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Many studies in international relations have examined the role of transnational actors as primary agents of domestic change with a special emphasis on the role that foreign norms play in transforming local contexts. However, the condition of the local opposition to international norms is rarely explored. Author critically analyses the generic assumptions that guide this flawed research program and disaggregates several strains of theorizing about transnational norm diffusion. This paper offers innovative ways to investigate the conditions of local opposition to international norms in the context of the adoption of the antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The nature of substantive components, setting and choice mechanisms have to be reconsidered. Author empirically shows how different norm entrepreneurs reinvented the idea of treatment and how they put it in overarching political context. The analysis also explores alternative empirical arguments about the persisting turbulence of HIV/AIDS politics in South Africa and the piecemeal outcomes of norm acceptance. In the conclusion, author underscores the loopholes in the recent constructivist literature on norm diffusion and develops several ideas to improve it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much does identity factor into formation of transnational policy coalitions? The proposed paper is an exploratory study designed to fill the gap in international relations literature by gauging the role of domestic elites’ identity in norm diffusion. “Universal and free” access to anti-AIDS treatment is selected as such a policy. This exploratory paper argues that if identity matters, we should expect an adherence to the specific content of bargaining and selective policy promotions. On the other hand, if identity does not matter, we should expect national elites strategically using a foreign norm to broaden or reach their constituents. Two cases (South Africa and Russia) defy traditional norm diffusion explanation. Judging by the availability of treatment, already significant percentage of the infected population, combined with strong South African tradition of social movement, we might have expected pro-treatment coalition to be very effective in norm diffusion. However, domestic elites, including President Mbeki, endorsed the “anti-treatment” coalition in the context when the broader anti-AIDS forces split. In Russia, on the contrary, we would not expect coalitions to play a significant part of AIDS politics due to rapidly diminishing freedom of NGOs circa 2004 and increasing isolationist tendencies. However, domestic elites particularly endorsed a whole range of health NGOs, strengthened their resolve and even contributed to the building of a large informal coalition, uniting European NGOs, the EU-sponsored programs and domestic “non-human rights” organizations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]