Promoting Peace or Pushing Norms? Normative Agency and Mediators as Norm Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Over the last three decades, mediation processes have become more political and the role of international norms matters more than ever. For many who follow the field, the role of mediators shifted from peace-broker to a peacebuilder, especially in regard to whom they include in peace negotiations. So if mediators are pressured to promote norms, the more interesting question becomes: can they (Hellmüller, Sara, Julia Palmiano Federer, and Jamie Pring. 2017. Are mediators norm entrepreneurs? Bern: swisspeace. https://www.swisspeace.ch/assets/publications/downloads/Working-Papers/b59c7cb279/Are-Mediators-Norm-Entrepreneurs-17-swisspeace-sara_hellmueller-julia_palmiano_federer-jamie_pring.pdf. Accessed 14 December 2022.)? How does this work in practice and what are the consequences? In this chapter, I present an analytical framework around a mediator’s normative agency: the ability to which they can promote norms in the first place I start with a discussion of what norm diffusion theory (theories about how norms spread) have to say about mediators acting as norm entrepreneurs in peace processes.

2.1 The Normative Turn of International Peace Mediation

The normative framework of international peace mediation¹ has grown (Hellmüller et al. 2015; Turner and Wählisch 2021) to emphasize the importance of norms such as gender equality, human rights and transitional justice in mediation processes (Paffenholz and Zartman 2019; Hirblinger and Laundau 2020; Bell and O’Rourke 2010; Fuentes Julio and Drummond 2017; Hayner 2018). A key role of mediators is designing peace processes and influencing who is included or excluded at peace negotiations (Lanz 2011). When mediation developed as a prominent tool for conflict resolution after the Cold War (Zartman 1985; Bercovitch and Rubin 1992), questions of inclusion and exclusion focused on which armed actors should be (or needed to be) included at the negotiating table (Stedman 1997; Nilsson and Söderberg Kovacs 2011; Zahar 2010; Blaydes and De Maio 2010; Palmiano Federer 2019) in the framework of bargaining theory and negotiations (Kydd 2010; Rauchhaus 2006; Smith and Stam 2003). However, the development of liberal peacebuilding as the dominant paradigm in which mediation occurs (Newman, Paris and Richmond 2009; Mac Ginty 2011; Pugh 2005; Campbell et al. 2011) has created an imperative for mediators to also include the perspectives of non-armed actors, namely civil society actors (Paffenholz 2014; Wanis-St. John and Kew 2008; Nilsson 2012, including women (Anderson 2010), youth (Grizelj 2019) and minority groups (Raffoul 2018; Lijphart 2007) when assisting conflict parties at the negotiation table or drafting a peace agreement (Hellmüller 2019).

Despite these practical developments, the roles mediators play in promoting norms around inclusion are under-researched in academic literature (Hellmüller et al. 2017).² The literature on mediation is preoccupied with material and contextual factors (such as process factors, environmental factors and mediator strategies) that lead to successful or effective outcomes (Kleiboer 1996). What is missing from this literature is a “discussion about the ideational factors [such as norms and identities] that influence the behaviour of mediators and how mediators influence the normative aspects of peace processes” (Hellmüller et al. 2017, 9). Therefore, the objects of my inquiry are mediators³ as norm entrepreneurs of inclusion. This focus begets two main inquiries: should mediators promote norms and if so, can they do so? To shed light on these questions, I journey through scholarship on the role of mediators in mediation processes (Zartman 1985; Kleiboer 1996; Mandell and Tomlin 1991; Lanz 2011); and theories around norm entrepreneurship in world politics (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Katzenstein 1996; Price 2008; Wiener 2014).

