Within Global IR a constructivist-postcolonial literature is emerging which inquires into how postcolonial states intervene into the normative structure of world politics. This research programme has less covered the question how postcolonial states relate to the international norm of democracy, how and in which ways do they contest this norm, and to which effects? This question is important both to study how the ‘postcolonial condition’ can be overcome, as well as to understand which contours and shapes the norm of democracy might be taking in a multiplex world. To study this multifaceted question from a perspective which acknowledges the shadow of the past, as well as the agency of postcolonial states, Wiener’s concept of norm contestation is applied and further developed in three respects: firstly, by staking out various forms of contestation, that is rejection, strategic contestation and the construction of alternative meaning; secondly, by bringing in identity as a mediating device which impacts the forms of contestation; and thirdly, by studying various sites of contestation where actors beyond the state are also taken into account. This framework is then applied to heuristically study the case of Iran which is of particular interest as it intervenes in the global contestation of the norm of democracy on a dual level of external resistance and internal dissent. Studying Iranian contestation at the UN, within Iran and in Iranian-EU engagement, it becomes evident that during times of geopolitical confrontation with the US, the spectre of the past is produced as present and the form of contestation features dialectics of hypocrisy which harm the norm of democracy. At the same time, we also see a strengthening of the norm of democracy through hybridity both in Iranian encounters with the EU, as well as in the contestation of meanings of democracy within Iran itself.

中文翻译：

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后殖民国家对世界政治规范结构的干预：伊朗的案例和民主规范


在全球国际关系中，一种建构主义后殖民文献正在兴起，它探讨后殖民国家如何干预世界政治的规范结构。该研究项目较少涉及后殖民国家如何与国际民主规范相关的问题，它们如何以及以何种方式挑战这一规范，以及会产生哪些影响？这个问题对于研究如何克服“后殖民状况”以及了解民主规范在多元化世界中可能采取的轮廓和形状都很重要。为了从承认过去的阴影以及后殖民国家的作用的角度来研究这个多方面的问题，维纳的规范争论概念在三个方面得到应用和进一步发展：首先，通过提出各种形式的争论，是拒绝、策略较量和另类意义的建构；其次，通过引入身份作为影响争论形式的调解手段；第三，通过研究各种争论场所，国家以外的行为者也被考虑在内。然后，将该框架应用于启发式研究伊朗的案例，伊朗的案例特别令人感兴趣，因为它在外部抵抗和内部异议的双重层面上干预了全球民主规范的争论。研究伊朗在联合国、伊朗内部以及伊朗与欧盟的接触中的争论就会发现，在与美国的地缘政治对抗时期，过去的幽灵就像现在一样产生，争论的形式具有虚伪的辩证法，这损害了伊朗的利益。民主的规范。 与此同时，我们还看到，通过伊朗与欧盟的接触以及伊朗内部对民主含义的争论，民主规范得到了加强。