "Awash in Armaments: Implications of the Trade in Light Weapons", Harvard International Review, Winter 1994-95; Smith, Christopher published "Light Weapons - The Forgotten Dimension of the Arms Trade", Brassey's Defense Yearbook , 1994. Boutwell, Jeffrey, Klare, Michael, and Reed, Laura, eds. Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, a collection of essays form a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995. Singh, Jasjit, Light Weapons and International Security, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, British American Security Information Council, Indian Pugwash Society, and Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, December 1995.

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articles pointed to the existence of gunrunners responsible for fuelling the trade in small arms to conflicting regions of the world. Some authors already at that stage criticized the literature on the arms trade for failing to recognize the drastic changes in the international patterns of the arms trade. An indicator of how both the small arms and the landmines issues rose in parallel is the fact that the Ottawa Treaty banning the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of landmines was signed in December 1997, whereas there were three very important events that launched the small arms issue in the international agenda that happened prior to 1997. One was the 1994 United Nations Mission to Mali. This was one of the decisive events elevating the issue of small arms onto the international agenda. The former President of Mali, Alpha Oumar Konar, asked the United Nations Secretary General to send a mission to Mali, in 1994, to account for the destabilizing situation exacerbated by the large presence of weapons in the society. The United Nations mission concluded that action should be taken in the following four areas: establishment of national commissions in all states wishing to join a possible initiative of disarmament; revision and harmonization of national legislation regarding light weapons; creation of regional arms registers and information networks on arms circulation; and enforcement of the security forces15. From this moment on, a growing international awareness was formed regarding the necessity of creating practical and legislative measures to curb the anarchical situation of proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons in West Africa 16. There was a further impetus to attract attention to the western Africa situation: the "Timbuktu Flame of Peace", a symbolic act that also took place in Mali in March 1996 where approximately 3,000 arms were burned17. The second indicator was the publication of the Supplement to an Agenda for Peace. This document coined the term "micro-disarmament" in January 1995, defined as practical disarmament in the context of the conflicts the United Nations is actually dealing with and of the weapons, most of them light weapons, that area actually killing people in the hundreds of thousands18. Another indicator was the establishment of the Panel of Government Experts on Small Arms on December 1995. Finally, there was the publication, in 1997, of the first report of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms 19. This Report helps to crystallize, in a nascent form, the definition of small arms and light weapons, and also outlines the nature and scope of the problem within several regions of the world. The 1997 Report also delimited the scope of action between the landmines and the small arms issue stating that the latter was already being dealt with in another forum and work should not be overlapping. The success of the international campaign to ban landmines might have encouraged the participation of civil society in the movement to control small arms. However, governmental initiatives were already on the way. In the case of small arms, in contrast to the landmines issue, one may perceive a more influential sponsorship of normative change stemming from

15 Alpha Oumar Konar, "Introduction au Moratoire par le Prsident du Mali", President's speech in Oslo, April 1998. 16 At the time President Konar made this speech (in April 1998), there were 7 to 8 million illicit arms circulating just in West Africa. 17 Poulton, Robin-Edward and Youssouf, Ibrahim ag, A Peace of Timbuktu - Democratic Governance, Development and African Peacemaking, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1998, p. 77-83. 18 For the best study on the evolution of the term micro-disarmament, see, Laurance, Edward and Meek, Sarah, The New Field of Micro-disarmament Addressing the Proliferation and Buildup of Small Arms and Light Weapons, Brief 7, Bonn International Center for Conversion, September 1996. 19 First Report of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms of 1997, part of the United Nations Resolution A/52/298, August 27 1997.

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the states, whereas in the landmines case, it is from non-state actors. Civil society came to participate in the processes associated to the diffusion of new ideas on the problems associated to small arms proliferation in a later stage, following the success of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Civil society in this case, as in the landmines case, constituted an additional political locale for normative change. The establishment of the www.prepcom.org to prepare for the launch of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) happened right after the signing of the Ottawa Treaty in January 1998. The creation of prepcom.org was most influenced by Edward Laurance of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. This website was an important tool to help disseminate awareness about small arms proliferation and to coordinate with relevant actors within civil society across the world. The creation of transnational advocacy spaces through the use of the Internet is still somewhat neglected in the empirical studies of the literature interested in norm diffusion. The rise of the issue of landmines as one of concern and prominence for the international arms control agenda has been much a consequence of the influence of a coalition of non-state actors that have advanced the issue. This coalition was instrumental in sponsoring several initiatives and events that helped setting and framing this new agenda. Both the small arms case and landmines are outstanding examples of how non-state actors have managed to penetrate a realm previously thought to be the exclusive domain of states: how they prepare to wage war20. From the inception, the landmines issue was framed as one to be approached from a humanitarian perspective. The continuous use and production of landmines was successfully framed as an infringement of human rights and international humanitarian law. Therefore, the civil society coalition managed to forge a breakthrough and influenced states on the necessity of creating another regime within the array of disarmament regimes. Small arms can be said to be another issue from high politics that is now on the international agenda. Nonetheless, unlike the landmines issue, the small arms question has been framed not only as a subject to be tackled from a human rights or humanitarian standpoint, but also from many others, such as public health and criminality; economic development and good governance; intra-state conflicts, and regional destabilization. This has meant that the processes of diffusion of new ideas regarding the small arms issue are more complex than the landmines issue. This is because there are not only more actors involved but there is also no consensus on the nature of the problems associated with the unrestricted availability and proliferation of small arms. As there are a myriad of realities throughout the world due to the varying types of conflicts, violence, and internal problems, tackling the small arms issue requires the understanding of different types of agendas in all regions of the world. Normative Standards and the Study of International Relations Broadly speaking, the literature on norms in International Relations might be divided into two sorts of analyses: the ones that treat norms as post hoc rationalizations of self -interest and another which looks at ex ante sources of action, separate from interests21. This paper will focus on the second sort. The "return" to norms holds immense promise for shaking the International Relations research agenda and opening up exciting new avenues for inquiry22. The "return" to systematically analyzing norms as ex-ante sources of action has been 20 Price, 1998, on the landmines case. 21 Raymond, p. 213, 1997. 22 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998.