2.2 From Peace Broker to Peacebuilder: The Role of Mediators in Conflict Resolution

2.2.1 Mediators as Peace Brokers

Literature on international peace mediation draws upon two main bodies of scholarship: conflict resolution literature (Kriesberg 2001) and peace research (Galtung 1985; Lederach 1997). Mediation is commonly defined as “a process of conflict management, related to but distinct from the parties’ own negotiations, where those in conflict seek the assistance of, or accept an offer of help from, an outsider […] to change their perceptions or behavior, and to do so without resorting to physical force or invoking the authority of law” (Bercovitch, 2009, 244). Although mediation has been used as a tool for conflict resolution between warring parties since antiquity (Touval and Zartman 2001, 427) it grew in prominence at the end of the Cold War as the use of military force and intervention were increasingly called into question (Luttwak 2001). Conflict resolution literature, built on realist assumptions that “unified states used force to pursue security” (Nye 2001, 358), started to turn to non-violent dispute settlement mechanisms. Early literature drew heavily from game theory, cooperation and bargaining theory to look at historical and contemporary cases of third-party intervention (Raiffa 1982) to theorize mediation. As a result, scholarship on mediation was characterized by a realist/rationalist perspective that views mediation as “an exercise in which the mediator has interests and operates in the context of power politics and cost-benefit calculation” (Zartman 1985, 27).

The last two decades of conflict resolution literature on mediation built on this perspective and produced a vast array of contributions (Duursma 2014; Wall and Dunne 2012) on understanding and explaining the conditions under which mediation occurs (Maundi et al. 2006, how mediation is conducted (Beardsley 2009; Bercovitch and Wells 1993), and the outcomes of mediation, such as peace agreements. Zartman’s (1985) “Ripeness Theory” has provided one of the most salient explanations of why parties enter into negotiations: the parties’ perceptions of high conflict costs allow a “Mutually Hurting Stalemate” and a “Way Out” to bring them into negotiations to find a “Mutually Enticing Option.” Zartman’s “Ripeness Theory” provides clear parameters for the role of mediators within a cost-benefit analysis (Touval and Zartman 2001). The main assumption is that mediators are self-interested actors whose motivations can be understood from a rational-actor approach (ibidem).

Within this paradigm, a wealth of mediation literature has been dedicated to the mediator as a unit of analysis (Svensson 2007) and characterize mediator behavior in terms of strategies, modes and functions (Regan and Stam 2000). Bercovitch and Wells (1993) use a strategic choice model to build an analytical framework on mediator strategies that bring the parties to agreement. They offer three types of strategies that each feature specific behavioral tactics.⁴ These strategies and tactics are influenced by antecedent conditions, including the nature of dispute, the nature of issues, the nature of parties, the nature of relationship, and the identity and rank of the mediator. The second characterization is mediators taking on different modes of action that spell out specific functions. Zartman and Touval (2001) build on Bercovitch’s theory, attaching functions and activities to these three modes of behavior: mediators as communicators (acting as a conduit, opening contacts, carrying messages, helping parties interpret messages); mediators as formulators (persuading parties and suggesting solutions); and mediators as manipulators (bringing the parties to an agreement by providing incentives or using political leverage) (Zartman and Touval 2001, 435). Wall and Dunne’s (2012) review of mediation literature⁵ reveals around 100 strategies and techniques that guide mediator behavior,⁶ underscoring the centrality of mediator behavior in the body of scholarship. The strategies of a mediator vis-à-vis negotiating parties were also influenced by important works on civil wars and negotiations at the time, such as Fearon’s (1995) highly influential text on rationalist explanations and Walter’s (1997) study on bargaining and civil war.

While the functions, strategies and roles of mediators are discussed in detail, there is limited scholarship on what mediators actually accomplish substantively, past the broad strokes of bringing parties closer to an agreement. While it is commonly understood in mediation literature that mediators design the mediation or negotiating process and invite parties to the negotiating table, there was limited research beyond specific case studies and personal accounts of (Western) mediators such as Henry Kissinger, Richard Holbrooke, Jimmy Carter, Carl Bildt and George Mitchell. There are two possible reasons. First, the dearth of literature on a mediator’s role on who to bring to the peace table stems from a lack of literature on mediation mandates (Wallensteen and Svensson 2014; Nathan 2017) in which these prerogatives would normally lie. Second, mainstream literature on mediation tends to conceive of mediators and the negotiating parties in a unitary logic in the framework of bargaining theory and rational actor approaches. In the post–Cold War context, mediation was theorized as a power-driven exercise by statesmen and diplomats that used a mixture of diplomacy, status and leverage and aimed to uphold a fragile balance of power between states and their elite leaders (Richmond 2018). Mediators were brought in to use techniques, resources, legitimacy or knowledge to support negotiations between warring parties in an ad hoc and impermanent fashion (ibidem). Bargaining theory and rational actor approaches captured the status quo of how mediation was understood and conducted (security, power, neutrality, authority), and power was often considered over justice. Debates over inclusion and exclusion were not prominent in the mediation literature as key stakeholders were elite or official representatives of warring parties.

