International Studies Quarterly (2012) 56, 115129

How Do Norms Travel? Theorizing International Womens Rights in Transnational Perspective1

Susanne Zwingel State University of New York
If womens rights norms have become internationally acknowledged, is it reasonable to assume that the status of women worldwide has improved because of international norms? It is argued here that the assumption of a global-to-local ow of norms inherent in most of the global norm diffusion literature is simplistic. To provide a more adequate theoretical framework, the paper juxtaposes the debate on the impact of international regimes and the power of global norms with an interdisciplinary mix of transnational approaches that identify multidirectional processes of appropriation and contestation of global norms. Departing from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as the most authoritative and steady piece of the international womens rights discourse, the transnational perspective developed here proposes three main constellations of traveling global norms: global discourse translation, impact translation, and distorted translation.

Over the last four decades, gender equality norms have been integrated into international law and multilateral institutions to an unprecedented degree. Focal points of this process were the four World Womens Conferences between 1975 and 1995. The Human Rights Conference in 1993 further added a powerful womens rights perspective to the global discourse on gender equality (Bunch 1990). This engendering of global governance has not been a linear processsome have diagnosed a backlash in recent years due to the spread of fundamentalist and neoliberal ideologies (Antrobus 2004; Wichterich 2009)but certainly a successful one (Naples and Desai 2002; Friedman 2003; Reilly 2009). The interesting question for activists and scholars alike is if this international success story has triggered concrete change toward legal, political, and socioeconomic equality for women in different parts of the world.2 It is the purpose of this paper to theorize the diffusion of womens rights norms in a transnational perspective. This theoretical framework is linked to one concrete mechanism of the international womens rights discourse, namely the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), primarily for two reasons. First, CEDAW has been the most
1 For valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper, I would like to thank Elisabeth Prugl, Sabine Lang, Heiner Bielefeldt, and the anony mous reviewers of ISQ. 2 As my focus is on the possible impact of global discourses on gender equality, the paper does not deal with the maybe more crucial question if the world has become more gender equal at all. Conventional wisdom suggests that this is the case, but the data provided by international organizations often paints a picture of stagnation. For example, a recent study by the International Labour Organization nds that female labor force participation on the global level has risen only minimally since 1980 (from 50.2% to 51.7%) and that despite modest improvements employment still bring(s) fewer gains (monetarily, socially, and structurally) to women than are brought to the typical working male (International Labour Organization 2010:x).

authoritative and steady piece of the international womens rights discourse. Adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, it has since been ratied by 187 states. For three decades, the corresponding expert committee has been using the Convention to monitor state performance in regard to the protection and fulllment of womens rights. Second, a focus on one concrete instrument allows the development of an actor- and context-specic analysis of norm translation.3 Contrary to macro-analytical approaches that want to grasp general tendencies, it is my intention to identify concrete connections of and dynamics between contextualized discourses. The puzzle presented contributes to the vast body of International Relations (IR) scholarship investigating the relevance of international institutions but suggests a shift of perspective. I argue that the focus on the impact of international institutions on domestic policies neglects important dynamics of norm adaptation and rejection and ignores that international norms are themselves of evolutionary character. Thus, transnational, national, and local dynamics need to be taken seriously to understand the relevance of international institutions. The transnational framework I am suggesting is particularly suited for an analysis of human rights because international cooperation in this realm has been more genuinely transnational than in other elds: International human rights regimes are of predominantly promotional nature, and human rights implementation has remained largely a domestic affair. Hence, it is obvious that ratication of an international human rights treaty is only one step on a long
3 Instead of the term norm diffusion that has established itself within IR scholarship, I have come to the conclusion that norm translation, a term borrowed from anthropological literature, is actually more appropriate to describe the processes in question. The meaning of translation is claried in the third section of this paper.

Zwingel, Susanne. (2011) How Do Norms Travel? Theorizing International Womens Rights in Transnational Perspective. International Studies Quarterly, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00701.x 2011 International Studies Association

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path to the realization of these rights, and that transnational and domestic dynamics are crucially important stepsor stumbling blockson this path as well. Within the dynamically developing human rights discourse, the eld of womens rights has been constructed as a domestic affair more than others. As many violations of womens rights are rooted in sociocultural traditions and perpetrators are often nonstate actors, such violations were long seen as a problem to be solved by incremental change from within a given society, not by international interference or even pressure.4 In the following, two different perspectives are presented that are useful to theorize the impact of international womens rights norms. The global norm diffusion perspectivewhich I partly draw on and partly reject as too one-dimensionalhas been mostly developed within the discipline of IR. It sheds light on the inuence of internationally authoritative norms on state behavior next to self-interests and material power. While the state is considered the most relevant actor in implementing international norms within domestic contexts, non-governmental actors are also seen as inuential players in domestic norm internalization. This debate has claried a number of important connections and dynamics, yet its shortcoming is that it conceptualizes international norms, once established, as causes that produce effects within domestic contexts (or fail to do so); transnational and independent domestic norm creation are not within the scope of analysis. The transnational perspectivewhich I consider more comprehensivedoes not assume a causal relationship between international and domestic norms. Rather, it conceptualizes global norm creation and appropriation as an open process of negotiation in which various actors are involved. All these actors are considered contextualizedthere is no qualitative difference between local, national, or internationaland seen as being part of a nonlinear dynamic of norm production. I suggest that the two perspectives read together make us aware of the precarious inuence of norms in an international world of states and of the multilayered process that norm internalization constitutes. After presenting both debates (sections one and two), the paper expounds three major constellations of gender norm translation that are relevant to understanding CEDAW and its possible repercussions (section three). Womens Rights, International Regimes, and Global Norm Diffusion Within IR, the question of impact of international human rights norms has mostly been dealt with by scholars interested in regime analysis or global norm diffusion. Regime analysis looks at concrete mecha4 For a discussion of the position of womens rights within the human rights framework, their particular nature of straddling the public and the private and their long neglect as less important traditional or development issues, see the studies by Bunch (1990), Binion (1995), and Charlesworth (1995).

nisms of international cooperation between states. Literature on global norm diffusion explores dynamics of creating internationally persuasive values and their expansion into domestic contexts with a special focus on the actor constellations that connect international and domestic normative discourses. Both approaches help to conceptualize the impact of CEDAW and assume an international-to-domestic cause-effect logic.
International Regimes: Mechanisms of Cheap Legitimacy or Complex Learning?

