Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T06:10:25.746Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From norms to normative configurations: a pragmatist and relational approach to theorizing normativity in IR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Simon Frankel Pratt Open the ORCID record for Simon Frankel Pratt [Opens in a new window]
Simon Frankel Pratt*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: simon.pratt@mail.utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Normativity matters in international politics, but IR scholarship will benefit from de-reifying ‘norms’ as units into a relational, configurational alternative. The alternative I propose here is the ‘normative configuration’: an arrangement of ongoing, interacting practices establishing action-specific regulation, value-orientation, and avenues of contestation. This responds to recent constructivist scholarship, particularly from relational sociology and practice theory, that implies the need for ontological and analytical alternatives to ‘norms’ as central concepts responsible for establishing rules, institutions, and values in social life. I offer a way of conceptualizing and analyzing normativity consistent with these alternative approaches. Namely, I have brought together a pragmatist theory of action with the social theories of a number of key relational social theorists and philosophers, oriented around a reading of what norms-talk actually does for social enquiry. I then outline a three stage process – de-reification, attributing agency, and tracing transactions – that allows scholars to study transformations in normative configurations. Finally, I discuss what this contributes to the recent turns toward practices and relations, as the latest direction in constructivist scholarship within the discipline.

Keywords

normsnormativityrelational sociologypragmatismpracticessocial theory
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 59 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acharya, Amitav. 2004. “How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism.” International Organization 58(2):239–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, Emanuel, and Pouliot, Vincent. 2011. “International Practices.” International Theory 3(1):1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2014. “Stigma Management in International Relations: Transgressive Identities, Norms, and Order in International Society.” International Organization 68(1):143–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, and Pouliot, Vincent. 2014. “Power in Practice: Negotiating the International Intervention in Libya.” European Journal of International Relations 20(4):889–911.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, Thomas M. 1987. John Dewey's Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Archer, Margaret Scotford. 1995. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avant, Deborah D. 2016. “Pragmatic Networks and Transnational Governance of Private Military and Security Services.” International Studies Quarterly 60(2):330–342.Google Scholar
Axelrod, Robert. 1986. “An Evolutionary Approach to Norms.” American Political Science Review 80(4):1095–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkin, J. S., and Cronin, B.. 1994. “The State and the Nation: Changing Norms and the Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations.” International Organization 48(1):107. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300000837.Google Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, and Checkel, Jeffrey T.. 2015. “Process Tracing: From Philosophical Roots to Best Practices.” In Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool, edited by Bennett, Andrew and Checkel, Jeffrey T., 3–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Steven. 2000. “Ideas, Social Structure and the Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism.” European Journal of International Relations 6(4):464-512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, S. 2001. The Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhaskar, Roy. 1998. The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bicchieri, Cristina. 2005. The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigo, Didier. 2011. “Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations: Power of Practices, Practices of Power.” International Political Sociology 5:225–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohman, James. 1999. “Practical Reason and Cultural Constraint: Agency in Bourdieu's Theory of Practice.” In Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by Shusterman, Richard, 129–52. Oxford: Blackwell Oxford.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bousquet, Antoine. 2008. “Chaoplexic Warfare or the Future of Military Organization.” International Affairs 84(5):915–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucher, Bernd. 2014. “Acting Abstractions: Metaphors, Narrative Structures, and the Eclipse of Agency.” European Journal of International Relations 20(3):742–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueger, Christian, and Gadinger, Frank. 2015. “The Play of International Practice.” International Studies Quarterly. 59(3):449–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, David. 1998. Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cancian, Francesca M. 1975. What Are Norms?: A Study of Beliefs and Action in a Maya Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cortell, Andrew P., and Davis, James W.. 2005. “When Norms Clash: International Norms, Domestic Practices, and Japan's Internalisation of the GATT/WTO.” Review of International Studies 31(1):3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Depélteau, François. 2013. “What Is the Direction of the ‘Relational Turn’?” In Conceptualizing Relational Sociology, edited by Powell, Christopher and Dépelteau, François, 163–85. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, John. 1987. “Art as Experience.” In The Later Works, 1925–1953 (Volume 10: 1934). Edited by Boydston, Jo Ann, 1882–98. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1922. Human Nature and Conduct. New York: Henry Holt & Co.Google Scholar
