Erickson, Jennifer L. "Leveling the Playing Field: Cost Diffusion and the Promotion of 'Responsible' Arms Export Norms". International Studies Perspectives, Vol.18, No.3 (2015): 323-342.

Erickson, Jennifer L. "Leveling the Playing Field: Cost Diffusion and the Promotion of 'Responsible' Arms Export Norms". International Studies Perspectives, Vol.18, No.3 (2015): 323-342.

• Traditionally, major states resisted the calls by smaller powers to restrict the arms trade, arguing that such would restrictions infringed on sovereignty and would damage their economies. This changed after the end of the Cold War, when the success of the anti-landmine campaign, increased worries about internal conflicts, and political pressure resulted in major states, especially Britain, adopting 'responsible' arms export standards (323-324, 329).
• Ideas about restricting the arms trade for ethical reasons originated with small states affected by internal conflict, beginning with a UNGA motion sponsored by Colombia in 1988. Conflict-affected states like Colombia, Mali, and Afghanistan were critical to placing the arms trade on the international agenda (329).
• A lack of domestic markets had led the European defense industry to become strongly focused on exports, meaning that economic and employment interests made European reluctant to regulate their arms industry -- only Austria, Sweden, and West Germany adopted regulations during the Cold War. These economic incentives to continue the arms trade remained after the end of the Cold War, especially as global competition in the arms market increased (329).
• The European countries all accepted the restrictions on arms exports involved in the 1998 EU code of conduct and supported the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty despite significant economic disincentives to doing so. The UK was particularly active in the creation of the Arms Trade Treaty, as it was one of only two major powers among the sponsors, the others being Argentina, Australia, Costa Rice, Finland, Kenya, and Japan (330).
• Adopting higher ethical standards in the arms trade reduces the competitiveness of the national arms industry, so there are only incentives to limit or control the arms trade if other competitors are seen as also being bound by similar restrictions (323).
• Britain became a major advocate for the creation of international structures regulating and controlling the arms trade to force other countries to bear the same costs of abiding by ethical restrictions that British companies had to because of domestic political pressure (324).
• The British political leadership saw the adoption of arms export restrictions are costly and burdensome. Moreover, these restrictions threatened to undermine Britain's sense of its position in the world, which was bolstered by strategic arms sales. British leaders sought to deflect some of these costs by promoting arms trade restrictions internationally and thus reducing the competitive advantage of other arms exporters (332).
• Even after the Labour victory in 1997, Britain tried to help its defense industry reduce economic damage by actively promoting arms trade limitations on the EU-level. Britain's domestic regulations were carefully tailored not to surpass European regulations. This was seen as a way to prevent a loss of competitiveness relative to other European arms exporters (334).
• Britain supported the Arms Trade Treaty as a way to simultaneously reduce international competition in the arms trade and reclaim its humanitarian reputation after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Britain tried to linked economic incentives to supporting the Treaty to encourage other countries to adopt arms export limitations. The regulations in the Treaty are essentially the same as British regulations to put all other arms exporters at the same disadvantage as Britain (334-335).
• Domestic pressure on the British arms trade appeared in 1991 in the aftermath of revelations that Britain had sold arms to Saddam Hussein under murky circumstances. A series of scandals about sleaze in British arms trading led the Labour Party to place the issue on its agenda and pledge to end abuses after its victory in 1997 (334).
• Becoming a norm leader of norm entrepreneur simply requires adopting a norm, but this does not guarantee norm diffusion. Norm diffusion remains dependent on the adoption of that norm by major international actors, especially major states. Major states are particularly important to norm diffusion and can powerful norm entrepreneurs (325). These larger states are more tools and greater resources to convince or pressure other states into adopting the norm (325, 327-328, 339).
• When states adopting norms that impose a significant cost on a domestic interest group or limit their capabilities, they will seek to level the playing field by spreading the norm and subjecting other states to the same costs and restrictions. This is especially pursued through binding treaties (326-327).
•  The European Community introduced the first major arms control treaty in 1992, which attached human rights to restrictions on arms exports. This approach was expanded into the 1998 EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, which began a legally binding 'common position' in 2008. The EU has also supported arms trade regulations adopted under the OSCE in 1993 and through the UN Arms Trade Treaty in 2013 (328-329).
• The UN Arms Trade Treaty originated in a binding program of action adopted in 2001. It was originally opposed by the majority of member states, but during the late 2000s, many prominent European countries, especially Britain, succeeded in reversing global attitudes about the treaty (329-330).
• Between the 1970s and 2012, the world's top arms exporters were the USA, Britain, Russia, Germany, and France. Russia, the USA, and Germany were the major exporters of small arms (330).
• The UK experienced a major reduction in arms sales following its adoption of the restrictions in the 1998 EU code of conduct (330). This decrease was not, however, very big (331).
• Since the 1960s, West Germany has had a number of restrictions on the arms trade to prevent the export of weapons to areas of conflict or instability. This practice has broad support within Germany, so it would be expected that Germany, not Britain, would be a norm entrepreneur in this field (330).
• The Bonn Republic always disliked the defense industry because of its associations with the Nazis. While Germany does certain care about arms exports, they have tried to limit public ties to the defense industry and do not think of the arms trade in terms of a national interest (335-336).
• The first restriction of arms exports was created in 1961, prohibiting export to areas of conflict. Regulations were tightened in 1971 and then loosened to allow for a large amount of governmental discretion in 1982 (336).
• Germany supported the adoption of EU-wide restrictions on the arms trade under British. Policymakers said that under British pressure it felt irresponsible to not support the regulations (336). 
• These existing restrictions meant that the German defense industry was used to working with arms export controls. This and the lack of political connections between government and the defense industry means that there was little institutional pressure for Germany to try and force other states to bear the costs of regulating their arms industry by diffusing its arms export norms (337-338).
• Actual German practice in the arms industry has not been particularly humanitarian or ethical, as German weapons were regularly sold to human rights abusers. Regulations, especially during the Cold War, tended to be interpreted loosely (336).
• The lack of any scandals about German arms exports, as occured in the UK in 1991, meant that there was little public outrage over the arms trade in Germany, as most assumed it was fairly well regulated (338).
• The methodology of the statistical study is available on pages 331 and 332.