Norm contestation & robustness: the effects of Russia’s contestation in Crimea on the robustness of the prohibition of force norm
Date
2021
Authors
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
The debate on norms and their effectiveness is taking place at the international political level in parallel to the debate on norms in norm scholarship. This thesis aimed to bring them together by applying a theoretical framework on norms to the prohibition of force norm that was contested by Russia in Crimea in 2014 and debated in the United Nations Security Council. The framework predicted that different types of norm contestation have different effects on the norm’s robustness – the latter is expected to strengthen when it predominantly faces applicatory contestation and to weaken when it faces validity contestation. Through qualitative document analysis, the research question on how Russia’s contestation of the prohibition of force norm affected the norm’s robustness was answered. This study firstly established the predominant type of contestation by Russia to be applicatory contestation. Differently than expected, this type of contestation was found to have increased the robustness of the prohibition of force norm along the validity dimension (states belief in the norm) but decreased along the facticity dimension (guiding states actions). Because the dimensions developed in diverging directions in similar volumes, the overall robustness of the norm that was measured before Russia’s contestation (2009-2013) and after (2014-2018) remained at the same level of moderately high based on this study’s indicators. The theoretical expectations that predicted a change in robustness were therefore not affirmed. In turn, this study not only demonstrated the significance of studying the two robustness dimensions separately but also that they should not be assumed to develop in the same direction. Accordingly, this thesis produced empirical backing to the theoretical framework on norm robustness and different types of norm contestation that was lacking. Secondly, it provided insights into the robustness of the prohibition of force norm and how it was affected by Russia’s mode of norm contestation. Lastly, this thesis combined norm scholarship with the international political debate on norms which eventually contributed to bridging the gap between them.