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indentified in the literature with enquiries such as: How do norms make a difference in politics? Where do norms come from? How do they change? And particularly: how do norms play a role in political change? The most widespread and agreed distinction of norms in the literature examined here is between regulative and constitutive norms. The former is related to the ordering and constraint of behavior. The latter is associated with the creation of new actors, interests, and categories of action. Regulative norms have also been called constraining norms also prescribing behavior23. It might also be argued that there are 'enabling' norms that are those allowing specific actions. Constitutive norms have also been said to affect state identity and not only simply regulate behavior24. The literature on International Relations' approach to norms usually converges around three levels of analysis: when norms arise, when norms start to become known and accepted, and then, once norms are adopted and internalized. This pattern and this way of analyzing norms can be considerably generalized to a great extent. Some studies fall into a category of evolutionary or genealogical approach to norms 25. This is related to treating norms as new ideas that are firstly promoted by moral entrepreneurs, who might be driven by principled ideas or self-interest. This stage of norm creation might be also associated with the prominence, and influence of the promoter/advocate/defender or supporter of the norm. Charisma and the appeal of principled ideas coupled with the force of their defender are not sufficient though. For this reason, the second stage is usually described as one where the norm ideally has to fit with the already previously existing normative setting. Thus, ideally the norm has to acquiesce, cohere, and make sense to the environment or system of ideas or norms already in place. The third stage is usua lly understood to include behavior such as emulation or imitation of others, and the ensuing change in the discourse and practices of actors. In general, to most analysts, even while using other terminology, are looking at these three phases. To varying de grees, these stages encompass mechanisms through which the norms move across the political space. Certain authors emphasize one stage more than other. Some focus on the first stage where norms are diffused through the entrepreneur, and thus the main impetus resides on the individual promoting new ideational change. This phenomenon might happen through the imposition of a (state) hegemon, as it will be looked at26. This first stage usually comprises large efforts to disseminate information and to set the new agenda 27. This entails active manipulative persuasion to fit the new norms into and make it resonate within the already existing system of norms. Some authors talk about coherence with already existing norms whereas others call it resonation. In addition, some of the literature looks at the establishment of networks to generate broad support for normative change within, across, and outside government channels. It can be said that every author treats this phenomenon to some extent, or at least considers it as an important impetus, as it will be demonstrated. Moreover, most authors are concerned with how some practices lead to norm formation and others do not. In addition, some authors emphasize the deep-seated relationship between domestic and international norms, or how international normative change takes place in the

23 Raymond, 1997. 24 Klotz, 1995. 25 Florini, 1996; Price, 1998. 26 Ikenberry and Kupchan, 1990, Florini, 1996. 27 Sikkink, 1997; Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Price, 1998, Raymond, 1997.

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domestic arena. Some scholars have examined how norms at the societal level have become international norms 28. Other clusters of authors have looked at how new international norms succeeded because they have resonated with domestic political purposes29. In doing so, these authors have not only searched for explanations as to why some international norms resonate in the domestic political discourse and others do not; but also, how does a norm become institutionalized domestically and internationally. The interest in transcending the understanding of conflict of interests between states, based upon the power-based realist paradigm, is in recognizing what is the force behind that drives the clashes of interests. As an author has argued on a related idea, "behind so called objective clashes of interests lie sets of ideas, which give practical content to states' (and regimes') definitions of their interests"30. There is a conspicuous absence of analytical perspectives on the importance of ideas and the role of non-state actors in interest formation in International Relations mainstream theories. The debate over norms in mainstream theory does not address the issues of preference formation and diffusion of ideas. In addition, there is scant attention given to the mechanisms through which norms spread. The interest of scholars in the normative and ideational aspects of International Relations, is a constant motif for criticism of the dominant state -centric paradigms the focal point of which is material capabilities, since the end of World War II31. Game theory, or the rational approach to International Relations, addresses the form rather than the content of strategic interaction. Therefore, it sees norms as exogenously determined coordinating mechanisms that enable actors to select among multiple equilibria or to overcome collective action problems. Rational choice theorists see norms as reflections of the fixed preferences of the most powerful states. The definitions of norms in the neoliberal and neorealist schools are standards of behavior that can alter the calculations of costs and benefits and constrain the options available to policy makers. This leaves unexplained what states want to achieve. Trying to overcome these deficiencies, a growing constructivist literature that is concerned with the role of ideas in International Relations sheds light on how norms shape both the goals, perceptions of states' interests, and how they manage to achieve these goals. For instance, if we look at the case of small arms from a realist standpoint, one might well question why many states that are big arms producers are trying to promote more transparency in small arms transfers. And therefore, the support from countries such as the United States and Switzerland for efforts of transparency seem inexplicable, since the fact that they are notably militarized societies. The OAS Convention on Transparency in Conventional Weapons Acquisitions 32 and the European Union Code of Conduct on the Exports of Arms 33 are examples of state conduct that introduces a strong moral component to the estimation of national security. Therefore, realism does not provide a framework of understanding for the huge amount of initiatives sponsored by states, some of them, weapons producers, in the case of small arms. 28 Lumsdaine, 1993; Price and Tannenwald, 1996. 29 Cortell and Davis, 1997 & 2000; Crawford, 1993; Klotz, 1995. 30 Krause, p. 3, 1998. 31 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998. 32 Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional Weapons Acquisitions, which was created during the General Assembly in Guatemala City, in 1999. 33 Resolution on a European Code of Conduct on the Export of Arms, The European Parliament, 15 January 1998, B4-0033, 0058, 0064, 0081, 0086, and 0104/98.

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"While there is no shortage of behavior driven by short-term interests, states conceptualize those interests in the context of prevailing international norms, and the instruments used to pursue those interests are chosen within normative framework"34. The fundamental role of ideas and norms to the study of International Relations found more ground for a sweeping "ideational turn" taking place by the end of 1980s. This debate has opened the way for a solid address of social construction processes and how ideas and norm-formation influence international politics. Mainstream scholars were driven away from analyzing ideas among their central concerns, following a trend to measurement inaugurated by the rational theory school in fashion in the late 1970s. Analogies such as the prisoner's dilemma and the stag hunt served to epitomize this trend. Due to the difficulty in measuring ideas and norms, they were left aside. Even though the rational approach neglected norms, it has inspired the revived debate on norms, at the end of the 1980s, to be more conscious of the rigor, research design and clarity of the argumentation. The constructivist "turn" has managed to broaden the shape of the study of International Relations. It is widely recognized by the authors analyzing this broadened International Relations agenda, that state-centric approaches to International Relations, such as neorealist and neo-liberal still consider anarchy or self-help as central organizing principles and therefore ignore self-conscious constructions of networks of knowledge and action, that have been described as "decentered, local actors, that cross the boundaries of space as though they were not there. This arrangement, or global civil society, is not newSignificant today, however, is the growing 'density' and visibility of global of global civil society and its impact on the socially constructed realm of international politics"35. Conditions for the Emergence of Norms A lacuna in the study of norms is the absence of hypotheses indicating which norms matter, or which norms count, in international politics and under which conditions they may emerge. The literature has been notably keen on acknowledging that norms indeed matter. However few authors have advanced hypotheses to empirically demonstrate the conditions under which norms count. Some authors have suggested some conditions under which norms matter. The first condition is legitimation; domestic legitimation is a prominent condition to adapting a new norm. States under domestic turmoil or insecure of its international status might feel compelled to adopt a new norm or embrace normative/ideational change 36. For instance, one may cite, the case of Mali in the first half of the 1990s. This was a typically insecure post-conflict country that chose to embrace a profound normative change. After the United Nations visit to Mali, the former President Alpha Oumar Konar successfully proposed the 1998 Moratorium on Importation, Exportation, and Manufacture of Light Weapons in West Africa. The Moratorium was signed by the sixteen West African States37 and banned the production, import, and export of arms for three years.

