| Abstract
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State sovereignty has been a central and steadfast feature of international relations since the consolidation of the nation-state system. Yet, the content of sovereignty is changing as a result of policies that states employ in the international arena, which give voice to the underlying beliefs about legitimate state behavior. These policies are often influenced by evolving international norms concerning states' rights and responsibilities in the global community, and the policies themselves have important implications for the future of these norms and interstate behavior. In other words, norm change is a dynamic process, whereby the policies states enact are both influenced by international norms and, at the same time, contribute to new understandings of those norms. Rather than taking the usual approach of examining how norms influence policy decisions, I investigate the reverse causal direction by asking how the policies of a state influence international norms, and the sovereignty norm, in particular. In this project, I suggest that one way in which political norms change is via the effects of political actions. Specifically, I propose that not only the norms of sovereignty shape the scope of military intervention, but that intervention itself determines the form of acceptable sovereignty. Insights from evolutionary and social psychological theories aid in developing novel, and somewhat counterintuitive, expectations for how this change occurs. I examine these expectations within the context of military interventions waged on behalf of pressing international issues in the post-Cold War era: counterterrorism (Afghanistan), human rights (Somalia), and weapons of mass destruction (Iraq). Combining content analysis of speeches, and case studies of policy responses (including inaction) by leading states, I find that, in contrast to rational choice expectations, social psychological explanations provide a better understanding of how changes in conceptions of sovereignty occur. In addition, I also find that the legitimacy of the intervention has an important effect on norm development.
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