What’s in a name? Contestation and backlash against international norms and institutions

Abstract

Norm research has struggled to leave behind its liberal progressive perspective on norms. It has turned its attention towards contestation and norms erosion. Still, in a number of studies contestation is not merely an analytic concept but a normative concept as well, describing a problematic development of norms. Plainly, contestation is often seen as a form of political backlash. This is problematic because the bulk of normative change proceeds in the form of contestation, so we need to be able to distinguish the two. Studying the recurring and radicalising contestation of the International Criminal Court, this article demonstrates the intimate relationship between contestation and backlash. It argues that while backlash might be fruitfully applied to the study of norm contestation, its added value for norms research is linked to the normative connotation of regressive politics, that is, a ‘thick’ concept of backlash.

Conceptualising backlash politics: Introduction to a special issue on backlash politics in comparison

“…Donatella Della Porta (2020) explains how social movement literature has identified numerous proximate triggers of grass roots mobilisation, including changes in perceived social conditions, in resources, or political opportunities. Our contributors, including Hanspieter Kriesi, Omar Encarnacíon, Justin Gest, Canes-Wrone et al, Nicole Deitelhoff (2020), Mikael Rask Madsen, and Cupać and Ebetürk investigate how the success of contemporary backlash politics derives at least in part from increased resources, crises-induced opportunities, and a policy change that is disliked. These contributions find that proximate triggers can at best only partly explain the timing and presence of backlash politics.…”

Theorising backlash politics: Conclusion to a special issue on backlash politics in comparison

“…In avoiding a normative label, we render our backlash politics definition normatively thin. While acknowledging the analytical advantages of this choice, Nicole Deitelhoff’s (2020) contribution notes that our definition fails to name and identify what might be larger normative stakes. Claudia Landwehr (2020) agrees insofar as she points out that backlash politics can undermine our basic social contract, which is the procedural consensus that societies create so that diverse peoples can live in peace together.…”

“…Indeed, the very same scholars raising this normative concern suggest that counter-mobilisations can revitalise and reinforce the very scripts that backlash movements are challenging. Deitelhoff’s (2020) discussion of African backlash against the International Criminal Court (ICC) makes this point when she says that ‘[t]he backlash might be bad news for the ICC but could still be good if unanticipated news for human rights protection’. A third reason, which we elaborate further in our discussion of whether backlash politics is necessarily backwards oriented, is that the regressive label obscures that backlash politics are themselves a contestation about the definition of what is progressive for a particular group or society.…”

“…Claudia Landwehr (2020) demonstrates that the ‘procedural consensus’ is a target of European backlash movements, even though there is no particular change that explains why the mode of building a procedural consensus is newly problematic. Similarly, the two studies of international courts show that long-standing practices rather than specific decisions or changes are the subject of backlash criticism (Deitelhoff, 2020; Madsen, 2020). Terman’s discussion of deviance argues that deviant groups will construct something to oppose.…”

“…Cupać and Ebetürk (2020) argue that intensified transnational networking and strategic responses to earlier feminist successes at the UN level fuel the current antifeminist backlash on the UN level. Similarly, Deitelhoff (2020) sees the judgements of the ICC against African leaders as contributing to African states’ opposition to this international court. The African and the UN examples underscore political opportunities need not be an ‘objective crisis’.…”