Mediation literature implicitly acknowledges mediators’ roles in determining who is at the table through an understanding of process design, for instance, mediators initiating the process of talks, providing venues and legitimizing contacts and meetings (Mitchell 2008). In practice, mediators already acknowledged that diplomatic representatives or leaders of armed groups would act as negotiators in processes that took place at an elite level (Wanis-St. John 2008). However, recent conflict literature acknowledges that a mediator’s tasks “now do not end with the signing of the agreement of the set of accords” (ibidem, 101) but encompass a wider range of political decisions (Lanz 2011).

This gap was addressed in the development of literature on “spoilers,” actors opposed to ending conflict through dialogue (Stedman 1997), that influenced a large body of scholarship on who should or who should not be included in peace processes. The notion of “bargaining with bullets” or the “violence-negotiation nexus” that connected civil war literature to mediation (Sisk 2009, 2) has produced a strand of literature focusing on the effects of “spoilers” on ending civil wars through dialogue processes like negotiation and mediation (Greenhill and Major 2007). Literature on civil war termination focused on key warring parties as a unit of analysis when discussing inclusion and exclusion because of the stakes involved: actors that have used violence and can use it again have a clear stake in the armed conflict and warrant attention (Nilsson and Söderberg Kovacs 2011). The utility of the spoiler concept has been debated (Zahar 2003). Furthermore, the designation of an individual or entity as a spoiler is a normative claim, rife with political and normative bias (Haspeslagh 2021).

Civil war scholars have tried to nuance this approach by suggesting that actors other than armed belligerents could also potentially act as spoilers (Newman and Richmond 2006) thus widening the net of who spoilers are and what accounts for spoiler behavior. These actors include diaspora actors, foreign patrons or multinational corporations (Nilsson and Söderberg Kovacs 2011). The literature on spoilers also debates how third parties should engage with spoilers. While Stedman’s (1997) spoiler management strategies of “inducement,” “socialization” or “coercion” are debated, they all called for engagement over non-engagement (Palmiano Federer 2019) and introduced a whole other role for mediators: deciding not only who would be, but who should be present and represented at peace negotiations. Despite the debates in the literature, the spoiler concept in mediation emphasizes the link to inclusivity, as violence from spoilers directly affects “the question of inclusion and exclusion in peace processes [and can] influence the terms of settlement itself” (Sisk 2009, 3).

Notions of inclusion and exclusion in peace processes and the role of mediators in conflict resolution literature began to shift with the advent of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm: studies began to look at civil society actors’ claims to greater participation in peace processes as part of a normative turn (Frost 1998) in mediation literature. This shift is reflected in the development of mediation literature in the framework of the peace research discipline.

2.2.2 Mediators as Peacebuilders?

At the same time that civil war literature and critical peace studies was moving forward with the debate on spoilers, the development of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm (Richmond 2011) and its growing connection to mediation practice (Richmond 2018) was reflected in the growth of the field of peace research. Peace research reflected the paradigm of conceptualizing peace as “positive” (attitudes, structures and institutions that underpin peaceful societies) rather than “negative” (the absence of violence) and infusing a normative imperative; research is conducted to understand the conditions under which positive peace can occur. Peace research also bolstered former UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali’s 1992 report Agenda for Peace and other policy developments, catapulting the notion of positive peace into a multi-dimensional concept called “peacebuilding.” The term peacebuilding, though highly contested, is commonly understood as a complex interaction that encompasses conflict resolution and the rebuilding of governance, security and economic and judicial institutions in post-conflict societies (Chetail 2009). Peacebuilding missions go beyond negotiating and mediating political settlements to end violence—they actively promote democratization and marketization (Paris 2004) in the process of rebuilding post-conflict societies. Because of the shortcomings of peacebuilding practice (Lidén 2006) and the ethics of using humanitarian intervention in tandem with regime change, and transposing liberal democracies in given locales (Call 2012), the literature on peacebuilding thus shifted to debates on liberal peace. The liberal peace theory contends that societies that espouse liberal components such as democracy promotion, rule of law, good governance, market economies and human rights are more stable than those that do not (Doyle 2005).