34 Florini, p. 366, 1996. 35 Lipschutz, p. 390, 1992. 36 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998. 37 Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.

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Some authors were particularly keen on demonstrating tha t for international norms to integrate the domestic scene, the material interests of domestic actors play a significant enabling condition38. The second condition is prominence39. The acceptance of a norm might spring either from the quality of the norm itself or from the actor promoting it. Therefore due to qualities of fame, distinction, renown, eminence, influence, and popularity of either the norm promoter or the norm itself, a state might be influenced to embed a norm. Raymond also has pointed to prominence as an important condition. In this case, an outstanding example is the International Committee of the Red Cross who acted as a prominent actor in the promotion of efforts to ban landmines. Another enabling condition is related to intrinsic characteristics of the norm40. Norms that are more universally encompassing have the potential to be more likely accepted. Nonetheless, other research has shown that norms that are directly connected to prohibiting bodily harm to innocent bystanders are extremely powerful in mobilizing transnational support. This last feature has also been noticed by Price who claimed that perhaps the single most distinguishing feature of the norm banning landmines is its appeal to the indiscriminate bodily harm it causes to civilians, even years after a conflict is over. A fourth enabling condition is adjacency claims or path dependence 41. Activists work to frame their issues in ways that make persuasive connections between existing norms and emergent norms to generate a more conducive environment for acceptance. For instance, the campaign against female genital mutilation, when the cause was called "female circumcision", it made little progress. This was certainly in part because it was associated with male circumcision that may be seen as positive. Nonetheless, when the campaign was reframed under the title "female mutilation" it was directly associated with violence against women and finally took flight. This phenomenon has also been called "coherence with already existing norms" or "construction of cognitive frameworks 42. Here it can be perceived that the norm of a "landmines ban" cohered with previously existing norms on superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering of certain conventional weapons, such as blinding weapons. The efforts to promote more transparency related to the production, holdings, and transfers of small arms found a resonating normative background within the international efforts to promote transparency in weapons of mass destruction that slowly began during the 1960s and became more evident regarding conventional weapons in the 1990s, with the establishment of the United Nations Register. A fifth condition for the diffusion of norms is world time-context43. World historic events such as major wars and economic crisis might clear the way for the search for new norms and ideas. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was certainly a shock event that spurred international action on transparency vis--vis conventional weapons build -ups. Nowadays, this period of globalization might be more conducive to create new opportunities for norm entrepreneurs. In addition, the expansion of international organizations is contributing to the opening up of more opportunities for addressing and negotiating a broad range of normative issues. The perception of a crisis or shock is a crucial factor in precipitating ideational or normative change. As Richard Price has noted, in the case of the landmines, it was the civil society not states that were the primary catalysts for identifying and politicizing the situation as a crisis issue on state agendas. Price argues that transnational civil society (through issue generation

38 Cortell and Davis, 2000. 39 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998. 40 Idem. 41 Idem. 42 Florini, 1996; Price, 1998; Raymond, 1997. 43 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998.

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and moral persuasion) sought to redefine the point at which states determine the balance between military and humanitarian considerations. To simplify matters greatly, in the case of small arms, it was mostly a coalition of like-minded states that was mainly responsible for normative change and the launch of a series of efforts to raise awareness about the problems associated with small arms proliferation44. Contingency or indeterminacy is obviously a more abstract condition to norm emergence where unaccounted or undetermined factors come into play. These hypotheses can be applied against the three stages of the norm life cycle that was previously mentioned: first, the origination of the norm; second, norms start to become known and accepted, and third, once norms are adopted and internalized. One study has provided an illustrative case study on the rise of the norm of transparency45. The United States - the entrepreneur in the case of transparency - managed to challenge one of the most deeply entrenched practices of state behavior: the right to secrecy on military matters. The evolution of the norm of transparency in a way served the self -fulfilling purposes of the United States who needed at all costs, to have some degree of access to undisclosed information from the Soviet Union. The United States actually had to come up with a truly novel argument: that the Soviet Union was obliged to provide certain types of information about itself to other states. So, in doing that, i.e. in promulgating the idea that releasing information became a new rule to be followed, the United States actually, managed to obtain information it needed. Florini's account shows and it is representative that the outlined authors usually converge around the conditions shown here that support norm emergence. Florini's evolutionary approach to international norms provides a framework within which changes overtime in the substance of internationally held norms can be explained. Conditions for the Diffusion of Norms Three factors account for the reproductive success or failure of a contested norm. (1) Whether a norm becomes prominent enough in the norm pool to gain a foothold; international norm prominence generally happens because someone is actively promoting the norm, or because the state where the new norm first arose happens to be very eminent. Florini highlights the role of a prominent actor in the case of transparency. In addition, she also points to contingency that also plays an important role in International Relations. (2) How well it interacts with other prevailing norms with which it is not in competition, that is the "normative environment". As Florini points out, "no norm exists in a vacuum. The social relationships in which states are enmeshed depend on a web of shared normative understandings about what behavior is acceptable. Any new norms must fit coherently with other existing norms. A norm's legitimacy depends crucially on such coherence, and coherence in turn engenders legitimacy"46. A new norm must first be coherent to its principled purposes and second be able to harmonize with the existing web of already existing norms. If we assume that the community of states operates under several sets of internationally agreed norms that are often codified by international law, an emerging new norm must conform with

44 On the role of mid-size states in the small arms and the landmines cases, see: Brem, Stefan, "Middle Powers Tackling Big Problems: New Coalitions to Control Trade in and Misuse of Small Arms and Light Weapons?", Paper presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Rutherford, Ken, "Asserting Authority in International Security: The Mid -Size State Role in Banning Landmines", Paper presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. 45 Florini, 1996. 46 Idem, p. 376.

