Social Science & Medicine 146 (2015) 285e291
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Transnational issue-specific expert networking: A pathway to local policy change Cheryl O'Brien Department of Political Science, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4427, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 January 2015 Received in revised form 7 October 2015 Accepted 8 October 2015 Available online 22 October 2015
This article reports on key findings from a study of subnational governments in Mexico and Nigeria (O'Brien, 2013). With empirical richness of the case study method and small-n statistical analysis across the subnational units for each country, this study asks: How can we push the needle toward more progressive policy change on violence against women in developing and democratizing contexts? This study finds that issue-specific expert networking is a civic pathway to subnational policy responsiveness in Mexico and Nigeria. The dynamics of this pathway illuminate local-global political connections, and this study shows how issue-specific expert networking is important for the diffusion of an international norm and policies on violence against women. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Mexico Nigeria Violence against women Transnational advocacy networks Transnational Feminism Women's movements Policy change Norms
1. Introduction Violence against women is a serious health, social, and economic problem in which women and girls are targeted for violence based on their sex (Weldon, 2002). Article 1 of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW) defines such violence as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (United Nations, DEVAW, General Assembly Resolution 48/104, 1993). Such violence is an important global policy problem for governments to tackle in order to improve the quality of democracy, for it “not only causes physical harm but also prevents women from full participation in development” (Friedman, 1995, 21). Given the importance of violence against women as a human rights issue that impacts the quality of democracy, I focus my study on transitioning democracies and their variation of subnational government responsiveness to redress violence against women through a structured, focused comparison between Mexico and Nigeria. Specifically, this study asks: What explains the variation of
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subnational policy adoption to redress violence against women within transitioning and developing democracies? Policies are a necessary condition (albeit not a sufficient condition) for addressing violence against women; policies cannot be implemented if they are not on the books. This study makes a significant contribution to the political science literature by 1) focusing on subnational variation in local policy change and 2) illuminating how issue-specific networks and the involvement of experts can help explain this variation. It also focuses on two important cases and engages in a much-needed cross-regional analysis of these issues. I argue that issue-specific expert networking can help domestic and transnational women's movements achieve subnational policy responsiveness on violence against women. This study finds through a close examination of the subnational level that in some developing and democratizing contexts, a strong local women's movement is not necessary to achieve policy responsiveness to an international norm on violence against women. Notably, a transnational issue-specific expert network can be a civic pathway to policy adoption on violence against women, even where local women's activism is very limited. This study adds to the current knowledge base of how policies are diffused by noting the importance of including legal experts in how transnational advocacy networks (TANs) and transnational feminist networks (TFNs)
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function to diffuse policy. This is important for advancing political science theories of which actors in TANs and TFNs are important for policy creation. This study takes TANs and TFNs out of their “black box” to specify which actors are important for what outcomes. Transnational advocacy networking is one factor studied in the area of feminist policy adoption regarding violence against women, other women's rights issues, and human rights in general (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Simmons, 2009; Johnson, 2007; True and Mintrom, 2001; Mohanty, 1997; Moghadam, 2005). Many subnational laws to ameliorate violence against women are connected to a transnational feminist movement that promotes the adoption and implementation of public policies against such violence. TANs and TFNs are key players in the global movement for women's rights as human rights, and this study supports the scholarly literature on TANs and TFNs by finding that an issue-specific expert network, particularly with activist-attorneys, can have significant influence towards the creation of subnational laws against violence against women. Of course, international norms do not diffuse across empty social and political space, and transnational networks are not acting in a vacuum. Analogous to the federal level processes of adopting human rights norms (Moravcsik, 1997, 2000), the local level filters the influence of norms. The domestic contexts in which transnational actors work does much to determine whether networks are successful and the path through which transnational influence is exerted. This study further contributes to the policy and norms literature by examining understudied subnational