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For the best doctoral dissertation completed and accepted in the previous year in the field of international relations, law, and politics.

Award Committee: Simon Reich, Chair, University of Pittsburgh; Darlene Boroviak, Wheaton College; Dennis Yasutomo, Smith College

Recipient: Margarita Hristoforova Petrova, Cornell University

Dissertation: "Leadership Competition and the Creation of Norms: A Cross-national Study of Weapons Restrictions"

Dissertation Co-Chairs: Matthew Evangelista and Peter Katzenstein, Cornell University

Citation: We have unanimously selected Margarita Hristoforova Petrova (Ph.D., Cornell University) as the winner of this year’s Helen Dwight Reid Award. Her dissertation, 'Leadership Competition and the Creation of Norms: A Cross-national Study of Weapons Restrictions', builds upon several subfields in international relations to explain the process of successful norm creation and diffusion. In a highly original analysis, that transparently specifies the conditions under which international norm adoption is likely, Dr. Petrova systematically examines and links two sets of dynamics. The first is the interaction between domestic, regional and transnational levels of governance in the “scale shift” generally neglected in the norm literature with its focus on the transnational; the second is the interaction between NGOs, domestic militaries, public opinion, individual entrepreneurs, states and intergovernmental organizations in the context of varied state structures.

Dr. Petrova’s dissertation, consistent with prior analysis, “argues that the success of norm creation depends first on the initial framing of the problem by NGOs”. This framing must simplify the problem, offer a clear and easy solution, characterize the debate in humanitarian terms and have the position adopted by a majority voting procedure. Yet she additionally brings a new perspective to the existing literature in her analysis of the subsequent ability of those same NGOs “to foster among states a dynamic called ‘leadership competition’ in which a number of countries consecutively adopt more progressive positions in support of weapons bans”.  Beyond arguments that stress the importance of ‘tipping points’ or ‘a bandwagon effect’, or that claim that new norms must be grafted on old ones, she judiciously lays out the processes by which norms are advocated by NGO representatives and nurtured by ‘rooted cosmopolitans’ in the context of contrasting domestic structures (state-dominated, society-dominated or corporatist). Such cosmopolitans serve as entrepreneurs and form a link between domestic and transnational coalitions, fomenting public support at home. These entrepreneurs, she notes, are as motivated by instrumental as they are moral reasons in a complex interwoven process – a key argument in the current dialogue regarding the relationship between rationalism and constructivism.

In order to analyze her argument empirically, Dr. Petrova considers the cases of landmines and cluster bombs. In both cases she focuses extensively on the domestic arena, where NGOs mobilize national support for such norms, through the ‘mobilization of pride’ in leadership, and not simply the ‘naming and shaming’ tactics stressed in the existing literature under the rubric of the ‘mobilization of shame’. She argues that the interplay between national traditions favoring norms and the dominant strategic culture, including differing military cultures, explains the rise of ‘Middle States’ -- such as Norway and Canada -- to positions of eminence on the humanitarian agenda as they engage in a competition for international leadership. Moral entrepreneurs assist in generating a domestic consensus of support in these countries that, she claims, is key to reinvigorating progress at higher levels of governance when transnational negotiations often stall.

Yet, in this ambitious dissertation, Dr. Petrova also manages to demonstrate the complexity of an interactive process where influences also flow ‘downwards’. Her formulation explains both the overall movement towards the generation of a norm and the variation in national level responses  -- the latter largely through the capacity to define the problem clearly and offer simple prescriptions. She links multiple actors at multiple levels subject to contrasting pressures in a coherent, manageable framework. In sum, this dissertation ties all these dimensions together into a clear explanation of why some norms are accepted – and by whom -- and how her approach incorporates, expands, modifies, and enhances several existing literatures.