The liberal peacebuilding paradigm has also been heavily criticized by scholars. Critical peacebuilding literature has called out certain Western-led and dominated “northern epistemologies” that do not equally value “local” or Indigenous approaches to peacemaking (Lidén et al. 2009). While a “local turn” in peacebuilding has been attempted by actors working to build the liberal peace in conflict affected areas, the results have been mixed at best, and dangerous, neocolonial and destabilizing at worst. These attempts have also been critiqued for their inconsistent applications and results, which range from “resistance, cooption, compliance and rejection” to a hybrid peace (Lidén et al. 2009, 588). Despite these numerous critiques, liberal peacebuilding remains the dominant paradigm in which many mediation processes are currently conducted. Furthermore, mediation literature has not reflected critiques of liberal peacebuilding to the same extent as peacebuilding literature writ large.

Instead, mediation literature started to focus on the “sustainability” of peace agreements and their legitimacy through the notion of participatory inclusion of a whole new set of actors. The liberal peacebuilding paradigm was embedded in a context of globalization and new forms of “global governance” after the ending of the Cold War. This phenomenon saw the rise in prominence of non-state actors, including NGOs and inter-governmental organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund playing a direct role in peacebuilding processes (Josselin and Wallace 2001). The liberal peacebuilding paradigm also brought with it a focus on institution-building and “participatory governance” as parameters for sustainable peace that featured multi-level, multi-layered processes that incorporated civil society and private actors into the “peacebuilding consensus” (Richmond 2008, 257). This new outlook on war, conflict and peace promoted democracy, human rights and free trade as pillars of liberal peacebuilding. This explicitly normative outlook espoused the importance of basic human rights norms, which afforded non-state actors such as civil society organizations and NGOs the ability to play an unprecedented role in peace processes and negotiations. Due to these developments, the content of mediation processes also became more political in nature, buoyed by activists calling for the inclusion of rights-based norms in peace processes. The normative framework in mediation has grown (Hellmüller et al. 2015) to include more “ambitious objectives entering its normative and cosmopolitan repertoire” (Richmond 2018, 8).

2.3 Norm Diffusion and Norm Entrepreneurship in International Relations

If a mediator should promote norms, can they? What are mechanisms through which international norms are promoted? In this section, I review how the “constructivist turn” to norms in IR theory has provided theories of norm diffusion such as norm entrepreneurship and norm localization that shed light on how mediators can promote norms in theory.

Research on norms has produced important theoretical contributions on how ideas shape interests. This normative turn in constructivist international relations literature has provided important inputs on conceptualizing the vast array of social and political norms (Björkdahl 2002); how norms spread (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), how norms localize in a given context through matching, grafting or pruning (Acharya 2004; Price 1998; Checkel 1998) and how norms are contested and decay (Bloomfield 2015).

Within constructivist IR ontology, norms are defined as “collective expectations for the proper behaviour of actors with a given identity” (Katzenstein 1996, 5). Within the last 20 years, scholarship on norms has taken a constructivist turn (Wendt 1992). One of the most prominent theories of norm diffusion put forth the notion of “norm entrepreneurs.” Norm entrepreneurs attempt to convince a critical mass of actors to adopt a certain norm. This process of norm adoption is distinguished in three phases of a “life cycle:” emergence, cascade, and internalization, where norms take on a “taken for granted” quality (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998).⁷ These early models of norm diffusion focused on state actors and how norms and identities can constitute state interests. Many empirical studies followed that utilized how norms shape interests in relation to a host of contemporary issues in IR such as nuclear and chemical weapons, apartheid, and global prohibition regimes around piracy, drug-trafficking and slavery (Tannenwald 1999; Price 1998; Klotz 1995; Nadelmann 1990; Strang 1991).

In the 2000s, a second wave of norms scholarship attempted to fill a gap in norm diffusion theory: why do some norms find greater acceptance in a particular locale than in others? How does norm diffusion in local contexts complement processes of norm diffusion taking place at an international level? Amitav Acharya’s (2004) theory of norm localization led this second wave of scholarship by looking at how foreign norms are incorporated into different locales. Rather than a dichotomous acceptance or rejection of norms by norm-takers, Acharya’s theory of constitutive localization outlines a complex “process by which norm-takers build congruence between transnational norms and local beliefs and practices” (Acharya 2004, 241). This theory allows for more scope in the agency of norm-takers who are not just taught norms by “moral cosmopolitanists” diffusing them in a top-down manner (ibidem). In constitutive localization, norm-takers can combine outside moral principles with pre-existing normative frameworks through a consideration of their efficiency and utility (Acharya 2004, 243) for a given purpose.