contexts, including localities where women's rights activism is repressed. While much feminist scholarship focuses on norms and policies at the national level, this study contributes to the literature on women's rights by process tracing policy responsiveness at the subnational level within a democratizing and developing state. Given the lack of resources available in developing nations with a weak state capacity, such as Mexico and Nigeria, it is important for theorizing about women's rights norms and policy responsiveness to examine what civic pathways exist to help local social movements achieve policy responsiveness in developing and democratizing states. In the next section, I provide the theoretical background for this study, as informed by the scholarly literature. I present my theoretical account of key policy stakeholders who initiate, contribute to, or hinder subnational policy responsiveness to violence against women in developing and democratizing states. I also explain my argument that issue-specific expert networking is an important civic pathway to policy change. The theory section is followed by a methods section, an overview of the study's findings, a discussion of the study's implications, and a conclusion. 1.1. Theoretical background What explains the variation in policy responsiveness to violence against women at the subnational level in developing and democratizing contexts? The variation of subnational policy adoption to redress violence against women within transitioning and developing democracies poses a theoretical puzzle regarding an international norm on violence against women. An international norm against such violence emerged in the 1990s, calling for governments to ameliorate violence against women through public policy (Htun and Weldon, 2012; Walsh, 2008; Weldon, 2006; Moghadam, 2005; Clark et al., 1998; Friedman, 1995). Policy responsiveness evidenced in the form of public policies (i.e. laws) on the books is an important step in examining the scope of policy responsiveness to violence against women. Conceptually, by subnational policy responsiveness, I mean the scope of government responsiveness (Htun and Weldon, 2012) to violence against women at the subnational level. The extant literature suggests a wide variety of causal factors
that would be germane to explaining policy responsiveness on women's rights (e.g. Htun and Weldon, 2010; Walsh, 2008; Merry, 2006; Htun, 2003; True and Mintrom, 2001; Fabian, 2006; Simmons, 2009). Based on this literature, I expect local and global women's movements to increase the likelihood of subnational policy responsiveness to violence against women. Particularly as the literature relates to violence against women and emerging democracies, such as Mexico and Nigeria, I expect that the main forces influencing subnational policy responsiveness are local women's movements, global women's movements, as evidenced by transnational feminist networks (TFNs), and opposition or countermovements opposed to feminist policy change. I expect that a women's movement would improve government responsiveness to violence against women, whereas opposition would hinder government responsiveness. Local and global women's movements. Many studies identify women's movements as important drivers of change in women's rights policy in general and in relation to violence against women in particular (Weldon, 2002, 2011; Alvarez, 1990; McBride and Mazur, 2008; Zwingel, 2005; Tripp, 2011, 2004). Autonomous women's movements are particularly important (Molyneux, 1998; Weldon, 2002; Htun and Weldon, 2012; Weldon and Htun, 2013; Tripp, 2000). Waylen (2007) observes that women's mobilization is a necessary, but insufficient factor to explain women's rights policy responsiveness, and many women's movements are active in transitional democracies with varying degrees of success (Waylen, 1994). Sometimes women's movements prompt policy change, but sometimes they do not; sometimes they must combine with other factors to achieve policy change. I expect that a local women's movement would interact with other civil society actors or work with political elites (i.e. bureaucrats, politicians, and other government officials) in a way to promote violence against women policy responsiveness and counter-balance organized opposition to violence against women policy responsiveness. I also expect transnational feminist networks (TFNs) or transnational advocacy networks (TANs) that work on violence against women issues to improve subnational policy responsiveness (Moghadam, 2005; Keck and Sikkink, 1998, 2003; Htun and Weldon, 2012). I consider TFNs or TANs that work on violence against women in line with feminist goals to represent part of a global women's movement. Women's movements vary and are multiple, but this study focuses on feminist women's movements, which challenge traditional gender roles, such as a husband physically disciplining his wife, and challenge the government to respond to violence against women as a public (rather than private) issue. Drawing upon Moghadam's (2005) work, I define a TFN as a formally or informally organized transnational network of individual activists, women's groups, and/or (representatives of) organizations from more than one country and who are connected around a common agenda for a feminist cause. Membership may overlap between domestic women's movements and TFNs, as individuals or groups may identify with both local and transnational movements. Merry (2006) notes the fluid activism across borders around human rights ideas, such as feminist calls to address violence against women: “These ideas become localized through the work of individuals who serve as translators between transnational and local arenas … They may be local activists, human rights lawyers, feminist NGO leaders, or a host of other people who have one foot in the transnational community and one at home” (229). Despite the fluidity of members between transnational and domestic movements, I can test to determine if a TFN or TAN's presence makes a difference on subnational policy responsiveness, as a TFN is a transnational actor with its own agency beyond its individual members (Keck and Sikkink, 1998, 5). For the purpose of this study, a TAN that does not label itself feminist, but advocates
