Understanding bricolage in norm development: South Africa, the International Criminal Court, and the contested politics of transitional justice

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Within international relations the normative agency of African actors is often downplayed or derided. This article develops the concept of bricolage to offer a novel understanding of norm development and contestation in international relations, including the role African actors play in this. We contend that a norm's core hypothesis can be thought of as the nucleus of a norm. In the case of complex international norms, if this core hypothesis is sufficiently vague and malleable, the norm will continue to attract a range of actors who may claim to share a commitment to enacting the core hypothesis even if they simultaneously promote a variety of potentially conflicting and contradictory meanings-in-use of the norm when doing so. Each meaning-in-use, we argue, might be thought of as a product of bricolage: a process of combining and adapting both new and second-hand materials, knowledges, values, and practices by an actor to address a problem in hand. Through a detailed study of the contestation of transitional justice between South Africa and the International Criminal Court, we elucidate how bricolage can help to illuminate the normative agency of African actors in shaping transitional justice. Processes of bricolage add complexity and potentially confusion to a norm's development, but bricolage also offers the potential for a creative and dynamic means by which a range of actors can inject pluralism, dexterity, and vitality into debates about a norm's meaning and operationalisation.</jats:p>

Southern middle powers and the liberal international order: The options for Brazil and South Africa

“…89 Even in the case of the International Criminal Court, where South Africa's approach has been more critical, it has been argued that South Africa has strived to re-shape liberal norms like transitional justice by promoting restorative and reparative approaches to accountability. 90 The Ramaphosa administration's multilateral orientation has also been evident in South Africa's recent term as non-permanent UNSC member (2019-2020). Using the experience gained from previous terms, South Africa strived to provide leadership against great power pressures, aligning neither with the P3 (the US, UK, and France) nor with the P2 (China and Russia), but rather retaining autonomy as the leader of the A3 (the three African non-permanent members).…”