Norm localization emphasizes a dynamic process of congruence building (Acharya 2004). International or foreign norms do not necessarily localize because of a “cultural match” (Checkel 1998), but can go through a process of framing, grafting and pruning. Through these actions, norm entrepreneurs engage in fluid processes that shape and reform the constitutive elements of a given norm as it is diffused. Norm framing highlights and creates salience around a norm by using terms that label, interpret or dramatize them. The increased salience of said norm may result in global norms appearing more congruent in a given locale (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Norm grafting institutionalizes or anchors a new norm onto a pre-existing one with the aim of reinterpreting the previously held value (Price 1998). Norm pruning leaves out certain constitutive elements of an outside norm in order to be accommodated more effectively with the local audience (Acharya 2004; Kaye 2009).

Acharya’s focus on how norm entrepreneurs diffuse norms from a transnational context to a local⁸ one offers important refinements in norm diffusion theory in at least two ways. Firstly, it highlights the importance of normative agency of both the “norm-maker” and the “norm-taker” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Secondly, it emphasizes the notion that norms change through a process of contestation. While the elements of congruence building narrowly focus on actions undertaken by norm entrepreneurs, norm localization extends into more complex processes of norm reconstitution to make an outside norm congruent with a pre-existing local order. This broader understanding is largely achieved by recognizing the agency of the local audience. Therefore, activities such as norm framing, grafting and pruning can be combined under a single framework defined as constitutive localization, or “the active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting and cultural selection) of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in the former developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices” (Acharya 2004, 245). For norm localization to occur, Acharya points to the following conditions: a strong and legitimate cognitive prior (pre-existing normative order); credible and willing insider proponents; some scope for grafting between the external norm and the cognitive prior; and some scope for elements in an existing normative hierarchy to receive wider external recognition through an association with an external norm (Acharya 2004, 251). As such, norm localization and the shift in focus to the “local” norm-taker also offers a basis to understand instances of failed norm diffusion.

The misadventures of emerging norms in international security around the turn of the millennium such as the Responsibility to Protect (Welsh 2013) and the creation of the International Criminal Court led norms scholars to question not only which norms matter, but “whose norms matter?” (Lidén 2006; Acharya 2011, 2013). This critique placed the “moral cosmopolitan” emphasis of early norm diffusion literature into the fore, rendering the simplistic narrative of “good” global norms promoted by Western norm entrepreneurs fixing or displacing “bad” local norms found in the “Global South” (Acharya 2013; Palmiano Federer 2019) increasingly untenable. Acharya challenges this old narrative through two important refinements to his norm localization theory (1) norm subsidiarity, where local feedback that preserves local actors’ autonomy is “repatriated” back to a global context in a way that modifies or possibly strengthens the global norm (Acharya 2011) and (2) norm circulation, a combination of norm localization and norm subsidiarity that allows for multiple sources, contexts, and agents to inform how norms travel and change through different locales. Acharya’s corpus on how norms spread dovetailed with another wave of norms scholarship highlighting the dynamic nature of norms. Norms do not only spread through localization: they can also be contested, decay, regress or die.

Similar to Acharya, critical, or “reflexive,” “consistent” or “post-positivist” constructivism (Ralph 2017) posits that norms are contested through a discursive process that repeatedly constructs different meanings. Wiener has contributed significantly to the debate through her work on norm contestation through “meanings-in-use,” which are constitutive to norm change (Wiener 2009). Her work reflects IR constructivism’s shift towards a more “dynamic” (Bloomfield 2015) conception of norms and political change. Scholars Deitelhoff and Zimmerman hold that norms do not spread in a linear or one-way progressive path, but can regress, erode, decay or die (2020). This shift again illustrates more recent norm scholars’ efforts to address the focus on progressive norms and the failure of the first waves of norm literature to “accord equal analytical status” (Bloomfield 2015, 311) to actors that resist efforts to change global norms.