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or at least seem logical to the already existing web of laws. (3) What external environmental normative conditions the norm will encounter. Florini says that each of these is necessary but not sufficient condition. In the analysis of how international norms resonate within the domestic political environment, the resonance of the new norm with previously existing others has also being named "cultural match"47. Even though there is sometimes a distinction between factors that support the emergence of a norm and those that facilitate their diffusion, usually norm selection will depend on the three factors: the relative prominence of the actors, the norm's relative coherence with other previously existing norms, and whether emerging norms fit the existing environmental conditions. The complete cycle of norm evolution will depend on whether these three condit ions can be applied domestically and internationally. The Relationship between Domestic and International Realms in the Analysis of Norms Thomas Risse Kapen (1995) has pointed out that International Relations theorists are either looking only at domestic features and thus overlook the linkages between societal structures and actors that cut across borders or those who are looking out only at transnational relations and disregarding the linkages with domestic structures. Kappen attempted to bridge this gap in his edited book "Bringing Transnational Relations Back in - Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions" that was published in 1995. However, some authors have paid particular attention to the relationship between the domestic and international realms in the analysis of norms 48. The importance of the work of these authors mainly lies on the search for explanations to why some international norms resonate in the domestic political discourse and others do not. Most notably, Cortell and Davis, in "Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms: a Research Agenda" (2000), argue that there is a conspicuous absence in the literature scrutinizing the role of norms in International Relations, and of the analysis relating to the domestic impact of international norms. This group of authors argue that the focus of the scholarship on norms has been cast at the level of the international system without proper scrutiny of the concept of domestic salience, or the importance and weight of norms in the domestic level. Consequently, there are two major gaps which new literature needs to address. First, insufficient attention has been devoted to the measurement of a norm's strength, legitimacy, or salience in the domestic political arena. Second, the mechanisms and process by which international norms can or cannot attain domestic legitimacy remain under explored. The authors point out that there is a manifest absence, within the literature on norms, of approaches that review how a norm operates inside domestic political systems. The authors aim to identify the domestic impact of international norms within the domestic arena demonstrating the salience of these norms. Such impact can be ascertained through analysis of national discourse, state institutions, and policies. These studies go beyond the examination of domestic compliance. Resonation within political discourses is analyzed more precisely, they view the first indicator of domestic impact, as being the norm appearance in the domestic political discourse. The change in the national discourse is the most important indicator if also the least objective. However, norms that appear in the domestic discourse might prove more salient if they breakthrough in changing the national agenda and the state's institutions. The claim is that the first sign of an international norm's domestic impact is its 47 Cortell and Davis, 1997. 48 Cortell and Davis, 1997, 2000; Crawford, 1993, and Klotz 1995, Legro 1997.

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appearance in the domestic political discourse. Appeals for change in the policy agenda from civil society or state actors might be indicative of the introduction of an international norm in the national political cognition. This was particularly the case with landmines. The salience of an international norm within the domestic political discourse may come from state or societal actors and often takes place in the form of pressure to change the policy agenda. The formation of more organized social pressure groups might be the first indicator of a growing impact of the international norm. A change in domestic institutions or embodiment of the international norm in the national law represents further prominence of the international norm within domestic structures and politics. A second indicator is the constitution of organized societal groups devoted to advancing domestic institutional change. A third indicator is changes in national institutions that might come in several forms: change in domestic law; weakening of conflicting national laws. Recent changes in domestic legislation regarding gun civilian ownership, for instance, are illustrative of this type of indication. Among the authors surveyed who pay particular attention to the workings of the relationship between national and international norms, Cortell and Davis (2000), in particular, advance interesting propositions to explain how international norms integrate the domestic arena. They claim that international norms integrate the domestic scene through national political rhetoric, depending on the material interests of domestic actors, domestic political institutions, and socializing forces. Political or persuasive rhetoric can be understood as a mechanism for generating collective understanding as well as to promote an international norm. The material interests of domestic actors can play a role. It might be said that international norms are more likely to become salient if they are perceived to help domestic material interests, economic or security. The Diffusion of Norms and Ideas The Role of Actors Several authors in the literature on norms diffusion have drawn important links betwee n the processes of diffusion of ideas and the role of actors in these processes. For instance, the premise that knowledge-based epistemic communities have a powerful agenda setting capacity was developed in the early 1990s and then found resonance in virtually all studies addressing norms diffusion49. Another approach to the study of actors and norms views transnational promoters of foreign policy change as aligning with domestic coalitions. Therefore, this approach uses domestic structures and international institutions to examine actors in search of pure economic gains (such as multinational corporations) and others led by principled ideas as well as knowledge (such as human rights activists and epistemic communities)50. Actors have also been found to be sources of norms51. A very fruitful approach to the study of diffusion of norms has been transnational advocacy networks (TANs). These are networks of activists, distinguishable largely by the centrality of principled ideas or values in motivating their formation52. The actors constituting a TAN can be international or domestic nongovernmental research and advocacy organizations, local social movements, foundations, the media, churches, trade unions, consumer organizations, and intellectuals, regional and inte rnational intergovernmental organizations, and executive or

49 Haas, Peter, "Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination", International Organization 46: 1-35, 1992. 50 Risse-Kappen, 1995. 51 Kowert and Legro, 1996. 52 Keck and Sikkink, 1998.

