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Understanding the Domestic Impact 
of International Norms: 
A Research Agenda 
Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis, Jr. 
or 
more than a decade, scholars, who have highlighted both the reg- 
ulative and constitutive functions of norms in international politics, have 
challenged the structural realist paradigm, which focuses mostly on the 
effects of variations in the distribution of capabilities among states under anar- 
chy.' Until recently, the focus of scholarship on norms-like that of structural 
realism-has been cast at the level of the international system, with norms held 
to affect state behavior by providing solutions to coordination problems,2 
1 The structural realist paradigm is most persuasively detailed in Kenneth Waltz, 
Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1979). Important 
critiques that in various ways focus on the normativity of the international system 
include Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New 
York: Columbia University Press, 1979); Robert W. Cox, "Social Forces, States and 
World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory," Millennium: Journal of Inter- 
national Studies 10 (1981), pp. 126-155; Friedrich V. Kratochwil, "Errors Have Their 
Advantage," International Organization 38, No. 2 (1984), pp. 305-320; and Alexan- 
der Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power 
Politics," International Organization 46, No. 2 (1992), pp. 391-426. For a forceful 
defense of the Waltzean position, see John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of 
International Institutions," International Security 19 (1994/95), pp. 5-49. 
2 Arthur A. Stein, "Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World," 
in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University 
Press, 1983), pp. 115-140; Lisa L. Martin, "Interests, Power, and Multilateralism," 
International Organization 46, No. 4 (1992), pp. 765-792. 
? 2000 International Studies Association 
Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Maiden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK. 
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66 Cortell and Davis 
reducing transaction costs,3 providing a language and grammar of international 
politics,4 and constituting the state actors themselves.5 
Without denying the effects of international norms at the level of the in- 
ternational system, a second wave of scholars has argued that international 
norms also have important effects on state behavior via domestic political 
processes.6 Two national-level factors have been shown to condition the ef- 
fects of international norms on domestic political processes and provide ex- 
planations for important cross-national variation in compliance with and 
interpretation of international norms: the domestic salience or legitimacy of 
the norm, and the structural context within which the domestic policy debate 
transpires.' Domestic political structures are important because they condition 
access to policy-making fora and privilege certain actors in policy debates, as 
3 Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Polit- 
ical Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), esp. chs. 5 and 6. 
4 Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Prac- 
tical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cam- 
bridge. U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making: 
Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia, S.C.: Univer- 
sity of South Carolina Press, 1989). 
5 For example, William Coplin, "International Law and Assumptions about the State 
System," World Politics 17, No. 4 (1965), pp. 615-635; Martha Finnemore, National 
Interests in International Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996); Alex- 
ander Wendt, "Constructing International Politics," International Security (1995), pp. 71- 
81; David Dessler, "What's at Stake in the Agent Structure Debate?" International 
Organization 43, No. 3 (1989), pp. 441-473; Michael N. Barnett, "Sovereignty, Nation- 
alism, and Regional Order in the Arab States System," International Organization 49, 
No. 3 (1995), pp. 479-510. 
6Examples include Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis, Jr., "How Do Inter- 
national Institutions Matter? The Domestic Impact of International Rules and Norms," 
International Studies Quarterly 40 (1996), pp. 451-478; Audie Klotz, "Norms Recon- 
stituting Interests: Global Racial Equality and U.S. Sanctions against South Africa," 
International Organization 49, No. 3 (1995), pp. 451-478; Thomas J. Biersteker, "The 
'Triumph' of Neoclassical Economics in the Developing World: Policy Convergence 
and Bases of Governance in the International Economic Order," in James N. Rosenau 
and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, eds., Governance without Government: Order and Change 
in World Politics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 102-131; 
Amy Gurowitz, "Mobilizing International Norms: Domestic Actors, Immigrants and 
the Japanese State," World Politics 51, No. 3 (1999), pp. 413-445. 
7 This approach extends the prominent analysis by Peter Gourevitch, who has argued the need to examine the effects of "third image" factors on regime types and coalition 
patterns, as well as the mediating effects of preexisting state structures on systemic 
pressures. See "The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic 
Politics," International Organization 32, No. 4 (1978), pp. 881-911. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 67 
Peter Gourevitch argued.8 Similarly, Thomas Risse-Kappen argues that the 
ability of transnational actors to promote norms (principled ideas) and influ- 
ence state policy is dependent on domestic structures understood in terms of 
state-societal relations. Moreover, Jeffrey T. Checkel finds that the effects of 
international norms are conditioned by domestic structures and the norms' 
congruence with domestic political culture. Jeffrey W. Legro's research shows 
that organizational cultures can mediate between international norms and state 
policy preferences.9 
Whereas studies of domestic structural determinants of a norm's influence 
are well developed, the same cannot be said for the concept of domestic salience. 
Scholars repeatedly conclude that domestic salience is crucial to many cases of 
states' compliance with international norms, but they rarely provide definitions 
or operational measures for the concept and, instead, merely assert that the 
norm in question was salient.10 
Further progress on a domestic approach to international norm compliancehinges on the redress of two major shortcomings in the literature. First, insuf- 
ficient attention has been devoted to the measurement of a norm's strength, 
legitimacy, or salience in the domestic political arena." Second, the mecha- 
nisms and processes by which international norms can or cannot attain 
8 See ibid., esp. pp. 900-907. Also, Peter Hall, Governing the Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank 
Longstreth, eds., Structuring Politics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 
1992). 
9 Thomas Risse-Kappen: "Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Introduction," 
in Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State 
Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cam- 
bridge University Press, 1995), and "Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coali- 
tions, Domestic Structures and the End of the Cold War," International Organization 
48, No. 2 (1994), pp. 185-214; Jeffrey T. Checkel, "Norms, Institutions and National 
Identity in Contemporary Europe," International Studies Quarterly 43 (1999), pp. 83- 
114; Jeffrey W. Legro, "Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the 'Failure' of Internation- 
alism," International Organization 51, No. 1 (1997), pp. 31-63. 
'0For examples of research where the domestic legitimacy or salience of an inter- national norm or institution has played an important role in promoting norm compli- 
ance, see Cortell and Davis, "How Do International Institutions Matter?," esp. pp. 471- 
472; Kathryn Sikkink, "Human Rights, Principled Issue-Networks, and Sovereignty in Latin America," International Organization 47, No. 3 (1993), pp. 411-441; Kevin 
Hartigan, "Refugee Policies in Mexico and Honduras," International Organization 46, No. 3 (1992), pp. 709-730; Checkel, "Norms, Institutions and National Identity in 
Contemporary Europe"; and Klotz, "Norms Reconstituting Interests." 
11For an exception, see Legro, "Which Norms Matter?" 
