Altared States
通过比较美国、加拿大和澳大利亚的历史，研究国际法如何影响同性婚姻政策议程，发现国际法在缺乏国内法律变革机会时对富裕民主国家的活动家更重要，但最终政策推进仍取决于国内制度和文化条件。
In this article, we use comparative historical analysis to explain agenda-setting and the timing of policy outcomes on same-sex marriage in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Unlike the United States and Canada, Australia does not have a bill of rights, making litigation to obtain rights not enumerated in existing legislation unavailable to activists. Extending the literatures on the development of public policy and on political and historical institutionalism, we argue that in the absence of domestic opportunities for legal change, international law becomes more important to activists in wealthy democracies, but it is contingent on states’ specific institutional and cultural features. Even when international law is “domesticated” into national political structures, it is still secondary to internal conditions in countries with extensive rights-based polities. International law may set a political agenda, but once introduced, policies move according to internal conditions related to party discipline, the centralization of courts, and policy legacies within those countries.