Socializing Democratic Norms: The Role of International Organizations for the Construction of Europe

Socialising Democratic Norms asks how and why the shared values and identities contained in a democratic norm set are spread to an ever growing circle of states in the New Europe, and in the process seems to be changing Europe into a community of ideas based on a shared identity and norm set. It also asks the important question of why the process seems to occur easily in some countries, whilst less easily or not at all in others. The volume offers a new social constructivist framework for understanding the transfer of norms from an international setting into the domestic arena. The specific focus is the socialization of democratic norms through international organizations (UN, NATO, EU and the OSCE) into countries that are located at a different ideational distance from the core of the value community. The countries investigated are the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Belarus and Turkey.