INTERNATIONAL NORMS AND DOMESTIC POLICY CHANGE

Kelly Kollman's book, The Same-Sex Unions Revolution in Western Democracies: International Norms and Domestic Policy Change, discusses the effects of international norms on domestic policy. It explores the policy convergence surrounding same-sex unions, which has moved forward with astonishing rapidity since Axel and Eigil Axgil first tied the knot in Copenhagen's city chambers in 1989. Kollman investigates the factors that explain this wave of progressive change, alongside the reasons why some western democracies have been slow to change. She also explains why SSU policy models look so different across states. Her answers rest on theories of international norm diffusion and socialization; she argues that international norms have played an active role both in disseminating the idea of same-sex unions and in influencing the way that LGBT movements have framed and promoted the issue as a prerogative in multiple contexts. This argument is both well executed and highly convincing in its international emphasis; as Kollman herself notes, “The fact that thirteen western democracies have adopted a SSU law since 2000 is not a mere coincidence,” and looking for explanatory factors at the international level to help explain this trend is well merited (3). However, while Kollman attributes much of her explanation to international influences, she is careful to point out that differences in domestic culture—particularly the strength of religious values and the perceived legitimacy of international norms—ultimately moderate how such international influences are interpreted in the domestic sphere.

The book is impressive in its depth, giving the reader a close look at the international and domestic dynamics at play in 18 states, with a focus on the four case studies of Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Chapters 5 and 6 are exceptional, both in their effort to uncover the mechanisms behind the influence of international norms on domestic policy change and in the rich historical detail with which they trace these movements, in the four selected countries, back to the 1940s. The point that Kollman emphasizes regarding domestic politics is that, “While domestic SSU supporters have learned from and drawn heavily on the norms and argumentation of transnational activists and policy elites within European institutions, each domestic discourse has its own logic and ultimately its own set of outcomes, no matter how circumscribed these become in the face of an increasingly powerful international norm” (126). The variation in the strategic framing of the SSU issue by LGBT activists, which, for example, did not adequately distinguish between registered partnerships and marriage in the German case, is particularly interesting, as is the strong reliance on European frames to advance the argument later in Germany. By focusing on cultural variables and discursive opportunities, Kollman expands upon the types of political process variables that previous studies had privileged—explanations that have, at least in part, become less relevant in later policy adoptions, such as political institutional differences in parliamentary and majoritarian systems (Adam, Duyvendak, and Krouwel Reference Adam, Duyvendak and Krouwel1998). Kollman's book thus makes theoretical contributions to the oversimplified “norm-fit” arguments in international relations and to the types of political opportunities that matter for social movement success.

Along the way, Kollman also opens multiple doors for future research. First is the notion that a heightened public debate and backlash in response to LGBT norms can eventually lead to positive outcomes in Western Europe (Kollman, 41). While Kollman's argument here rings true for the advanced industrialized democracies she studies, much research still needs to be done on resistance to the diffusion of LGBT rights and how it may vary across regions—a point that Kollman acknowledges and one that fits well into a dialogue with Currier's findings in Africa. A second important insight is that timing matters. The factors that explain first-wave adoption, which are generally more domestic, vary for second-wave adoption when the factors tend to be more international (Kollman, 86, 185)—a convincing claim that merits systematic comparison with regions outside of advanced western democracies (cf. Ayoub n.d.). Third, a novel aspect of the book is the data on issue salience and newspaper visibility concerning various types of LGBT legislation, collected in Austria, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The data make clear that certain issues have much higher levels of visibility than others, with the visibility of antidiscrimination measures paling in comparison to the SSU issue (Kollman, 79). Finally, the fact that SSU policies have a positive effect on attitudes—demonstrated also by Takács and Szalma's (Reference Takács and Szalma2011) quantitative analysis—is an important policy-relevant finding that will spur further scholarship.

Any minor criticisms I have can do no disservice to the value of this book, but there are some simplified aspects of the argument that leave the reader wanting more explanation. While the extensive discussion of religion in Chapter 4 is thorough—including data on confessional heritage, religiosity, and church-state relations—a more detailed discussion on the historical relationship between religion and nation would have been useful. Such an understanding would help explain the slowness of change in Ireland, Greece, Italy, and Poland (a case not within the scope of this study), where ties between the church and the popular nation are strongly entrenched (Ayoub Reference Ayoub2014). It would also help explain the early adoption of SSU in Canada and Spain, Kollman's outliers in Table 4.6 (93), where this relationship is not similarly entrenched. For example, in Spain and Portugal the Catholic Church had a very different relationship with the nation during the democratic transition than it did in Poland, where it stood alongside the people in “defense” of national values against the “external forces” to which LGBT rights are sometimes tied. Considering the importance of religious cultural variables to Kollman's argument, a greater engagement with the works of sociologists and political scientists of religion (e.g., Berger Reference Berger1993; Byrnes and Katzenstein Reference Byrnes and Katzenstein2006; Casanova Reference Casanova1994; Philpott Reference Philpott2000) would have fine-tuned this aspect of the argument (cf. Wilson's Chapter 3).