Norm contestation research has recently focused on “the agency of the governed” (Draude 2018), which critically challenges the assumption that liberal norms are “settled” and universal in nature. The “taken-for-granted” quality that liberal norms arguably take on is predicated on their assumed universality and their “goodness” (Palmiano Federer 2019). This consequentially renders non-liberal or illiberal norms “illegitimate” or “bad” (Wolff and Zimmerman 2016), creating binaries between so-called liberal democracies and illiberal (read: authoritarian) regimes.” The turn in norms literature to focusing on the “agency of the governed” draws from postcolonial perspectives that uncover the inherent Eurocentrism and Western-centric nature of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm’s robust normative framework. These scholars also critique the direction of so-called “global norms” spreading from the Global North to the Global South, which “[reifies] the epistemic dominance of the West vis-à-vis non-Western perspectives and realities” (Zimmermann et al. 2018, 693). To mitigate this, greater focus on the agents who create and change norms is needed (Pring and Palmiano Federer 2020).

While the focus on progressive norms in norms literature has been recognized, this has not been the case for the mediation literature. Despite the increasing normativity of the mediation field, there is a gap on critical approaches to mediation that explicitly critiques the underpinning liberal bias. With the exception of Richmond (2018), norms in mediation literature and peace research literature are uncritically assumed as positive or “good.” There are two main factors for the lack of critical approaches to norms in mediation literature. The first is the dominance of rationalist and positivist approaches to understanding mediation processes because the main goal of mediation literature is to determine the conditions under which a settlement can be reached. This material conception of “successful” mediation obfuscates more ideational conditions for success. Furthermore, success is not easily defined in mediation. The search for the elusive “Golden Formula” of successful mediation in mediation literature (Kleiboer 1996, 360) highlights the difficult nature of defining what success means—and perhaps more importantly—who defines it. Kleiboer (1996) cites several groups of authors who range from prescribing tight criteria for success to using rather broad definitions (Kriesberg 2001). In general, scholarship on success in mediation moves towards a goal-based approach where scholars (Touval and Zartman 1985) equate success with effectiveness (Kleiboer 1996, 362). Scholarship on success has moved from looking at contextual and material factors surrounding the process to the outcome of the mediation effort itself: the peace agreement. Numerous studies on factors that lead to the conclusion of peace agreements as a marker of success have been conducted, supplemented later by studies that look at the durability, sustainability and quality of these agreements. Despite considerable progress made in this regard, Kleiboer laments that an “Archimedean point for evaluating attempts at mediation” remains elusive. Objective analyses of what constitutes success are susceptible to “idiosyncratic values, interpretations and labelling […] embedded in a systematic normative and analytic perspective put forward by the analyst” (1996, 362). Despite the observation that the analytical frameworks commonly used to conceptualize and evaluate mediation are not easily reconciled with the symbolic objectives and the messiness of politics (Kleiboer 1996), mediation literature tends to operate under the central assumption that positivist rather than interpretivist approaches are more useful for understanding the conditions of effectiveness in peace agreements. There is no critical questioning of the enterprise of reaching peace agreements as a measure of success.

The second reason mediation literature has not addressed the emphasis on progressive norms is because mainstream literature views actors in a mediation as rational, ideal-type unitary actors. Bercovitch and Wells (1993) posit that “Mediators are usually rational actors” or most directly, “we do not believe the interpretive, or the prescriptive approaches, alas, account for the complexity of international mediation” (4, ibidem). Research on the role of mediators has consequently focused on mediators’ roles as approaches, tasks or strategies. Researchers have also been focused on mediation styles ranging from facilitative to manipulative and power-based mediators (Beardsley 2009; Svensson 2007; Vukovic 2015) rather than looking at norms and identities of mediators, as “third parties are treated as unitary actors” (Duursma 2014, 86). In sum, with a few exceptions that look explicitly at norm diffusion in peace processes (Zahar 2012; Anderson 2010), mediators forwarding certain norms to negotiating parties (Mandell and Tomlin 1991; Bluman-Schroeder 2004; Ingebritsen 2002) and the legal normativity of conflict resolution (Kastner 2015), mediators’ normative agency and their mechanisms of norm diffusion has not been sufficiently addressed in mediation literature.

2.4 A Theory of Normative Agency

This brings us back to understanding whether mediators are norm entrepreneurs. A narrower take asks the question: to what extent can mediators promote norms to negotiating parties in peace processes? Answering this question requires looking at a mediator’s normative agency to do so, and the conditions under which mediators can influence the behavior of the negotiating parties through norm promotion.

