Lisbeth Zimmermann
Biographic Data
| ID | 3684282 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lisbeth Zimmermann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lisbeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Zimmermann |
| SIGNATURE | ZIMMERMANN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Goethe University Frankfurt |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1323-8344 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 209 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Walking the Walk, Not Talking the Talk: Project Features and Policy Change in International Organizations
When and how do international organizations (IOs) adapt their policies to external critique? This article examines IO policy change in response to civil society contestation in global drug governance. In the face of strong societal opposition, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) changed its drug policies, whereas the policies of the World Health Organization (WHO) remained largely unchanged. This is surprising because UNODC has b…
Circular Dynamics of International Norms and Institutions: Localizations Beyond Their Original Contexts
The dynamics of international norms and institutional models are often described as either top-down diffusion and localization or as bottom-up resistance and alternative norm-making. However, both frameworks have their limitations in explaining the complex patterns of normative and institutional change, highlighting the need for a new perspective. This article argues for a more circular understanding of these dynamics. Localizations often spread …
Contestation from Within: Norm Dynamics and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order
To what extent is the current “crisis of the liberal international order” a result of features of the order itself? In this article, we focus on the role of formal and informal hierarchies by comparing two cases of contestation of core norms of the liberal international order: The African states and the African Union contesting the duty to prosecute institutionalized in the International Criminal Court and the United States contesting the interna…
Contestation and norm change in whale and elephant conservation: Non-use or sustainable use
Elephants and whales took center stage in the environmental movements of the 1980s. As flagship species, they were the poster children of global initiatives: international ivory trading and commercial whaling were banned in the 1980s in the context of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the International Whaling Commission (IWC), respectively. While the conservation of both species is co…
Norms under Challenge: Unpacking the Dynamics of Norm Robustness
The introduction develops this special issue's main research question: under which conditions are challenges to norms likely to decrease their robustness? The issue presents current research on contestation and norm robustness and discusses its limitations. We conceptualize a norm's robustness by examining both the practical and discursive dimensions. Robustness is high when norm addressees express widespread discursive acceptance of a norm's cla…
Things We Lost in the Fire: How Different Types of Contestation Affect the Robustness of International Norms
Contestation of international norms has become the new focus of IR norm research. The optimism of the 1990s that fundamental liberal norms would diffuse globally has remained unfulfilled in recent years—even human rights norms have witnessed strong contestation. Time and again, controversy has erupted regarding international norms such as the ban on torture or the Responsibility to Protect. Meanwhile, we know little about how such controversy aff…
On our terms! How domestic elites localised the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala
In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of crimina…
Global Norms with a Local Face: Rule-of-Law Promotion and Norm Translation
To what extent are global rule-of-law norms, which external actors promote in post-conflict states, localized? Who decides whether global standards or local particularities prevail? This book offers a new approach to the debate about how the dilemma between the diffusion of global norms and their localization is dealt with in global politics. Studying the promotion of children's rights, access to public information, and an international commissio…
Beyond diffusion: Cyclical translation of international rule-of-law commission models in Guatemala
Inter-National” Habermas: Contestation and Understanding under Conditions of Diversity
Previous articleNext article Free“Inter-National” Habermas: Contestation and Understanding under Conditions of DiversityLisbeth ZimmermannLisbeth ZimmermannPeace Research Institute Frankfurt/Goethe University Frankfurt Search for more articles by this author Peace Research Institute Frankfurt/Goethe University FrankfurtPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEm…
More for Less: The Interactive Translation of Global Norms in Postconflict Guatemala
