How global norms matter: norm diffusion and the tangled web of localization in Ghana’s extractive industry

A critical scholarship within the International Relations and Comparative Politics scholarship continues to challenge the conventional view that upheld the extractive sector in developing countries as the space where global technocratic norms take root irrespective of socio-economic bargains and contestations. Through an in-depth account of the politics that augment the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Public Interest and Accountability Committee in Ghana’s oil industry, this article joins this fast-growing literature by tracing the localized dynamics of norm diffusion. It combines the analytical lenses of governed interdependence and contentious politics, alongside critical interpretations about the pathways of norm diffusion in Africa, with data compiled from field interviews and documentary sources to identify the complex dynamics that have sustained the localization of global norms in the country’s extractive industry.