Dewey, John, and Bentley, Arthur. 1949. Knowing and the Known. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Dubois, Nicole. 2003. “Introduction: The Concept of Norm.” In A Sociocognitive Approach to Social Norms, edited by Dubois, Nicole, 1–16. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1978. What Is Sociology. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1994. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989a. “Social Norms and Economic Theory.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 3(4):99–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989b. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, Jon. 2009. Reason and Rationality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Emirbayer, Mustafa. 1997. “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology.” The American Journal of Sociology 103(2):281–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, Mustafa, and Mische, Ann. 1998. “What Is Agency?” The American Journal of Sociology 103(4):962–1023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Charlotte. 2008. The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-Whaling Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Charlotte. 2013. “Norms.” In Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR, edited by Adler-Nissan, Rebecca, 165–78. Oxon and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fearon, James, and Wendt, Alexander. 2002. “Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View.” In Handbook of International Relations, edited by Carlsnaes, Walter, Risse, Thomas and Simmons, Beth A., 52–72. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnemore, Martha. 1996a. “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention.” In The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, edited by Katzenstein, Peter J.. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Finnemore, Martha. 1996b. “Norms Culture, and World Politics: Insights from Sociology's Institutionalism.” International Organization 50(2):325–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnemore, Martha, and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization 52(4):887–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fligstein, Neil, and Mcadam, Doug. 2012. A Theory of Fields. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge. Edited by Gordon, Colin. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1969. Strategic Interaction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1983. “The Interaction Order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address.” American Sociological Review 48(1):1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorski, Philip S. 2013. Bourdieu and Historical Analysis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Guzzini, Stefano. 2013. Power, Realism and Constructivism. Oxon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action, 1 vols.. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Kahler, Miles, and Montgomery, Alexander H.. 2009. “Network Analysis for International Relations.” International Organization 63(3):559–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hildebrand, David L. 2008. Dewey: A Beginner's Guide. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
Hofferberth, Matthias, and Weber, Christian. 2015. “Lost in Translation: A Critique of Constructivist Norm Research.” Journal of International Relations and Development 18(1):75–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffmann, Matthew J. 2010. “Norms and Social Constructivism in International Relations.” The International Studies Encyclopedia. Blackwell Reference Online. http://www.isacompendium.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9781444336597_yr2013_chunk_g978144433659714_ss1-8.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Matthew J. 2011. Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Experimenting with a Global Response after Kyoto. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. 2012. “The Constructivism That Wasn't.” Duck of Minerva (blog), April 9, 2012. Accessed 30 June 2019. http://duckofminerva.com/2012/04/constructivism-that-wasnt.html.Google Scholar
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus, and Nexon, Daniel H.. 1999. “Relations before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics.” European Journal of International Relations 5(3):291–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1997. System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Joas, Hans. 1996. The Creativity of Action. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Joas, Hans, and Beckert, Jens. 2001. “Action Theory.” In Handbook of Sociological Theory, edited by Turner, Jonathan H.. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Miller, Dale T.. 1986. “Norm Theory: Comparing Reality to Its Alternatives.” Psychological Review 93(2):136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalberg, Stephen. 1980. “Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History.” American Journal of Sociology 85(5):1145–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J., ed. 1996. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New Directions in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Keck, Margeret E., and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Klotz, A. 1995. “Norms Reconstituting Interests: Global Racial Equality and U.S. Sanctions Against South Africa.” International Organization 49(3):451. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300033348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 1989. Rules Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich, and John Gerard, Ruggie. 1986. “A State of the Art on an Art of the State.” International Organization 40(4):753–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krebs, R. R., and Jackson, P. T.. 2007. “Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric.” European Journal of International Relations, 13(1):35–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066107074284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krook, Mona Lena, and True, Jacqui. 2012. “Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms: The United Nations and the Global Promotion of Gender Equality.” European Journal of International Relations 18(1):103–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Linklater, Andrew. 2011. The Problem of Harm in International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loyal, Steven. 2003. The Sociology of Anthony Giddens. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
