Complex Socialization and the Transfer of Democratic Norms

This chapter is an attempt to offer a structural framework for explaining the transfer of norms through processes of socialization which, if successful, may lead to changes in the behaviour and possibly in the identity and basic values of the socialize. In the case of this volume, the specific socialization process of interest is the transfer of democratic norms, where the socializing agents are international organizations, and the socializes are the Central and East European (CEE) states, which started out on their journey towards democracy following the end of the Cold War. It is claimed that the specific utility of the framework is its ability to account for the significant variation in the extent to which states in similar circumstances and in response to initially similar socialization efforts on the part of the socializing agents, have nevertheless resulted in very different outcomes. Put simply, why has the socialization of democratic norms been successful in the Czech Republic but not in Belarus, when arguably both started out from a totalitarian past, experienced a similar ideational shock (Marcussen, 2000) in the shape of the end of Soviet domination and the de-legitimization of Communism, and were initially offered similar socialization 'deals' by the West?