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parliamentary branches of governments. These actors not only participate in new areas of politics but also help to shape them. Other authors have looked at the role of NGOs as powerful actors who exert influence through learning processes 53. These actors use different mechanisms such as lobbying and mediation for the learning processes. They aim at diffusing information, raising awareness, and monitoring for compliance. The most used approach on transnational civil society is the one that refers to a set of interactions among imagined communities to shape collective life that are not confined to the territorial and institutional spaces of states 54. In this approach, transnational social actors create political space for pressure. Socialization is a process by which new members come to adopt a society's preferred ways of behaving. Virtually all the walks of International Relations scholarship, from realists to social constructivists, in varying degrees, have pointed to socialization as a mechanism for the diffusion of norms. States might become socialized towards norms through several other mechanism as pointed out in the studies of Martha Finnemore (1996) which focused on the creation of science bureaucracies all over the world, and on the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the subsequent creation of National Red Cross Societies in virtually all countries. The studies of Keck and Sikkink (1998) have identified that transnational advocacy networks are powerful avenues through which states may be persuaded to be socialized towards new ideas. The analysis of how norms diffuse in International Relations would be incomplete if it concentrated exclusively on the conditions for the emergence of norms. The case of small arms in particular, requires a closer look at actors other than the state, due to the emergence of a multitude of new actors which play a significant role in the diffusion of norms. It is relatively well accepted that until the end of the 1990s, transnational actors were thought to have a lower impact on security issues, or issues understood to be of "high politics", as it is reflected in this excerpt of Risse-Kappen in his analysis of "Bringing Transnational Relations Back-in " (1995): "transnational activities might be less relevant in issue -areas such as security - high politics, while low politics areas such as environmental and economic issues would be more susceptible to transnational actor influence". Even so, Risse-Kappen sheds some light on the following point that is particularly relevant to further understand developments regarding the landmines and then, the small arms issue: "Following this line of reasoning, one could then hypothesize that transnational actor access to political institutions should be more difficult in the security area than, say, in the economic or environmental issues, since less societal actors are involved in the former as compared to the latter issue-areas" (Risse-Kappen, p. 305, 1995). Therefore, it is important to determine the renewed interest in the role of principled and causal ideas affecting the outcomes of policy action with particular emphasis on the role of actors. Hence, the role of epistemic communities, social movements, international non-governmental organizations, and other actors, was again highlighted in their key enterprise in fostering issue-areas. There is a consensus in the literature on norms that regarding the origins or emergence of international norms, the ma in mechanism has been moral entrepreneurs. Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) argue that empirical research on transnational norm entrepreneurs is indeed very sophisticated in calculating their means to achieve their goals. They engage in "strategic social const ruction". This is related to treating norms as new ideas that are firstly promoted by 53 Take, 2000; Price, 1998; Krause, 1999. 54 Price, 1998.

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moral entrepreneurs, who might be driven by principled ideas or self-interest. In the absence of a norm entrepreneur, states might well emulate the behavior of other prestigious states that come to adopt the norm. The role of the entrepreneur is nevertheless a decisive element. In a section entitled: "morality, individuals and international relations theory", Martha Finnemore (1996) calls our attention to the fact that what was essential in the origins of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions was the role of a few morally committed private individuals - without government positions or political power - and through the formation of elite networks, they were able to build an international organization. They had a set of principled beliefs that forged an agenda for action. In the case of the small arms issue, we can point to the role of some individuals who helped not only framing the issue as a topic of concern for states, but elevating it in the international agenda. Edward Laurance, from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, in the United States, who addressed the "Negative Consequences of Light Weapons Trafficking: Opportunities for Transparency" in one of the first edited volumes about the issue55. He was one of the key scholarly entrepreneurs promoting the issue inside the United Nations. Laurance has contributed not only on the dissemination of knowledge on the issue, but also on starting advocacy efforts together with many non-governmental organizations. This is so because Laurance was extremely central to the formation of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) in 1998. In addition, it is worth quoting Lloyd Axw orthy, the former Canadian foreign Minister.

This is a sensitive and complex issue, which has raised concerns () The first relates to the definition of military small arms and light weapons. Why are we restricting the ambit of the convention to weapons designed and manufactured according to military specifications, and excluding whole categories of non-military weapons, such as hand guns, hunting rifles, shotguns and even machetes? The answer is simple. A growing body of data shows that military small arms and light weapons are overwhelmingly responsible for destabilizing and casualties in internal conflicts in particular fully automatic machine guns and assault rifles, and hand-grenade or rocket launchers. Non-military firearms are indeed used in violent crime all over the world, including in countries emerging from conflict. At the same time, they have many legitimate uses. Curbing illicit uses of non-military while permitting legitimate ones is best done through national legislation dealing with civ ilian gun ownership and police enforcement".56

Lloyd Ayworthy was in the forefront of the (governmental) efforts to launch initiatives to tackle the unchecked small arms proliferation. He was also instrumental in spearheading a governmental coalition of "like-minded" governments led mainly by Canada and Norway. Finally, the former United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros Ghali was also an important moral entrepreneur, As was already mentioned Boutros-Ghali was also an outspoken proponent of an international ban on landmines57.

I wish to concentrate on what might be called micro-disarmament. By this I mean practical disarmament in the context of the conflicts the United Nations is actually

55 In, Singh, Jasjit, Light Weapons and International Security, op. cit. 56 Lloyd Axworthy, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, keynote speech to the 52nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly. 57 Price, 1998.

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dealing with and of the weapons, most of them light weapons, that are actually killing people in the hundreds of thousands. 58

These words became invested in the subsequent efforts of the international community, especially within the United Nations, and most of the early post-1995 literature dealing with small arms makes reference to this call. The interest in seizing this invitation to reflect on and search for solutions to this problem59 lies in the fact that the Secretary-Generals statement was the decisive international institutional declaration regarding the problem that needed to be addressed and diligently tackled by the international community. The Secretary-General issued this statement, among other reasons, because the human toll caused by those weapons were unprecedented to the point of obstructing the work of the United Nations and other organizations in regions of conflict, undermining peace agreements, complicating peace-building, and impeding political, economic, and social development. It was the first time that a United Nations document made clear mention that attention needed to be shifted from weapons of mass destruction to light weapons. Therefore, the Secretary-Generals call was a decisive beginning to the building of international awareness of the problem of excessive and destabilizing accumulation of small arms and light weapons. There is a consensus among the international community in acknowledging the ever -widening role of non-governmental actors in International Relations. In addition, virtually all the authors point to the visible impact of NGO influence in domestic and foreign policy. Nonetheless, a question remains to be answered60. This question appears to worry, in particular, those authors paying special attention to the role of NGOs: how do NGOs exert influence in world politics? In some issue areas, such as human rights advocacy, the influence of NGOs in policy outcomes is clearly more visible. Moreover, it is very important to note, and especially so for our purposes here, that it is increasingly difficult to find an NGO belonging to just one country; i.e. a non-governmental organization that is national of one country only and whose influence is felt on one country only. More and more, NGOs are transnational or have the effects of their work felt across borders. This is especially so in the case of NGOs dealing with small arms and light weapons. This issue has characteristics that transcend one frontier of one country. A typical NGO, in the small arms case, is Viva Rio. This organization is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is the most important organization in fostering the control of small arms and in the promotion of efforts to stem violence in Latin America. Even Viva Rio, which is based only in one country, has its activities felt across the borders of the neighboring countries. NGOs with their specialized agendas are working with increasing sophistication to further their interests in international fora. They are particularly focused on framing agendas, mobilizing constituencies, and monitoring compliance61. This proponent has identified two overarching factors facilitating the work of NGOs. Firstly, they work in an environment of broadened allegiances: from traditional national fidelity to transnational issues that are not bound to the notion of national territory. Secondly, they now have the possibility of direct action and influence though the Internet. Other authors advances the idea that for the understanding of the impact of NGOs in International Relations, it is essential to draw from

