Kelly Kollman

The global politics of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights: an introduction

This introduction provides a brief overview of key political developments in global lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organizing and advocacy over the past three decades as well as a summary of recent academic research and debates on these issues in politics, sociology and other disciplines. It introduces the three questions addressed by the volumes subsequent contributions: (1) How can recent global developments related to LGBT human rights advocacy and organizing be explained by political and sociological theories? (2) What is at stake in focusing on ‘human rights’ rather than concepts such as ‘equality’, ‘justice’, ‘liberation’, ‘self-determination’ and/or ‘queer politics’? (3) How do transnational human rights networks and global norms of LGBT rights affect domestic politics in both the global North and global South? The article pays particular attention to the ‘human rights turn’ of the LGBT movements in the early 1990s and the political successes and failures that have ensued. Finally, it summarizes the main findings of the volumes contributions and how they relate to the questions raised in this introduction.

European Institutions, Transnational Networks and National Same-sex Union Policy: When Soft Law Hits Harder

In a period of just under 20 years, 15 Western European countries have adopted national same-sex union (SSU) laws that legally recognize the gay and lesbian couples who chose to enter them. This rather startling case of convergent policy change has largely slipped under the radar screens of political scientists. This article argues that the European Union (EU), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and a transnational network of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists have played a crucial role in this policy change by creating a soft law norm for relationship recognition and disseminating this norm to policymakers in Western European states. More recently, both the EU and the ECtHR have begun mandating some minimal recognition of same-sex couples. Using Austria and Germany as comparative cases, the article posits further that Europe has had a far greater impact on national policy outcomes when its influence has been felt through the informal processes of norm diffusion and elite socialization than when it has tried to impose formal mandates through court decisions and EU directives.

Engaging firms: The global organisational field for corporate social responsibility and national varieties of capitalism

Abstract This article examines the relationship between national varieties of capitalism and firm engagement with the norms and best practices promoted within the global organisational field for corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a content analysis of the CSR reports of US and European firms, we show that firms from the coordinated market economies (CME) of Europe engage more substantively with labour and human rights than their US counterparts that operate in a liberal market economy (LME). The environmental commitments of firms in both regions, however, are more developed than practices related to these social issues. These findings support the view that CSR is more developed in CMEs than LMEs, but limit this support to social CSR issues. We posit that firms’ higher levels of engagement with environmental CSR likely reflect the extent to which environmental norms have become embedded in global markets rather than how CSR is promoted by national capitalist systems.

The same-sex unions revolution in western democracies

The implementation of laws recognizing same-sex unions (SSU) by a majority of western democracies over the past two decades represents one of the most stunning cases of convergent policy change in recent times. The Same-sex Unions Revolution argues that this wave of SSU policy adoption that occurred across Western Europe and North America in the 1990s and early 2000s is, to a significant degree, the product of international norm diffusion and learning. The monograph first traces the creation of a norm for relationship recognition by transnational activists and policymakers within Europe, and describes how the dissemination of this norm has catalyzed policy change across western democracies. The second part of the monograph analyzes policy developments in four countries (USA, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands) to illustrate how and the extent to which the international norm has shaped national SSU policy debates. This comparative analysis reveals that culture—especially religious values, international norm legitimacy and national conceptions of human rights—has profoundly influenced how countries have received the SSU norm as well as their decisions about whether and what kind of SSU law to adopt (marriage vs. registered partnership vs. unregistered cohabitant).

Biopolitics in the US: An Assessment

Much has been written about regulatory divergence between the US and EU (Vogel, 2003; Vig and Faure, 2004). The case of biotechnology provides interesting insights regarding regulatory politics and how it has evolved in the US over the years. The EU has applied the ‘precautionary principle’ to regulate GM foods/agricultural biotechnology and has adopted a number of directives aimed at ensuring consumer safety. By contrast, the US has decided that GM products are no different from those made using more traditional methods. Consequently, the US government has neither enacted new statutes nor implemented new risk assessment procedures to regulate GM products. However, in recent years the US has shown signs of inching toward the EU’s biotech policy mode in terms of the core issues of labelling and the segregation of GM and non-GM crops. How does one explain such changes in US biopolitics?

Pioneering marriage for same-sex couples in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Why did the Netherlands become the first country to allow same-sex couples to marry? I argue that in addition to social and political factors that have been well-highlighted in the literature, the desire of Dutch activists and policy élites to burnish their international reputation as a social policy and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights pioneer played a critical role in motivating the government to adopt this controversial policy. In making this argument, the article addresses the often neglected topic of policy invention. I utilize the concept of regional policy community drawn from federalism studies to illustrate that such communities do not just facilitate the diffusion of new innovations across its constituent states, but they can also inspire pioneering states to experiment with new policy models in the first place.

Deploying Europe: The Creation of Discursive Imperatives for Same-Sex Unions

No fewer than 24 European countries have implemented national s a me-sex unions (SSU) laws since 1989 (see Table 5.1). This relatively rapid diffusion of SSU policies in the region largely has occurred in the absence of legally binding mandates from either the European Union (EU) or the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The European polity and processes of Europeanization nonetheless have played an important role in these outcomes. In this case Europeanization, defined as the domestic impact of Europe, largely has not occurred through the formal policy decisions of European institutions, but rather through informal processes of social learning fostered by European activist networks and institutions. Throughout the 1990s sympathetic policy elites and lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans gender (LGBT) activists became increasingly adept at using European institutions and networks to construct a norm against sexual orientation discrimination and for the right of same-sex couples to participate in state-sanctioned unions. The strength of this same-sex relationship recognition norm lies not only in the resonance of human rights claims more generally, but also crucially, and in line with the theme of this volume, the image of Europe that activists and elites have cultivated as an LGBT community champion and the arbiter of what constitutes legitimate rights in the region.