A brainchild of the Cold War regime analysis emerged as a counterdiscourse to the assumption that international cooperation is epiphenomenal to state interests and global power constellations (Krasner 1983). International regimes can be dened as social institutions consisting of agreed upon principles, norms, rules, procedures and programs that govern the interactions of actors in specic issue areas (Levy, Young, and Zurn 1995:274). Thus, the two cru cial elements of regimes are the quality of setting stable rules and the focus on a specic issue area. While neo-liberals are most interested to nd out why states generate such institutions even if they are against their short-term interests (Levy et al. 1995:271), constructivists stress the importance of regimes in creating social order and consensus. According to Kratochwil and Ruggie, international regimes have a regulative and a constitutive dimension, that is, on the one hand, they operate as imperatives requiring states to behave in accordance with certain principles, norms and rules; on the other hand, they help create a common social world by xing the meaning of behaviour (Kratochwil and Ruggie quoted in Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger 1997:163). In light of these denitions, the CEDAW Convention can be called a womens rights regime with both regulative and constitutive dimensions5 (Kardam 2004). Unlike in trade or security regimes, which are concluded because non-cooperation would [leave] each state worse off than it might have otherwise been (Krasner 1995:139), intergovernmental cooperation in human rights regimes is about negotiating universally acceptable norms; norm realization is left to each sovereign state that commits to the regime. Donnelly (1986) has called this form or regime promotional instead of enforcing. While the promotional dimension of the human rights regime has gotten stronger,6 states notoriously implement
5 The regulative dimension is expressed in the fact that states have to comply with the treaty provisions and that they are monitored in this endeavor. The constructive dialog between the committee of experts and state delegations and the committees interpretations of CEDAW provisions (called General Recommendations) can be interpreted as a continuous effort to create a shared understanding of the meaning of womens rights. 6 If the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 is taken as a starting point, the creation and adoption of a large number of legally binding Covenants and Conventions can be seen as a process of strengthening the international human rights regime (Ofce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 2010).

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human rights norms only supercially or fail to implement them altogether. Depending on different assumptions regarding the potential compliersthat is, the statesscholars have articulated a variety of views regarding the transformative potential of human rights regimes. The neoliberal position assumes that states ratify human rights treaties not necessarily because they intend to implement them, but because they seek a way to increase their international legitimacy without signicant costs. Not surprisingly, this position has characterized human rights treaties as weak and ineffective because they neither exert any pressure on states nor offer them incentives for compliance (Schwarz 2004; Neumayer 2005; Hafner-Burton, Tsutsui, and Meyer 2008).7 The constructivist position emphasizes the constitutive dimension of human rights regimes. Concrete cooperation mechanisms potentially strengthen international community building and contribute to establishing shared values (Henkin 1990; Meyer, Boli, Thomas, and Ramirez 1997). States are conceptualized as principally open to learn and eager to become respectable and legitimate members of the international community. Contrary to the assumption that states break treaties whenever this seems to serve their interests, this position observes a strong propensity of states to stick to international agreements. The reason for this is that (m)odern treaty making can be seen as a creative enterprise through which the parties explore, redene, and sometimes discover their interests (Chayes and Chayes 1995:4). In other words, treaties are attractive for states if they offer the opportunity for complex learning (Nye 1987). Lack of coercive mechanisms becomes an asset, as the idea of the regime is to deal with a problem to be solved by mutual consultation and analysis, rather than an offence to be punished (Chayes and Chayes 1995:26). A third position suggests that a mix between the rst two comes closest to reality. While some states might have a genuine interest in problem solving through international regimes, others might not. Thus, to avoid free-riding and to offer the option of joint problem solving, regimes that offer both coercive and managerial elements are more likely to produce a high level of compliance (Tallberg 2002). Several studies suggest that state characteristics are explanatory factors for the inuence of human rights regimes and the variety of compliance behavior. Important factors are, among others, the political predisposition to adhere to human rights (Donnelly 1986; Moravcsik 1995; Cortell and Davis 2000), the attitude of different domestic constituencies toward human rights (Cardenas 2007),
7 Studies that reach such a conclusion often rest on the assumption that the states of the world can be divided into two camps, namely those that tactically use human rights and those that have some intrinsic understanding of and propensity to implement them. The latter group is usually equaled with Western liberal democracies.

and a regional (for example, American or European) attitude toward an international regime. Often, the European human rights regime is considered the best case because of a shared cultural background of member states, the respect of governments for human rights and the existence of autonomous civil societies (Moravcsik 1995). From a neoliberal position, however, the European human rights regime is effective primarily because it contains legal enforcement mechanisms (HafnerBurton 2005:603). The CEDAW Convention is a non-coercive mechanism except for the expert committees option to publicly voice criticism for insufcient state performance. The normative triad enshrined in CEDAW is elimination of discrimination against women, achievement of gender equality, and state responsibility. With ratication, states agree to eliminate direct and indirect forms of discrimination against women in any eld of life. This responsibility contains both public, for example, legal, and private forms of discrimination such as family relations in which women have an inferior status. To appreciate the commitment of the state to work for gender equality, the expert committees attitude is supportive if sometimes critical, but hardly ever confrontational. The attitude of state delegations strongly varies in commitment. Some states have limited their responsibilities under CEDAW by entering substantial reservations to the treaty. The Optional Protocol added in 2000 allows for individual complaints and independent inquiries accusing a state of violating its responsibilities under the Convention. It can be interpreted as an element of soft pressure or an incentive to comply with CEDAW in order to prevent costs (Smith 2006). A constructivist regime analysis suggests that CEDAW may have international and domestic impact because it is a concrete part of a broader normative framework, fosters complex learning, and designs treaty compliance as a process of joint problem solving. The neoliberal position, however, posits that the Conventions lack of coercion or incentives produces a signicant number of free-riding states. The attitude of states can, according to the third position, be explained by domestic factors, for example, the number and strength of domestic players that oppose compliance (Dai 2005; Cardenas 2007). All in all, regime analysis suggests that CEDAW may provoke a variety of state responses, from meaningful to supercial problem solving to manipulation or rejection of womens rights. Both neoliberal and constructivist approaches underestimate the power structures underlying international regimes, either because they are considered weak (read: not backed by material power) or because the focus is on joint problem solving. However, CEDAW as a womens rights regime establishes rules of permissible behavior in a certain issue area. The more these rules are supported, for example, by the majority of states and prominent non-governmental organizations, the more they

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unfold disciplining power and marginalize deviant perceptions (Keeley 1990).8

On Trickle-Down Assumptions and Boomerang Patterns: Global Norm Diffusion Revisited