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68 Cortell and Davis 
domestic legitimacy remain underexplored, as research has tended to be biased 
toward processes and dynamics at the international system level.12 
The two tasks are intimately related. Without a clear definition of salience, 
it is difficult to know what to observe or measure in the domestic political 
context. Moreover, the identification of the mechanisms whereby international 
norms become domestically salient may lead to insights into variations in the 
degree of salience enjoyed by various international norms in the domestic dis- 
course. In turn, this should help to clarify the dimensions along which measures 
for salience should be constructed. 
The chief objective of this article is to identify avenues for subsequent 
research on the domestic impact of international norms. The article operation- 
alizes the concept of domestic salience and identifies several mechanisms and 
conditions that may contribute to establishing the domestic salience of inter- 
national norms. The focus is not on understanding a particular instance of norm 
compliance, but rather the factors that promote an international norm's attain- 
ing the status of an "ought" in the domestic political arena. The goal is then to 
provide a framework for understanding why some international norms resonate 
in the domestic political discourse while others do not. 
The article is organized in the following fashion. The first section defines 
and operationalizes the concept of salience. The second section presents in 
some detail hypothesized conditions and mechanisms leading to domestic 
salience. The third section discusses the empirical research necessary for progress 
toward the formulation of testable, contingent hypotheses. The conclusion dis- 
cusses the wider implications of this research agenda. 
THE DOMESTIC SALIENCE OF INTERNATIONAL NORMS 
International rules and norms have important effects by way of domestic polit- 
ical processes. The concept of salience highlights the varying strength of 
12In a recent review of scholarship on norms and international politics, Martha 
Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink tellingly focus almost exclusively on explaining the 
emergence and operation of norms at the international system level, while largely 
neglecting the growing body of literature that concentrates on the operation of inter- national norms through domestic political systems. See "International Norm Dynam- 
ics and Political Change," International Organization 52, No. 4 (1998), pp. 887-917. 
The systems-level bias of this research has consequences. Analyses cast at the inter- 
national system level are basically correlative and capture group tendencies rather than 
the effects of norms on particular states and foreign policy decisions. If norms can be 
counterfactually valid, a point discussed below, a systems-level analysis of compli- 
ance will underestimate the range of actors and decisions for which the norm was an 
important, if not determinative, factor. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 69 
international norms-defined here as "prescriptions for action in situations of 
choice"-within the domestic political context.13 Not all international rules 
and norms will resonate in domestic debates. Rather, salience requires a dura- 
ble set of attitudes toward the norm's legitimacy in the national arena, such that 
the norm is presumptively "accepted as a guide to conduct and a basis for 
criticism, including self criticism." 14 Salient norms give rise to feelings of 
obligation by social actors and, when violated, engender regret or a feeling that 
the deviation or violation requires justification.15 
When a norm is salient in a particular social discourse, its invocation by 
relevant actors legitimates a particular behavior or action, creating a prima 
facie obligation, and thereby calling into question or delegitimating alternative 
choices.16 In policy disputes, claims based on salient norms shift and raise 
the burden of justification necessary to overcome the claimant's position in 
favor of competing options.17 To overcome the objection, one "must try to 
show that the facts are not as they seem to be; or that the rule, properly inter- 
preted, does not cover the conduct in question; or that some other matter excuses 
nonperformance." 18 
Yet the literature on international norms demonstrates that there are multi- 
ple conceptual difficulties in measuring variations in the domestic salience of 
international norms. For example, the danger of tautology is apparent in con- 
structing valid and reliable measures of a norm's salience in the domestic dis- 
course. It would be easy, and wrong, to code a norm as salient merely because 
state behavior is observed to be consistent with an existing international norm. 
13 Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes, The New Sovereignty: Compliance 
with International Regulatory Agreements (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 
1995), p. 113. 
14 Richard H. Fallon, "Reflections on Dworkin and the Two Faces of Law," Notre 
Dame Law Review 67 (1992), as cited in Chayes and Chayes, New Sovereignty, p. 116. For similar discussions, see Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart, The Concept of Law, 2d. ed. (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 56-57 and 88-117; Gregory Caldeira and James Gibson, "The Legitimacy of the Court of Justice in the European Union: 
Models of Institutional Support," American Political Science Review 89 (1995), 
p. 357. 
15 For a similar view of salience, see Ian Hurd, "Legitimacy and Authority in Inter- 
national Politics," International Organization 53, No. 2 (1999), p. 381. 
'6For a similar discussion of the legitimating function of regimes in interstate dis-course, see Harald MUller, "The Internalization of Principles, Norms, and Rules by Governments: The Case of Security Regimes," in Volker Rittberger, ed., Regime Theory and International Relations (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 383. 
'7See Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, chs. 4 and 5. 
'8Chayes and Chayes, New Sovereignty, p. 119. 
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70 Cortell and Davis 
Needed are measures of salience that are independent of the particular behav- 
ioral outcome being explained.'9 
For their part, prominent institutionalists from the rationalist and construc- 
tivist schools argue that the strength of a norm is a function of its level of 
"institutionalization," which means the embedding of the norm's tenets in the 
state's constitutional, regulative, or judicial systems.20 Precisely how and when 
domestically embedded international institutions infuse actors' beliefs and thereby 
affect behavior is underspecified. A more accurate-if less parsimonious- 
measurement of the domestic salience of a particular norm would involve a 
threefold investigation of changes in the national discourse, the state's institu- 
tions, and state policies.21 
The first sign of an international norm's domestic impact is its appearance 
in the domestic political discourse. The introduction of international norms into 
the domestic discourse may come from state or societal actors and often takes 
the form of demands for a change in the policy agenda. The proponents of the 
international norm will invoke it to justify institutional or policy change or to 
delegitimize the preferences of other domestic actors. Indicative of the growing 
salience of international institutions is the formation of more organized societal 
groupings devoted to pressing for domestic institutional change or government 
working groups or committees charged with formulating policy options consis- 
tent with the tenets of the international institution. 
Changes in national institutions provide a second indication that a given 
international norm or the normative tenets of an international institution have 
achieved more than nominal domestic salience. Institutional change comes in 
several forms and degrees.22 As a first step, the international norm may be 
embedded in domestic laws and procedures. The norm will enjoy greater sa- 
lience if conflicting domestic institutions are eliminated or weakened, if 
procedures are established that enable domestic actors to complain about 
violations, if procedures exist or are created to sanction violations, or if a 
'9For a similar discussion, see Robert O. Keohane, "International Relations and 
International Law: Two Optics," Harvard International Law Review 38 (1997), 
p. 493. 
20See Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in 
International Relations Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989), pp. 4-5; Kratoch- 
wil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, pp. 61-63. 
21 Harold Koh offers a similar framework, arguing that one might distinguish 
among the social, political, and legal internalization of international norms. See "Why Do Nations Obey International Law?" Yale Law Journal 106 (1997), pp. 2656- 
2657. 
