Norms and sanctions: lessons from the socialization of South Africa*

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

E-ISSN: 1469-9044|22|2|173-190

ISSN: 0260-2105

Source: Review of International Studies, Vol.22, Iss.2, 1996-04, pp. : 173-190

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Abstract

In response to South Africa's increasingly institutionalized racial discrimination during the postwar years, transnational anti-apartheid activists advocated a vast array of global sanctions. With the formal abolition of apartheid in 1991, sanctions advocates celebrated the apparent success of the international community's efforts in promoting a global norm of racial equality in South Africa. Since similar sanctions are an increasingly popular policy in the post-Cold War world, the South African case offers a useful starting-point for re-evaluating the utility of sanctions as a non-military policy. However, despite the prominent role of a norm of racial equality in anti-apartheid sanctions, both advocates and critics of international sanctions still generally ignore norms analytically. Expanding our conceptual framework beyond the realist assumptions implicit in most sanctions analyses enables us o t understand better why international actors adopt sanctions and how these measures affect target states.