Inspired by the world culture idea of the international society approach (Meyer et al. 1997), global norm diffusion literature asks how norms emerge on the international level, how they become meaningful in domestic contexts, and which actors are promoting and translating them. From this angle, CEDAW is seen as one element in the global diffusion of womens rights norms. A prominent concept developed in this context is Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkinks norm life-cycle model (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). It denes norms broadly as intersubjective standard(s) of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:891) and determines three stages a norm has to go through to become globally pervasive: The rst stage is global norm emergence where norm entrepreneursoften non-governmental actorsmake relevant actors and the general public aware of a certain norm. In the second stage of norm cascading, the norm is embraced by a critical mass of states, becomes internationally institutionalized, and is also accepted by the so-called norm followers, that is, actors that are not convinced by its content, but by the fact that powerful actors approve of it. In the third stage, norm internalization, the norm is implemented in domestic settings, for example, in state bureaucracies. If internalization is far reaching, the norm may no longer be a contested or publicly debated issue. Applied to womens rights, norm emergence could be considered the womens decade starting in 1975.9 The adoption, opening for signature, and entering into force of the CEDAW Convention between 1979 and 1981 could be considered norm cascading, or, if we use widespread ratication of CEDAW, the Conventions increased international visibility, and the prominence of the World Womens Conferences as the criteria for cascading, the time between 1979 and 1995. Finally, norm internalization would entail all gender equality measures created in domestic contexts in direct or indirect reaction to these international dynamics. If internalization were far reaching or completed, gender equality would be largely achieved and the idea would not anymore be contested. Obviously, inter8 To give one example of the discursive power of CEDAW: The text of the Convention constructs women as autonomous individuals rather than playing a crucial role in society and the family. The importance of these roles was nevertheless stressed by delegations participating in the drafting process, and often this was done based on religious grounds (Rehof 1993). While the successful notion may be more in line with the human rights framework, it has also caused reservations to the treaty, many of them based on religious beliefs, and resistance to the Convention of various civil society (including womens) groups all over the world. 9 Notably, the proposal to declare 1975 International Womens Year came from NGOs, not states, some of which were rst reluctant toward the idea (Pietila and Vickers 1996:76).

nalization of womens rights norms has only happened in a scattered fashion. While this model is helpful to operationalize global norm diffusion, it is rmly anchored in an international perspective and leaves domestic dynamics of norm creation and appropriation underestimated. For one, the authors do not differentiate in the norm cascading stage between those states that embrace a norm and those that accept it because of opportunism. However, those two modes of action suggest very different outcomes of domestic enforcement. Perhaps more crucially, the label norm internalization does not pay sufcient attention to the complex and widely differing domestic processes that may take place after governmental recognition of an international norm. In response to this decit and to better understand the various ways of domestic support for international institutions, Cortell and Davis (2000) have proposed a model to measure the salience of international norms within a given domestic context. Salienceor impactis dened as changes in the national discourse, the states institutions, and the states policies in reaction to the norm. According to the authors, the domestic factor most relevant for salience is the pre-existing domestic discourse (that) provides the context within which the international norm takes on meaning (Cortell and Davis 2000:73), also called cultural match or mismatch; the compatibility of the norm with the material interests of the state or inuential interest groups (see also Cardenas 2007); and (d)omestic political institutions (that) establish rights and obligations, and help national actors dene their interests (Cortell and Davis 2000:79). More than the norm life-cycle model, this work allows for the classication of national particularities in response to international norms; however, the authors perspective is still inspired by a globalto-national cause-effect logic. Saverys attempt to explain why international norms of sexual non-discrimination have diffused unevenly and in a relatively limited way adds a few interesting insights on global norm diffusion from a domestic angle (Savery 2007). She argues that there cannot be a general pattern of norm diffusion into domestic contexts. Rather, one has to look at the conducive and impeding factors within a state in relation to a particular norm. Drawing on four case studies, Savery shows that states are rather reluctant to make normative and institutional changes in regard to gender equality even if they rhetorically approve of the norm and if they generally seem to be abiding to international norms (Germany is used as the prime example here). Her explanation for this nding is that the gender-biased corporate identity of many states represents the most signicant barrier to diffusion of sexual non-discrimination norms (Savery 2007:1). This gender-biased identity takes different forms for different states in different historical settings; however, to understand the (lack of) diffusion of global gender equality

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norms, it is crucial to understand the specic domestic power constellations that create and maintain a normative fabric that compound sexual non-discrimination, and that, as a consequence, institutionalize norms that reinforce gender hierarchies or differentiation. Thus, she adds a new dimension of specifying state behavior in reaction to international gender norms, namely that of a historically grown domestic gender regime. One consequence of this analytical framework is to include not only state action that enhances gender equality into measuring norm diffusion, but also action that reinforces gender biases. As a consequence of the international presence of womens rights norms, a number of studies have, by now, tried to measure their impact cross-nationally. Mintrom and True, for example, have explained the mushrooming of national womens policy agencies as a result of transnational advocacy for the global norm of gender equality (Mintrom and True 2001). Sweeney (2004) nds in a comparative study of 160 states that a governments respect for womens economic, social, and political rights is directly linked to democracy, political secularism, and the internationalization of human rights norms.10 Two studies nd that CEDAW in particular has a strong and direct impact within domestic contexts: Gray, Kittilson, and Sandholtz (2006) ask if rising levels of international connectedness have improved the status of women worldwide, whereas CEDAW ratication gures as one element of interconnectedness. Based on a data set of 180 states between 1975 and 2000, the authors nd that all four of their dependent variablesfemale life expectancy, female literacy rate, female share in the labor force, and percentage of women in parliamentpositively correlate with CEDAW ratication. While it is admitted that there is evidence of indirect path connections between womens levels of literacy, labor force participation, and representation in parliament (Gray et al. 2006:321), the study concludes that global norms and institutions make a difference for the quality of life and status of women, with CEDAW ratication being the most consistently important factor (Gray et al. 2006:326). Similarly, Simmons (2009) nds that CEDAW ratication has had a signicant effect on state commitment related to gender equality in education and providing access to modern forms of birth control. The data stresses the role of womens organizations in bringing these Convention principles to life. Simmons concludes that the impact of CEDAW is noteworthy, but (s)ocial and religious beliefs can be difcult barriers to (its) full implementation (Simmons 2009:253). These ndings are valuable because they provide statistical evidence for global gender norm
10 The inuence of economic globalization on domestic gender equality policies is also measured, but results are found to more ambivalent. For further large-scale studies that try to determine factors that inuence the enjoyment of womens rights worldwide, see the studies by Poe, WendelBlunt, and Ho (1997) and Apodaca (1998).

