ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on mechanisms and practices of migration governance between Russia and China in their border areas and analyzes a specific diffusion process of trade-related migration norms. The case of migration at the Sino-Russian border is not a standard case of norm diffusion from the international to the domestic level, nor is it a direct transfer and adaptation of norms on the interstate level. Norms are defined differently. From a rationalist perspective, norms are viewed as behaviour and its regularity and consistency. These regularities in behaviour explain the formation of norms. In this regard, traditions play a crucial role, i.e., over time ritualized and codified behaviour becomes a norm. Norms and social practices are mutually interconnected. Social practices have the double function of serving as a norm’s origin and a driving force for a norm’s evolution. Economic interdependence, the essence of Russian–Chinese cross-border interactions, also largely contributes to the formation of a shared life-world, which facilitates norm diffusion processes.