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against violence against women at the local level of the case study location will be considered a TFN in my case study analysis. Organized opposition. Organized opposition (i.e. countermovements or opposition groups) may have opportunities to thwart the efforts of women's movements based on the opposition's “relationship to authorities” (Meyer and Staggenborg, 1996, 1635, 1642). Sometimes organized opposition to women's rights appears in the form of “conservative” religious groups (Tohidi, 1996, 30e31). Various scholars note the importance of church-state relations or religious opposition to progressive policy responsiveness (e.g. Htun, 2003; Friedman, 2010; Moghadam, 1995; Monshipouri, 2009). I expect that civil society actors are less likely to succeed in achieving subnational policy responsiveness when organized opposition groups possess strong ties to the government (e.g. strong church-state ties). Considering organized opposition in the form of religious groups with strong ties to the state, I draw upon Htun and Weldon's (2012) term the “political institutionalization of religious authority.” Strong ties to the state refers to the strong influence of an opposition group to affect policy decisions or statements by local politicians; politicians may agree with the opposition group's policy preferences based on self-interest (i.e. votes to be gained from the opposition group's favor) or moral reasons (i.e. a politician shares the views of a religious group opposing women's rights). Strong ties to the state can also be evidenced by government financial support of the opposition group and its causes, regardless if such funding violates domestic law. In a subnational context where an international norm on violence against women is widely accepted, I expect that opposition is unlikely to mobilize and, if it did mobilize in such a context, it would not likely prevent policy responsiveness. In a subnational context with strong religious-state ties, I expect opposition to feminist policy change on violence against women. Civic Pathways. What are the civic pathways through which women's movements and organized opposition affect local policy responsiveness to violence against women within democratizing and developing nations? This study suggests that there might be additional pathways to transnational norm diffusion and policy responsiveness to the causal mechanisms or processes normally discussed in the literature on women's rights. My argument of issue-specific expert networking as a pathway to policy responsiveness is not the same as the boomerang process, causal mechanisms (e.g. shaming and information politics), or other mechanisms that the scholarly literature has envisioned (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Simmons, 2009; Boushey, 2010; see also Krook and True, 2012 on norms as “processes”). I do not dispute previously theorized processes or causal mechanisms, but rather through process tracing and intensive case studies, I supplement those accounts with some fresh ideas about how policy change can happen to advance human rights in less democratic settings. The main civic pathway to policy responsiveness that this study examines is issuespecific expert networking. Issue-specific expert networks, which often include legal and medical professionals, offer particular expertise that can help promote (or hinder) progressive policy changes for women's human rights. 1.2. Issue-specific expert networking on violence against women Given the often weak state capacity in developing and democratizing nations, I expect to observe a civic pathway in which a transnational issue-specific network of experts on violence against women is important for the diffusion of an international norm and policies in response to violence against women. This is a form of information or expertise diffusion from transnational networks or their members, such as medical or legal staff, particularly attorneyactivists, with expertise on violence against women. This pathway
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of expert information sharing can channel through civil society actors directly to domestic policymakers. I hypothesize that issue-specific expert networking is important for policy responsiveness in developing nations, particularly where there are less well-developed women's movements, less established democracies, and weak state capacities. Transnational experts sharing knowledge with locals (e.g. NGO staff; attorneys; doctors; nurses) to tackle violence against women is important, particularly where there is a great lack of resources (e.g. funding to pay local staff to work on policy change, training in technical skills, legal expertise on drafting laws against specific types of violence against women, access to technology). In many states across Mexico and Nigeria, the issue of violence against women competes with other equally pressing human rights issues (e.g. maternal