diffusion. Their positive assessment even comes as a surprise given the cautious estimations of other analysts regarding possible repercussions of international agreements in general and womens rights norms in particular. However, in giving an overview of domestic trends, these studies show that, but not how international norms have unfolded meaning. In other words, while a general trend seems to be veried, the specic dynamics of each domestic success story, the most relevant context factors, the strategies of pro-norm actors, and the motivations of norm opponents to modify their opposition still need to be investigated and interpreted. Another important focus of the norm diffusion literature is the identication of concrete actor constellations that engage in creating and spreading norms. In particular, Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999), and Keck and Sikkink (1998) have found transnational non-governmental activism in strategic cooperation with governments (Risse et al. 1999) or transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998) to be powerful norm translators. Risse et al. (1999) suggest that the acceptance of authoritarian regimes of the right to life11 crucially depends on the establishment and the sustainability of networks among domestic and transnational actors who manage to link up with international regimes, to alert Western public opinion and Western governments (Risse and Sikkink 1999:5). Keck and Sikkink (1998) take a closer look at these transnational advocacy networks (TANs) and nd them to be concrete motors of transnational normative change. They highlight the ability of TANs to mobilize information strategically to help create new issues and categories and to persuade, pressure, and gain leverage over much more powerful organizations and governments (Keck and Sikkink 1998:2). Usually, NGOs play a central role in TANs, yet parts of regional and international Intergovernmental Organizations and of state institutions may also be involved. TANs emerge most likely if civil society claims are blocked by a state and if transnational cooperation seems likely to strengthen these claims and cause what Keck and Sikkink call a boomerang pattern (Keck and Sikkink 1998:12), that is, a change of state behavior through the joint effort of domestic and transnational actors. The most effective weapon of TANs is to create credible information and to frame it in a way that puts pressure on governments to act. This can most successfully be achieved through campaigns that target concrete, not structural problems, and if it is unequivocal who bears responsibility for the denounced problem. The focus on transnational actor constellations and in particular the potential of nonstate actors is highly relevant for theorizing repercussions of CEDAW. TANs may be very effective in putting pressure on reluctant governments to comply with
11 The right to life as understood by the authors contains freedom from extra-judicial execution, disappearance, and arbitrary arrest and detention (Risse and Sikkink 1999:2).

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the CEDAW provisions, and they may be particularly suited to translate international womens rights norms into domestic contexts. However, this actorfocused literature on global norm diffusion rests on at least three problematic assumptions: First, that human rights are unequivocally dened, whereas in reality the framework is evolving and not all dimensions are equally accepted; second, that it is accurate to think of a norm-abiding international community versus a number of deviant states that need to be socialized into desirable behavior; and third, that non-governmental organizations are altruistic norm advocates vis-a-vis self-interested gov` ernments. First, international human rights norms are far from unequivocal, unless a small set of norms is selected to represent the framework as a whole. For example, when Risse et al. (1999) focus on the right to life as the core of human rights, they frame it as the right to be free from arbitrary governmental interference as, for example, expressed in torture or arbitrary executions. They do not, however, dene the right to life as access to appropriate nutrition, clean water and health-care services, or the right to cultural and material survival of peoples, precisely because these notions are not as unequivocally accepted by liberal statestheir equivalent of the international community. Risse and Sikkink (1999:8) admit that their denition of the right to life is a crucial component for liberal states self-construction of moral integritythus, it seems that instead of referring to a clear core set of international human rights, they refer to those rights that are clear to liberal states. Instead of taking this liberal bias as a starting point, it is necessary to understand the international human rights framework as an evolving concept. Some notions have signicantly changed over time, for example gender-related rights in the eld of employment12; other ideas have been only recently formulated based on new experiences of injustice, for example, collective rights or sexual identity rights. To expand this argument of the ambiguity of global norms beyond the human rights framework, it has to be acknowledged that many international norms are not consistent with human rights standards. For example, several studies have shown that trade liberalization and structural adjustment programsarguably very strong international norms with enforcement mechanisms attachedhave effects that violate several dimensions of human rights (Ewelukwa 2005; Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006). Second, if international human rights norms are broad, evolving, and ambiguous, it is simplistic to think of a norm-abiding international community of (liberal) states and a number of deviant
12 In the late 1960s, special treatment for women in the workforce due to their physical differences was considered a desirable protective measure. This changed in the 1970s, when several ILO studies showed that special treatment reinforced discrimination against women if it was not strictly conned to childbearing and reproductive capacities (McKean 1983:187; Berkovitch 1999).

(authoritarian) states that need to be socialized into desirable behavior. Most components of the human rights framework are subject to a wide range of interpretations to which all actors contribute, and from which all actors also deviate, if to varying degrees. In the eld of womens rights, we often nd the assumption that the global discourse provides a set of progressive norms to improve backward cultural practices that discriminate against women, or that domestic traditions are obstacles to the achievement of womens rights (Simmons 2009). It is more appropriate, however, to conceive of both domestic and global norm creation as a highly contextualized process immersed in culture (Merry 2003, 2006). This view would help to undermine the dichotomous view of us (culturefree womens rights proponents) vs. them (tradition-bound misogynists). Finally, the typical actor constellation in global norm diffusion literature juxtaposes the normviolating government with the joint action of the norm-advocating transnational networks and a norm-abiding international community. In this constellation, TANs are considered free from selfinterest. Following the boomerang metaphor, the only interest they have is that the boomerang hits the norm violator. While this is indeed a possible actor constellation, it is not the only one. For instance, it is likewise possible that a state is in favor of implementing international norms and is hindered by transnational or domestic civil society organizations. Also, the specic characteristics of transnational networks may either empower local constituencies or have a patronizing, paralyzing effect. Thus, all involved actors are norm proponents with identiable interests within certain power relations. Based on this discussion of global norm diffusion literature, I conceptualize womens rights norms as contentious in realization despite the almost universal ratication of CEDAW. As domestic processes of norm appropriation are considered crucial for social change, it is not assumed that ratication per se produces impact. States are not divided into norm-abiding liberals and non-liberal norm violators. Instead, each state is perceived as representing a mix of various value systems that all have the potential to overlap with and differ from global norms. Accordingly, it is assumed that CEDAW can be used in domestic contexts as a tool to improve the de-facto situation of women; that a number of domestic characteristics enhance womens rights realization; that the Convention is a useful, but not infallible guide in this endeavor; and that womens rights norms have to compete with other normative settings. The concept of transnational advocacy helps identify network structures consisting of transnational and domestic NGOs, international experts, parts of international organizations, and to a certain extent, state institutions that have been built to strengthen the norm diffusion potential of CEDAW. The power relations within these dynamics need to be considered.

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De-Centering the GlobalA Transnational View on International Womens Rights The driving motivation of the previous approaches was to identify dynamics that allow us to assume effects of global discourses and international institutions within national contexts. The second half of this paper aims at de-centering the global, that is, at deconstructing the notion that it has a far reaching scope vis-a-vis rather limited national and ` local contexts. I rst introduce a few elements out of the interdisciplinary debate on transnationalization to challenge some globalocentric assumptions, for example, that global inuences are stronger on national and local contexts than vice versa, and that these spheres should be thought of as separate and qualitatively different in the rst place. Second, I provide a closer look at transnational feminist approaches. They examine how gender norms are formulated, how they are translated between different contexts, and under which conditions and in which constellations actors decide to use, reinterpret, or reject international womens rights norms. This perspective conceptualizes CEDAW as a highly context- and actor-dependent inuence among others, not as the predominant (international) cause of (domestic) effects.
Rethinking Space: Three Useful Elements of Transnational Theorizing

Transnationality and transnationalization are phenomena that have been scrutinized by sociological, geographical, and anthropological literature for some time (Massey 1994; Hannerz 1996; Vertovec 1999; Jackson, Crang, and Dwyer 2004a; Pries 2004, 2005). Pries describes transnationalization as a dynamic of internationalization that stands for different forms of rearrangements of geographicalsocial spaces beyond, alongside, and above the formerly dominant national society paradigm (Pries 2004:53). In contrast to globalization that refers to processes of worldwide spanning of international transactions, communications, and social practices that are often associated with the annihilation of space,13 transnationalization emphasizes the growing importance of new trans- and pluri-local congurations which encompass and span traditional container spaces (Pries 2004:59); thus, space is considered crucial for social analysis, but it is not perceived as limited or isolated. Jackson, Crang, and Dwyer (2004b) conceptualize transnationality as border-crossing relationships, but recognize the continuing power of nation-states in dening the framework within which transnational social relations take place (Jackson et al. 2004b:5). Instead of assuming that globalization processes unfold homogenizing forces, it is argued that even the strongest global forces are subject to local
13 This expression has become a famous label for globalization. It suggests that the homogenizing effects of global trends destroy local specicities and thus render space meaningless.

inections. At the same time, the emergence of a transnational public renders any strictly bounded sense of locality obsolete. Three elements out of this debate seem crucial for theorizing the resonance of the CEDAW Convention: the concept of global, national, and local interrelatedness, the re-reading of the homogenizing inuence of globalization, and the rejection of the local as culturally bounded. First, transnationalization creates a new understanding of the meaning and interrelatedness of global, national, and local spheres. Due to powerful discourses of modernity, we have come to see these spheres as separate and hierarchical: the global is associated with abstract and powerful concepts such as space, capital, or history, while the local is linked to the concrete, limited, and traditional (Massey 2005:101). According to geographer Doreen Massey, this vision is inadequate. Alternatively, she thinks of space as a product of interrelations, as the possibility of the existence of multiplicity and plurality, and as always under construction (Massey 2005:10). This vision abandons the assumption of a qualitative difference between global, national, and local (for example, abstractconcrete, powerful-victimized) and replaces it with the understanding of situatedness of all action. At the same time, a situated context is constructed not by placing boundaries around it and dening its identity through counter-position to the other which lies beyond, but precisely (in part) through the specicity of the mix of links and interconnections to that beyond (Massey 1994:5). Thus, concreteness and interrelatedness is part of all interaction, and it is interaction through which socio-geographical spaces are created. This view allows a reciprocal, not hierarchical understanding of how different sites of action interrelate with and constitute each other (see also Grewal and Kaplan 1994). Applied to CEDAW, this understanding of mutually constitutive situatedness suggests that neither the global set of norms that CEDAW represents, nor the national apparatus that has made a commitment to implement them, nor the everyday life situations in which womens rights are supposed to work are conceptually separate from each other or ever xed in meaning. Rather, we are looking at a transnational assemblage of negotiating, living, and contesting gender norms with many possible outcomes in many possible venues. Second, the powerful and homogenizing inuence of globalization is questioned. In a way, this idea can be read as a counterargument to the idea of global norm cascading discussed in the previous section. Hannerz (1996) argues that the power of globalization notwithstanding, there is always room for transformation and contestation. He argues that the local as the site of everyday life, face-to-face interaction, and sensual bodily experience, while not necessarily territorially bound, is such a strong social dimension that no homogenizing global inuence would ever be able to annihilate its specicity. To better capture the interrelation between global and

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local meanings, he uses the concept of creolization. It describes a combination of diversity, interconnectedness, and innovation, in the context of global center-periphery relationships (Hannerz 1996:67). Creolization creates a continuum of possible mixtures which implies different levels of prestige and inequality. While power relations are at play, for example, in the homogenizing cultural politics of states, there are always trickle-up next to trickle-down processes. Massey adds to this trickleup perspective in reminding us of the power of thriving globality-producing locales (Massey 2005:102) like London or Tokyo: The local can be a hegemonic site, not only a disempowered one, like the poverty-stricken village or the decaying industrial city. Thus, there is also a need to think about localized inuences on the production of the global, not only the other way round. In Masseys view, these varying positions of power imply that any space is under constant negotiation. Those who inhabit and shape a locality determine what its characteristics are, how closed or open they want it to be to outside inuences, or even what they consider outside inuence and what not. Thus, the normative lling of a locale is not a matter of abstract legitimacy, but a concrete question that has to be negotiated in different spaces differently. In her discussion of the protests of French farmers against imported beef, Massey comes to the conclusion that the protests did not simply constitute a defense of local essentialism, but a position that wanted to be involved in dening the nature of the relations of interconnectionthe map of power of openness (Massey 2005:171). Two main ideas here are important for a decentered analysis of CEDAW. First, the notion of the local as sufciently powerful to contest the homogenizing inuence of globalization helps us see the complexity and variety of the many possible processes of norm implementation. An illustration may be useful here: Anthropologist Sally Engle Merry (2006) describes, in a study on battered women in the locality of Hawaii, that the women often cannot internalize the idea that they have the right to live a life free from violence. As Merry shows, most normative messages that the women receive within their everyday life suggest they are not rights holders and have to endure the violence if necessary. The new norm, codied in law and promoted by judicial institutions, may be relieving, but it is also confusing, and does not t with everything else the women have learned to be right. Thus, battered women often refrain from pursuing their rights. While this might appear inconsistent from a legal perspective, the women are basically trying to survive according to all the other, not rightsbased rules that shape their lives much more powerfully than the law does. Taking this relevance of lived norms seriously suggests that any resonance of international womens rights norms is highly contingent on how and by whom they are weaved into the prevalent normative context. The second idea is the importance of negotiating what should be part of a situated context from the perspective of those who create this context

through interaction. It represents a vision of contextualized self-determination that no idea or norm negotiated somewhere should be closed to further negotiation when applied elsewhere. If we consider CEDAW this way, it should not be understood as an indisputable international measuring stick. Rather, the embrace of the instrument by national governments could be seen as the opening of a domestic debate on gender norms that should ideally include as many constituencies as possible. Finally, transnationalization also reminds us that the idea of the local as culturally bounded and unambiguous is misleading. Anthropological studies on legal transnationalism claim that the production of culture and specicity is always a transnational enterprise. The production of customary law through the colonial presence of civil law shows this dynamic: customary law is not a nalized product of pre-colonial times that endured colonization, but a constantly evolving, necessary opposite to the creation of civil law in the project of colonialism (Wilson 1996). Thus, the notion of local as a demarcated site of cultural purity is misleading. On the contrary, transnational inuences can be identied as traditional (read: always existing) forces in the creation of culture (Sen 1999:242). This understanding is opposed to a static and dividing notion of culture as it is often constructed in the eld of womens rights and even in the CEDAW process: many times, culture is identied as the main source of womens rights violations, yet if framed this way, it is always the culture of the others (Merry 2003). I suggest that it is more appropriate to understand the Convention itself, the discourse between committee experts, state representatives and non-governmental organizations, and what they term harmful cultural practices all as culturally produced positions that overlap to a greater or lesser extent with each other.
A Transnational Feminist Reconguration of International, National, and Local Agency

Feminist transnational scholarship is a reaction to and reection of global womens activism (Meyer and Prugl 1999; Naples and Desai 2002; Friedman 2003). As Ruppert (2001) observes, global feminist activism did not materialize within the centers of power, but at its margins. As a result, womens activists have not primarily been concerned with controlling world politics, but with restructuring the view of what is globally relevantmost importantly, the diverse living situations of women and the need to ght social injustice based on gender hierarchies and other hegemonic structures. Feminist scholarship started from a similar point of departure, namely the criticism of exclusionary androcentric assumptions in IR theorizing. For example, the notion that states as gender-neutral, interest-driven entities engage in international cooperation neglects the fact that states interests are usually shaped by a male political elite that tends to exclude the views of the non-male and the non-elites (Peterson 1990).

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Transnational feminism is a more recent term than international or global feminism (Mackie 2001). The latter two describe the practice of womens organizations from diverse parts of the world establishing transnational networks and pushing gender issues on the international agenda. It is fair to say that since the 1970s, but most intensely during the 1990s, these networks have grown and made their voices heard in a wide range of global elds like development, human rights, population, and security policies (Desai 2002; Moghadam 2005). While the notion of global feminism focuses on the inuence of womens organizations within statedominated international policy arenas, transnational feminism emphasizes the contextualized diversity of womens struggles. It does not assume similar needs and interests of a global womankind14 and analyzes power relations and inequalities (that) reside in all feminisms (Grewal 2008:191): Feminist activism may develop alternatives to global hegemonies as a form of solidarity across class, culture, and national borders (Desai 2002; Naples 2002), but it may as well reproduce existing inequalities, for example, between international donors, professional NGOs, and grass root organizations (Alvarez 1999). Thus, the new terminology reects the understanding that border-crossing activism in the name of women is not by default empowering for women; rather, it is a form of connectivity that can be lled in different ways (Grewal 2008).15 Another difference between global and transnational feminism is that the latter keeps the relevance of nations and nationality in place and at the same time points to activism crossing national boundaries and thus transforming the concept of the nation-state (Mackie 2001; see also denitions of transnationalization above). In the concept of transnational feminism as spelled out by Grewal and Kaplan (1994), a feminist perspective is developed that challenges the foundations of modernity in its colonial discourses and hegemonic First World Formations (Grewal and Kaplan 1994:2), including hegemonic feminisms. In accordance with the previously presented core assumptions of transnationality, their perspective resists thinking in hierarchical binaries and under14 The notion of global feminism has allegedly produced such a homogenizing assumption: When the term global sisterhood was rst articulated by Western feminists (Morgan 1984), Third World feminists criticized it because in their view it meant that global solidarity among women based solely on their gender obscured other forms of discrimination based on class, ethnicity, race, and nationality. Western women, however, had an interest in this subordination because they were (knowingly or not) complicit in the production of these hierarchies (Mohanty 2003:106). In short, women exposed to multiple hierarchies did not feel represented by the language of their Western sisters who were only exploited because of their gender. In the meantime, this controversy has led to a more understanding cross-cultural dialog (Moghadam 2005). 15 For Grewal (2008), the question is not whether transnational networks are empowering, but which kind of information they transport. For example, in the nodes of transnational feminist advocacy, religion is predominantly shaped as a source of oppression. Many women who ght for the improvement of their status and see their religious believes as important part of their lives are therefore not part of such networks.

stands all cultural contexts as hybrids consisting of multiple and overlapping norms and sources of agency. The hegemonic dimension of cultural ows notwithstanding, the local becomes a multifaceted context that contains the potential of reformulation. Within global hegemonies and transnational cultural ows, gender relations are shaped by scattered hegemonies simultaneously consisting of global economic structures, patriarchal nationalisms, authentic forms of tradition, local structures of domination, and legal-juridical oppression on multiple levels (Grewal and Kaplan 1994:17). To use this feminist transnational lens for an analysis of CEDAW repercussions means to de-homogenize, de-essentialize and, basically, complicate agency positions. What could international institutions and agreements, states, and non-governmental organizations look like from this angle? The rst actor position, international institutions, has to be understood as ambivalent, evolutionary, and often sending incompatible normative signals. This is already true if we look at one area alone, but it is even more accurate if we consider the entirety of global regimes and treaties. In her analysis of the impact of trade and human rights norms on African women, Ewelukwa (2005) makes this point very clear: free trade agreements are international norms as much a human rights, with the distinction that they are more forcefully implemented. They infringe on the socioeconomic rights of the majority of women in Africa in various ways and thus add to domestic discriminatory structuresin Grewals and Kaplans terminology, gender hierarchies are scattered around in domestic and international hegemonic institutions. Thus, not only are international human rights norms much less present in womens daily lives than international free trade norms; in addition, international human rights law addresses only one dimension of gender hierarchies, namely the one produced by nationally bound customary law, not the one that is a result of international free trade regimes. In Ewelukwas view, a bold reinterpretation of international human rights norms (Ewelukwa 2005:83) is imperative, as the obsession with nation-states and the continued exclusion of international institutions, transnational corporations, and other nonstate actors from the scrutiny ignores the most pertinent violations of womens rights (Ewelukwa 2005:141). Thus, the normative signal coming from international institutions is not consistent, and it contains the message that there is no beyond-the-state producer of evils to be addressed; the international is hardly an object of international scrutiny.16

16 Arguably, there is a recent tendency within the international human rights framework to address other-than-state actors and hold them accountable. This tendency is, for example, expressed in the appointment of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. However, the statecenteredness of the system is not challenged. The state, constructed as the sovereign international entity, remains primarily responsible for the realization of human rights.