22 See the essays in Steinmo et al., eds., Structuring Politics. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 71 
state unit is created to monitor and implement compliance.23 The more the 
international norm or institution accords with national institutions and the more 
numerous the mechanisms devoted to its reproduction and reinforcement, the 
greater its domestic salience. 
A third indication of the level of salience enjoyed by an international norm 
involves analysis of the state's policies. The analysis may not be straightfor- 
ward, as the state can change one policy to placate international or domestic 
pressure but fail to modify a host of other policies and procedures that diminish 
or undermine the norm's impact. To gauge the implication of any one policy 
change, requires the examination of several policies, including those in related 
issue areas. 
Of the three measures of norm salience, discourse is the most important if 
also the least objective. This is true for several reasons. For one, changes in the 
domestic discourse will precede and accompany changes in institutions and 
policy and provide evidence as to the reasons for change. Less obvious is that 
analysis of discourse can provide insights into "nonevents" that may be norm- 
governed. A focus on observable behavior may be inappropriate for explaining 
situations where an actor did not choose a particular course of action, or did not 
exploit an opportunity for gain.24 When certain behaviors are ruled out of the 
range of acceptable alternatives, owing to internalized normative constraints, 
there may be no outward or observable behavioral traces on which to base 
empirical analysis. Or, paradoxically, the most salient norms will be most evi- 
dent when they are violated, as actors will feel a strong need to justify or 
apologize for noncompliance.25 
Measuring the salience of norms requires the analyst to take actors' expla- 
nations for their behavior seriously, but justifications need further analysis. For 
example, if an actor explains a particular behavioral choice in terms of a norm 
or obligation, one would try to test the implications of that explanation in other 
fields of behavior. If the norm governs behavior, a high degree of consistency 
across related issues would be expected. Similarly, if an actor apologizes for 
violating a norm and justifies noncompliance in terms of extenuating circum- 
stances, then we would expect other observable behaviors and conditions. Mere 
rationalizations can be distinguished from forthright justifications because the 
23 Koh argues that "legal internalization occurs when an international norm is incor- 
porated into the domestic legal system through executive action, judicial interpreta- 
tion, legislative action or some combination of the three." See "Why Do Nations Obey International Law?," p. 2657. 
24See Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, "Decisions and Nondecisions: An 
Analytical Framework," American Political Science Review 57 (1963), pp. 632-642. 
25 On providing justification, see Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, ch. 4. 
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72 Cortell and Davis 
justifications can be reasonably fit into a larger pattern of behavior and recon- 
ciled with prominent contextual factors whereas the rationalizations cannot. 
This approach to measuring norm salience is admittedly interpretivist. Yet it 
does yield a four-value scale-high, moderate, low, and not salient. When an 
investigation of the domestic discourse, institutions, and policies shows the 
norm's objectives, prescriptions, and proscriptions to be uncontested, and when 
domestic actors routinely invoke the norm to promote their interests, the norm 
can be said to enjoy a high degree of salience. Somewhat less salient are those 
norms for which the domestic discourse admits exceptions, reservations, and 
special conditions. As long as such exceptions or deviations are embedded in 
higher order, principled understandings, and permitted on nonidiosyncratic terms 
and without invidious discrimination, the norm should retain salience as a guide 
to behavior and policy choice.26 Norms enjoying moderate salience then are 
those that appear in the domestic discourse, producing some change in the 
national agenda and the state's institutions,but still confront countervailing 
institutions, procedures, and normative claims. When norms have entered the 
national discourse but fail to produce an agenda or institutional change, they 
can be said to enjoy a low degree of salience. Norms that lack domestic advo- 
cates or that are used to justify actions in purely idiosyncratic (nongeneraliz- 
able) terms are not considered salient. 
Because international norms vary in their degree of domestic salience, the 
preceding discussion stresses the need for measurement. Yet the effect of a 
particular norm on behavior will rarely be a straightforward result of salience. 
As Friedrich V. Kratochwil and John Ruggie have pointed out, norms are often 
counterfactually valid and not "causes" of behavior that can be readily sub- 
sumed under a covering-law approach to explanation.27 Rather, the most impor- 
tant effects of salient norms result from processes of internalization at the level 
of the individual actor and persuasion at the level of discourse. 
How Do INTERNATIONAL NORMS BECOME 
SALIENT DOMESTICALLY? 
The previous section argued that a norm's domestic salience should be estab- 
lished by the analysis of national discourse, state institutions, and policies. But 
26For a similar approach, see Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Principled Ideas, Inter- national Institutions, and Domestic Political Change: The Case of Human Rights"; 
unpublished manuscript (Konstanz: University of Konstanz, 1995), pp. 10-11. See, 
too, the discussion of the legitimacy of norms in Chayes and Chayes, New Sovereignty, 
pp. 127-134. 27 Friedrich V. Kratochwil and John Gerard Ruggie, "International Organization: A 
State of the Art on an Art of the State," International Organization 40, No. 4 (1986), 
pp. 766-769. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 73 
how are international norms introduced and embedded into these features of the 
state's domestic politics? 
This section draws on research in international politics and international 
law to identify several plausible conditions, mechanisms, and processes that 
contribute to the domestic salience of an international norm. The discussion is 
structured around five key factors. First, we address the "cultural match" between 
the international norm and national understandings, a factor that conditions the 
impact of an international norm once it enters the national arena. Second, the 
analysis turns to four pathways or mechanisms through which an international 
norm can enter the domestic arena: national political rhetoric, the material inter- 
ests of domestic actors, domestic political institutions, and socializing forces. 
Whereas the first three mechanisms operate primarily at the level of domestic 
politics, socializing forces generally emanate from interactions at the level of 
the state system. 
The mechanisms should be regarded as neither competing explanations nor 
mutually exclusive. As suggested below, norm salience may be a function of 
one or more of these factors in any one case. Before one can explore empiri- 
cally how these conditions and mechanisms interrelate, it is necessary first to 
identify and analyze each individually. 
We do not address the interesting question of the origins of international 
norms here. Many international norms, such as those pertaining to human rights, 
have their origins in national discourses. The ways that new normative under- 
standings emerge and become salient in domestic contexts, and then come to 
infuse international politics, is a worthwhile subject of analysis.28 The focus of 
this analysis is limited to conditions and mechanisms mediating between the 
existence of an international norm and its impact on domestic politics and pol- 
icy choice. 
Cultural Match 
Preexisting domestic understandings condition the impact of international norms 
in policy debates. Checkel refers to this condition as "cultural match." 29 Using 
the term "culture" captures why, if international norms are to become salient 
domestically, they need to resonate with domestic norms, widely held domestic 
understandings, beliefs, and obligations. The domestic discourse, then, pro- 
vides the context within which the international norm takes on meaning and 
thereby conditions its operation. 
