Between Elite Compliance and State Socialisation: The Abolition of the Death Penalty in Eastern Europe

Social constructivist theorists have sought to explain how international norms proliferate from democratic to democratising countries. The contributors of this literature claim that this entire process is based on efforts to change leaders' beliefs, thus shifting the process from simply elite compliance to state socialisation. Yet, elite socialisation might not mean state socialisation unless democratising countries' societies at large appropriate the international norms. We argue that we cannot have state socialisation with an international norm unless the majority of the most important political and societal actors consciously embrace and appropriate that norm. Different from what has been argued so far, elite compliance might not lead at all to state socialisation, and norm institutionalisation might not represent norm appropriation. The case of the abolition of the death penalty offers an example of a process conducted only by the elites, who purposely avoid public debates on that issue. We argue that, rather than negligence, avoiding public debates on the abolition of the death penalty in Eastern European countries shows either a fear of elites to engage the generally anti-abolitionist public in that debate or an escape from a debate over a norm to which leaders themselves do not subscribe.