DE SUSPENSIÓN CON INTERMEDIACIÓN A SIN INTERMEDIACIÓN

By framing, Keck and Sikkink mean “conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action” drawing on work in sociology (McAdam et al., 1996). In particular, they were influenced by Snow and Benford’s research (1986 , 2000),

which derived from Goffman (1974). Snow and Benford break down a broader definition of framing—or “schemata of interpretation”—(1986 464) into four types of frame alignment (or “convergence” referred to in the third proposition of this thesis). These are:

• Bridging: the linkage of two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular interest or problem (467).

• Amplification: clarification and invigoration of an interpretive frame that bears on a particular issue, problem or set of events (469) such as particular values. • Extension or grafting: portraying objectives or activities as attending to or being

congruent with the values and interests of potential adherents (472).

• Transformation, keying or reframing: systematic alteration redefining activities, events, and biographies that are already meaningful from the standpoint of some primary framework to something else (474).

Snow and Benford describe these frame alignment processes in terms of the internal dynamics of micromobilisation in social movements such as US peace groups. In comparison, while continuing to assume its relevance to the internal dynamics of TANs and constituent NGOs, Keck and Sikkink expand the scope of this conception of framing/reframing to include interactions between TANs and states in which the latter are frame alignment targets. Specifically, they carry these ideas over to theorise the following stages of TAN influence:

2. Influence on discursive positions of states and regional and international organisations;

3. Influence on institutional procedures;

4. Influence on policy change in “target actors”, which may be states, international or regional organisations, or private actors;

5. Influence on state behaviour.

Keck and Sikkink caution that these stages are descriptive and not prescriptive: TAN influence on normative emergence can vary due to a variety of factors. Moreover, other scholars have noted that some TANs (such as the anti-globalisation movement) can orient and organise themselves in ways that differ from those conceived of in Benford and Snow-inspired frame analysis (Chesters, 2004). Nevertheless, if the first three propositions of this thesis are valid, then it should be possible to see evidence of these stages of TAN influence in international efforts on cluster munitions between 2003 to 2008 (see Chapter 8).

In a related vein, Price emphasised the importance of norm grafting; arguing that in order to maximise their credibility and influence over states, activists usually seek to relate their goals to existing norms of appropriate behaviour. For example:

“The laws of war and international humanitarian law are the background against which efforts to ban weapons such as landmines have been made intelligible. Two central concepts from these traditions that are relevant to this issue are civilian discrimination and unnecessary

suffering…AP landmines constitute a particularly wretched transgression of the norm of discrimination” (Price, 1998 628).

This fits with Snow and Benford’s point about norm extension. Moreover, it suggests there should be evidence in international efforts on cluster munitions of the MBT and such IHL principles being used as grafting sources.

Meanwhile, a number of recent studies have extended analysis of activist networks. Such scholarship has even extended to network analysis of activist networks to try to understand why TANs emerge on some issues and not others. Using

quantitative techniques to measure citations referring to NGO policy reports or statements allows pictures of the hubs and nodes of these networks to be constructed, Carpenter’s work is noteworthy in view of her focus on the domains of armed violence, IHL and arms control (2007 , 2011 , 2011). Analysing a range of arms regulation- related issues including cluster munitions in this way, she concluded that the ICRC and HRW act on their central positions in such networks to “gate-keep” which issues receive priority in terms of TAN campaigning. “Agenda-vetting is thus a tool of influence used by organisations whose agenda matters most for constructing intersubjective understandings of an issue area” (2011 99).

One potential implication of Carpenter’s analysis is that unless and until the ICRC and HRW can be persuaded to promote restrictions or prohibitions on particular weapons, the relevant TAN stands little chance of developing much international traction. However, such a conclusion should be regarded with caution since the NGO is the unit of analysis in Carpenter’s study. Using Carpenter’s method, it is difficult to perceive the role of influential individuals, who can—and did—move between NGOs or IOs, and within (or into) the policy-making apparatuses of states. A second proviso is that while the number of web citations of a given NGO is a potentially useful indicator

of influence, it does not necessarily equate with gate-keeping power. Some documents or other forms of discourse are not widely circulated or published, yet can influence those with disproportionate influence in international processes. The assumption that the influence of a document is directly in proportion to its number of citations is a familiar one for academics, but it is not yet proven that it carries over to the world of civil society agenda setting.

