Transnational Advocacy, Norm Regress, and Foreign Compliance Constituencies: The Case of the “Comfort Women” Redress Movement

Abstract

Abstract The literature at the intersection of global norms and transnational advocacy typically equates target states’ foreign constituencies with those exerting normative pressure on the states in question on behalf of their domestic constituencies. Another type of foreign constituency remains undertheorized: foreign nationals as rights claimants who make normative claims against target states, such as victims of colonization seeking redress or refugees demanding their rights protection. I argue that states, including robust democracies otherwise well socialized into global norms, respond differently to compliance pressures from these two types of foreign compliance constituencies. In what I call dual norm dynamics, states may regress in their norm practices when it comes to foreign claimants while at the same time deepening their normative commitments to the international community as a whole. In an unintended consequence of norm diffusion, norm regress in target states for foreign claimants may occur as a result of successful transnational norm advocacy on their behalf. To demonstrate the empirical utility of dual norm dynamics, I look at the transnational redress movement for Korean “comfort women.”