NORMATIVE FOREIGN POLICY – THE KIWI WAY To What Extent Has New Zealand Been Acting as Norm Entrepreneur in the Areas of Nuclear Free Policy and Promoting Free Trade? Laszlo Szollosi-Cira Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 7, 2020 Politics Programme University of Otago, Dunedin ii Abstract Norms are standards of appropriate behaviour for actors and as such they do have a role in international politics. When norms are adopted by actors, they affect the actors’ policy behaviour, and consequently, the actors’ practices. Changing norms and policy practices of the actors in the system would result in changing the intersubjective knowledge of the actors and eventually the system. In international politics, small states are more inclined to international law and norms than great powers. Although realists and structuralists argue that small states need to behave according to great powers’ interests and small states are system-ineffectual, these arguments hold only to military power. In terms of economic power, small states have control over their success, while the power over opinion is not related to the size of the actors. Therefore, small states can influence global politics by intellectual leadership, norm-setting and norm entrepreneurship. The thesis observes whether and to what extent New Zealand has been acting as norm entrepreneur in the policy areas of nuclear-free politics and promoting free trade. To regard an actor as norm entrepreneur in a policy area, the actor should have no authority over the addressees of the proposed norm, the actor should consider the norm as appropriate for others too, the extent and intensity of the conscious efforts to promote the norm internationally should be sufficient, the norm-promoting efforts should be performed during the emerging and cascade phases of the norm life-cycle, and the actor should behave consistently with the norm. According to these criteria, New Zealand has been a norm entrepreneur in nuclear-free policy since 1984. Concerning free-trade, New Zealand has also been a norm entrepreneur between 1984 and 2017. Both cases illustrate how small states can influence international politics. Based on the findings, small states’ domestic policies may have larger effects on world politics than their direct international advocacy, other states can ignore the advocacy and remain reluctant to modify their policy agendas. iii Table of contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ iii Illustrations .................................................................................................................................. vi List of abbreviations .................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... xi 1. Introduction: New Zealand as a norm entrepreneur? ............................................................. 1 1.1. The research question ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2. The related theoretical debates in IR ............................................................................... 3 1.3. Contribution to the existing academic literature ............................................................ 8 1.4. Main findings ................................................................................................................. 10 1.5. The structure of the thesis ............................................................................................. 12 2. Norm entrepreneurship and small states in international politics ........................................ 15 2.1. Why norms matter: Their roles in world politics ........................................................... 16 2.2. How norms appear and spread ...................................................................................... 23 2.3. Norm entrepreneurship ................................................................................................. 31 2.4. States as norm entrepreneurs ....................................................................................... 35 2.5. The special case: small states as norm entrepreneurs .................................................. 41 2.6. Criteria to recognize norm entrepreneurship ................................................................ 52 2.7. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 62 3. Methodology: recognising norm entrepreneurs ................................................................... 65 3.1. Research design ............................................................................................................. 65 3.2. The selection of policy areas for the case studies ......................................................... 69 3.3. Constructivist methods: process tracing, discourse analysis, and counterfactuals ...... 73 3.4. Source materials and data generation ........................................................................... 76 3.5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 79 4. New Zealand as a foreign policy actor ................................................................................... 81 4.1. The New Zealand identity and the country’s mission .................................................... 81 4.2. Elements of small state foreign policy behaviour .......................................................... 89 4.3. The significance of sheer size and geopolitical location ................................................ 94 4.4. The effects of social development and the culture on foreign policy ......................... 102 4.5. The ambitions of the politicians and the society ......................................................... 106 4.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 109 5. New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy ....................................................................................... 111 5.1. Defining the nuclear-free norm ................................................................................... 115 iv 5.2. The ideology of the actor: from peace movement to the government ....................... 117 5.3. Extensive efforts: The evolution of the nuclear-free policy ......................................... 128 5.3.1 Before 1984: increasing public support for the policy ......................................... 129 5.3.2 The threshold events between 1984 and 1990 .................................................... 136 5.3.3 The nuclear-free status in New Zealand’s foreign policy ..................................... 142 5.4. Leadership and norm life-cycle: Awareness of the nuclear risks ................................. 149 5.5. Policy consistency: steady disarmament advocacy ...................................................... 155 5.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 159 6. Facilitating trade liberalization ............................................................................................. 162 6.1. Defining the free trade norm ....................................................................................... 164 6.2. New Zealand’s ideology to promote free trade ........................................................... 168 6.2.1. The seeds of multilateralism between 1945 and 1984 ........................................ 169 6.2.2. Bipartisan agreement on the benefits of free trade (1980-2015) ........................ 170 6.2.3. The redefinition of trade after 2015 .................................................................... 174 6.3. Mobilising resources and efforts to create free-trade agreements ............................. 179 6.3.1. 1945-1984: The necessary diversification of markets .......................................... 180 6.3.2. 1984-2017: Trade liberalisation as political strategy ........................................... 182 6.3.3. After 2017: Inclusion of social goals in trade agreements ................................... 194 6.4. Leadership in trade liberalisation ................................................................................. 198 6.5. The consistency of the policies regarding free trade ................................................... 203 6.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 207 7. Discussion: New Zealand promoting norms internationally ................................................ 210 7.1. Findings ......................................................................................................................... 210 7.2. The roots of New Zealand becoming a norm entrepreneur ........................................ 216 7.2.1. Personal ambitions, social and cultural factors .................................................... 216 7.2.2. System-related factors ......................................................................................... 220 7.2.3. Beyond the limits of the theoretical framework: specific factors