Carpenter herself noted that her findings were correlations, and that further research was needed (2011 99). Beside further network analysis, a detailed narrative picture of what occurred in at least several of the issue contexts she covers is probably required for the quantitative findings to be understood in context. Nevertheless, it suggests two issues of interest for this thesis. Firstly, Carpenter’s work suggested, “the decisions of central nodes in networks are at least as important for understanding norm emergence as are dynamics between those nodes and states” (2011 99). Secondly, it suggested that successful framing of cluster munitions as an unacceptable humanitarian hazard correlated with ICRC and HRW support. If these actors are not visible, it casts some doubt over civil society influence over states to any great extent on norm emergence on cluster munitions.

6. Conclusion

This Chapter introduced key theoretical terms, concepts and the orientation used in this thesis. In particular, it explored differences between major theoretical approaches concerning how the international environment is structured, with emphasis in the

discussion on neorealism and neoliberalism on the rationalist-materialist end of the spectrum, and constructivism and critical theory influenced approaches in the direction

of reflectivism. Three problems for rationalist-materialist approaches in understanding certain phenomena in contemporary regime emergence were discussed, both generically and as they impinge upon the CCM and MBT cases—analysis developed in greater depth in Part III of the thesis.

These how, who and what problems are by no means the only issues with rationalist-materialist explanations for the emergence of recent regimes like those banning weapons. Nevertheless, that such problems are recurrent across differing processes is potentially significant as it suggests the presence of certain shortcomings in the dominant rationalist-materialist paradigm. Rationalist-materialists can argue that ignoring variables such as the influence of norms, non-material forms of power or non- state actors is permissible because their accounts of the structure of international relations retain predictive, or at least explanatory, reach. Outcomes counter to this prevailing pattern like the MBT may occasionally happen, but the presence of one swallow does not make it springtime, in other words. But such parsimoniousness looks suspect when more swallows appear counter to their models, and this cannot be

adequately explained or even satisfactorily investigated because the clues as to how it happened cannot be integrated—only discounted or ignored.

This, of course, leaves the question the thesis is centrally concerned with: of how international efforts on cluster munitions are to be understood. Here, the cluster munition literature as surveyed in this Chapter points to some differences between scholars over how the CCM emerged, including differing emphases on declining acceptability of cluster munitions in humanitarian terms versus decreasing military utility as causes. Parts II and III of the thesis offer a more detailed account than such

explanations have hitherto provided, one indicating that reality was not as simple as this, nor the CCM’s achievement as mono-causal. At an ideational level, changes in thinking about the acceptability and military utility of cluster munitions were dynamically linked. Moreover, these were changes that had to be brought about by someone or something—these did not occur inevitably or spontaneously. At a practical level, there were emergent problems (namely interoperability) not substantively related to either issue that had to be solved in order to achieve a widely adhered-to treaty.

These factors and their inter-relationships are a necessary part of theorising if the emergence of the CCM is to be understood in context. Two important reflectivist concepts, those of norms and of framing, were introduced in order in this Chapter in order to help to achieve such an understanding. These concepts orient the research toward features of particular interest in Part II’s detailed case examination of

international efforts on cluster munitions. Later, in Part III of the thesis, these concepts are explored further as part of its theoretical analysis.

PART II

Part II of the thesis is a detailed examination of efforts to confront the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions. Concerns about these weapons had been expressed at the international level since the large-scale use of cluster bombs in South East Asia in the 1960s. But these concerns were largely ignored until sufficient

evidence amassed this millennium of the weapons’ effects on civilians—in particular of the post-conflict effects of unexploded submunitions.

Politically, a key problem for advocates of greater controls over cluster

munitions was that these weapons were hard to define in a way that precisely described both their technical characteristics and humanitarian impacts, while ensuring sufficient ambiguity for states with a broad range of views to coalesce around. Yet defining cluster munitions as a category in a way that achieved these requirements would be critical to the scope and strength of any regulations or prohibition. It was achieved—not without difficulty—in the Oslo process in late May 2008. In four chapters, Part II shows how and why that occurred, with particular reference to the notion of categorising cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm.