Norms, Social Fitness and the Construction of Intersubjectivity - A Study of the Norm Entrepreneurship of the World Bank and the Diffusion of the Norm of Good Governance

Abstract: This study deals with the process of norm diffusion in international politics. It primarily analyses and explains the diffusion of the norm of ’good governance’ initiated by the World Bank in 1989. In so doing the study delivers an analysis of the norm entrepreneurship of the World Bank in this specific case of norm diffusion. Moreover, the analysis reflects on the capacity of the World Bank as a norm entrepreneur from a more general point of view. An analytical framework that mainly draws on social constructivist literature on norm evolution is developed and applied to the empirical case at hand. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first section focuses on normative structures and the second section concentrates on the norm entrepreneur. The last concluding part wraps up the analysis of the empirical case by explaining how the first and the second part of the inquiry relate. The present study suggests that social fitness is the key analytical concept to understand the process of norm diffusion in the case at hand. The analysis shows how the social fitness of the norm of ‘good governance’ and the social fitness of the World Bank as an international organisation are fundamental to understand the diffusion of the norm of ‘good governance’. The theoretical conception of norm diffusion delivered in the present study suggests that international organisations can be influential and powerful norm entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the study incorporates a theoretical conception of power into the analysis of norm diffusion and shows how power in different forms is a fundamental element to understand and analyse the social construction of intersubjectivity.