ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that normative power is the foundation for norm entrepreneurship as a foreign policy strategy of small and otherwise powerless states. The Swedish promotion of conflict prevention in the United Nations (UN) has been supported by other likeminded Nordics. In the early 1990s the Swedish foreign and security policy elites took up the international slogan of the time - conflict prevention. Sweden used the support of the Nordics in its entrepreneurial activities in the UN, and Swedish representatives attempted to build coalitions in support of the idea of conflict prevention, using informal meetings for interpersonal and argumentative persuasion. Swedish membership of the Security Council 1997–98 increased the opportunities for building coalitions on the issue of conflict prevention. The case of Swedish norm entrepreneurship illustrates the mechanisms through which normative power is exercised. The Swedish case also illustrates some of the characteristics of norm entrepreneurship as a foreign policy strategy.
