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In this article, we examine the case of international organizations promoting dams who adopted participatory norms under the influence of non-state and non-hegemonic actors, notably development, humanitarian, and environmental NGOs. This adoption has had a noticeable effect: whereas, during the 1980s, only about 20 percent of dam projects included participation in the decision-making process, 10 years later that number had risen to 50 percent. Two observations can be made. First there has been a dissemination of participatory norms and principles among different actors to varying degrees, the effect of which has been more than rhetorical, since the dam projects themselves have been affected. Second, these norms have been internalized to the extent that actors not only take them into account but also seek to transform them into internal or external practices. Our hypothesis is that these internalization efforts depend in large part on the degree to which the actors perceive the norms as legitimate. The process, however, varies according to both the nature of the norm in question and the degree to which it is internalized. Adapted from the source document.

Le processus d'internalisation des normes au sein des institutions n'est pas homogène, variant selon divers facteurs. L'article se penche sur des acteurs, liés directement ou indirectement à la construction de grands barrages, peu sensibles aux enjeux sociaux du développement durable. Comment expliquer les différences entre ces institutions dans la prise en compte des critères sociaux ? L'hypothèse est que l'identité d'une organisation et sa capacité « disciplinaire » ou « idéologique » à tenir compte des facteurs sociaux déterminent la qualité de l'évaluation et de la gestion des impacts sociaux des grands barrages, rejoignant l'argument de Young voulant que la structure d'une institution internationale joue un rôle capital dans sa capacité à mettre en oeuvre et à promouvoir des normes.