28 For example, see Ellen Carol Dubois, "Woman Suffrage around the World: Three Phases of Suffragist Internationalism," in Carline Delaney and Melanie Nolan, eds., 
Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (New York: New York Uni- 
versity Press, 1994), pp. 252-274. 
29 Checkel, "Norms, Institutions and National Identity in Contemporary Europe." 
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74 Cortell and Davis 
When such a cultural match exists, domestic actors are likely to treat the 
international norm as a given, instinctively recognizing the obligations associ- 
ated with the norm. Domestic salience under such conditions is automatic. Con- 
versely, when the international norm conflicts with understandings, beliefs, or 
obligations established in the domestic sphere, domestic actors may then find 
appeals to the international norm to be ineffective in garnering support for a 
particular policy.30 Gary Goertz and Paul F. Diehl note that "although Britain 
and France may face the same international norms.. . the unique national expe- 
rience of a country will make its propensity to follow that norm different." 31 
Similarly, about international economic norms, Robert Gilpin argues, "it is excep- 
tionally difficult for trade liberalization to proceed when resistance to increased 
economic openness is located in the very nature of a society and in its national 
priorities.... The existence of a liberal trade regime in a world composed 
largely of 'illiberal' states is highly problematic." 32 
In some cases, recognition of an international norm might be likened to 
cultural imperialism or colonialism and cause domestic resistance or rejection. 
Resistance to the norm might transcend societal distinctions or be limited to 
particular groups within a society. For example, political elites might view 
adhering to an international norm as compromising the state's sovereignty or 
their own capacity for rule. This appears to be the case in many parts of Asia, 
where ruling elites reject international calls for policies reflecting Western con- 
ceptions of human rights and political pluralism with appeals to the primacy of 
"Asian values." 33 
Even if elites embrace an international norm, they may encounter resistance 
from a domestic populace that views the norm's tenets as inconsistent with their 
30Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Net- works in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), reach a similar conclusion with respect to the ability of transnational advocacy networks to 
promote norm compliance. Such advocacy networks "are more likely to be influential if they fit well with existing ideas and ideologies in a particular historical setting" 
(p. 204). 
31 Gary Goertz and Paul F. Diehl, "Toward a Theory of International Norms: Some 
Conceptual and Measurement Issues," Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (1992), p. 653. 
32Robert Gilpin, "The Changing Trade Regime," in Takashi Inoguchi and Daniel 
Okimoto, eds., The Political Economy of Japan, vol. 2: The Changing International Context (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 146. For an argument that states promote international norms that reinforce domestic principles or standards of legitimacy, see G. John Ikenberry, "Constitutional Politics in International Rela- 
tions," European Journal of International Relations 4 (1998), pp. 162-164. 
33 See Richard Robinson, "The Politics of'Asian Values,' " pp. 309-327; Gary Rodan, "The Internationalization of Ideological Conflict: Asia's New Significance," pp. 328- 
351; and Michael Freeman, "Human Rights, Democracy and 'Asian Values,' " pp. 352- 
366; all in Pacific Review 9, No. 3 (1996). 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 75 
prevailing values, traditions, or aspirations. As for colonial America's embrace 
of liberal neutrality rules, Mlada Bukovansky concludes: "Even if they had 
wanted the U.S. to be a mercantilist state on the British model (and they most 
certainly did not), Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin would never have been able 
to legitimate mercantilist principles on that basis. Their authority and identity 
lay in the promise to combat, not emulate, British mercantilism." 34 
The foregoing should not be read to imply that the relationship between 
domestic understandings and an international norm's domestic salience reflects 
an "either/or" dynamic-that is, it either resonates with the country's culture 
and is salient, or it does not and is not. Rather, an international norm might 
confront a void about the behavior or issues it is intended to guide or regulate. 
Ceteris paribus, the absence of preconceptions and other unique national beliefs 
enhances the probability that the proponents of an international norm- 
domestic or transnational-can establish the legitimacy of the international 
norm in domestic discourse, laws, and institutions. Peter Haas writes: 
If decision makers have no strong preconceived views and beliefs about an 
issue area in which regulation is to be undertaken for the first time, an episte- 
mic community can have an even greater impact in shaping their interpreta- 
tions and actions in this case and in establishing the patterns of behavior that 
they will follow in subsequent cases regarding the issue area.35 
Similarly, in a recent comparative study of norm diffusion, Checkel finds that 
in Ukraine, which lacked a national normative framework about questions of 
national identity, newly empowered national elites have succeeded in institu- 
tionalizing "inclusive citizenship norms" developed by the Council of Europe. 
As Checkel explains, "the lack of an institutionalized-and hence politically 
influential-Soviet conception of identity has removed a potent barrier to norm 
diffusion." 36 
The fact that legitimating discourses are bounded by prevailing domestic 
understandings should not obscure the dynamic nature of the relationship between 
domestic and international normative structures. Both are usually evolving. 
This implies that the match between the two sets of normative structures may 
change over time-both greater consonance and dissonance are possible- 
and that the domestic salience of international norms will vary accordingly. 
34 Mlada Bukovansky, "American Identity and Neutral Rights, from Independence 
to the War of 1812," International Organization 51, No. 2 (1997), p. 232. 
35 Peter Haas, "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coor- 
dination," International Organization 46, No. 1 (1992), p. 29. 
36Jeffrey T. Checkel, "Norms, Institutions and National Identity in Contemporary 
Europe"; unpublished manuscript (University of Pittsburgh, 1996), p. 39. 
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76 Cortell and Davis 
Cultural match as a condition mediating the domestic salience of international 
norms is dynamic and malleable, as the discussion of rhetoric clarifies. 
Rhetoric 
The evolving nature of domestic normative understandings directs attention 
toward political rhetoric-or persuasive discourse-as a mechanism for gen- 
erating collective understandings and the domestic salience of an international 
norm.37 
The pronouncements of authoritative national leaders illustrate how do- 
mestic understandings about the legitimacy of an international norm can evolve. 
Repeated declarations by state leaders on the legitimacy of the obligations 
that an international norm places on states usually raise the norm's salience 
in the national arena. A single pronouncement of this type is unlikely to es- 
tablish domestic salience. Instead, the effect of these declarations is cumu- 
lative. As authoritative officials set precedents and standards for themselves 
and their successors, their normative pronouncements become part of the 
society's legitimating discourse, establish intersubjective understandings and 
expectations at both the domestic and international levels, and constrain pol- 
icy options. 
