CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Prokhorova, Anastasia |
|---|---|
| Title | The Special Adviser on The Responsibility to Protect: Performing Norm Leadership |
| Summary | How does the Special Adviser decide when to invoke the ‘responsibility to protect’ populations from atrocities? Why may the adviser urge for greater attention to some crises and not others, although no less violent? How have different postholders understood their role and shaped it in practice? In addressing these questions, this thesis examines the “performative leadership” of the Special Adviser of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and their contribution to the debate around an appropriate state and international conduct in situations of mass atrocities. In contrast to the dominant institutional approach informed by the norm diffusion literature, this research proposes a new theoretical framework which connects strategic norm-building with symbolic interaction and performativity. Based on this, I argue that the postholders do not merely enact institutional scripts but ‘perform’ certain meanings of the R2P norm, both creatively and strategically, while being deeply situated in a rigid environment with existing rules. The present study brings to the fore subtle yet deep-seated and ongoing contestations around R2P, which only become visible with the postholders’ strategic efforts to navigate R2P through contestations, create political and moral pressures and incentives, advance some avenues for the norm implementation and hamper others. Methodologically, this thesis relies on interpretative discourse analysis of selected statements and texts that contain representations of the advisers’ creative choices regarding their performances. |
| Supervisor | Kurowska, Xymena |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/prokhorova_anastasia.pdf |
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