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The fact that norms and ideas matter in international relations has been demonstrated by many scholars. Questions continue to plague ideational scholarship, however, about why norms matter when they do. In fact, for many, the lack of answers to these questions has led to the conclusion that, in the end, norms and ideas are epiphenomenal to numerous other factors, especially power, in international politics. This paper seeks to build an argument that counters criticisms like these by developing a better theoretical understanding of when and how norms shape policy outcomes, especially in the foreign policies of democratic great powers.Toward this end, I explore why the United States applied sanctions against South Africa in 1985, but not earlier. I focus on this case alone because it is one in which scholars of varying theoretical persuasions generally agree that norms best explain the outcomes. What remains puzzling about the case is why the norm of anti-racism brought U.S. action when it did. As various scholars demonstrate, this norm was firmly implanted internationally and within the U.S. domestic policy process by the 1960s. It was strengthened further by the emergence of more general human rights norms in U.S. foreign policy in the early 1970s. Yet, the U.S. appeared to ignore these humanitarian norms when it came to South Africa until sanctions in the mid-1980s. How do we explain the delay? Most work in constructivist scholarship would give mutually exclusive attention to either ideational structure or activist pressure in order to answer this question. I argue that both are necessary in order to explain outcomes. Agents are an important source of change, but they must work within constraints imposed by structure. More specifically, ideational structure often consists of multiple layers. Activists need either windows of opportunity within structure and/or the correct tools to unlock structural windows of opportunity in order to bring policy change. The argument helps to explain why the humanitarian anti-racism norm did not lead to sanctions by the U.S. against South Africa at different points in the late 1970s and early 1980s as well as why sanctions came when they did in 1985 and 1986 specifically. In order to test the reach of the argument, I also briefly explore its application to various U.S. decisions on whether or not to apply aid sanctions against a host of other U.S. allies (Turkey, Greece, and South Korea) with comparably poor human rights records to South Africa around the same time period. All of this results in a bottom-line conclusion: Rather than being epiphenomenal to power politics, norms, especially humanitarian norms, prove influential over decisions of both action and inaction in important and even vital strategic relationships. Among its several implications, the model proves especially important as a building block for better understanding how and when other types of norms matter in international politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]