When a powerful country like the U.S. promotes a global policy, it’s often assumed that recipient nations are simply passive ‘norm-takers.’ However, the concept of ‘strategic localization’ offers a more nuanced view. It describes the process by which a recipient government actively reinterprets and reframes a donor’s policy—like the ‘War on Terror’—to advance its own domestic political interests, such as consolidating power or eliminating rivals.
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🗣️ More Than Just Taking Orders: The Agency of Recipient States
Strategic localization highlights the political agency of Global South actors. Instead of simply accepting a transnational norm or discourse, state leaders will redefine it to ‘further their own particularistic interests in domestic policy debates’. This recognizes that recipient governments are not just passive agents waiting to be controlled; they are active manipulators of opportunities who engage in a delicate balancing act to satisfy both the donor government and their own domestic public.
🤝 Playing a ‘Two-Level Game’
This process can be understood through the lens of Robert Putnam’s ‘two-level game’ theory. A recipient leader is playing an international game to secure the best possible deal (i.e., foreign aid) and a domestic game to secure political support and survival. Strategic localization is the tactic used to win both games. By reframing an external policy in a way that resonates with local concerns and serves the leader’s agenda, they can secure both international resources and domestic legitimacy.
🇹🇭 Thailand’s War on Drugs as a Case Study
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s ‘War on Drugs’ in Thailand is a prime example of strategic localization. The U.S.-led ‘War on Terror’ provided the global context and resources. Thaksin localized this by linking the international terror threat to Thailand’s long-standing domestic problem of illegal drugs. This move served multiple purposes: it secured counter-terror support from the Bush administration while allowing Thaksin to launch a violent campaign against ‘dark influences,’ which included not just drug traffickers but also his local political opponents, thereby consolidating his own power under the guise of a national security crisis.
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Regilme, Salvador Santino F., Jr. Aid Imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia. University of Michigan Press, 2021.
More Topics
- How a Culture of Impunity Fuels Human Rights Abuses
- What is the ‘Aid Imperium’ in U.S. Foreign Policy?
- How the Philippines Reversed Its Human Rights Crisis Under Aquino and Obama
- How Thailand’s 1990s ‘Human Rights Renaissance’ Happened
- How Thaksin’s ‘War on Drugs’ Devastated Human Rights in Thailand
- How ‘Interest Convergence’ Shapes Foreign Aid’s Impact on Human Rights
- How the Philippines Achieved a Human Rights Renaissance in the 1990s