The original embrace of an international norm may be purely instrumental, 
indeed cynical, yet still lead to salience. For example, Risse has documented 
how authoritarian leaders' adoption of the rhetoric of universal human rights 
norms in political strategies aimed at relieving outside pressures for domestic 
reform or regaining foreign assistance has legitimized these norms in their states' 
domestic politics.38 As Risse notes, "if norm-violating governments find it nec- 
essary to make rhetorical concessions and to cease denying the validity of human 
rights norms, this provides a discursive opening for their critics to challenge 
them further: If you say that you accept human rights, how come that [sic] you 
37The effects of rhetorical and persuasive processes in international politics are 
generally underappreciated and largely unexamined. See Frank Schimmelpfennig, 
"Rhetorisches Handeln in der internationalen Politik," Zeitschrift fiir Internationale 
Beziehungen 4 (1997), pp. 219-254; also Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, 
esp. ch. 5. 
38Thomas Risse, "The Socialization of International Norms into Domestic Prac- 
tices: Arguing and the Strategic Adaptation in the Human Rights Area"; paper pre- 
pared for the conference on "Ideas, Culture and Political Analysis," Princeton University, 
May 15-16, 1998; also see Jeffrey Checkel, "International Norms and Domestic Pol- 
itics: Bridging the Rationalist-Constructivist Divide," European Journal of Inter- 
national Relations 3 (1997), pp. 473-495, and Darren Hawkins, "Domestic Responses 
to International Pressure: Human Rights in Authoritarian Chile," European Journal of 
International Relations 3 (1997), pp. 403-434. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 77 
violate them systematically?" 39 The domestic debate then shifts from being 
concerned with whether the norm is legitimate to one concerning why it should 
not be consistently applicable. 
The rhetoric of societal leaders can also enhance the salience of inter- 
national norms in the domestic political arena. The literature on social move- 
ments finds that the leaders of such movements often cast their demands in 
terms of international norms, either making the case for national applicability 
or decrying the state's failure to comply with international obligations. Across 
a range of issue areas and national contexts, the appeals of societal leaders to 
international norms have succeeded in establishing their salience in wider domes- 
tic political debates.40 
Preexisting national understandings may provide arguments both for and 
against accepting the international norm. In situations where the match between 
the international norm and prevailing domestic understandings is partial, pro- 
ponents of the international norm face a political and rhetorical struggle that 
will require them to argue convincingly for the priority of one set of domestic 
understandings over others. 
Domestic Interests 
The society's legitimating discourse may also evolve due to considerations of 
material interest as espoused by state or societal groups. This mechanism can 
also produce a congruence between domestic and international norms where 
one had not previously existed. 
Studieshave demonstrated that international norms are more likely to become 
salient if they are perceived to support important domestic material interests, 
whether economic or security. It is probably not enough to invoke an inter- 
national norm as supporting a narrow domestic material interest. Instead, one 
must connect the particular interest with the nation's more general beliefs and 
durable national priorities. For example, G. John Ikenberry argues that the Bret- 
ton Woods system, and the normative tenets that John Ruggie terms "embedded 
liberalism," were successful and politically possible because they "allowed 
political leaders and social groups across the political spectrum [in the United 
States and Britain] to envisage a postwar economic order in which multiple and 
39Risse, "Socialization of International Norms," p. 19. 
40 See, for example, Nitza Berkovitch, "The International Women's Movement: Trans- formations of Citizenship," and David Frank et al., "The Rationalization and Organi- zation of Nature in World Culture," in John Boli and George M. Thomas, eds., World 
Polity Formation since 1875: World Culture and International Non-Governmental 
Organizations (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997). 
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78 Cortell and Davis 
otherwise competing political objectives could be combined."41 In this way, 
international norms can serve to "bridge domestic rifts, allowing for the con- 
vergence of diverse material and ideal interests into a national interest." 42 
The argument is basically Weberian.43 International norms can become salient 
in the domestic discourse by being linked to important material interests, but 
they are not easily reducible to those interests. Precisely which norms will 
become salient in the domestic political arena will be historically contingent, a 
function of human agency in rhetorical or political processes. Any number of 
international norms may be consistent with a given constellation of domestic 
interests. This is generally the case in regulatory or technology standardization 
questions, but the issue arises elsewhere, even in such "high politics" areas as a 
state's security policy. 
For example, a central principle of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks 
(SALT) I regime was the desirability of locking in secure mutual second-strike 
capability as a prop for stable nuclear deterrence.44 Central to this goal was the 
Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which limited strategic defenses on both 
sides to strategically insignificant deployments. In pursuit of treaty ratification, 
officials in the Nixon administration stressed the benefits of establishing the 
norm of "no strategic defenses" as regulative of U.S.-Soviet strategic relations 
rather than the alternative and more encompassing norm of "mutual non- 
41 G. John Ikenberry, "Creating Yesterday's New World Order: Keynesian 'New 
Thinking' and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement," in Judith Goldstein and Rob- 
ert 0. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political 
Change (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 57-86, quote on pp. 78-79. 
See, too, Ikenberry, "A World Economy Restored: Expert Consensus and the Anglo- American Post-War Settlement," International Organization 46, No. 1 (1992), pp. 289- 322. For the original articulation of the concept of embedded liberalism, see John G. 
Ruggie, "International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order," in Krasner, ed., International Regimes, pp. 195-232. 
42Bukovansky, "American Identity and Neutral Rights," p. 217. Similarly, Bier- 
steker, "'Triumph' of Neoclassical Economics," p. 120. The theoretical point was made in Joseph Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," Inter- 
national Organization 41, No. 3 (1987), pp. 372, 400. 
43 More precisely, it follows his notion of an "elective affinity" between ideational and material interests. See Max Weber, "Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen," in 
Gesammelte Aufsiitze zur Religionssoziologie (Tiibingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1947), vol. 1, 
pp. 237-275, especially p. 252. See, too, H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and 
trans., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 
1948), pp. 62-65. 
44 See Henry A. Kissinger, "Detente with the Soviet Union: The Reality of Compe- tition and the Imperative of Cooperation"; statement to the Senate Committee on For- 
eign Relations, September 19, 1974, State Bulletin 71 (1974). 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 79 
vulnerability."45 Arguably, each was consistent with the general principle of 
ensuring secure second-strike capability and with U.S. security interests as under- 
stood then. The results of having legitimized the no strategic defenses norm 
instead of the mutual nonvulnerability norm had profound implications for future 
force postures and the arms race. New technological innovations such as Mul- 
tiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) and Intercontinental 
Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) were consistent with a norm of no strategic defenses, 
but might have been more successfully challenged by their critics if mutual 
nonvulnerability had been the domestically salient norm.46 
Domestic Institutions 
A fourth factor contributing to the salience of an international norm is the 
state's domestic political institutions. Domestic political institutions provide 
the rules of the game for citizens and state officials, establish rights and obli- 
gations, identify what is legitimate and what is not, and, in the process, help 
national actors define their interests domestically and internationally. The incor- 
poration of an international norm into domestic institutions enhances its salience, 
as argues the eminent international lawyer Louis Henkin: "When international 
law or some particular norm or obligation is accepted, national law will reflect 
it, the institutions and personnel of government will take account of it, and the 
life of the people will absorb it." 47 
Social scientists have reached similar conclusions from empirical research. 
