Dedicated to the Good? Norm Entrepreneurship Revisited

Norm research often uses agency-based explanations to understand the complex process of norm dynamics. Often, agency is acknowledged by the role model of norm entrepreneurs, which gained prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s as one factor accounting for the emergence and diffusion of international norms. While the concept became quite popular over the years and has been used in a variety of studies, it lacks a consistent usage and systematic operationali-zation. The paper will critically address these shortcomings by providing a thorough literature review that summarizes and criticizes how the concept has been used so far. It argues that in order to maintain its analytical value and to extract more general causal assumptions, it is essential to avoid further arbitrary usage of the concept. Therefore, I propose a set of criteria that might help scholars to properly identify and assess norm entrepreneurship. Drawing on such an analytical framework also allows for an analytically sound comparison of various types of norm entrepreneurs (civil society actors, states, international organizations) as well as to distinguish various forms and degrees of advocacy that have hitherto been missing in empirical accounts. Furthermore, I suggest to distinguish between two modes of norm entrepreneurship depending on the stance taken towards the existing normative structure: I contend that norm advocacy as much aims at stabilizing or strengthening the current normative order as it manifests in challenges against it. While reformist norm entrepreneurs aim for an adaption of existing norms (or normative meanings) within the confines of current structures, norm revolutionaries use more radical means of advocacy geared towards subverting or overthrowing the current normative order and establish a new one. This differentiation illustrates that norm advocacy is not only shown by progressive reformers working towards the improvement of current normative structures. Actors who question the prevailing normative order and seek to overthrow it can also act as (revolutionary) norm entrepreneurs.