Norm proponents as drivers of deinstitutionalisation: the case of Germany’s arms export to Israel

International norms are typically assumed to erode through the actions of their opponents, that is, states that reject or openly undermine established regulatory frameworks. This paper challenges that assumption by identifying a distinct pathway of deinstitutionalisation driven by proponent states, whose publicly championed commitments are systematically undermined through the accumulation of role-based justified exceptions. Taking Germany’s arms export policy toward Israel as its empirical focus, it asks: under what conditions does role conflict within norm-promoting states drive deinstitutionalisation? Drawing on role theory, the paper argues that Germany’s selective compliance with international arms export regulation reflects an unresolved interrole conflict between two constitutive national role conceptions: Germany as a civilian power committed to multilateralism and human rights, and Germany as the historical guarantor of Israeli security, obligated by Holocaust responsibility to prioritise Israel’s survival above competing normative commitments. This conflict is managed through three causal mechanisms – discursive role prioritisation, institutional accommodation of role conflict, and differential audience management – which together hollow out the substantive constraining power of arms control norms while preserving their formal institutional status. The findings advance existing norm life cycle models by theorising how internalised norms are selectively de-applied by their most prominent advocates, with significant implications for understanding institutional fragility in the liberal international order.