Agential Constructivism and Change in World Politics

“Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that's the great puzzle!” (Carroll 1898 [1920], 19). Like Alice, speaking out loud as she seeks to figure out the jarring changes in her physical stature and make sense of her new environment in Lewis Carroll's classic literary work Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, so too are international relations (IR) scholars and observers trying to comprehend recent and ongoing changes in the global political order. I concur with Paul (2017, 2) that we are living in “a time of major changes in world politics. These are driven by, among other things, the rise of new powers, deepened economic globalization, and the emergence of violent transnational forces.” These three vectors of change make the world “feel” a little different with each passing year, but, as Alice intimates, it is exceedingly difficult to grasp the ephemeral architecture of the emerging global order. Concomitantly, some drivers of change have been either overlooked—and so they appear to be “new” to many observers—or unanticipated. For instance, African state and nonstate actors are gaining overdue recognition as drivers of change by making, breaking, and remaking transnational norms. Not long ago, China was cast as a “new” driver of change in world politics. China's “rise” and growing engagement in international affairs is now well-documented, and new developments are scrutinized. The United States was expected to abdicate its role as a driver of change after Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the country in January 2017. However, few—if any—observers anticipated the actual pace, scope, and depth to which the Trump administration has upended the norms of diplomacy, international trade negotiations, and the conduct of foreign policy more broadly. The norm “breaking and remaking” forces of Trump's actions rely in part on his use of social media (i.e., Twitter), for it enhances agency and attempts to elude the constraints of structure in world politics. Even the attendant social networks fed by social media are diffuse in terms of structure. Furthermore, social media and social networks are means through which the traditional concept of the state is being reinvented—and norm disruption is occurring. Witness the contemporary methods through which governments are increasingly interacting with citizens, civil society, corporations, and traditional media. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have rapidly become a staple of government communications—India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a good example—not to mention the fine-grained analyses of user data of the constituent social networks. A growing number of states are starting to bypass traditional mechanisms of communicating their intentions in international affairs, such as diplomatic channels and intergovernmental forums, in order to interact with one another. In 2017, the United States became the epitome of such change. Trump regularly takes to Twitter and chastises China over its trade policy with the United States, as well as China's perceived lack of influence in terms of curtailing North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.1 While Trump has certainly disrupted myriad norms, the changing nature of the current global political order has provided the opportunity for such maverick behavior—an opportunity exploited by other world leaders, such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, among others. While voluminous studies on Trump's disruption of old norms and creation of new norms are sure to appear in the coming years, this article contends that such transnational norm dynamics began occurring before Trump came to office and were initiated in areas outside the Global North. African actors—both state and nonstate varieties—have been more than mere “norm takers” in recent years. Breaking free of the structural constraints of neocolonialism, African actors have established, promoted, contested, modified, and resisted various transnational norms—thereby imbedding themselves in the processes of international change. The conflict-free diamond norm is an evocative example of how African actors have exerted agency in the establishment and subsequent attempts to change a particular transnational norm. Before proceeding to this central case study, I begin by developing the concept of “agential constructivism”2 in the below section. Agential constructivism is a rationalist variant of constructivism that is particularly apposite in providing the conceptual framing for understanding not only how norms influence state (and nonstate) behavior but also how these actors influence the dynamics of transnational norms. Constructivism offers important insights into how ideas and identities inform social relations, networks, and institutions (Wendt 1992, 1999; Finnemore 1996; Hopf 1998; Guzzini 2000; Carpenter 2003; Clunan 2009; Rublee 2009; Onuf 2013; Sjoberg 2017). Constructivism also emphasizes the salience of norms in world politics, as well as how their dynamics influence state and nonstate actors (and vice versa). However, agential constructivism places less emphasis on the type of structural inequalities that are sometimes advanced by reflexivist/interpretivist scholars of constructivism. Structural variants of constructivism often restrict agency by anchoring actors to their current (or past) position in the structure of the international system. This promotes a form of stasis wherein state and nonstate actors from the Global North are expected to dominate their counterparts from the Global South. This concept of stasis can be extended to historical economic and political systems (e.g., the brutality and exploitation of colonialism), the global economy (e.g., large transnational corporations versus local entrepreneurs), and civil society (e.g., transnational Northern NGOs versus local Southern NGOs). While scholars should not ignore these structural