Bono Made Jesse Helms Cry: Jubilee 2000, Debt Relief, and Moral Action in International Politics

Abstract

Do states and decision-makers ever act for moral reasons? And if they
\ndo, is it only when it is convenient or relatively costless for them to do
\nso? A number of advocacy movementsFon developing country debt
\nrelief, climate change, landmines, and other issuesFemerged in the
\n1990s to ask decision-makers to make foreign policy decisions on that
\nbasis. The primary advocates were motivated not by their own material
\ninterests but broader notions of right and wrong. What contributes to
\nthe domestic acceptance of these moral commitments? Why do some
\nadvocacy efforts succeed where others fail? Through a case study of the
\nJubilee 2000 campaign for developing country debt relief, this article
\noffers an account of persuasion based on strategic framing by advocates
\nto get the attention of decision-makers. Such strategic but not narrowly
\nself-interested activity allows weak actors to leverage existing value and/
\nor ideational traditions to build broader political coalitions. This article,
\nthrough case studies of debt relief in the United States and Japan, also
\nlinks the emerging literature on strategic framing to the domestic institutional
\ncontext and the ways veto players or ‘‘policy gatekeepers’’
\nevaluate trade-offs between costs and values