How are global norms translated into local contexts? I examine the translation of three rule-of-law norms in postconflict Guatemala: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right to access public information, and best practices for international rule-of-law commissions. These cases, I argue, do not fit established models for diffusion, such as those associated with standard bargaining approaches, norm socialization frameworks, and norm …
Unlocking the agency of the governed: Contestation and Norm Dynamics
International Relations (IR) research on the translation and appropriation of international norms emphasises both the role of local agency and the fundamental malleability of norms. However, these perspectives cannot unlock the full agency of the governed as they limit agents’ effects on norms to incremental changes at the margins. We suggest transcending the distinction between the local and the global by taking practices of contestation as cons…
Between Banyans and battle scenes: Liberal norms, contestation, and the limits of critique
In studying the global spread and implementation of liberal norms, scholars have moved from linear notions of norm diffusion and promotion to an emphasis on norm contestation. Contestation by the supposed beneficiaries and addressees has taken centre stage in both research on the norms that underpin global governance and in studies on democracy promotion and liberal peacebuilding. While the impetus of this scholarship is normative – to overcome t…
Same Same or Different? Norm Diffusion Between Resistance, Compliance, and Localization in Post-conflict States
Reactions to the promotion of human rights norms in post-conflict countries often clash with central assumptions of established theoretical approaches to norm diffusion. Socialization scholars expect either resistance when strong veto players are present and when resonance is missing, or extensive adoption of norms when states are vulnerable to transnational advocacy. Others predict decoupling processes when local capacities for implementation ar…
Muss Ordnung sein? Zum Umgang mit Konflikten zwischen normativen Ordnungen
Ordnungen im Wandel: Globale und lokale Wirklichkeiten im Spiegel transdisziplinärer Analysen
Ordnung muss sein! So lässt sich das zentrale Strukturprinzip der Moderne zusammenfassen. Heutige soziale, politische, wirtschaftliche und rechtliche Ordnungen erscheinen dagegen immer weniger eindeutig. Ziel dieses Bandes ist es, den Blick transdisziplinär für alternative Konzeptionen von Wirklichkeit zu öffnen. Dabei wird gefragt: Welche Ordnungen institutionalisieren sich jenseits von Demokratie, Nation und Staat? Inwiefern bestehen Ordnungen …
Norms under Challenge: Unpacking the Dynamics of Norm Robustness
The introduction develops this special issue's main research question: under which conditions are challenges to norms likely to decrease their robustness? The issue presents current research on contestation and norm robustness and discusses its limitations. We conceptualize a norm's robustness by examining both the practical and discursive dimensions. Robustness is high when norm addressees express widespread discursive acceptance of a norm's cla…
Things We Lost in the Fire: How Different Types of Contestation Affect the Robustness of International Norms
Contestation of international norms has become the new focus of IR norm research. The optimism of the 1990s that fundamental liberal norms would diffuse globally has remained unfulfilled in recent years—even human rights norms have witnessed strong contestation. Time and again, controversy has erupted regarding international norms such as the ban on torture or the Responsibility to Protect. Meanwhile, we know little about how such controversy aff…
More for Less: The Interactive Translation of Global Norms in Postconflict Guatemala
How are global norms translated into local contexts? I examine the translation of three rule-of-law norms in postconflict Guatemala: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right to access public information, and best practices for international rule-of-law commissions. These cases, I argue, do not fit established models for diffusion, such as those associated with standard bargaining approaches, norm socialization frameworks, and norm …
Between Banyans and battle scenes: Liberal norms, contestation, and the limits of critique
In studying the global spread and implementation of liberal norms, scholars have moved from linear notions of norm diffusion and promotion to an emphasis on norm contestation. Contestation by the supposed beneficiaries and addressees has taken centre stage in both research on the norms that underpin global governance and in studies on democracy promotion and liberal peacebuilding. While the impetus of this scholarship is normative – to overcome t…
Unlocking the agency of the governed: Contestation and Norm Dynamics
International Relations (IR) research on the translation and appropriation of international norms emphasises both the role of local agency and the fundamental malleability of norms. However, these perspectives cannot unlock the full agency of the governed as they limit agents’ effects on norms to incremental changes at the margins. We suggest transcending the distinction between the local and the global by taking practices of contestation as cons…
