IOs as Social Sites: Does how an IO take up a Norm affect the Norm’s Strength?

Norms research has made significant inroads into examining their emergence and influence in international relations, while recognizing international organizations (IOs) as key social sites for norms to be created and/or disseminated. This paper interrogates how IOs as “organizational platforms” (Finnemore 1996) influence the norm building process. Going beyond state-centric approaches to norm construction, it argues that the process of taking up a norm by an IO does affect the norm’s power. A norm’s strength is determined by the extent to which it is uncontested and taken for granted as appropriate for actors with a given identity, which becomes institutionalized and internalized over time. Building on recent work that details how a norm’s strength is also derived from its specificity, the article assesses how the different ways an IO adopts norms may affect the norm’s power. The article provides a taxonomy of norm power according to degrees of institutionalization, internalization and specificity, arguing that the strength of a norm is derived from the norm building process, where a norm may be generated from outside or inside the organization, or from top-down or bottom up processes. Viewing the norm building process in this way provides insight into the effect of IOs as social sites in strengthening a norm.