Lotem Bassan-Nygate

Governments are routinely condemned for violations of international norms governing human rights, the use of force, and environmental protection. “Naming and shaming” has become one of the most widely used tools of global governance across a range of issues. Yet both research and practice show that shaming is an unreliable instrument of enforcement. Public criticism frequently provokes backlash and risks damaging diplomatic, economic, or security relationships. Why, then, does shaming persist in international politics?

 

This book argues that the puzzling persistence of shaming arises from an overly narrow understanding of its audience. I argue that shaming is best understood as a public political signal interpreted not only—or even primarily—by the target state, but also by domestic publics in the shaming country and by third-party observers. I develop a multi-audience theory of shaming that explains how different audiences respond to public condemnation and how these audience reactions shape patterns of government shaming. Drawing on original survey experiments conducted across seven democracies with over 32,000 respondents, contemporary case studies, and cross-national data from the Universal Periodic Review, the book shows that shaming persists not because it reliably induces compliance, but because it delivers political benefits among audiences beyond the target state.