Description
With intensified competition in high technologies, particularly cyber and artificial intelligence, between major powers, an increasing number of states are introducing or tightening export control regulations to restrict the transfer of sensitive goods, software, and technology. Notably, since December 2024, both the US and China have begun enforcing new regulations on the export control of advanced technologies and dual-use items. Export control appears to be emerging as a new international norm, which is defined as understandings of appropriateness. Against this backdrop, this paper conducts a process-tracing analysis of the export control normative frameworks developed by China and the US. Using this case study, it advances a relational perspective on norm emergence and development. This paper argues that norms, can emerge not only through a top-down process driven by the deliberations of norm entrepreneurs (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Rosert, 2019) or a bottom-up process shaped by the practices of a particular group of actors (Bode, 2023), but also within the relational space between different actors. Specifically, in the case study, the shared understanding of export control as an appropriate behaviour is formulated through relational interactions between China and the US, with each defining its normative stance in response to the other. Theoretically, this paper advances a relational approach to understanding norm development and expands the scope of norms examined in norm scholarship beyond its predominant focus on so-called ‘good’ norms. Empirically, it offers a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the emerging export control frameworks and their implications for an increasingly fragmented world order.