mortality, access to clean water, extreme poverty, etc.), and TFNs can assist with norm and policy diffusion to address domestic violence and other types of violence against women. In subnational units (i.e. states and the capital territories) in Mexico and Nigeria, I expect that issue-specific expert sharing of sample legislation or trainings by experts would primarily come through transnational networks that focus on (or at least temporarily address) violence against women policymaking as a cause for which their network advocates. Any such transnational networking to advocate for violence against women policy change fits my study's definition of TFNs for the purpose of analysis. TFNs can work with domestic social movements, such as local women's movements, to share issue-specific expert knowledge (Keck and Sikkink, 2003; Htun and Weldon, 2012). As previously noted, individuals may identify as members of both transnational and domestic movements, At times, issue-specific networks may advocate on an issue in response to constituencies who are worried about that particular issue. Htun (2003) writes about issue-specific (expert) networks in her study on national policy changes on women's rights in Latin American countries transitioning to democracy; Htun notes the importance of lawyers working on specific policy issues as members of networks seeking policy responsiveness on women's rights: New paradigms of gender rights became politically salient in Latin America when they were debated within elite ‘issue networks’ of lawyers, feminists, and reformist politicians … Issue networks were the key advocates for gender rights reform … [They] mobilize around specific policy issues, and may involve actors from both state and society … A lot of the force behind change on gender equality and the family and divorce came from middle-class male lawyers. These lawyers, motivated by the social problems they encountered in their legal practices, changes in other countries, and international norms, played a central role in issue networks … Issue networks were the mechanism through which international developments influenced domestic policy changes (16e17). Based on national-focused studies (e.g. Htun, 2003), I expect to find issue-specific sharing among legal experts, particularly attorney-activists, through a transnational exchange of sample domestic laws and legal arguments related to international law on violence against women at the subnational level. In fact, legal expertise may be the most important issue-specific exchange of knowledge for promoting subnational policy responsiveness in developing nations with weak state capacity. Getting sample legislation and legal arguments on international law into the right handsdparticularly attorney-activistsdcan be a fruitful transnational exchange of knowledge towards achieving subnational policy responsiveness. Given the lack of resources available to many attorney-activists working in developing nations with weak state
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capacity, transnational issue-specific expert networking on violence against women is one causal pathway or mechanism that can lead to norm diffusion and policy responsiveness at the subnational or local level. Issue-specific expert networking adds to the civic pathways and mechanisms already delineated in the literature in a way that is particularly useful for those theorizing about norm and policy diffusion and for those advocating on women's rights in contexts with less well developed women's movements, less established democracies, and weak state capacities. Providing model laws and best practices is something that transnational networks of legal experts on violence against women have worked on in different regions (Protection Project, 2013). Through intensive case studies, this study is the first to closely examine if such information diffusion by experts proves useful for explaining the variation in subnational policy responsiveness to an international norm on violence against women. 2. Methods Drawing on qualitative and mixed-methods literature, I utilize the empirical richness of the case study method and small-n statistical analysis across the subnational units (Mahoney, 2007; George and Bennett, 2005; Gerring, 2007; Collier et al., 2010; Gordon and Smith, 2004; Ragin, 2008; Klotz et al., 2006). This study includes a structured focused state-by-state comparison in two democratizing nations with federal systems of government, Mexico and Nigeria. States in federations are often noted as laboratories for investigating mechanisms of norm and policy diffusion as well as innovation in public policy making. Indeed, on the issue of violence against women, Mexico and Nigeria's subnational units responded with a range of laws prior to national law adoption. Since the subnational units in this study have some level of autonomy from the national or federal level of government, I can analyze the pathways behind the transmission of international norms, if any, in relation to the subnational policy responsiveness on violence against women. In-depth comparative case studies of three subnational units in Mexico (D.F., Oaxaca, Jalisco) and four subnational units in Nigeria (Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Jigawa) were chosen based on state variation. The case studies, which include over 150 interviews, are complemented by a quantitative study of all subnational units (32 in Mexico and 37 in Nigeria) to analyze patterns of policy responsiveness. Ethical approval for this research was obtained. The case studies allow me to explore local limits to policy responsiveness, as some states in Mexico and Nigeria resist calls for policy change on violence against women. Intensive case studies also enable me to tease out what civic pathways contribute to policy responsiveness. Qualitative and quantitative approaches complement each other for the study of complex causal factors, such as causal pathways to subnational policy responsiveness to an international norm on violence against women. While qualitative case studies inform this study through process tracing, it is often difficult to judge the generalizability of case studies based on a sample of states. Thus, this study goes beyond a single methodological approach and includes a quantitative analysis across subnational units within Mexico and Nigeria. 2.1. Overview of findings This study's finding that issue-specific expert networks matter for norm diffusion in developing democracies provides additional evidence for the importance of TANs and TFNs in two regions. First, every case study with a positive outcome (policy responsiveness) involved some TFN influence, namely issue-specific expert
networking (O'Brien, 2013). In both Mexico and Nigeria, the only case study that lacked issue-specific expert networking on violence against women was Kano, Nigeria. Among all of the case studies, Kano was the only case to not adopt any policy change on violence against women. This supports my argument that in developing and democratizing nations, issue-specific expert networking can be the most important factor for achieving subnational policy responsiveness. The civic pathway of issue-specific expertise is particularly important for locations with weak state capacity, as experts provide specific knowledge to local actors who may not have the funding, access to technology (e.g. the internet), access to training, and ability to attend workshops to learn about how norms can be applied to the local level. At some stage in the policy and norms diffusion process of the case studies in this project, transnational issue-specific knowledge sharing on violence against women occurred in every case study, except Kano, the only case that I closely examined in which there was no policy change. In all other cases, transnational connections diffused knowledge of international conventions and regional agreements on violence against women; experts shared sample legislation and/or provided technical or other support to push for local policy responsiveness. Although Kano is a sharia law state with strong ties between religious organizations and the state, such relations do not explain the lack of policy responsiveness to violence against women by the Kano government. Jigawa, Nigeria and Jalisco, Mexico have similarly strong church-state relations, and both of these subnational states adopted laws on violence against women. The state that is most similar to Kano is Jigawa, as both are sharia law states and were once a united (single) state. The key difference between Jigawa, which adopted two laws, and Kano, which adopted none, is the presence of a TFN on violence against women in Jigawa; this TFN brought issue-specific expertise on violence against women and its transnational knowledge sharing led to the persuasion of a Jigawa political elite to support and promote policy responsiveness. This is not to say that religion had no influence in the norm diffusion and policy process. It is rather to suggest that religious factors are not the whole story, even in cases with strong religious-state ties and a conservative local context. Policy reform is possible in such circumstances, and TFNs, namely issue-specific experts networks, are a critical transmitter of international norms on violence against women. Jigawa, Nigeria is an important case study because it shows that even where policy responsiveness may not be expected, a TFN can make a positive impact on policy change even without a strong, local women's movement. Perhaps in repressive local contexts, it is a civic pathway of issue-specific expert networking as performed by transnational actors that can produce the most positive outcomes on policy responsiveness while safeguarding local (would-be) activists from the reprisals of repressive authorities. However, there may be limitations to this transnational pathway to women's rights policy change in repressive local contexts; in such contexts, I speculate that policy change is not likely to be radical without pressure from a local women's movement and there is no spillover to other issues for women's rights due to the issue-specific expert networking on violence against women. I also saw this pattern of issue-specific expert networking occurring in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, which has at times exhibited a repressive local context towards public activism. In Oaxaca, I viewed faxes sent to local activists that transnational feminist actors had sent from other countries. These foreign activists shared sample policies and noted the relevance to international norms on violence against women. Feminists, particularly attorneys, in Oaxaca then drafted subnational policy proposals on violence against women. Though this issue-specific expertise sharing may take on the