58 Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, A/50/60, S/1995/1, paragraph 60, 3 January 1995. 59 The Secretary-General says: Progress since 1992 in the area of weapons of mass destruction and major weapons systems must be followed by parallel progress in conventional arms, particularly with respect to light weapons. It will take a long time to find effective solutions. I believe strongly that the search should begin now. 60 Karp, 1999; Krause, 1999; Clark, 1995; Smith, 1998; Spiro, 1994. 61 Spiro, 1994.

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the cognitive elements such as ideas, perceptions, preferences, and the learning processes. Interests can thus change in the light of learning processes, not necessarily correlating to changes and shifts in positions of power62. NGOs can concentrate primarily on one issue, in contrast to states. NGOs generally address principle-based questions that are either disregarded by states or linked to immediate strategic issues. The elements that make NGOs effective in their role of diffusing ideas have been thought to be the following63: first, NGOs usually focus on one issue at a time. This enables them to be focussed rather then dispersed amidst several issues such as states. Second, NGOs exert a kind of pressure that reminds states that they are morally subjected to international pressure. Third, NGOs might represent unique spaces of information dissemination and sharing of new ideas. This allows NGOs to be organizational avenues for citizens as well as states for pressing global issues. At the international level, NGOs may mediate among several national delegation, and strategize with world leaders64 to broaden the scope of their influence. NGOs might also operate in two types of realms: intergovernmental (OSCE, OAS, etc.) and the "NGO self-created space" which consists of a nascent internationa l civil society where the agendas are controlled by themselves65. In the case of the small arms, despite the relative prominence NGOs assumed in the process of controlling the spread of small arms, they cannot act alone. States have to be part of the efforts. Small arms, unlike landmines, arose strong feelings of national interest to arise 66. NGOs can play a role in information awareness and exercise the ability to quickly and credibly generate politically usable information and move it to where it will have most impact. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, NGOs began documenting the problem of landmines and numerous studies appeared. In 1993, the same year that studies started to appear on small arms proliferation, an U.S. State Department study estimated that landmines kill or wound 150 people per week. Then another revised study from the same source appeared claiming that landmines maim or kill an estimated 500 people per week. The U.S. State Department explained that the revised estimates testify to the role of international activists as catalysts for the learning of states. In addition, the case of landmines confirm that that a perception of a crisis or shock is a crucial factor precipitating ideational and normative change, as it was mentioned before, as an enabling condition precipitating norm emergence. "NGOs had succeeded in making political what was previously unpolitical, largely by focusing on the victims. Such agenda setting represents an important claim made by transnational civil society on the practice of violence as in areas of politics rather than an anonymous realm of military practice. In this oft-identified role of NGOs as agenda-setters, there is no particular handicap for NGOs working on security issues compared to other issues such as the environment or human rights"67. Non-state actors have been fully triumphant in raising the profile of the landmines issue that touches the very core of national security policy, in the international agenda. The International Committee of the Red Cross played a crucial role in establishing landmines as an unavoidable issue. The establishment of networks and the ability to call upon symbols, actions, or stories that make sense of a situation for audiences

62 Take, 2000. 63 Take 2000; Clark, 1995. 64 Here defined (by Ingo Take) as: states that actively promote the process of international cooperation and, at the national level, implement laws that provide models for the international level. 65 Clark, 1995. 66 Karp, 1999. 67 Price, p. 622, 1998.

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that are frequently far away is part of the process of persuasion by which networks create awareness and expand constituencies symbolic interpretation is a key stage in the diffusion of ideas through transnational action/advocacy networks. In the case of the landmines, NGOs were effective in creating networks with governments and intergovernmental organizations68. Therefore NGOs created the framework in which they built their agenda connecting it to the interstate agenda. The transnational campaign has found key partners in national policymakers. The Belgium Parliament (Belgium was the first country to ban landmines) for instance was a key figure in pushing the process inside the country. Among governments, Canada has been at the forefront of this "unconventional diplomacy" that has involved members of civil society in the policymaking and international negotiation process. Using brinkmanship strategy, Lloyd Axworthy, the Canadian Foreign Minister, proposed the separate track system of negotiation and treaty-making to address the landmines issue that became known as the "Ottawa process". All this action on the processes related to creating regimes to control small arms and light weapons were preceded by the dissemination of knowledge regarding the problems connected to the spread and proliferation of such weapons. However, there was not a concerted presence of an epistemic communities in either the case of landmine nor small arms. In the case of small arms, the formation of an epistemic community, happened when the issue was already consolidated in the international agenda. Almost all the authors analyzed in this paper, who wrote about the role of ideas and norms in International Relations, have made at least passing reference to the lesser or bigger influence of epistemic communities in diffusing or creating new norms in the domestic or international arenas. Epistemic communities is a concept that did not go unnoticed in International Relations studies. The importance of highlighting it here is related to the fact that it connects the study of actors and the mechanisms used for the diffusion of ideas. Proponents of the epistemic community approach highlight that the manner in which decision makers define state interests and formulate policy on technical and complex issues is related to how the issue is framed by the advisers policy makers turn to for advice. The authors seek to identify how networks of knowledge -based experts define complex problems helping states to identify their interests, and how they frame the issue for the public debate. The authors demonstrate that the diffusion of ideas might be a powerful shaper of new patterns of behavior. It is shown that the epistemic communities approach is a research tool for empirical analysis of the role of ideas and reason in International Relations. The focus on epistemic communities enables analysts to lessen conditions of uncertainty in the states' pursuit of interests. Epistemic communities are sources of policy innovation, channels through which innovations diffuse, and catalysts in the political and institutional processes leading to behavior change. Epistemic communities also contribute to raising transparency of action and development of shared judgments converging around policy coordination. Therefore, "Epistemic communities are channels through which new ideas circulate form societies to governments as well as from country to country"69. Before states can agree on whether and how to deal collectively with a specific problem, they must reach consensus about the nature and scope of the problem and also about the manner in which the problem relates to other concerns in the same and additional issue-areas.