By looking exclusively at the national level, which is understandable for cross-national comparability, the book obscures some of the developments apparent within federal systems like those of the United States and Germany; both exhibit wide internal variation in the degree to which various Länder or states engaged with the SSU issue. While the United States, for example, consistently falls under the “no recognition” category of SSU in Kollman's book, it has shown remarkably rapid movement on the SSU issue in recent years, especially following President Obama's rhetorical support for same-sex marriage in May of 2012 and the important Supreme Court rulings in June of 2013. It is apparent that Chapter 6 was written in the midst of unanticipated developments in the United States, and thus the rulings are a possibility Kollman discusses with great caution and uncertainty (155–56). While she cannot be expected to predict the future, it is possible that the tone and characterization of the material on the United States may feel dated in the near future.

In sum, this book is the capstone of Kollman's distinguished research agenda on international norms and SSU policy change. Her grasp of the factors at play on both the international and domestic levels is exemplary and makes this book essential reading not only for students of LGBT politics, but also those interested in international normative change more generally (see Chapter 3). Beyond the academy, the timely nature of this book enhances its practical implications, an example of which is the expert opinion Kollman submitted to the Scottish Parliament in 2013 on the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill (Kollman Reference Kollman2013).

VISIBILITY AS A MOVEMENT STRATEGY

In Out of Africa: LGBT Organizing in Namibia and South Africa, Ashley Currier shifts our focus to the inner workings of LGBT movements as they target the state and society in their bid for change. She shows that LGBT organizations navigate their visibility, remaining acutely aware of the audiences that they engage with and the contexts in which they operate—a phenomenon that will resonate with many LGBT individuals on a personal level. Beyond the “visibility matters” assertion in much social movement research, which has treated the concept as an attribute of movement relevance, Currier demonstrates how movements use strategies of both visibility and invisibility, depending on time and place. She argues that visibility matters to movements in multiple ways by enhancing its sociopolitical relevance and activists' ability to disseminate ideas, grievances, and demands. Visibility also offers movements the credibility they need to improve their standing with the target audiences they wish to influence (Currier, 1). At the same time, invisibility can also be positive for movements when (a) “political circumstances become hostile to organized resistance” and (b) “activists must withdraw from public visibility to respond to internal crises” (Currier, 1). The cases of Namibia and South Africa provide the appropriate foil with which to make these claims, since Currier's rich ethnographic work demonstrates that organizational strategies had varied trajectories in these countries.

The most impressive element of this text is the rich description with which the empirical chapters (Chapters 1–4) guide the reader through the political history of LGBT rights in these two states. How LGBT politics intersect with race politics is a particularly important aspect of the book. Currier's insights into the privileges of public visibility, even if that visibility was “guarded,” enjoyed by certain groups at different levels to others are useful for theorizing on LGBT politics generally. In this case, differences in such privileges of public visibility were apparent between white LGBT groups and black LGBT groups. Race politics also figure into the complex relationship between the African National Congress and issues of homosexuality (39). The fact that the “public face of the movement remained white until the 1980s” in South Africa (32) is just one example of how multiple marginalizations meet in international LGBT politics. Furthermore, the notions of “disappearing acts” and “safety in invisibility,” and how they also vary as movement strategies according to the intersectional identities at play, are relevant to contemporary LGBT politics far beyond Namibia and South Africa.

Currier's fascinating discussion of the opposition's counter frame—which painted homosexuality as un-African—also adds a regional dimension to Kollman's emphasis on the importance of the domestic legitimacy and resonance of the norm. Throughout the book (particularly in Chapter 4), Currier describes how homosexuality has been portrayed as un-African by movement challengers. In response, LGBT organizations in both countries carefully navigated the complex process of shedding light on the black African leadership and the constituents of LGBT organizations. In doing so, they hoped to dispel the myth of LGBT rights as a white/western phenomenon (148)Footnote ¹ while still accepting financial aid from northern donors.Footnote ² Through multiple examples such as this, Currier shows vividly how the movement's strategies vary across time and place. In sum, (in)visibility strategies are often dependent on the sociopolitical and cultural contexts within which activists find themselves.