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most importance in repressive contexts (i.e. repressive for local activism), it is worth noting that it is also evidenced in (slightly) more democratic local contexts. In Lagos State, Nigeria, for instance, attorneys also received faxed sample legislation from another country (in this case sample subnational legislation on domestic violence from the U.S.). In Lagos, a male attorney who was a part of the team drafting state domestic violence legislation spoke of the usefulness of sample subnational legislation that had been faxed to the Lagos team from the U.S. by activists working on violence against women. This case study evidence further supports the importance of the civic pathway of issue-specific expertise networking, particularly for attorneys to draft legislation and especially if a local women's movement includes an activistattorney or has an attorney allied with their cause. Regardless if it is a repressive context or a more democratic context for activists, though it may be more important in more repressive contexts, transnational expertise on violence against women can support local social movements and leaders in the diffusion of norms and related policies. Overall, the quantitative and qualitative analyses across Mexico and Nigeria support and serve to refine and explain the dynamics behind this study's hypotheses: 1) local women's movements matter for policy responsiveness, but they are not necessary in conditions of repressive contexts for policy change; 2) transnational actors or TFNs can matter even when national policy is weak or deadlocked, even when local movements are weak or non-existent, and even in repressive conditions; 3) transnational actors or networks as well as domestic groups are less likely to succeed when there is strong organized opposition with strong ties to the state (e.g. strong religious-state ties). Organized opposition creates a dampening effect on subnational policy responsiveness to violence against women. However, global and local actors can overcome such opposition through issue-specific expert networking. As the main factors driving policy responsiveness, TFNs and local civil society actors work through one or more key political elites to push for policy change on violence against women, but local political elites have not worked alone despite the backing of international law on violence against women. At times local political elites are a part of the local women's movement, but this was mainly evidenced in the capitals (Mexico City and Abuja) among my case studies. The case studies support a working hypothesis that political elites in support of an international norm on violence against women are influential when there is a local women's movement and/or TFN working on violence against women. I did not find any evidence of policy change resulting from a political elite acting without local or transnational civil society support. Most importantly, the case studies across Mexico and Nigeria show evidence of the proposed civic pathway of issue-specific expert networking at the local level in developing and democratizing nations. The case study findings support my theoretical approach that considers the transmission and/or delay of norms diffusion through TFNs, local women's movements, and organized opposition. Issue-specific expert networking improves the likelihood of subnational policy responsiveness to an international norm on violence against women in developing and democratizing nations, where a weak state capacity and repressive contexts can hinder local activism. Even without a local women's movement, this study finds that policy responsiveness can occur through the work of TFNs promoting an international norm on violence against women. This study explores civic pathways to policy and norms diffusion
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on violence against women, and it shows the limits of the influence of international norms and civil society actors. Where local women's rights activism is repressed and without TFN activism addressing violence against women, I did not find policy responsiveness on violence against women. The case study of Kano, Nigeria exemplifies this. The qualitative and quantitative analyses across Mexico and Nigeria support the scholarly literature in finding that local women's movements and TFNs increase the likelihood of subnational policy change on violence against women in democratizing and developing nations. 2.2. Theoretical significance In this section, I summarize useful findings from this study that reveal theoretical and practical implications. First, this study shows that institutional reforms can open civic pathways to overcoming strong religious opposition. Second, it illustrates that norms flow in different directions, and not only in an international-national-local order. Third, the study's findings suggest that we should not only focus on the internationalenational relationship with norms, but also examine the local level. Fourth, TFNs can be a sufficient condition for policy responsiveness in localities where women's activism is suppressed. Fifth, subnational policy responsiveness can be the most effective target for transnational activists to improve women's human rights. Cutting across all these findings is the idea that expertise in policy issue areas are important for the transmission of international norms on violence against women, and this likely applies not only to other women's rights areas, but also to other policy areas and norms, such as environmental resource management, climate change, disability rights, indigenous people's rights, and other human rights issues. TFNs can provide expertise training and knowledge sharing to spread norms and policy ideas about specific issues to help achieve policy change on women's rights at the local level, which should be targeted perhaps more than the national level in some countries, particularly where the local level legislation matters greatly on an issue. Moreover, for TFNs, it is important to note that we cannot expect