States and Social Norms

If you were to ask a realist about what constrains state action, he would likely say "not much, except the sense of self preservation preventing the state from intentionally provoking a war it does not want". With no super-national authority, with the international system in a state of "anarchy," what does constrain a states action? Anything? Certainly, one can say there are things states should not do, but without any form of higher authority to challenge it, what's to prevent the state from doing that? Is an unenforced rule still a rule?

We have evolved in such a manner that Western Enlightenment values are considered the most desirable and the democratic system pervades in all the major centers of power in the world, and even where they aren't and it doesn't, there is still at least some respect for the values (mostly). So, one can say fairly conclusively that every society has social norms regarding the role of government, and the international system even has a set of norms that is fairly widely agreed upon. We, all being Americans who, for the purposes of this discussion, all subscribe to Enlightenment values, can agree on at least a basic set of rules to govern the international system: states should not kill their own citizens without just cause, states should not aggressively and unprovoked make war on other states, states should not silence dissent, states should productively participate in the international system, states should have free and fair elections...

But, as even the most obtuse international observer can tell you, this is not the case. States kill their own citizens without cause all the time, states often make war on other states (See the August War most recently), states often silence dissent and so on and so forth. So, if these norms are regularly violated, are they really rules? Well, yes - to a degree. One could argue that these American values don't exist in these countries but look above: how many of these are really unique to America and western liberal democracies? Maybe one or two.

So then, are states ever constrained by these norms? Well, yes but only when such social norms are enforced by force. Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait because they were violating international norms, they did it because nearly a million allied troops threw them out by force. Do social norms prevent North Korea from attacking South Korea, or is it the 2 Carrier Battle Groups parked off their shoreline? Did Noriega turn himself on peaceably, or did US troops drag him to court? Did South Africa give up apartheid and it's nuclear program because it was feeling generous, or was it the heavy international pressure and sanctions?

We would all like to live in a world where states act in a reasonable way and are constrained by some non-violent super-national authority and they would choose to be a productive member of the international system, with coercion. Unfortunately, as we can so often see, that is not the case. Do social norms sometimes dictate state action? Yes, but not often. And when it does, it is generally because the states know there will be violent retaliation for their violation (sometimes). Self interest plays a far greater role in why states do what they do than a nebulous set of social norms.