In many of these respects, Currier leaves us with several insights that, though they are derived from movement experiences unique to Namibia and South Africa, also manifest themselves in other world regions. For example, related to research in Central and Eastern Europe, debates around the type of visibility are reminiscent of the organizational strategies Currier describes. There, the hypervisibility of Western gay pride performances is often viewed suspiciously by local organizers, as is the framing of the issue as external and challenging to the cultural sovereignty of the nation (Ayoub Reference Ayoub2013, 298–303). The same is true for the honeymoon periods that LGBT movements sometimes experience following political independence, like in Namibia, which are subsequently met with a backlash after opposition movements argue that national values are being encroached upon. In other aspects, some of Currier's findings may play out very differently in other regions, such as the contemporary Europe that Kollman describes where regional systems of knowledge are different from those at the disposal of African LGBT groups. Since LGBT rights are often considered to be part of a bundle of “European values” that come with membership of the European Union or the Council of Europe, invisibility may be less preferred when “political circumstances become hostile to organized resistance” (Currier, 1). The regional dimension distinguishes Currier's cases from those of both Kollman and Wilson. While in Europe certain countries have powerful resistance movements or are “othered” as antigay deviations from the European norm, the myth propelled by antigay rhetoric in Africa—that all of Africa is united in its heterosexuality—makes the task of African LGBT organizations all the more challenging. Much more present in Europe is Currier's observation that “political homophobia [can create] a political opportunity for LGBT movement visibility” (49–50), an insight that also connects to Kollman's backlash argument. In Europe, visibility in the face of mobilized resistance can be strategically useful for groups in that it enhances the political salience of the norm. In many of the areas mentioned above, Currier's work paves the way for valuable cross-regional comparisons that will help us better understand LGBT politics, especially since the dominant share of that research has focused on the global north.

The book's shortcomings are related more to the way that this rich detail is used to support the theoretical thread of the book. At a basic level, the reader is not given clear definitions of the various concepts, ranging from “invisibility,” “guarded visibility,” “public visibility,” “visibility,” “controlling visibility,” and “hypervisibility.” These terms often drop in and out of the discussion with the assumption that the reader can follow their meaning. In addition to clear definitions, a figure or table outlining which (in)visibility strategies were used, by which organizations, in which contexts, at what times, and against what target would have made it easier to track the theoretical component of the text in relation to the rich narrative Currier presents with her empirics. The same is true of the case selection, where more methodological reasoning concerning how and when the case studies differ would have strengthened the analytical framework and improved the methodological appendix. Finally, Currier misses the opportunity to connect the Namibian and South African experiences to the waves of politicized homophobia that have, in recent years, received so much popular attention in other African countries, such as Uganda. It would have been informative to hear her reflections on this (i.e., an expansion on the type of reflection on Nigeria that appears on p. 150). These minor criticisms aside, this timely book is highly recommended for scholars of social movements, African politics, and LGBT politics, not least because of the attention that the unfortunate proliferation of politicized homophobia in Africa currently holds on the global stage (Weiss and Bosia Reference Weiss and Bosia2013). Compared to the other texts, Out in Africa stands out in its rich use of quotations, bringing to life the stories of activists on the ground, a factor that will also make the book particularly accessible to undergraduate audiences as well as to more senior scholars.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CARE AND LGBT RIGHTS

Angelia Wilson's masterfully written book takes us back to Europe and North America to add a rich theoretical lens to a commonly asked question: why is Europe lesbian and gay friendly? Her aptly titled book, Why Europe is Lesbian and Gay Friendly (and Why America Never Will Be), though short in length, is dense in ideas and in theoretical bridging. The text brings two core literatures into dialogue, those on mixed economies of welfare and on the politics of sexuality. Wilson argues that the political dynamics of care provision are in large part responsible for having opened up opportunities for lesbian and gay friendly policies on the European continent. For Wilson, if we want to know why a context is lesbian and gay friendly, we have to look at who provides care—in terms of “the self, family, state and voluntary/faith-based sector” (15). How states distribute the care provision—and the resulting balance of power between the aforementioned care-giving sectors—can explain much about which groups will benefit politically. In postwar Europe, the policies that shape how services are distributed and how family life is regulated have been favorable to the political processes that set into motion the expansion of LGBT rights. This involved a “perfect storm” of rethinking care and the boundaries of heteronormativity, in which “various elements of care provision interacted … to open the door to the possibility of redefining possible sources of care … that led to the most significant shift in care policy, and family, and citizenship, and inclusion, in contemporary history” (Wilson, 15). In doing so, the book makes a strong case for the importance of thinking about the political economy of care in relation to the expansion of LGBT rights, an association that is often overlooked in studies on LGBT rights. The way Wilson bridges literatures on the welfare states, feminist readings of the heterosexual family, and sexual citizenship is exemplary and engaging.