inequalities, placing too much weight on structure risks generating erroneous assumptions about contemporary world politics, such as the restrictive and outdated view that actors from the Global South are merely norm-takers rather than norm-makers. Agential constructivism helps observers gain a more accurate sense of trends in world politics by questioning assumptions about structure and opening up opportunities for agency—especially for seemingly less powerful actors. Agential constructivism also recognizes that rational actors affect and shape the legal, political, institutional, and social environments in which they operate. Though rationalist in approach, agential constructivism neither claims to be free of researcher bias nor assumes perfect access to information or complete objectivity. Moreover, as noted above, this perspective does not discard the role of structure—institutions and environments both constitute and provide the contours for the interactions of transnational actors. Rather, agential constructivism provides more of an opening for epistemological and ontological engagement with innovative governance arrangements among state and nonstate actors, as well as for normative change. Agential constructivism also recognizes that material factors are important drivers of interests and are intertwined—along with identities and social factors—with the generation and evolution of norms. These material forces go beyond military resources and include economic considerations in conjunction with identity politics and social dynamics. The diamond sector is a good example of economic resources that marry material factors with identities and socialized symbolism. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia considers its rough diamond sector to be of national security importance. The global demand for diamond jewelry—a market worth $80 billion per year—is driven by shared symbols and identities related to love and commitment, socialized via ubiquitous advertising campaigns over several decades. Put differently, ideational and material factors influence the establishment and evolution of norms. Although institutions as collectives can serve as change-fomenting norm entrepreneurs (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) or change-resisting norm antipreneurs (Bloomfield 2016), these norm agents can also be notable individuals (e.g., leaders of states or government ministries); international institutions (e.g., the UN, the World Bank); nonstate actors (e.g., firms and business associations); and networks of transnational civil society organizations. Increasingly, actors from the Global South are being recognized as norm “makers” and “shapers” (Acharya 2014; Jinnah 2017). As elucidated in the next section, African state and nonstate actors exert agency and pursue strategies via norm generation, sometimes shaping them for “good” (Aning and Edu-Afful 2016), and sometimes for “ill” (Grant and Hamilton 2016). The results of these norm dynamics may provide broader public benefits or narrow private benefits, respectively. Agential constructivism is an appropriate analytical perspective for the present study because it offers a way to assess norm dynamics, the role of state and nonstate actors, and nonstructural origins of change in the case of the establishment, evolution, and contestation of the conflict-free diamond norm. The conflict-free diamond norm is a standard of expected behavior whereby diamond traders, middlemen, exporters, importers, wholesalers, jewelry stores, and consumers do not purchase diamonds that are mined in war zones.3 This transnational norm coalesced as a result of a series of global negotiations known as the Kimberley Process, which were initiated and largely hosted by African states and which also included African business interests and African civil society organizations (Grant and Taylor 2004; Grant 2013a, 2013b, 2017). The combination of growing public awareness and the attention generated by these reports in industry and policy circles induced South Africa to convene a stakeholder meeting in Kimberley, in May 2000, in order to respond to the trade of what was being referred to as “blood diamonds” or “conflict diamonds.” Namibia and Botswana actively supported South Africa's decision to hold the meeting, which included industry, civil society, and representatives from nearly forty diamond-producing and diamond-trading countries. At this inaugural meeting, South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana did not set out with a deliberate strategy to establish a conflict-free—or “anti-conflict”—diamond norm. Although these countries wanted the civil wars and the associated bloodshed to end, part of the motivation that spurred action was the threat posed to the all-important diamond sectors within these particular countries by the fear of a potential consumer boycott against the gems. At the time of the first Kimberley Process meeting, Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia were the first-, third-, and fifth-largest producers of rough diamonds by value, respectively. Debswana, a fifty-fifty joint-venture between the government of Botswana and De Beers, earned a profit of $1.67 billion in 2000 (Hazleton 2002, 3). Hence, material factors in the form of the economic significance of diamonds to national economies were a major consideration in the establishment of the conflict-free diamond norm. In June 2000, the participants met again in Luanda, Angola, and the consensus among attendees was that the entire global diamond trade should be conflict-free. This can be identified as the starting point (or “norm emergence”4) for the conflict-free diamond norm, as certain segments of the diamond industry had previously denied that conflict diamonds existed. Thirteen meetings were held from 2000 to 2002—many in African countries—that aimed to develop a global regulatory framework that would prevent rough diamonds from funding violence. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa's minister of minerals and energy, played an integral role in nurturing the conflict-free diamond norm during these meetings, over the course of roughly thirty months. Relying on a combination of personal contacts and networks, she invited the various delegations (a mix of African and non-African state and nonstate actors) to the meetings and was not deterred by the acrimonious disputes between civil society and industry delegates that would occasionally arise. She also lobbied to have the conflict diamond issue appear in the proceedings of the G-8 meetings in Okinawa, Japan, in July 2000, and ensured that recommendations from what became known as the “Kimberley Process” were submitted for consideration by the UN and Word Trade Organization (Smillie 2010, 178–80). In turn, the G-8 and UN issued a declaration and resolutions supporting the efforts of the Kimberley Process to prohibit the trade of conflict diamonds. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on countries deemed to be trading in conflict diamonds. The World Trade Organization provided a waiver that, despite being an example of a restriction of trade, greater national regulations relating to the exportation and importation of rough diamonds would be permitted. Having consequential international organizations declare support in resolutions and provide institutional backing in the form of sanctions and waivers at this early stage provided a vital boost to the development of the transnational conflict-free diamond norm and gave it global reach. In November 2002, the conflict-free diamond norm coalesced and reached its “tipping point of support” when the aforementioned representatives from states, industry, and civil society were able to distill the views presented at their previous dozen meetings, articulate the feedback from international forums, and agree on a global regulatory document that would prohibit the trade of conflict diamonds. This document—the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme—came into effect in January 2003 and represented the conflict-free diamond “norm cascade” and launched the “internalization” of the conflict-free diamond norm. The number of state participants seeking to uphold the conflict-free diamond norm via membership in the Kimberley Process quickly rose to more than 99 percent of all diamond-producing and diamond-trading countries worldwide. Nonmaterial factors also helped the conflict-free diamond norm reach its tipping point via adoption by states and industry actors (such as De Beers and Rio Tinto)—a process that was encouraged by NGO actors (such as Sierra Leone's Network Movement for Justice and Development), given the focus on human security concerns by civil society stakeholders. In this context, social psychology helps us understand how norms are linked to values (Rublee 2009, 44). The greater the alignment between a particular norm and a particular value, the greater the probability that actors adhere to the norm in question. Since several decades of marketing have associated diamonds—and diamond jewelry in particular—with positive values such as love and commitment, little persuasion was needed to convince states, firms, and NGOs to work together in promoting those values in contrast to the and bloodshed associated with civil a conflict-free diamond norm, efforts within the Kimberley Process to the of conflict diamonds to include human have been over the by and other The of a conflict diamond is a vital of the conflict-free norm. The (and the of which seeks to to use diamond to governments (e.g., in the African in the However, is a one that is by governments the This contestation of the conflict-free diamond norm is by the a in of and the by government security forces in human from to to the human the and the military an whereby the had to or a of rough diamonds mined in order to gain access to the on media and civil society such as the for and and the the of of the violence. The government reports that human had in the South Africa to reach out to and the government to a by a Kimberley Process in July The and other of and of with the of the Kimberley Process Certification and of government in human and that the entire of Africa 2010, The Kimberley Process the United States, and a number of other for a of South Africa and Namibia advanced an providing in order to into with the Kimberley Process to and of is to negotiations to a would be able to rough diamonds worth of of a was the country was not by the Kimberley the time of the Kimberley Process meetings, the government had that it met the of that was by a of the This that diamonds. Although the position that human were occurring was in the civil society decision to the to the human issue was not by the The the role of African actors and the contestation of norms the conflict-free diamond changed from being a of the norms of the Kimberley Process to a norm the to being by the Kimberley Process (e.g., the of in 2013a, and efforts to the of conflict diamonds. The for (and the conflict-free diamond norm have beyond the is, the of broader values in the form of human would also diamonds that from areas to to be conflict diamonds to from the Kimberley Process, and from the global diamond security have violent and of diamond in and in the and in and other diamond-producing countries the agential constructivism attention to the material of the of factors that affect norm the role of nonstate actors conjunction with state is to for international change. Put differently, material factors are on norm tipping and the conflict-free diamond norm through an agential is particularly of the material factors that shape the of a norm. of diamond of or of a state to the of such gems. actors, such as firms, are not to the of the that be by in Agential constructivism the work of Finnemore and Sikkink on norm the for change at the norm This helps the of norm that can be for a and influence on the behavior of state actors as well as to the norm in question. 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