For example, Audie Klotz found that the global racial equality norm was salient in 
U.S. policy debates only after being incorporated into domestic legal frame- 
works: "by institutionalizing a new tenet of policy-that majority rule in South 
Africa must be encouraged-passage of the CAAA [Comprehensive Anti- 
Apartheid Act] inaugurated a period of more consistent U.S. opposition to white- 
minority rule in SouthAfrica." 48 Similarly, Kevin Hartigan maintains that the weak 
impact of international refugee laws on Mexico and Honduras is explained because 
45 See Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Rela- tions from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985), ch. 5, 
esp. pp. 191-192. 
46 For discussions of the problem MIRVed ICBM created for arms control and deter- 
rence, see Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), pp. 269- 
274; Paul Nitze, "The Relationship of Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces," 
International Security 2 (1977), pp. 122-132; Strobe Talbott, Deadly Gambits (New 
York: Knopf, 1984), esp. chs. 13 and 16. Also see Robert Jervis, The Illogic of Amer- 
ican Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984). 
47 Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave: Law and Foreign Policy (New York: Colum- 
bia University Press, 1979), p. 60. 
48 Klotz, "Norms Reconstituting Interests," p. 476. 
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80 Cortell and Davis 
"neither country's laws mention the concept of refugee, and neither country is a 
signatory of the 1951 convention or the 1967 protocol on refugees. ... [More- 
over,] changes in refugeepolicy were not accompanied in either country by the 
ratification of international legal instruments [or] by changes in domestic laws." 49 
A common effect of international norm creation is the simultaneous cre- 
ation of vested interests and bureaucratic routines in a state's institutions: 
When, in the Headquarters Agreement with the United Nations, the United 
States agreed that members of foreign delegations to the United Nations should 
enjoy diplomatic immunity from arrest, that agreement was built into the life 
of New York. The laws of New York reflect the agreement, police regulations 
provide for it, the individual policeman is taught it, the citizen-grumbling 
perhaps,-acquiesces.... 
In more complicated ways, accepted international arrangements-whether of the 
Universal Postal Union, or NATO, or a fisheries convention-launch their own 
dynamism, their own bureaucracy with vested interests in compliance, their own 
resistances to violation and to interference and frustration. The European Com- 
munity agreements are observed, in part, because they have been accepted in mem- 
ber countries and enmeshed in national institutions; there are national bureaucrats 
whose job it is to assure that the agreements are carried out; powerful domestic 
groups have strong interests in maintaining these agreements.5: 
The link between standard operating procedures and other institutional struc- 
tures of bureaucratic agencies and the external normative environment in which 
such agencies operate is studied across various disciplines and confirmed by 
international law scholars,"5 the literature on international regimes,52 as well as 
students of organizational behavior and psychology.53 
49Hartigan, "Refugee Policies in Mexico and Honduras," pp. 715, 717. 
50Henkin, How Nations Behave, p. 61. A skeptic of deontic arguments, Robert 
Keohane has proposed the concept of domestic institutional enmeshment as a mecha- 
nism whereby international norms can affect state behavior. See "Compliance with 
International Commitments: Politics within a Framework of Law," American Society 
of International Law Proceedings 86 (1992), esp. p. 179. 
51 For example, Lauren B. Edelman et al., "Legal Ambiguity and the Politics of 
Compliance: Affirmative Action Officers' Dilemma," Law and Policy 13 (1991), 
pp. 73-97. 
52For examples, see Nye, "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," 
pp. 371-402; John S. Duffield, "International Regimes and Alliance Behavior: Explain- 
ing NATO Counter Force Levels," International Organization 46, No. 4 (1992), pp. 819- 
855; and Oran Young, International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural 
Resources and the Environment (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). 
53 See Charles O'Reilly, "Corporations, Culture and Commitment: Motivation and 
Social Control in Organizations," California Management Review 31 (1989), pp. 9- 
25; Charles O'Reilly and Jennifer Chatman, "Organizational Commitment and Psy- 
Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 81 
The foregoing discussion suggests that once international norms become 
enmeshed in domestic institutions, their prescriptions will have an impact over 
time on the interests and actions of national actors. Habitual compliance with or 
application of the norm can lead to its salience, as it is seen as a "domestic" 
process and assumes a "taken-for-granted" character. 
Socializing Forces 
Socialization, or the process by which new members come to adopt a society's 
preferred ways of behaving, has been studied by realist, liberal institutionalist, 
and constructivist scholars of international politics.54 Existing scholarship has 
demonstrated that among the principal effects of international socialization are 
stable patterns of state interaction. Most analyses have studied the phenomenon 
at the international system level. Yet the effects of international socialization go 
much deeper. Socialization provides an additional mechanism by which inter- 
national norms can become salient in the domestic political arena. 
Classical realists, such as Henry Kissinger, maintain that the construction of 
stable international orders is dependent upon the successful linkage of state 
interests to international legitimizing principles. Socialization from this per- 
spective is the process of reconciling states' (in particular revolutionary states') 
individual aspirations to generally accepted standards.55 As Kissinger's histor- 
ical analysis informs, international norms became salient in domestic political 
struggles as states were socialized to the Vienna system. He argues that Prince 
Metternich's construction of a legitimate international order, based on conser- 
vative monarchical principles, "enabled Austria to avoid the hard choice between 
domestic reform and revolutionary struggle; to survive with an essentially 
unaltered domestic structure in a century of rationalized administration; to 
chological Attachment: The Effects on Compliance, Identification and Internalization of Prosocial Behavior," Journal of Applied Psychology 71 (1986), pp. 492-499; Edel- man et al., "Legal Ambiguity and the Politics of Compliance," esp. pp. 74-76. 
54 For a variety of approaches to the issue, see Waltz, Theory of International Pol- 
itics, pp. 74-77 and 127-128; John G. Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis," in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), especially pp. 141-148; Hendrik Spruyt, "Institutional Selection in International Relations: State Anarchy as 
Order," International Organization 48, No. 4 (1994), pp. 527-57; and Alexander Wendt, 
"Anarchy Is what States Make of It." 
55The distinction between status quo and revolutionary or revisionist states was 
forgotten (or rejected) by Waltz and his students but has been rediscovered by a new 
generation of realist scholars. See Randall L. Schweller: "Bandwagoning for Profit: 
Bringing the Revisionist State Back In," International Security 19 (1994), pp. 72-102, and "Neorealism's Status Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?" Security Studies 5 (1996), 
pp. 90-121. 
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82 Cortell and Davis 
continue a multi-national Empire in a period of nationalism." Moreover, by 
reconciling France to the Concert of Europe at the Conference of Aachen (1818), 
the powers enhanced the prospects that the Duc de Richelieu and Louis XVIII 
would survive continued domestic turbulence. In linking France's international 
interests to the principle of monarchical legitimacy and the rule of law, the 
powers strengthened the principle in France itself, where a large proportion of 
the population remained committed to revolutionary goals and methods.56 As 
states became socialized to the post-Napoleonic order, the monarchical princi- 
ple was strengthened and republican nationalism simultaneously delegitimized 
in domestic politics across Europe. 
The effects of international socialization today are seen in the policies of 
the successor states to the Soviet Union. For example, Scott D. Sagan found 
that widespread international acceptance of the norms associated with the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) convinced Ukraine's leadership that renunci- 
ation of nuclear weapons was a necessary step toward achieving international 
standing: "the NPT regime created a history in which the most recent examples 
of new or potential nuclear states were so-called 'rogue states' such as North 
Korea, Iran and Iraq. This was hardly a nuclear club whose new members 
would receive international prestige." 57 But "rogue states" do exist. Socializa- 
tion is most likely and will require less effort when state leaders "aspire to 
belong to a normative community of nations. This desire implies a view of state 
preferences that recognizes states' interactionsas a social-and socializing- 
process." 
Numerous scholars have pointed to "internal reconstruction" as a method 
of socializing states to a particular international order. Those working in the 
realist tradition have found the internal reconstruction of weaker states by 
more powerful states to be a common feature of international relations, par- 
ticularly during periods of hegemony. As G. John Ikenberry and Charles 
Kupchan note, 
The hegemon directly intervenes in the secondary state and transforms its 
domestic political institutions. . . . The hegemon imports normative principles 
about domestic and international political order, often embodying these prin- 
ciples in institutional structures and in constitutions or other written procla- 
mations. The process of socialization takes place as elites in the secondary 
56Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-22 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), p. 322. Also see Paul W. Schroeder, 
The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 
1994), pp. 554-557, 591-593. 
57 Scott D. Sagan, "Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search 
of a Bomb," International Security 21 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 54-86, quote on p. 81. 
58Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders, p. 29. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 83 
state become accustomed to these institutions and gradually come to accept 
them as their own.59 
The ease with which the hegemon will achieve its goals is probably a function 
of not only its own capabilities, but also the size of the gap between its pre- 
ferred normative order and preexisting beliefs and understandings in the target 
state.60 
Scholars working in the liberal tradition or coming from a social construc- 
tivist perspective have found that socialization can occur as a result of the 
actions of nonstate actors and may involve use of "soft" power resources, such 
as moral leverage and technical knowledge. In a study of the diffusion of inter- 
national science norms, Martha Finnemore found that "states were socialized 
by international organizations and an international community of experts-in 
this case scientists-to accept the promotion and direction of science as a nec- 
essary and appropriate role." The result has been the proliferation of national 
bureaucracies devoted to science.61 Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink iden- 
tify transnational advocacy networks as another avenue where states come to 
adopt international norms. These transnational groups succeed not only "by 
holding governments... accountable to previous commitments and the princi- 
ples they have endorsed," but also by framing their ideas in ways that "resonate 
or fit with the larger belief systems" of the target states.62 
Widely recognized, the effects of socialization are neither one way nor 
irreversible. Over time, the degree to which domestic actors regard an inter- 
national norm as legitimate may hinge upon how much other states adhere to its 
tenets.63 Widescale noncompliance by other states may inspire domestic actors 
to challenge the norm's legitimacy and utility as a guide to behavior. Insofar as 
both international and domestic legitimizing discourses are dynamic, the mean- 
ing of an international norm and the proper bounds of its applicability in a 
given domestic discourse may evolve, and not necessarily in lock-step with 
similar evolutions in other states or interstate discourses. Further research into 
59G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, "Socialization and Hegemonic Power," 
International Organization 44, No. 3 (1990), p. 292. 
60Ibid., pp. 313-314. 
61 Martha Finnemore, "International Organizations as Teachers of Norms: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and Science Policy," Inter- 
national Organization 47, No. 4 (1993), p. 593. 
62 Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders, pp. 201, 204. 
63 Among others, the argument is made by Ann Florini, "The Evolution of Inter- 
national Norms," International Studies Quarterly 40 (1996), pp. 363-389; Richard 
Price, "Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines," International Organization 52, No. 3 (1998), pp. 613-644; and Finnemore and Sik- 
kink, "International Norm Dynamics," pp. 901-904. 
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84 Cortell and Davis 
the relationship between the effects of socializing forces on the international 
system and states' domestic politics is required because it remains poorly 
understood. 
PATHWAYS TO EMPIRICAL RESEARCH 
The previous section identified several plausible conditions and mechanisms 
mediating between the existence of an international norm and its salience in 
domestic political debates. The necessary next step is empirical research focus- 
ing on how specific international norms have and have not become salient in 
several national contexts.64 The pathways above provide a starting point for the 
development of inductively derived contingent hypotheses on the conditions 
and mechanisms that produce the domestic salience of international norms.65 
Although inductive, the approach is not atheoretical. By investigating the 
process or processes that led an international norm to attain domestic salience 
in a particular case, one seeks to identify conditions that may yield (or mediate 
the effects of) that process in other cases. The goal of "process tracing" in this 
instance is hypothesis generation. Before one proceeds toward a more general 
theory linking international norms and domestic discourse, a necessary first 
step is the development of a set of conditional hypotheses relating initial con- 
ditions (including the presence of an international norm) to outcomes (includ- 
ing the domestic salience of the norm).66 Such a research agenda will help to 
overcome some of the problems that others contend characterize constructivist 
research on norms, specifically the tendency to rely on correlations as evidence 
that norms "matter." 67 
Whereas the routes to domestic salience may be many and because knowl- 
edge of the mechanisms is limited, initial analysis should be flexible and pro- 
cess oriented. This approach can help researchers remain open to the possibility 
64 As noted by Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro, the literature has generally been biased toward studying those norms that have affected state policies. See "Norms, 
Identity and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise," in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The 
Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Colum- bia University Press, 1996), p. 485. 
65 For a discussion of the problems associated with explaining the effects of norms 
by means of deduction, see Gregory Raymond, "Problems and Prospects in the Study 
of International Norms," Mershon International Studies Review 41 (1997), pp. 235-36. 
66On the method of process tracing, see Alexander L. George and Timothy McKe- 
own, "Case Studies and Theories of Organizational Decision Making," Advances in 
Information Processing in Organizations 2 (1985), pp. 21-58. 