MacKay, Joseph. 2016. “The Nomadic Other: Ontological Security and the Inner Asian Steppe in Historical East Asian International Politics.” Review of International Studies 42(3):471–491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, James G., and Olsen, Johan P.. 1998. “Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders.” International Organization 52(4):943–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolis, Joseph. 1999. “Pierre Bourdieu: Habitus and the Logic of Practice.” In Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by Shusterman, Richard, 64–83. Oxford: Blackwell Oxford.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles. 2001. Dynamics of Contention. Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCourt, David M. 2016. “Practice Theory and Relationalism as the New Constructivism.” International Studies Quarterly 60(3):475–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKeown, Ryder. 2009. “Norm Regress: US Revisionism and the Slow Death of the Torture Norm.” International Relations 23(1):5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Melanie. 2009. Complexity: A Guided Tour. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E. 1993. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morrow, James D. 2014. Order within Anarchy: The Laws of War as an International Institution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadelmann, Ethan A. 1990. “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society.” International Organization 44(4):479–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nexon, Daniel H. 2009. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nexon, Daniel H., and Pouliot, Vincent. 2013. “‘Things of Networks’: Situating ANT in International Relations.” International Political Sociology 7(3):342–45. doi: 10.1111/ips.12026_4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Harvard Economic Studies. v. 124). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Onuf, Nicholas. 1989. World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Opp, Karl-Dieter. 2001. “How do Norms Emerge? An Outline of a Theory.” Mind & Society 2(1):101–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panke, Diana, and Petersohn, Ulrich. 2011. “Why International Norms Disappear Sometimes.” European Journal of International Relations 18(4):719–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Talcott. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Petersohn, U. 2014. “Reframing the Anti-Mercenary Norm: Private Military and Security Companies and Mercenarism.” International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis 69(4):475–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouliot, V. 2010. International Security in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent. 2007. “‘Sobjectivism’: Toward a Constructivist Methodology.” International Studies Quarterly 51:359–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent. 2015. “Practice Tracing.” In Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool, edited by Bennett, Andrew and Checkel, Jeffrey T., 237–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent. 2016. International Pecking Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Simon F. 2018. “Norm Transformation and the Institutionalization of Targeted Killing in the US.” European Journal of International Relations, Online First. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354066118812178.Google Scholar
Price, Richard. 1995. “A Geneology of the Chemical Weapons Taboo.” International Organization 49(1):73–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescher, Nicholas. 1996. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Sandholtz, W. 2008. “Dynamics of International Norm Change: Rules against Wartime Plunder.” European Journal of International Relations 14(1):101–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, Theodore R. 1996. Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, Theodore R., Cetina, Karin Knorr, and von Savingy, Eike, eds. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Sebastian. 2014. “Foreign Military Presence and the Changing Practice of Sovereignty: A Pragmatist Explanation of Norm Change.” American Political Science Review 108(4):817–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Steele, Brent J. 2008. Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State. Oxon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinmetz, George. 2013. “Toward Socioanalysis: The ‘Traumatic Kernel’ of Psychoanalysis and Neo-Bourdieusian Theory.” In Bourdieu and Historical Analysis, edited by Gorski, Philip S.. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Steinmo, Sven. 2008. “Historical Institutionalism.” In Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences, edited by Della Porta, Donatella and Keating, Michael, 108–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tannenwald, Nina. 1999. “The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use.” International Organization 53(3):433–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen, and Steinmo, Sven. 1992. “Historic Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” In Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, edited by Steinmo, Sven, Thelen, Kathleen and Longsreth, Frank, 1–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Towns, Ann E. 2012. “Norms and Social Hierarchies: Understanding International Policy Diffusion ‘from Below.’” International Organization 66(2):179–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Krieken, Robert. 1998. Norbert Elias. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Von Wright, Georg Henrik. 1963. Norm and Action. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul.Google Scholar
Walters, William. 2002. “The Power of Inscription: Beyond Social Construction and Deconstruction in European Integration Studies.” Millennium 31(1):83–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1987. “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory.” International Organization 41(3):335–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, A. 2009. “Enacting Meaning-in-use: Qualitative Research on Norms and International Relations.” Review of International Studies 35(1):175–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, A. 2014. A Theory of Contestation. Heidelberg: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, Antje. 2004. “Contested Compliance: Interventions on the Normative Structure of World Politics.” European Journal of International Relations 10(2):189–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, Antje. 2008. The Invisible Constitution of Politics: Contested Norms and International Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wight, Colin. 2006. Agents, Structures, and International Relations: Politics as Ontology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winch, P. 1958. The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (3rd ed.). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zarakol, Ayse. 2010. “Ontological (In)security and State Denial of Historical Crimes: Turkey and Japan.” International Relations 24(1):3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar