Norm dynamics studies typically accord a special status to norm entrepreneurs, actors who promote new global norms. But conceptually privileging these agents of change has meant the norm dynamics literature has become unbalanced and marred by case selection bias. Accordingly, an oppositional role – the ‘norm antipreneur’ – should be recognised to correct these problems. When the normative status quo in an issue-area isentrenched, a clear distinction can be drawn between the entrepreneurs and antipreneurs, because in these contexts the antipreneurs enjoy significant but under-appreciated tactical and strategic advantages. Recognising this enables the construction of a norm dynamics role-spectrum – a sort of ‘typology of roles’ – including ‘competitor entrepreneur’ and ‘creative resister’ in addition to the entrepreneur and antipreneur roles which actors might play in particular norm contestation contexts. Understanding these roles promises to improve analyses of the dynamic interactions between actors in particular norm contestation processes, thereby bringing greater overall balance to the norm dynamics literature.1

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The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 marked a substantial advance in the effort to ensure all perpetrators of mass atrocities can be brought to justice. Yet significant resistance to the anti-impunity norm, and the ICC as the implementing institution, has arisen in Africa. The ICC has primarily operated in Africa, and since it sought to indict the sitting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2008 resistance from both individual African states and the African Union has increased substantially. We draw on the concept of ‘norm antipreneurs’, and the broader norm dynamics literature, to analyse how resistance has developed and manifested itself, as well as the potential effects of this resistance on the anti-impunity norm. We conclude that the antipreneur concept helped us structure and organise analysis of the case – suggesting it could be usefully deployed in other similar cases – but that this case also suggests that antipreneurs do not always enjoy substantial defensive advantages. We also conclude that African resistance to the ICC has substantially stalled the advance of the anti-impunity norm, a finding that has significant implications for the wider effort to reduce mass atrocity crimes in the contemporary era.

Strategic-cultural studies continue to proliferate, but scholars still cannot agree on fundamental matters like what a strategic culture is and what it does. This article examines the debates about strategic culture at the philosophical level -especially the debate between Alistair Iain Johnston, who prefers a positivist approach, and Colin Gray, who champions interpretivism -and finds that most conceptual models suffer from one of two general problems (and some models exhibit both). Existing models tend to be stated in a manner which is too coherent, meaning they can't account for occasional strategic-behavioural inconsistencies, and/or they suggest too much continuity and cannot thereby adequately account for changes in strategic policy over time. Instead, a model is offered which treats a singular strategic culture as containing multiple co-existing strategic subcultures. These subcultures each present a different interpretation of a state's international social/cultural context -who a state's 'friends' and 'foes' arewhich in turn affects how that state interprets the material variables -geography, relative power, technological change, etc. -relevant to strategic decision-making. These different paradigms compete in public discourse for influence over strategic decision-making. This synthesis solves both the 'too-coherent' and the 'too-much-continuity' problems.

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