While I am interested in understanding what elements comprise a mediators’ normative agency, I do not assume that mediators inherently possess normative agency or possess it when they enter into a mediation process. Furthermore, rather than viewing normative agency as a tool that brings the inclusivity norm from Point A (onset of mediation) to Point B (end of mediation through signing a peace agreement and early implementation), I view normative agency itself as constituted and constructed through a complex process and interaction of legitimated power, a constellation of social practices, and meaning-imbued discourse. This process may not be spatially and temporally linear. I build this framework through two steps.

2.4.1 Norm Entrepreneurship and Normative Agency

In a first step, I link the concepts of norm entrepreneurship and normative agency by conceptualizing normative agency as a necessary condition for norm entrepreneurship (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Normative agency is a central aspect of international relations theory on norm diffusion. Agency is an important and contested concept in international relations theory on norms. It can be broadly defined as the ability of actors to think and act consciously in pursuing their intentions (Finnemore 1996). I conceive normative agency as comprised of three main elements: framing, practices and power. These elements are drawn from Wight’s (2006) three theoretical aspects of agency adapted by Hellmüller et al. to mediation (2017).⁹

As each of these concepts are intimidatingly large in scope and scale, I harness these concepts by analyzing them through the lens of constructivist IR scholars who engage with each in a specific manner and for a specific purpose. These epistemological foundations draw from diverse strands of literature following Katzenstein and Sil’s (2008) call for “eclectic theorizing”¹⁰ conducted in the spirit of “problem-driven rather than paradigm-driven research” (110). Therefore, this part of the book dives into three broad inter-related concepts relevant to understanding norm diffusion on a deeper level. First, the most relevant international practice through which norm diffusion takes place is through discursive framing, which necessarily refers to the IR debate on the role of communicative action, arguing and persuasion in norm diffusion (Risse 2000; Deitelhoff and Müller 2005) which itself draws on the corpus of Jürgen Habermas. Second, power dynamics are infused in social practices and thus draw on “practice IR theorists” Adler and Pouliot’s (2011) reading of international practices (2011) that in turn draws from the work of a diverse set of social theorists and sociologists. Third, my interpretation of power and legitimate authority stems from constructivist and IR norm theorists concerned with the underlying power dynamics ever-present in norm diffusion processes (Price 2008; Barnett and Duvall 2005) and inspired by the works of critical theorists and post-structuralist scholars (Foucault 1980; Giddens 1984; Linklater 1998).

The first element of normative agency is discursive framing, or simply “framing.” The concept of discursive framing forms the heart of norm diffusion practice, especially in the context of international peace mediation. To theorists of norm diffusion, framing “highlights and creates issues by using terms that label, interpret, or dramatize them with the result of global, international or foreign norms appearing more local” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 897). This understanding obfuscates the discursive nature of framing in norm diffusion processes. The discursive nature of framing relates to the persuasion, socialization, communication and argumentation happening in the background of all norm diffusion processes and is central to understanding how, as Schelling puts it above, one person makes another person believe something (Schelling 1960). In a mediation context, this requires a mediator to form their own interpretation of the normative parameters of their mandate and frame this interpretation to the negotiating parties. In this way, framing is an essential element of a mediator’s normative agency.

The second element of normative agency are social practices. Looking at peace mediation as a set of international practices addresses the agency-structure challenge (Wendt 1992). Practices are material and meaningful, and can bridge the discursive and material worlds; they can change the physical environment as well as the ideas that people hold about the world (Adler and Pouliot 2011, 7). Practices redefine the agent-structure dichotomy, as they are “suspended” between structure and agency; practices are simultaneously acted by individual social beings (agency) and inserted within a social context or political order (structure). This approach allows agency and structure to jointly constitute and enable practices. In this vein, the practice of mediation provides a structure through which agents can maneuver. At the same time, mediators (agents) and negotiating parties (agents) can maneuver and constitutively change the mediation field (structure). Practices are a key element of normative agency because they denote mediators engaging in various actions promoting norms that stem from strategy and not reaction (Hellmüller et al. 2017).

