From population control to reproductive rights: Tracing the process of normative change in global population policy

This research examines in general the process of normative change and nascent norm emergence in issue areas of global policy making through the convening of United Nations global conferences. A constructivist approach to international relations is utilized as the theoretical framework. The dissertation is a case study of how the norms and discourse undergirding global population policy have changed from population control to reproductive rights. Particular attention is focused upon the role the Global Women's Health and Rights Movement (GWHRM) played in challenging the dominant population control norm undergirding global population policy since 1965. Also, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (the Cairo conference) is analyzed as a significant United Nations global conference for its recognition of reproductive rights and health as an international human right. The research methodology relies upon primary and secondary resources as well as interviews with activists in the GWHRM and opponents of the global social movement's goals.; One of the main sites where discursive and normative contestation is most apt to occur is through United Nations organized global conferences. A constructivist approach to international relations, which incorporates concepts from social movement theory, provides an interdisciplinary framework for analyzing how non-powerful actors, in the realist sense of the world, utilize openings in the international opportunity structure to challenge dominant normative structures.; The dissertation identifies five key processes in understanding normative change and norm emergence in this issue area. They are: (1) actors engage in critical debate whereby the prevailing norm is challenged; (2) actors employ individual or collective agency to challenge existing norms through openings in domestic or international opportunity structures; (3) actors frame the norm in such a way that it gains widespread acceptance or resonance (e.g., often this is achieved through the utilization of a ``'rights' frame); (4) actors work with domestic social movements or non-governmental organizations to aid in the process whereby international norms gain domestic resonance; and (5) actors working to challenge an institutionalized and/or internationalized norm enlist allies in their struggle to bring about normative change.