When norms travel unevenly: Fragmented state,social forces,and the politics of human rights implementation

This article explains why state agencies selectively implement international norms despite their lack of legal ratification. This theoretical puzzle stems from an empirical case of uneven adoption of human rights norms in Indonesia’s fishery sector. In response to various scandals of worker maltreatment in the country’s fisheries industry, the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries implemented elements of a human rights certification aligned with international labour organization (ILO) Convention 188. However, the formally authorised Ministry of Manpower resisted incorporating the norm into national law. What drives this fragmented application? More specifically, why do the two ministries take different positions on applying the embraced international norm? The established norm diffusion theories have explained how international norms are localised and contested by domestic actors. However, they do not theorise the role of contested social classes and economic interests in fragmenting the implementation of the norms in the local context. To close this gap, the article combines norm localisation with the Gramscian theory of state fragmentation. Fragmented norm implementation is explained as the outcome of conflicting economic interests among social forces that capture state agencies. Through this lens, the article argues that the conflicting economic interests of the dominant social forces directing the Ministry of Manpower and their challengers, holding the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, have led to the fragmented application of the assumed Convention 188. This study contributes to broadening and deepening the conceptual framework for analysing the impacts of local agents in the norm diffusion scholarship from a critical political economy perspective.