Description
Book SynopsisApplying a social-constructivist approach to her richly detailed case history, Audie Jeanne Klotz demonstrates that normative standards such as racial equality can serve as much more than a weak constraint on fundamental strategic concerns.
Trade ReviewKlotz offers a persuasive argument that in the South African case the moral principle of racial equality influenced policy on a different, often conflicting, level from economic and strategic factors.
* Foreign Affairs *
The puzzle Audie Klotz seeks to explain is why a large number of international organizations and states adopted sanctions against the Apartheid regime in South Africa despite strategic and economic interests that had fostered strong ties with it in the past. Klotz argues that the emergence of a global norm of racial equality is at the heart of the explanation.... The book fills in important gaps in both regime theory and constructivism.... Klotz demonstrates in a nicely argued section that neoliberal regime analysis shortchanges the role norms play in international politics.... She elaborates three transmission mechanisms that link norms and policy choice: community and identity; reputation and communication; and discourse and institutions.... This is... a foundation upon which other scholars should build.
* World Politics *
