Description
The disconnection between discourses and practice has been an interesting avenue for constructivism research. The literature largely focused on situations where policy-makers claim that they follow certain norms while their practice belies it, with the theory of “Organized hypocrisy” as one of the representative arguments. But is the opposite—policy-makers follow certain norms while refraining from stating so—possible?
I argue that it is, and I term this type of norm as “Concealed Principles”, a principled belief at a personal level that is not disclosed to others. This occurs when policy-makers personally believe in the appropriateness of a certain normative idea but they are also aware that this idea is controversial (for instance, because it contradicts the existing norms). As such, it is likely to occur at the very early stage of the norm life-cycle, possibly acting as a precursor to a norm entrepreneur.
To illustrate this, I show that the idea of remedial secession—the belief that governments who badly mistreat their minorities continuously lose the right to govern them—acted as concealed principles for mediators in the case of Kosovo. The empirical material is based on extensive interviews with policy-makers involved in the mediation process leading to the independence of Kosovo.