67 See, for example, Jeffrey Checkel, "The Constructivist Turn in International Rela- 
tions Theory," World Politics 50 (1998), p. 337. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 85 
that the mechanisms and processes identified in the previous section may offer 
complementary rather than competing routes to domestic salience.68 
Because there may be multiple sufficient causes or mechanisms producing 
domestic salience (the problem of equifinality), some of which are unknown 
so far, generating hypotheses through deductive entailment would limit our 
ability to generate knowledge and would provide little basis for moving be- 
yondinitial assumptions. Before we can move toward the construction of more 
rigorous models that may provide interesting deductions, we need to cata- 
logue the range of phenomena to be explained. The implications of equifinal- 
ity underscore the need for an inductive, process-oriented approach to hypothesis 
development. 
One strategy for this type of hypothesis generation is the use of compara- 
tive case studies.69 Cases should be selected based on variation in relevant 
outcomes. That is, one should look for cases where a given international norm 
enjoyed various degrees of salience across national contexts, as well as cases 
where similar norms achieved various degrees of salience within a given do- 
mestic discourse. Longitudinal studies that investigate variation in the sa- 
lience of a given norm over time provide a third source of data. Because the 
goal is generating hypotheses and not testing for sufficient causation, argu- 
ments against selecting cases on the value of the dependent variable are not 
applicable. 
Of course, the approaches can be combined. One might examine variations 
in the salience of the international norm of free trade in a state such as Japan, 
where the norm has become more accepted over time, with a view toward 
identifying those factors that have hindered as well as those that have fostered 
the norm's domestic salience.70 One might then compare the Japanese case to 
the history of the free trade norm in other states, such as the Federal Republic 
of Germany. Although postwar Germany and Japan share similar positions in 
the international economic order and were exposed to many of the same inter- 
national forces that we have identified as possible pathways to salience, the free 
trade norm's legitimacy was accepted much earlier in Germany, where it has 
68On the problems associated with viewing different analytical relationships as 
simply competing, see Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzen- 
stein, "Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security," in Katzenstein, ed., The 
Culture of National Security, pp. 68-72. 
69For a similar argument, see Michael Ziirn, "The Rise of International Environ- mental Politics: A Review of Current Research," World Politics 50 (1998), esp. 
pp. 641-42. 
70This example draws on Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis, Jr., "Understand- 
ing the Domestic Consequences of International Institutions: The Case of Japan and the GATT/WTO"; paper presented at the conference on International Institutions: Glo- bal Processes-Domestic Consequences, Duke University, April 1999. 
86 Cortell and Davis 
also had much greater impact in domestic policy debates.71 A cross-national 
comparison of this sort might help to identify scope conditions affecting the 
operation of the various pathways to salience. 
What we are proposing at this stage is modest. It involves the use of case 
studies as "building blocks" toward a more general theory of domestic salience 
rather than "tests" of a fully developed model or theory.72 Persuaded that the 
logic of discovery is somewhat different from the logic of testing, we anticipate 
movement toward more rigorous tests-and perhaps ancillary hypothesis gen- 
eration through deduction-at a future stage of research. Before much confi- 
dence can be ascribed to the validity of inductively derived propositions, they 
need to be subjected to analysis across a much wider range of cases than those 
from which they were generated. 
CONCLUSION 
In the proliferating scholarship on norms in international politics, analysts have 
found that domestic political factors often mediate the impact of international 
norms on policy choice. In addition to domestic political structures, this research 
suggests that the effects of an international norm cannot be understood inde- 
pendent of the norm's salience in the domestic political discourse. 
To date, this research has suffered from two central shortcomings. First, 
there has been little effort directed at constructing measures of norm salience or 
legitimacy in the domestic political arena. Second, the mechanisms or path- 
ways by which international norms come to infuse domestic understandings 
have not been studied systematically. These questions are central to progress 
toward a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of norms on inter- 
national politics. 
To redress these shortcomings and promote further research, this article 
offers a means for measuring variation in the domestic salience of international 
norms. Moreover, it identifies several mechanisms by which international norms 
may enter and take on meaning in the domestic discourse. The hope is that 
empirical investigations of these mechanisms will lead to the formulation of 
71 For a review of postwar Germany's embrace of the free trade norm, see Norbert 
Kloten, "Die Bundesrepublik als Weltwirtschaftsmacht," in Karl Kaiser and Hanns W. 
Maull, eds., Deutschlands Neue Auflenpolitik (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 63-80. 
72In doing so, we propose the adoption of a research strategy set forth by Andrew Bennett and Alexander L. George in "Developing and Using Typological Theories in Case Study Research"; paper presented at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Toronto, Canada, March 18-22, 1997. 
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Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms 87 
more precise hypotheses regarding when international norms will have more or 
less impact on state behavior. 
Finally, an investigation of the processes linking domestic and international 
norms may require explorations of the impact of various international regimes 
on states' domestic politics. This research should also lead to a better under- 
standing of the domestic bases of support for international institutions, a sig- 
nificant weakness of existing regime theory.73 
73 On this point, see Andreas Hasenclaver, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, "Inter- 
ests, Power, Knowledge: The Study of International Regimes," Mershon International 
Studies Review 40, No. 2 (1996), p. 221. 
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	Issue Table of Contents
	International Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. i-xvi+1-165
	Front Matter [pp. i-113]
	Abstracts [pp. ix-xi]
	Enduring Questions [p. xv]
	Reflection and Reappraisal
	What Is the Polity? A Roundtable [pp. 3-31]
	Evaluating Interventions in History: The Case of International Conflict Resolution [pp. 33-63]
	Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms: A Research Agenda [pp. 65-87]
	Review Essays
	Review: Global Political Geography beyond Geopolitics [pp. 91-99]
	Review: The Politics of German Unification: "History Will Punish Those Who Arrive Too Late" [pp. 101-111]
	Reviews
	Review: Prospects for Governing the International Political Economy [pp. 115-119]
	Review: Benefiting from Globalization: Policy Agenda for Developing Countries [pp. 120-124]
	Review: The Historically Contingent Forms of the State [pp. 125-128]
	Review: Time Regained on the International Scene? [pp. 129-132]
	Review: Democratization's Mysterious Ways [pp. 133-135]
	Review: The New Empire Redux [pp. 136-138]
	Review: Imagining the World through Refugee Discourse [pp. 139-141]
	Review: Understanding the Threat of Biological Weapons [pp. 142-146]
	Review: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: International Relations Meets International Law [pp. 147-149]
	Review: Stalemate versus Peace Prospects in Kashmir [pp. 150-153]
	Review: Controversial Conclusions [pp. 154-155]
	Review: Double Transitions in Latin America [pp. 156-160]
	Review: Challenges for Mexico's Private Sector [pp. 161-165]Errata: Eroding Boundaries, Contested Terrain
	Review: Errata: The Never-Ending Story: Democracy and Peace
	Back Matter