Description
Three landmark trends encapsulate innovations in constructivist research on international norm dynamics: norm emergence, norm contestation, and norm constellation. Norm contestation concepts, like localization and subsidiarity, have explored weaker actors’ agencies in the (d)evolution of international norms; particularly, norm subsidiarity elucidated norm-making in the global South to safeguard independence or promote preferred international norms. This paper combines subsidiarity principle and multiplexity concept in the new world order and advances the subsidiary norms theory, explaining that: 1) regional organizations, such as the African Union (AU), are subsidiary actors within the UN system who make subsidiary norms as alternates to international norms; 2) subsidiary norms, like international norms, govern specific global issues and may dominate within geographic/space boundaries; 3) subsidiary norms can help resolve contestation problems of norm collision/primacy when activating international norms within a constellation; 4) subsidiary norms are more stable/robust because subsidiary actors tend to enjoy substantive legitimacy than their international counterparts like the UN. To confirm plausibility, I probe the AU’s norm-making action/behavior through the Organization’s norm-setting policy instruments. The data show that the AU is a subsidiary actor who has made African subsidiary/alternate norms on various seminal issues including humanitarian intervention, international criminal justice, and international organization authority/sovereignty.
