Toward a New Normal

    According to this Foreign Affairs article by Political Science Professor Tanisha Fazal, norms need to be maintained to avoid "a world in which everyone is worse off." What are these norms you ask? Fazal writes, "International norms are guidelines that tell states which actions are and are not appropriate and provide metrics against which to judge others' conduct." In other words, social norms for countries are the only things regulating how states behave on the world stage. This can be considered a textbook example of idealism in action. Rather than cementing legal frameworks to regulate international cooperation and conflict resolution, states settle for the equivalent of playground rules.

This is Regina George observing the chaos she instigated as she prepares to claim victimhood herself. Sound like any countries you know?

    This week's reading on is Latin America. The region, like many other in the global south, is often at the mercy of more developed nations and are forced to contend with the fallout from their decisions. Even within the Latin America, larger nations like Venezuela are able to bully smaller nations Like Guyana. Despite these realities, the author argues that norms are not purely a function of power citing these conflicts as evidence of the need for reinforcement of post-Cold war norms. Latin American scholars have agreed, in a way, as they advocate for the revival of non-nonalignment policies. However, I would argue that their use of international courts suggests that norms are not enough to enforce responsible behavior or yield productive resolutions.

Doesn't it just give you pause?

    Fazal offers the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as "the foundation for today's human rights regime" and a powerful norm that remains in affect to this day. I would contend that this foundation, agreed to by a loose collection of prominent yet powerless people, perfectly illustrates again how useless such idealistic agreements are in the real world. The greatest benefit of these types of agreements is the specificity of the enumerated definitions which enables nations to tout other country's violations as more egregious than their own.

    Tradition is not a reason to remain stagnant and inflexible in a rapidly globalizing, overwhelmingly diverse world. The days of international superpowers, like the days of monarchies before them, are drawing to a close and the only question now is whether or not the transition will be peaceful and orderly. Rather than cling to norms, relics of a bygone age, nations would be better off leaning into developing new cooperative institutions that are fully equipped to enforce violations of international statutes.

#message