68 Various UN agencies were involved in the efforts, such as the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The UN has also played a leading role in demining operations. 69 Haas, p. 27, 1992.

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The members of an epistemic community are bonded together by their shared belief or faith in the verity and applicability of particular forms of knowledge or specific truths. They also share: way of knowing, patterns of reasoning, policy project drawing on shared values, causal beliefs, the use of shared discursive practices, shared commitment to the application and production of knowledge. The members of an epistemic community distinguish themselves from other influence-seeking groups because of the essence binding them together: the common motivations that drive its members to seek political influence must originate outside the political sphere; i.e. in their shared professional or academic socialization. The Small Arms Survey functions as a clearing-house that unites the many researchers around the world devoting efforts to profile the problem and devise measures to tackle it. They do not engage in activism as do most of the other non-governmental actors. They provide information and try to change the face of the policy making dealing with the small arms issue through raising transparency in all the dimensions and the many aspects of the availability and pr oliferation of small arms. However, in the case of small arms, an epistemic community alone, would not be enough to influence all the actors who are relevant for policy change, in the national, regional, and international levels. First because it is clearly a global topic with many interconnected dimensions. Second, for a change of policy in this issue, the participation of many societal levels are required, well beyond governments. On the issue of nuclear arms control, in an article on the emergence of cooperation and the role of national epistemic communities on the international evolution of the idea of nuclear arms control, Emanuel Adler argues that it was an American epistemic community that played a key role in creating the international shared understanding and practice of nuclear arms control70. The diffusion of these ideas on the necessity of controlling nuclear weapons, based on scientific and technical studies, ultimately materialized in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The author suggests that this epistemic community was formed by a group of several factions that shared a common basis against disparate intellectual and policy rivals. Therefore, the article also hints at the question of how much coherence is necessary within the epistemic community. The relevance of transnational networks, epistemic communities or not, and their role in profiling new issues is particularly pertinent to perceive the relationship between how transnational actors diffuse new ideas. Richard Price (1998), in analyzing the landmines case, examines how transnational non-state actors working through issue networks affect the way states prepare to wage or deter war. "The security policies of states represent, prima facie, a particularly hard case for demonstrating the role of transnational non-state actors in new issue areas of world politics. This is so because conventional wisdom assumes that the high politics of security policy is where the state ought to be the most autonomous from society at large and able to set its sights on military imperatives relatively independent of societal pressures, whether domestic or international. In the study of contemporary international relations, a prominent corollary of this claim is the assumption that non-state actors are more relevant as a contemporary subject of analysis in world politics precisely because of the rise of non-security issues on the international agendayet, demonstrations of the influence of such transformative changes on state practices of weapons procurement and military doctrine are conspicuously scant"71.

70 Adler, in Haas, 1992, op. cit. 71 Price, p. 613, 1998.

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The author advances that in the case of the landmines, there was a displacement of the state as the key site of agency, given that the impetus for change rested on processes engendered by transnational and non-state sources of agency72. He also argues that "a major reason why landmines (and not other weapons) have been the subject of a prohibitonary campaign in the 1990s is awareness of the carnage that the weapon itself has impinged upon civilian life. However, it was not states but civil society and international organizations that were the primary catalysts for identifying and politicizing the situation as a crisis issue on state agendas"73. The anomaly Price investigates is a systemic phenomenon (not a sub-systemic phenomenon of verifying cultural and norm variations within all countries): the source of similarity and convergence among a large number of highly varied states. Therefore he focuses on the initial impelling force that was promoted by transnational civil society. As Price demonstrates, the actual scope of the problem only became apparent once humanitarian and development groups working in independent locales began sharing the consequences of the use of landmines that proved to have tremendous developmental and humanitarian consequences. The most basic role civil society played was on the transnational dissemination of information on the use of landmines and its effects helping to define the issue not only as a problem but also as a global crisis. Finally, transnational networks played a chief role in creating a political space for pressure. Richard Price is in close company with Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (Activists Beyond Borders - Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 1998). These authors view transnational networks as spaces for political pressure. Their portrayals of the evolution and the functioning of the work of transnational action/advocacy networks, can be compared as follows: a first stage is marked by what Keck and Sikkink call "Information Politics"; the same level is perceived by Price through the role NGOs have on information awareness. The establishment of networks characterizes the second stage (Price) where Keck and Sikkink view a privileged space for the promotion of "Symbolic Politics". In the third stage, there is the establishment of networks to generate broad support for normative change within, across, and outside government channels (Price); this is particularly suitable for the conduct of "leverage politics" as Keck and Sikkink observe. In the fourth stage, the civil society makes governments accountable to its demands, in what Keck and Sikkink name "Accountability Politics". A crucial element for the work of transnational networks is the Internet. It has played an unprecedented role in facilitating a global network of concerned supporters around the issue. Moreover, the Internet has enormously facilitated the diffusion of information on the progress of and obstacles to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Another effect of the Internet is the creation of a "space" that became occupied by the transnational political community. This space is a redefinition of the territorial area of the state. Among the most important features of the globalized world is the advent of the Internet in the beginning of the 1990s. Obviously there are many disparities in the degrees of usage and access to this new e-world. Nonetheless, despite taking these disparities into consideration, the sheer impact of the Internet on the lives of these peoples who are already fully dependable on the e-world, has practically managed to change long-standing perceptions vis--vis many aspects of human life on Earth. From an International Relations perspective, the Internet has enabled many actors other than the state to have a prominent voice in the relationships among nations. This is mainly due to the fact that the Internet provides a unique space for the upsurge of dense