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Second, states have to be understood as historically contextualized political entities embodying a broad variety of possible attitudes and reactions to international gender norms. While all states dispose of a legitimate monopoly of power and sovereignty in principle, not all are powerful actors or pursue their interests coherently. For example, numerous studies have shown the relative weakness of least developed states facing international nancial and trade institutions and the infringement of state sovereignty this implies (Fall 2001). States do have a controlling, homogenizing domestic impact, for example, in forming the political identity of the collective (Tickner 2001) or in creating a corporate gendered identity (Savery 2007), but as Hannerz (1996) convincingly shows, this controlling power does not necessarily reach very far into the peripheries of the collective. Feminists have conceptualized states both as institutions that perpetuate hierarchical gender orders and as important agents for gender equality (Tickner 2001:120). Because of the centrality of the state in regulating family relations, reproductive rights, and social welfare, it is a key institutional actor for the implementation gender norms of whatever nature (Moghadam 2005:200). However, states are exposed to contradictory normative claims: Kardam (2004) shows for the Turkish state how different gender orders have been constructed by nationalist, secularist, modernist, and Islamic discourses, and how international and EU-based supranational normative frameworks have added another layer of understanding gender norms. Third, given the heterogeneity of existing NGOs, it would be simplifying to frame them predominantly as (rather altruistic and, in principle, legitimate) norm advocates that persuade or put moral pressure on powerful state actors. While such an agency position is certainly observable, NGOs may as well be part of a hegemonic international coalition of international organizations, powerful governments, and donor organizations that impose liberal democratic and neo-liberal economic policies which by many in the developing world are seen as nothing more than colonizing projects (Kamrani 2007:4). This is particularly true for NGOs that receive international funding for operations within developing countries. Their engagement is often conditional, that is, intergovernmental organizations and afuent democratic states make their nancial support for developing states dependent on these states acceptance of NGOs as partners and critics (Reiman 2006:62). Arguably, instead of being norm entrepreneurs by themselves, NGOs have become more and more the result of an international pro-NGO norm (Reiman 2006:45). The more NGOs are anchored in international discourses and funding, the more they may cause fragmentation within domestic movements between those with and without transnational ties (Friedman 1999; Alvarez 2000). In cases where international funding creates NGOs, the question of legitimacy is even more prevalent and acceptance of such organizations often remarkably low (Bagic 2006).

Finally, NGOs may form precisely to resist international norms and foster a culture of domestic counter-hegemony. Three Main Constellations of Traveling Gender Norms17 The re-construction of international norms as components of a rather contradictory web of meaning, states as not inherently sovereign, and NGOs as not inherently legitimate norm entrepreneurs help to understand the complexities in which transnational feminist activism is situated. Based on the insights of a large number of empirical studies on transnational feminist networks, three constellations of transnational gender norm formations are considered particularly relevant for the analysis of CEDAW repercussions: I have labeled them global discourse translation, impact translation, and distorted translation. I use the term translation here instead of diffusion because translation implies that differently contextualized norms may be translated into another realm, for example, from global to national or local to national, whereas diffusion assumes a oneway inuence from global to non-global. Translation is a term that has been critically discussed in anthropological literature as it is such a constituent part of that disciplinethe researcher has to convert both cultural concepts and the transmitters of these concepts such as language and customs into his or her own system of meaning to enable cross-cultural understanding (Rubel and Rossman 2003). This is a complicated and open-ended endeavor: While some have pointed to the enriching dimension of the encounter with the other in which change of ones own mindset is possible and desirable, others have underlined the manipulative potential of translation where the language and culture into which something is being translated forms the standard to which the other is being adapted. In particular, in the colonial encounter, and in any power hierarchy between cultures, is such an appropriation of meaning likely to occur (Chambers 2006). Thus, I use the term norm translation here to allow different avenues of cross-cultural encounters and transmissions of meaning, yet the term also includes unevennessmutual enrichment is possible as much as subordination. The rst formationglobal discourse translationcontains what norm diffusion literature calls norm creation, that is, activism out of different contexts to inuence inter- or supranational institutions, or activists use of such institutions to create transnational links and strategies of action. Antrobus (2004), Finke (2005), Joachim (2007), and Reilly (2009) among others describe how transnationally
17 The term travel is used to underline the notion of norms as nonstatic, not completed, but on-the-way and continuously exposed to new inuences. I borrow this term from James Clifford, who thinks of traveling as a metaphor for an unnished, heterogeneous modernity (Clifford 1997:2).

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connected womens organizations managed to integrate gender norms into the agendas of different UN branches; Caglar (2009) traces strategies employed by networks of feminist economists to push a gendered perspective into the work of the World Bank. The CEDAW Convention itself is a piece of such global discourse translation, rst when it was pushed on the international agenda by governmental actors with overlapping, but by no means identical ideas about womens rights (Rehof 1993), and during its 30 years of existence, when both nongovernmental womens organizations and other gender experts have unremittingly worked to make its meaning internationally understood, accepted, and visible (Zwingel 2005). The second formationimpact translationmeans agency that uses international gender norms to inuence domestic gender regimes and is situated in and complicated by multiple other normative and material settings. Most studies that have analyzed this formation place emphasis on thoroughly characterizing both the actor constellation and the context relevant for the action of translation, as this context often determines strategies and outcomes. To give just two examples: Thayer (2010) shows how four different actorsWestern donor organizations, Western feminists, an urban Brazilian feminist NGO, and a rural Brazilian womens organizationform a transnational constellation in which gender norms, but also other currencies such as authenticity and material resources, ow in several directions. The actors are connected to different degrees; for example, the NGO has more international contacts than the rural womens organization. However, despite undisputable power hierarchies, the members of the rural organization are not recipients of norms, but use their autonomous understanding of necessary social change to decide which gender norms they want to embrace. Another example is TanakaNajis analysis of the incremental, but at the same time profound changes in the Japanese gender order that were produced by transnational womens networks confronting Japanese institutions and society with international gender norms (Tanaka-Naji 2009).18 In a recent issue of Global Networks, an international team of scholars has started to systematically trace what they call vernacularization of international gender norms (Levitt and Merry 2009). Drawing from four different case studies, they nd that translation processes heavily depend on the context
18 Another example in this category is Reillys description of the transformative power of international gender norms in Ireland used by transnationally connected Irish womens rights activists (Reilly 2007). Weiss and Jamal have written about the reaction to international gender norms in the Pakistani context. Weiss focuses on the rather reluctant institutional reaction to these international norms that nevertheless contains an element of opening (Weiss 2003); Jamal explains the complex Pakistani context of a failed modernist-developmental state project replaced by authoritarianism and Islamization that makes it difcult to take normative sides. Hence, international gender norms are, for many women activists, a suspicious point of reference (Jamal 2005).