Same Same or Different? Norm Diffusion Between Resistance, Compliance, and Localization in Post-conflict States
Reactions to the promotion of human rights norms in post-conflict countries often clash with central assumptions of established theoretical approaches to norm diffusion. Socialization scholars expect either resistance when strong veto players are present and when resonance is missing, or extensive adoption of norms when states are vulnerable to transnational advocacy. Others predict decoupling processes when local capacities for implementation ar…
Inter-National” Habermas: Contestation and Understanding under Conditions of Diversity
Previous articleNext article Free“Inter-National” Habermas: Contestation and Understanding under Conditions of DiversityLisbeth ZimmermannLisbeth ZimmermannPeace Research Institute Frankfurt/Goethe University Frankfurt Search for more articles by this author Peace Research Institute Frankfurt/Goethe University FrankfurtPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEm…
Contestation from Within: Norm Dynamics and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order
To what extent is the current “crisis of the liberal international order” a result of features of the order itself? In this article, we focus on the role of formal and informal hierarchies by comparing two cases of contestation of core norms of the liberal international order: The African states and the African Union contesting the duty to prosecute institutionalized in the International Criminal Court and the United States contesting the interna…
Beyond diffusion: Cyclical translation of international rule-of-law commission models in Guatemala
Circular Dynamics of International Norms and Institutions: Localizations Beyond Their Original Contexts
The dynamics of international norms and institutional models are often described as either top-down diffusion and localization or as bottom-up resistance and alternative norm-making. However, both frameworks have their limitations in explaining the complex patterns of normative and institutional change, highlighting the need for a new perspective. This article argues for a more circular understanding of these dynamics. Localizations often spread …
Contestation and norm change in whale and elephant conservation: Non-use or sustainable use
Elephants and whales took center stage in the environmental movements of the 1980s. As flagship species, they were the poster children of global initiatives: international ivory trading and commercial whaling were banned in the 1980s in the context of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the International Whaling Commission (IWC), respectively. While the conservation of both species is co…
On our terms! How domestic elites localised the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala
In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of crimina…
Ordnungen im Wandel: Globale und lokale Wirklichkeiten im Spiegel transdisziplinärer Analysen
Ordnung muss sein! So lässt sich das zentrale Strukturprinzip der Moderne zusammenfassen. Heutige soziale, politische, wirtschaftliche und rechtliche Ordnungen erscheinen dagegen immer weniger eindeutig. Ziel dieses Bandes ist es, den Blick transdisziplinär für alternative Konzeptionen von Wirklichkeit zu öffnen. Dabei wird gefragt: Welche Ordnungen institutionalisieren sich jenseits von Demokratie, Nation und Staat? Inwiefern bestehen Ordnungen …
Muss Ordnung sein? Zum Umgang mit Konflikten zwischen normativen Ordnungen
Same Same or Different? Norm Diffusion Between Resistance, Compliance, and Localization in Post-conflict States
Reactions to the promotion of human rights norms in post-conflict countries often clash with central assumptions of established theoretical approaches to norm diffusion. Socialization scholars expect either resistance when strong veto players are present and when resonance is missing, or extensive adoption of norms when states are vulnerable to transnational advocacy. Others predict decoupling processes when local capacities for implementation ar…
Between Banyans and battle scenes: Liberal norms, contestation, and the limits of critique
In studying the global spread and implementation of liberal norms, scholars have moved from linear notions of norm diffusion and promotion to an emphasis on norm contestation. Contestation by the supposed beneficiaries and addressees has taken centre stage in both research on the norms that underpin global governance and in studies on democracy promotion and liberal peacebuilding. While the impetus of this scholarship is normative – to overcome t…
Global Norms with a Local Face: Rule-of-Law Promotion and Norm Translation
To what extent are global rule-of-law norms, which external actors promote in post-conflict states, localized? Who decides whether global standards or local particularities prevail? This book offers a new approach to the debate about how the dilemma between the diffusion of global norms and their localization is dealt with in global politics. Studying the promotion of children's rights, access to public information, and an international commissio…
