ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the dynamics in the process of adopting Sustainable Development Goal 8 in Georgia, and analyses what driving factors created different trajectories for adopting different agendas with regard to this goal. I examine political and economic interests in Georgia among local political elites, and how they determined the course of the norm diffusion process. The productive employment aspect of the goal was adopted because it met with the interests of political elites accumulating their power and capital. By contrast, the decent work aspect was side-lined as local political elites regarded the decent work agenda as an obstacle to the advancement of the overall neoliberal reform effort. The spiral model assumes that a state initially responds to norms in negative ways, i.e. repression and denial. Georgia’s example refutes this assumption by showing that local elites bypassed decent work norms rather than repressing or denying them. Norm diffusion research needs to advance a more nuanced understanding of actors to better analyse the actual roles these actors have in the norm diffusion process. The chapter concludes by suggesting that it is necessary to include meso-level elites from international organisations, local elites in some opposition parties, civil society organisations and private sector companies in future norm diffusion research.
