ABSTRACT
The aim of this book was to explore how R2P proponents among scholars, practitioners, activists, political advisors, diplomats, policy-makers, civil servants, secretaries, special advisors and others have sustained the R2P framework and constructed its status of a worldwide recognized norm. Each chapter focused on a specific type of R2P advocacy by looking at knowledge and advocacy networks, diplomatic and intergovernmental networks, and, finally, bureaucratic networks in order to demonstrate that R2P activism is far from limited to civil society groups. In fact, it circulates through complex interconnections among individuals with diverse institutional affiliations ranging from NGOs, think-tanks and research centers, all the way up to government offices, diplomatic missions and UN institutions. This explains how R2P continues to resonate in high-level meetings, conferences and journals and how it advances through new institutional designs, actions plans and framework documents. Behind each of these little R2P success stories, there has been an individual with an extensive network of like-minded partners. In short, R2P has not been disseminated through its own inherent qualities, but rather through the conscious politics of circulation. The concluding section will sum up who these individuals are and how they operate through formal and informal networks to keep the idea of R2P relevant.
