This week, we looked at the Risse and Sikkink article and how human rights norms turn into domestic practices for nations. Risse and Sikkink present a spiral model of stages nations go through in human rights norm development - repression, the first stage of human rights violation, denial, to other states, tactical concessions, in which the violators appease other states in order to get what they way, prescriptive statues, in which human rights norms begin to take hold, and rule-consistent behavior, in which the violator finally has their human rights norms in line with the rest of the world. It was an interesting look at how other nations and non-states actors institutionalize norms across the world and how and why violators go about implementing these norms. It brings us back to the first few weeks of class where we talked about ideas vs. interest in policy decisions. We agreed that these two were intertwined, and in this, we can see how interests can evolve into ideas.
These ideas are incredibly powerful, and for my memo this week, I examined the ONE campaign, an extremely influential poverty alleviation NGO. ONE's message, propagated by various celebrities and its millions of volunteers around the world, has inspired new legislation, new grants, and billions of dollars in aid to the world's poorest nations. While an organization as solid as ONE is hard to critique, I suggested they empower their volunteer base to do more direct lobbying with their elected officials to turn ONE's ideas and goals into even more concrete legislation. Even though ideas are powerful, influencing those who have the power to make a direct change is incredibly important.
The global public sphere is an incredibly powerful motivator in international relations policy today
as ideas and information can spread around the globe in seconds. If nations want a spot on the international stage, staying in line with global norms is incredibly important for security, economic and political reasons.
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