72 Idem, p. 614. 73 Idem, p. 622.

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networks 74 of transnational non-governmental and governmental actors. These networks are new spaces for influence -seeking groups that aim at changing the face of multilateralism, and the shape of decision-making processes. It is very important to establish networks to generate broad support for normative change within, across, and outside government channels. Transnational action networks have the ability to call upon powerful actors to affect situations where weaker members of a network are unlikely to have influence. "Moral leverage involves what some commentators have called the "mobilization of shame", where the behavior of target actors is held up to the light of international scrutiny"75. Moreover, Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) can shame governments through the exposure of their fake promises making them vulnerable vis--vis other countries. Transnational action and advocacy networks can help civil society make governments accountable to their demands. After gaining the support of France and Britain, the landmine ban norm adoption process was facilitated by another technique: emulation. By mid-1997, 97 states had indicated their commitment to adhere to treaty negotiations, and by the end of that year, 122 states had signed the treaty. Some authors argue that a norm cascade happens after reaching a tipping point76. "The support of the ban by mine-affected states, and by crucial states such as South Africa, Britain, and France, provoked just such a response; it began to overtake domestic political processes and to induce states' support for the norm driven increasingly by concerns of international reputation"77. The more states were being persuaded towards the ban, the more another technique, the one of shame, was used to induce norm adoption. "Shaming is an important technique employed by transnational civil society in a variety of issue areas to teach states. Its success is both predicated on and evidence for the emergence of a norm. The most inviting targets of such techniques are governments that rhetorically support the notion of a ban, rather than those who simply reject it outright. Even support that might seem largely rhetorical is important because it legitimizes the idea of a ban and the political space for pressure"78. The reputation pressures augmented when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines chief campaigner. The concept of Transnational Advocacy Networks - TANs- (Keck and Sikkink, 1998), cited above, is an important framework to analyze both actors and their role in the diffusion of ideas. These authors de fine TANs as networks of scientists and experts whose professional ties and shared causal beliefs underpin their efforts to influence policy. Others are networks of activists, distinguishable largely by the centrality of principled ideas or values in motivating their formation. TANs, motivated by the centrality of principled ideas as their distinctive feature, can perform their role in diffusing ideas by creating political spaces, transforming discourse positions, and searching for favorable institutional venues. In addition, the authors distinguish three different categories of TANs based on their motivations: (1) those with essentially instrumental goals - like transnational corporations and banks; (2) those motivated primarily by shared causal ideas, such as scientific groups or epistemic communities. As Keck and Sikkink point out, theorists of epistemic communities exclude activist groups from their definition, seeing epistemic communities mainly as groups

74 Language used by Martha Finnemore. 75 Keck and Sikkink, p. 23, 1998. 76 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998. 77 Price, p. 635, 1998. 78 Idem, Ibiden.

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of scientists, limited to more technical issues in international relations. They allude to M. J. Peterson, when analyzing the case of the whales, saying that Peterson distinguishes actors in epistemic communities from activists who are "not constrained by canons of reasoning" and who frame issues in simple terms, dividing the world into "bad guys" and "good guys"; (3) those motivated primarily by shared principles ideas or values (TANs). There is a point where the theories of epistemic communities and TANs "overlap". This is when Keck and Sikkink actually agree that both epistemic communities and TANs rely on information. But for the latter, it is the interpretation and strategic use of information that it is most important. "Influence is possible because the actors in these networks are simultaneously helping to define the issue area itself, convince target audiences that the problems thus defined are soluble, prescribe solutions, and monitor their implementation"79. The International Action Network against Small Arms (IANSA) has been analyzed as a TAN80. The creation of IANSA was examined using the groundbreaking framework of Transnational Advocacy Networks presented by Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, in Activists Beyond Borders, highlighting advocacy practices that non-governmental actors used to raise awareness towards the consequences of the unrestricted proliferation and availability of small arms. Mechanisms for the Diffusion of Ideas and Norms There is an apparent consensus regarding what are the most widespread mechanisms of diffusion of norms in the International Relations literature of concern here. Virtually every empirical study analyzing the spread of norms focuses on the two variables of entrepreneurship and coherence, in addition to the environmental conditions already mentioned. Mos t studies approach the several existing mechanisms through phases of ideational or norm evolution. Some of the studies analyzed here 81 have been criticized for lacking theoretical analyses on the mechanisms and ultimately on the role of agency82. If we can extend this argument to other studies, there are some that focus excessively on the norms themselves without paying attention to the mechanisms through which they diffuse. Most studies do not connect the international realm with the domestic sphere, as it has been pointed out to. Therefore, for instance in the UNESCO study case83, why did some norms diffuse differentially across countries? The answer to this question is connected to the domestic structures of each nation that is in the recipient end of change. Most often, authors are concerned with the question of why some norms manage to prosper while others do not. Among the authors in the literature surveyed, the most complete approach to the "norm life cycle" appears to be one that advances the norm cycle with each mechanism associated to the norm advancement 84. First, the origins or emergence of international norms in which the main mechanism of diffusion is through moral entrepreneurs. Second, the processes through which norms influence state and non-state behavior (norm cascades) in which the main mechanism is socialization. Third, the process through which norms become internalized in which emulation plays a key role as a mechanism through which we can perceive how many actors partake the same assessment.

79 Keck and Sikkink, 1998. 80 Grillot, Suzette R., in "Small Arms, Big Problems: IANSA and the Making of a Transnational Advocacy Network"Paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting , February 20-24, 2001. 81 Such as Katzenstein's edited volume, 1996. 82 Checkel, 1996. 83 Finnemore, 1996. 84 Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998.

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"The characteristic mechanism of the first stage norm emergence is persuasion by norm entrepreneurs. Norm entrepreneurs attempt to convince a critical mass of states (norm leaders) to embrace new norms. The second stage is characterized more by a dynamic of imitation as the norm leaders attempt to socialize other states to become norm followers. The exact motivation for this second stage where the norm "cascades" through the rest of the population (in this case, the states) may vary, but we argue that a combination of pressure for conformity, desire to enhance international legitimization, and the desire of state leaders to enhance their self-esteem facilitate norm-cascades"85. The main conditions and elements enabling the norm emergence stage are human agency, indeterminacy, chance occurrence, and favorable events. Norm entrepreneurs and organizational platforms from which entrepreneurs act assume chief importance in this phase. The role of norm entrepreneurs in influencing a desired behavior. One of the most prominent examples is Henry Dunant who in 1859 had the idea of creating the International Committee of the Red Cross. Norm entrepreneurs are critical for the norm emergence stage because they persuade through organizational platforms, and equipped with altruism, empathy, ideational drive and commitment, they advance the issue to so that it acquires relevance for a broader community of actors. "New norms never enter a normative vacuum but instead emerge in a highly contested normative space where they must compete with other norms and perceptions of interest"86. The authors point to the fact that NGOs or IGOs dealing with powerful states are rarely able to coerce agreement on a norm, they have to persuade. States are not equal when it comes down to normative weight. Empirical studies nevertheless suggest that the tipping of