title: Norm glocalization: United Nations’ climate change norms and India
Creators: name: Höhne, Chris
Publisher: name: UNSPECIFIED
Year: 2022

description: In the negotiations on a new international agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), states had also been negotiating normative expectations for climate mitigation efforts by developing countries since 2005. These norms, expecting mitigation efforts in general and in forestry in particular, had then been operationalized in voluntary governance concepts, such as ‘Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions’ (NAMAs) and ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD+) from 2007 onwards. Subsequently, developing countries have increasingly adopted mitigation efforts, without being legally obligated to do so. But why and how have nation-states (in the Global South) engaged with these international norms (on climate change) both internationally and domestically? In order to explain such dynamics, I propose a new theoretical framework: norm glocalization. This approach allows to analyze the interaction of proactive external (e.g., foreign governments) and domestic actors (i.e., Indian government), for explaining outcomes. It enables explanations of changing glocalized norm interpretations by the domestic government, which are influenced by both external and domestic actors. The concept includes several norm glocalization phases that explain the interactions of domestic with external actors at the international and domestic level, ranging from contestation over international norm reshaping to domestic action formulation and implementation. Lastly, the framework incorporates scientific realist insights, enabling comprehensive explanations of outcomes based on multiple interacting mechanisms under facilitating or hampering conditions. I apply this framework to the case of India from 2005 through 2019. India has been the third largest greenhouse gas emitter since 2006, and had rejected domestically financed mitigation efforts until 2007 when this began to change. This raises the research question of why and how India has changed its engagement with the developing country climate mitigation norm and the carbon forestry norm. I answer this question by applying process tracing and qualitative content analysis of primary and secondary sources, including 70 expert interviews conducted in India. This contains explanations of India’s shift from contestation towards the international reshaping of norms, ensuring that international funding would be provided. I subsequently explain further shifts at the domestic level towards a glocalized norm interpretation: In the 2008 ‘National Action Plan on Climate Change’, the Indian government adopted domestically financed actions that promote economic development and have co-benefits for climate mitigation, while not aiming to reduce emission-intensive activities. This glocalized norm interpretation subsequently informed India’s mitigation target in 2009, and its ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ under the Paris Agreement in 2015. It also guided the Indian governments formulation and implementation of climate-related forestry actions. Overall, I find that India’s climate policy-making has been strongly linked to developments in international climate negotiations. The main factors shaping India’s mitigation approach were international pressure, lesson drawing from external and domestic sources, as well as domestic actors’ aspirations for achieving international recognition, strategic foreign policy interests, and sufficient carbon space.