in which the norms are being brought. Socialist and collectivist traditions in China, Gandhian social justice ideas and caste-based practices in India, liberation theology and experiences of colonization in Peru, and a civil rights approach to achieving justice in the United Statesall these traditions connect in very different ways to global gender equality norms. The authors nd different types of vernacularization, some of which reach farther than others: in both the Chinese and the US-American case study, some of the translating actors do not attempt to use international norms for legal or social transformation, but they adapt the international impulses to the framework already in place. In the Chinese study, this insufcient form of translation is called contextualization (Liu, Hu, and Liao 2009), in the US-American, domestication (Rosen and Yoon 2009). More transformative strategies of vernacularization have tried to re-invent local traditions in a new international light, for example, in interpreting homosexuality as a practice embraced by Hinduism; or they have compartmentalized international norms, so that only parts of them that are likely to resonate are being promoted (Rajaram and Zararia 2009). The project concludes that the most important and challenging part of vernacularization is to translate an international norm not simply into a legal concept, but into culturally understandable and acceptable norms. However, such cultural translation is confronted with a two-fold dilemma: while it is necessary to root international gender norms into local practices to make them acceptable, the purpose of doing this is to challenge existing belief systems. The further a new idea pushes the familiar, the smaller becomes its local support basis, a vacuum that can be lled by increased international support. This, however, may lead to de-legitimization within the context that is supposed to be inuenced (Levitt and Merry 2009). The third constellation, distorted translation, refers either to activism in which international norms play only an indirect role, to international norms that have unintended domestic effects, or to a more obvious disconnect between international and domestic norms. A low but supportive level of international inuences on domestic contexts has been detected in public gender policy formation in post-industrialized democracies. It seems that border-crossing connections between womens organizations and international gender norms are not a crucial component for the domestic framing of policy issues. Rather, the widely differing debates on and regulations of issues like abortion, prostitution, and equal employment in post-industrialized democracies suggest a centrality of domestic actor constellations (McBride and Mazur 2006). Also, transnational feminist networks do often not refer in their work to international mechanisms such as CEDAW (Moghadam 2005). It has not been empirically studied so far whether or not this decoupling is explicitly chosen, maybe because of the perceived inefciency of international mechanisms. Insights in this regard

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would add an important factor to understanding the resonance of international norms. International norms may also have outcomes never intended. For example, Uyl (2005) explains the resurgence of dowry in India as a reaction to external inuences of modernity. While the institution of Western marriage never caught on in colonial India, the tradition of marriage with dowry, originally only practiced by high-caste Hindus, became altered by modern capitalism into a way of capital accumulation, and at the same time spread as a hegemonic model into lower castes. Thus, the embrace of one inuence of Western modernity (capital accumulation) led to the spread of Indian elite traditions and not to the acceptance of the whole Western package, including marriage. More specically related to international womens rights, several authors have observed that transnational organizing intended to strengthen international discourses and ultimately, to trigger domestic change has also contributed to the fragmentation of domestic movement actors (Friedman 1999; Alvarez 2000). Finally, we can observe open disconnects between international norms and transnational activism on the one hand and domestic contexts on the other. For Malaysia, Foley (2004) describes the low level of legitimacy of the international notion of gender equality promoted by transnational womens networks, while other womens organizations were rather successful in implementing a notion of gender equity into national legislation. Her interpretation is that the discourse employed by the transnational networks did not connect sufciently with the national normative context, whereas the more nationally rooted womens organizations were deeply anchored in it (Foley 2004). Similarly, Stachursky observes for the context of Iran that it adds legitimacy to womens activists claims if they refrain from referring to international gender norms (Stachursky 2010). This formation elucidates how international womens rights are interpreted in a context where normative rejection is dominant and where norm translation stands for very cautious exploration of potential overlap. Conclusion The two debates brought together here both provide insights into the possible repercussions of internationally codied norms. While the rst debate develops its analysis from an international point of departure, the second treats global, national, or local contexts as mutually constitutive, if shaped by scattered hegemonies of diverse power relations. Regime theory points to the possibilities of joint problem-denition and problem-solving through international cooperation, while global norm diffusion literature sheds light on the ways in which ideas may become internationally and domestically persuasive. From this angle, a number of phenomena can be captured, in particular the creation of international norms, state behavior in response to interna-

tional claims, and cases of concrete and traceable domestic compliance with an international norm. Such a top-down perspective makes it difcult, however, to analyze less unequivocal processes of norm production which are arguably the rule and not the exception. Transnationalization literature sees global norm creation and diffusion as a constant process of negotiating and re-negotiating norms. As strategies for change are produced by situated activism, global norms only resonate in ongoing and collective interpretations and practices. This view allows to pick up the thread where IR literature left it: It is now possible to see CEDAW as an instrument whose impact depends on contextualized agency. I have offered three constellations of norm translationglobal discourse translation, impact translation, and distorted translationthat in my view expand our understanding of the resonance of internationally codied norms. The womens human rights regime consists of normative standards that are, within limits, open to interpretation. The main dynamic for its realization is situated activism that continuously re-reads the meaning of CEDAW in context. Thus, a theoretical take on the translation of global gender norms has to focus on the reactions of national politicians to international treaties, on transnational NGOs and the relevance of CEDAW in their strategies, on national or local womens organizations and their knowledge about and strategic use of CEDAW, as well as on state or civil society actors who have altogether different agendas. This contextualized perspective does not aim at making a relativist argument; rather, I would like to question the relativism-universalism dichotomy altogether and suggest that universal principles, when applied to particular contexts, inevitably take on different forms. This happens within manifold constellations of power, and it cannot be ruled out that the notion of womens rights is being exploited for other purposes. Thus, the key to norm translation is that gender equality norms are to the largest extent possible cross-culturally negotiated and rather than imposed. References
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