Beyond diffusion: Cyclical translation of international rule-of-law commission models in Guatemala
Inter-National” Habermas: Contestation and Understanding under Conditions of Diversity
Previous articleNext article Free“Inter-National” Habermas: Contestation and Understanding under Conditions of DiversityLisbeth ZimmermannLisbeth ZimmermannPeace Research Institute Frankfurt/Goethe University Frankfurt Search for more articles by this author Peace Research Institute Frankfurt/Goethe University FrankfurtPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEm…
More for Less: The Interactive Translation of Global Norms in Postconflict Guatemala
How are global norms translated into local contexts? I examine the translation of three rule-of-law norms in postconflict Guatemala: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right to access public information, and best practices for international rule-of-law commissions. These cases, I argue, do not fit established models for diffusion, such as those associated with standard bargaining approaches, norm socialization frameworks, and norm …
Unlocking the agency of the governed: Contestation and Norm Dynamics
International Relations (IR) research on the translation and appropriation of international norms emphasises both the role of local agency and the fundamental malleability of norms. However, these perspectives cannot unlock the full agency of the governed as they limit agents’ effects on norms to incremental changes at the margins. We suggest transcending the distinction between the local and the global by taking practices of contestation as cons…
Norms under Challenge: Unpacking the Dynamics of Norm Robustness
The introduction develops this special issue's main research question: under which conditions are challenges to norms likely to decrease their robustness? The issue presents current research on contestation and norm robustness and discusses its limitations. We conceptualize a norm's robustness by examining both the practical and discursive dimensions. Robustness is high when norm addressees express widespread discursive acceptance of a norm's cla…
Things We Lost in the Fire: How Different Types of Contestation Affect the Robustness of International Norms
Contestation of international norms has become the new focus of IR norm research. The optimism of the 1990s that fundamental liberal norms would diffuse globally has remained unfulfilled in recent years—even human rights norms have witnessed strong contestation. Time and again, controversy has erupted regarding international norms such as the ban on torture or the Responsibility to Protect. Meanwhile, we know little about how such controversy aff…
On our terms! How domestic elites localised the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala
In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of crimina…
Contestation and norm change in whale and elephant conservation: Non-use or sustainable use
Elephants and whales took center stage in the environmental movements of the 1980s. As flagship species, they were the poster children of global initiatives: international ivory trading and commercial whaling were banned in the 1980s in the context of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the International Whaling Commission (IWC), respectively. While the conservation of both species is co…
Circular Dynamics of International Norms and Institutions: Localizations Beyond Their Original Contexts
The dynamics of international norms and institutional models are often described as either top-down diffusion and localization or as bottom-up resistance and alternative norm-making. However, both frameworks have their limitations in explaining the complex patterns of normative and institutional change, highlighting the need for a new perspective. This article argues for a more circular understanding of these dynamics. Localizations often spread …
Contestation from Within: Norm Dynamics and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order
To what extent is the current “crisis of the liberal international order” a result of features of the order itself? In this article, we focus on the role of formal and informal hierarchies by comparing two cases of contestation of core norms of the liberal international order: The African states and the African Union contesting the duty to prosecute institutionalized in the International Criminal Court and the United States contesting the interna…
Walking the Walk, Not Talking the Talk: Project Features and Policy Change in International Organizations
When and how do international organizations (IOs) adapt their policies to external critique? This article examines IO policy change in response to civil society contestation in global drug governance. In the face of strong societal opposition, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) changed its drug policies, whereas the policies of the World Health Organization (WHO) remained largely unchanged. This is surprising because UNODC has b…
Political science (15 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (7 works) · Norm (philosophy (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (6 works) · Political economy (5 works) · International Development and Aid (4 works)