cross-issue expansion in repressive contexts the way we do with social movements. As noted earlier, I speculate that there are limitations to issue-specific TFNsdespecially in repressive contexts: there is likely less spillover into other issue areas, less extensive reform, and less radical reform. Further, there is a possible downside to issue-specific TFNs in repressive contexts. For instance, local political elites could perceive that less radical reform on women's rights can gain foreign support through TFN relations without seeking the support of (or without supporting) a broader women's rights base. Also, issuespecific TFNs themselves may focus their work on policy change without promoting the growth of an active local women's movement, particularly in repressive contexts, that could better hold the government accountable in the long-term for implementing the policy change. Issue-specific TFNs possess the expertise to transmit norms to a local level and improve the likelihood of local policy change, which itself sends a message that women's rights matter. Even where one might not expect to find policy change on women's rights, there are pathways to policy responsiveness on international women's human rights norms through local and nonlocal TFN members. In repressive contexts, for instance, aid agencies and their staff can be influential in the promotion of women's human rights norms. This study's finding that local women's movements may not always be necessary to achieve policy responsiveness is contrary to other women's rights studies previously discussed (e.g. Weldon, 2002). While women's movements are sufficient at times for policy change, TFNs can work behind the scenes to promote policy
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responsiveness even without a local women's movement. Again, the change is not necessarily radical without a women's movement or with a TFN's backing. TFNs do not always work through civil society, which could assist in achieving more radical or broader changedin Jigawa, for instance, a TFN did not organize a civil society protest or mobilize civil society groups; instead, there was a small group of TFN members who promoted policy change through dialogue with a key political elite. It would be interesting in future studies to examine if the international norm engendered a stronger local women's movement overtime, as Simmons (2009) hints at this possibility for local movements. Importantly for feminist norms and policy theorizing, like other studies of violence against women, this study finds that it is not necessarily women in government or political elites that matter for policy change; it is feminist ideas that matter and they can be transmitted through the civic pathway of issue-specific expert networks. In this study, a transnational element of subnational policymaking is uncovered in local contexts within Mexico and Nigeria. This study also finds that organized opposition with strong state ties can impede or otherwise delay subnational policy change on a women's rights norm. In Mexico and Nigeria, there have been arguments made by conservative religious groups in opposition to policy change on violence against women based on a conservative interpretation of religious doctrine. The scope of this project does not fully assess the “political institutionalization of religious authority,” but scholars should further theorize such institutionalization with regards to norms and policy change (Htun and Weldon, 2012, 23). 3. Conclusion This study finds that transnational networking impacts local policy responsiveness in favor of women's human rights normsdeven when national policy is weak or deadlocked, and even when local movements are weak or non-existent. This finding has broader theoretical and practical implications. First, attorneys should be targeted to receive issue-specific training and support to promote policy change on violence against women. Second, in repressive conditions, where local women's movements are weak or inactive, international actors should work with local allies to translate norms and dialogue with political elites. Training local leaders, such as attorneys, medical personnel, and religious leaders on women's human rights norms can help achieve local policy responsiveness. Third, there may be more opportunities to influence policy change at the subnational level than at the national level. Fourth, it is imperative that African women's movements strengthen regional African networks on women's rights. Pushing for a regional African convention that specifically focuses on violence against women, as the Belem Convention in Latin America does, would assist in the promotion of policy responsiveness across Africa. Perhaps in democratizing and developing nations, such as Mexico and Nigeria, achieving policy responsiveness to redress violence against women where it matters most in practice, at the subnational level, can result from intervention by TFNs through the civic pathway of issue-specific expert networking. This possibility is both theoretically and practically intriguing, particularly where a lack of state security or repressive conditions can create a dangerous atmosphere for local women's right activists speaking out against violence and criticizing government policy. In these cases, expertise sharing, a kind of technocratic pathway of influence can be particularly influential. The importance of transnational or international actors for local policy responsiveness in hostile local conditions for women's rights activists has been understudied, and this study addresses that gap in the scholarly literature.
