Pursuing agreement on principles, as opposed to norms, may be politically attractive precisely because it allows some fudging about behavioral obligations. 4 For example, the claim that information ought to be free might be a principle, but it is not a norm. If not, it is merely a principle (or goal, or vision, or something else). If a principle clearly distributes labor and assigns responsibilities, and if those understandings are widely shared by relevant actors, that principle is a norm. Norms explicitly link specific actors to desirable behavior. Principles may be stated in the passive voice or may describe obligations vaguely. In contrast to norms, however, principles are often silent or imprecise about which actors should perform which behaviors to achieve a stated goal. For example, the notion of protecting human rights online might be a guiding goal or principle, but forging a shared belief in this idea can be challenging, even among states that have signed on to the international community’s core human rights instruments (as virtually all states have done). This is useful in that agreement on what a group wants to accomplish can help coordinate activity, although articulating shared principles can be difficult. 3 Often, they articulate a goal or vision of what a group wants to achieve. Broadly speaking, principles are “statements of fact, causation, or rectitude” and guide action in a variety of ways. Norms are different from and yet are tied to related concepts such as principles or laws. How Are Norms Related to Other Policy Instruments? In this way, widespread adoption of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s voluntary cybersecurity framework, which includes an array of norms, helped actors signal their intentions and build trust in supply chains (and with governments). Early adoption by these states (or firms) adds credibility and compliance pull to the norm. Savvy entrepreneurs can play upon actors’ desires for a good reputation or for membership in a select group, arguing that states (or firms) deemed good or responsible will follow a given norm. This identity component of norms has consequences for norm promulgation strategies. For example, states may not be enthusiastic about every feature of the UN Group of Governmental Experts’ output, but many, particularly Western, states feel more pressure to conform to those norms than those promulgated by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, because they identify with the UN and feel some pull from its processes. Second, the pull to conform to a norm arises from its being shared within a group with which relevant actors identify. Similarly, states, regulatory bodies, firms, and other actors may chafe at a norm’s behavioral prescriptions but conform anyway because they want to maintain their standing in the group and/or because they value the group’s goals. Most people would not choose to wear neckties or high heels but do so when the occasion demands it. Individuals do not need to like a norm to recognize that its expectations are widely shared, and people do not need to like a norm to feel the pull of its behavioral prescriptions. Only when China, the UK, and other G20 countries signed on did a norm start to take shape. government preaching that commercial cyber espionage is bad did not create a norm against cyber espionage. Others need to buy in and recognize that the norm’s behavioral prescriptions apply to them (or to other actors who can be held to account). Consequently, simply solving the puzzle of what substantive normative prescriptions might address a given cybersecurity problem and announcing this to the world does not create a norm. Something is not a norm just because someone says so a norm exists only when some relevant group agrees with and holds particular beliefs about expected behavior. First, norms are shared beliefs held within a community. More > What Is (and Is Not) a Norm?Īccording to a now standard definition, a norm is “a collective expectation for the proper behavior of actors with a given identity.” 2 Several features of this definition merit discussion. Martha Finnemore was a nonresident scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where her work focuses on global governance, international organizations, ethics, and social theory.
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