The third element of normative agency is power. In conflict resolution literature, the power of mediators is conceptualized in two ways. First, “power mediation” occurs when a mediator uses material or political resourced-based leverage to apply pressure or coerce negotiating parties. Second, “pure mediation” occurs when mediators use non-coercive means such as persuasion, reasoning and facilitation to influence the behavior of the parties (Beardsley 2009; Vukovic 2015). In mediation processes, power distributions can also be roughly identified between dominant and subordinate: a mediator is subordinate to international law parameters (bound by law); their mandate-givers (bound by varying institutional normative frameworks for mediation); and the negotiating parties (bound by the need for their consent). Power is distributed between international legal parameters (dominant) and mediators (subordinate); between mandate-givers (dominant) and mediators (subordinate); and between negotiating parties (dominant) and mediators (subordinate).¹¹ Once these power structures are identified, it is possible to explore different avenues of what confers legitimacy on a mediator. Adapting Beetham’s criteria for legitimation (Beetham 2013) provides some avenues for inductive exploration, primarily how mediators conform to the parameters of their mandated normative framework versus their own normative socialization in mediation processes and how they are conferred the legitimate authority to promote norms to the negotiating parties. Therefore, given the mechanics of norm promotion and the subordinate power dynamics of mediators to the negotiating parties and their mandate givers, I view power in the sense of mediators’ legitimate authority to facilitate or influence parties’ behavior towards certain outcomes. Understanding the relative power that mediators hold vis-à-vis their mandate-givers and the negotiating parties sheds light on the power mediators have to forward their actions. In terms of norm promotion, the power of a mediator is directly related to their ability to promote norms.

Conceptualizing mediation processes as a site of norm diffusion provides the space for the mutually constitutive relationship between agency and structure. I focus rather on the agency of a mediator in diffusing these norms within this structure. Therefore, the concept of a mediator’s normative agency is the red thread tying the concepts of framing, power and practice together. Normative agency is a central aspect of international relations theory on norm diffusion (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Finnemore (1996) sees agency, in the broadest sense, as the ability of actors to think and act consciously in pursuing their intentions.

In sum, I investigate a mediator’s normative agency by inductively assessing the ability to which (1) mediators can interpret norms in their normative framework from their mandate-givers and frame them in certain ways to the negotiating parties, (2) mediators engage in a set of practices that intentionally promote norms (their interpretation), and (3) mediators wield the power to frame discourses and conduct these practices in the first place.

Figure 2.1 Shows my research question in graphical terms:

Fig. 2.1

Linking norm entrepreneurship to normative agency

2.5 Concluding Thoughts: Promoting Peace or Pushing Norms?

In this book, I use the words norms and normativity often, which are related but distinct. While norms are standards for behavior set by societies, normativity entails an action one “ought” to do or a state one “ought” to be in—normativity is concerned with the ethics of a situation. In his 2008 volume on negotiation and conflict management, William Zartman outlines two of the central ethical dilemmas for mediators (2008): (1) whether to simultaneously pursue the double goal of stopping war and settling issues in a dispute; or (2) whether to facilitate an attainable settlement that violates international norms or to hold out for one consistent with principles adopted by the international community (171–172). The centrality of these ethical dilemmas in any mediation process illustrates the need to deal directly with normative theorizing and ethics in international peace mediation.

In my conceptual framework, linking theories around norm entrepreneurship, normative agency and applying them to peace mediation scholarship is essential in combining the ethical with the empirical (Reus-Smit and Snidal 2008). Scholars (Frost 1998; Price 2008; Reus-Smit and Snidal 2008, Linklater 1998) have long called for normative theorizing in IR. Viewing these concepts through a constructivist lens makes a “contribution to ethics that takes power seriously” by unpacking and identifying the sources and types of moral dilemmas (Price 2008, 244). Therefore, investigating how power is wielded through the particular practice of framing in norm diffusion effectively bridges the normative and the empirical, a central ambition of my research project. Applying this to mediation literature with the aim of conceptualizing this particular political process as a site for norm diffusion brings “the centrality of power to the study of norms” as it acknowledges that “the resolution of any genuine moral dilemma entails the trumping of some morally substantive visions of politics over others” (Price 2008). This approach makes the inherently normative, and thus political nature of peace mediation practice explicit. This necessarily brings up the questions: Whose norms? Who promotes them and to what end? What happens empirically when a norm is promoted? The next two chapters flesh out this framework further, spotlighting the actors who promote the norms, and the norms being promoted.