Based on fieldwork in Mexico and Nigeria and employing both qualitative and quantitative analyses, I find that a TFN can intervene on behalf of international norms at the subnational level and help achieve subnational policy responsiveness, even when there is substantial opposition to overcome (e.g. the suppression of local activism). In some cases, TFNs can overcome a weak/nonexistent local women's movement or local opposition to help achieve subnational policy responsiveness to the problem of violence against women. This finding deviates from previous scholarly models of civil society mechanisms for norm and policy diffusion on violence against women and women's rights in general. This study's qualitative and quantitative analyses offer compatible insights into the validity and generalizability of my argument. Finding an issuespecific expert networking pathway in Mexico and Nigeria, I expect that we would see a similar path of policy influence in subnational units in other developing and democratizing nations with weak state capacity. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Laurel Weldon (Purdue University) and Mala Htun (University of New Mexico) for their support of this project; the fieldwork for this project would not have been possible without their support. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback to improve this article. The following Purdue University sources funded this project: Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship; Ludwig Kruhe Doctoral Fellowship; Purdue Research Foundation Fellowship; Office of Programs for Study Abroad; and the Frank L. Wilson Grant for International Field Research. I am very grateful to Mariana and Melchor David de la Garza and their family in Mexico for their generosity and support. I also thank Raúl C. lez and Ignacio Marva n Laborde of the Centro de InvesGonza n y Docencia Econo micas (CIDE), Katsuo Nishikawa, Jorge tigacio Baributsa, and Joe Obueh for Alatorre, Tiffany Barnes, Dieudonne fieldwork advice/support. References Alvarez, S., 1990. Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women's Movement in Transition Politics. Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ. Boushey, G., 2010. Policy Diffusion Dynamics in America. Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, UK. Clark, A.M., Friedman, E.J., Hochstetler, K., 1998. The sovereign limits of global civil society. World Polit. 51 (1), 1e35. Collier, D., Brady, H., Seawright, J., 2010. Outdated views of qualitative methods: time to move on. Polit. Anal. 18, 506e513. Fabian, K., 2006. Against domestic violence: the interaction of global networks with local activism in Central Europe. Eur. Responses Glob. Resist. Adapt. Altern. Contemp. Stud. Econ. Financ. Anal. 88, 111e152. Friedman, E., 2010. Seeking rights from the left: gender and sexuality in Latin America. In: Basu, Amrita (Ed.), Women's Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 285e314. Ch. 9. Friedman, E., 1995. Women's human rights: the emergence of a movement. In: Peters, J., Wolper, A. (Eds.), Women's Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives. Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 18e35. Ch. 2. George, A., Bennett, A., 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Gerring, J., 2007. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Gordon, S., Smith, A., 2004. Quantitative leverage through qualitative knowledge: augmenting the statistical analysis of complex causes. Polit. Anal. 12 (3), 233e255. Htun, M., 2003. Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, UK. Htun, M., Weldon, S.L., 2012. The civic origins of progressive policy change: combating violence against women in global perspective, 1975e2005. Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 106 (3), 548e569. Htun, M., Weldon, S.L., 2010. When do governments promote women's rights? A framework for the comparative analysis of sex equality policy. Perspect. Polit. 8, 207e216. Johnson, J.E., 2007. Domestic violence politics in Post-Soviet States. Soc. Polit. Int. Stud. Gend. State & Soc. 14 (3), 380e405. Keck, M.E., Sikkink, K., 1998. Activists beyond Borders. Cornell U. Press, Ithaca, NY.
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