New Publication by Prof. Dr. Anna Holzscheiter

In August Prof. Dr. Anna Holzscheiter (TU Dresden), Sassan Gholiagha (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) and  Andrea Liese (University of Potsdam) published a new article in the journal "Global Constitutionalism". The title of the article is "Activating norm collisions: Interface conflicts in international drug control". The article analyses norm collisions and their emergence using a constructivist agency-oriented approach. Norm collisions are understood to be situations in which actors perceive an incompatibility between at least two norms. A specific, contentious case is used for empirical analysis: the chewing of coca leaves. On the basis of this case, it is investigated which factors lead to the activation of the norm collisions and interface conflicts in international drug policy.

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Gholiagha, Sassan/Holzscheiter, Anna/Liese, Andrea (2020), Activating norm collisions: Interface conflicts in international drug control, Global Constitutionalism, 9 (2): 290-317. DOI: 10.1017/S2045381719000388.

Abstract: This article puts forward a constructivist-interpretivist approach to interface conflicts that emphasises how international actors articulate and problematise norm collisions in discursive and social interactions. Our approach is decidedly agency-oriented and follows the Special Issue’s interest in how interface conflicts play out at the micro-level. The article advances several theoretical and methodological propositions on how to identify norm collisions and the conditions under which they become the subject of international debate. Our argument on norm collisions, understood as situations in which actors perceive two norms as incompatible with each other, is threefold. First, we claim that agency matters to the analysis of the emergence, dynamics, management, and effects of norm collisions in international politics. Second, we propose to differentiate between dormant (subjectively perceived) and open norm collisions (intersubjectively shared). Third, we contend that the transition from dormant to open – which we term activation – depends on the existence of certain scope conditions concerning norm quality as well as changes in power structures and actor constellations. Empirically, we study norm collisions in the area of international drug control, presenting the field as one that contains several cases of dormant and open norm collisions, including those that constitute interface conflicts. For our in-depth analysis we have chosen the international discourse on coca leaf chewing. With this case, we not only seek to demonstrate the usefulness of our constructivist-interpretivist approach but also aim to explain under which conditions dormant norm collisions evolve into open collisions and even into interface conflicts.