The book makes ambitious theoretical linkages in a fruitful and compelling way that advance an important insight on the association between political economy and sexuality. Wilson's opening discussion of various theories on the expansion of LGBT rights does substantial groundwork in summarizing important—though quite different—ideas on the evolution of such policies. That chapter will be of interest to anyone wanting a brief overview of the LGBT politics subfield, including a discussion of Kollman's ideas. In Chapter 2, Wilson engages important debates in welfare state—or “mixed economy of welfare”—research. She elaborates on “the common threads in European welfare values” (Wilson, 23) by historically retracing such developments in Europe—the birthplace of the modern welfare state—and highlighting how these postwar commitments could engender lesbian and gay friendly policies. Indeed many LGBT people will intuitively accept that the welfare state is vital to creating a free space for self-expression and identity formation outside of the auspices of family life. Exploring the relationship between religion and welfare state regimes, Chapter 3 effectively moves beyond the secularization literature to outline the manifestation of Christian values in welfare provision and policy making via Peter Katzenstein's (Reference Katzenstein1987) understanding of churches as “parapublic institutions.” This discussion is particularly insightful because the complex way that Christian values have shaped care provision, and are subsequently related to choices made by policymakers, casts a fascinating look at the unexpected roots of lesbian and gay rights. The discussions on the heterosexual family (Chapter 4) and the new language of sexual citizenship (Chapter 5) follow the book's thematically organized structure—which ambitiously connects lesbian and gay policy provisions to several important literatures on the welfare state, church-state relations, the crisis of care, and sexual citizenship—making this book accessible to a diverse group of scholars.

While the book accomplishes a great deal theoretically, some readers will argue that the text's empirical detail could have been organized within a more effective framework for analysis. Despite the book's sweeping title, its empirical foundation rests with “some European countries” (Wilson, 18) and the argument is only briefly extrapolated to the United States in the concluding chapter. The premise of some core assertions, such as “The United States will never be lesbian and gay friendly, at least not for the same reasons as European countries” (Wilson, 17) are both deterministic and contradictory. Why “the same reasons” must explain both regions is not clear—unless we assume that only one set of factors leads to LGBT friendly policies (which Wilson would not argue). That sentence, and possibly the book, may simply say less about the United State's inability to become lesbian and gay friendly than it says about the limits of the explanatory variable in the U.S. case. While American LGBT politics do leave much to be desired, recent legislative moves (beyond “rights granted by the courts”; Wilson, 18) and positive shifts in popular attitudes challenge the notion that the United States will remain locked in a state of lesbian and gay “unfriendliness.” Furthermore, Wilson's concern that positive developments in the American case “undoubtedly fan the flames of the conservative Christian culture war” (127) may be overstated in its anticipated negative effect. Instead, studies in both Europe and the United States show that a backlash is not always detrimental to the long-term expanding of LGBT rights since it can propel the movement's political salience (Ayoub Reference Ayoub2014; Dorf and Tarrow Reference Dorf and Tarrow2014). Finally, while Wilson is entirely upfront about various caveats and complexities (e.g., 5–10, 118), the variation in the degree to which European countries are actually lesbian and gay friendly in their institutional structures needs to be emphasized—differences that Wilson describes in the text (e.g., the lackluster status of countries such as Italy, Greece, and Poland) (127). Had the ramifications of the project been more delineated throughout, it would have countered the somewhat fluid scope of the project. It is this fluidity that occasionally risks overreaching the argument, towing a fine line of homogenizing both the United States and the European continent in ways that both scholars of the welfare state and scholars of sexuality have spent more than two decades breaking apart.

Despite those criticisms, Wilson offers a compelling and understudied factor—the political economies of care—for consideration while taking on the mammoth task of elegantly bridging multiple disparate literatures. As the other works reviewed here demonstrate, there are multiple answers to the expansion of LGBT rights policies, and Wilson's focus on political economies of care offers a plausible yet often overlooked explanatory factor that will spark continued scholarly attention and analysis. Her book is a theoretically rich and enjoyable read. It will be of particular interest to scholars of comparative politics and political theory, and the contribution makes an important inroad into the political antecedents for LGBT rights policies.