Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

/pdf/international-norm-dynamics-and-political-change-37ig9r9dlq.pdf

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each other as enemies, rivals or friends as a fundamental determinant. Wendt characterises these roles as 'cultures of anarchy', described as Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian respectively. These cultures are shared ideas which help shape state interests and capabilities, and generate tendencies in the international system. The book describes four factors which can drive structural change from one culture to another - interdependence, common fate, homogenization, and self-restraint - and examines the effects of capitalism and democracy in the emergence of a Kantian culture in the West.

/pdf/social-theory-of-international-politics-3eegdnnwai.pdf

Social Theory of International Politics

The history of international political orders is written in terms of continuity and change in domestic and international political relations. As a step toward understanding such continuity and change, we explore some ideas drawn from an institutional perspective. An institutional perspective is characterized in terms of two grand issues that divide students of international relations and other organized systems. The first issue concerns the basic logic of action by which human behavior is shaped. On the one side are those who see action as driven by a logic of anticipated consequences and prior preferences. On the other side are those who see action as driven by a logic of appropriateness and a sense of identity. The second issue concerns the efficiency of history. On the one side are those who see history as efficient in the sense that it follows a course leading to a unique equilibrium dictated by exogenously determined interests, identities, and resources. On the other side are those who see history as inefficient in the sense that it follows a meandering, path-dependent course distinguished by multiple equilibria and endogenous transformations of interests, identities, and resources. We argue that the tendency of students of international political order to emphasize efficient histories and consequential bases for action leads them to underestimate the significance of rule- and identity-based action and inefficient histories. We illustrate such an institutional perspective by considering some features of the coevolution of politics and institutions, particularly the ways in which engagement in political activities affects the definition and elaboration of political identities and the development of competence in politics and the capabilities of political institutions.

/pdf/the-institutional-dynamics-of-international-political-orders-4v1onuni6t.pdf

The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders

Part I. Introduction: Developing a Regional Approach to Global Security: 1. Theories and histories about the structure of contemporary international security 2. Levels: distinguishing the regional from the global 3. Security complexes: a theory of regional security Part II. Asia: 4. South Asia: inching towards internal and external transformation 5. Northeast and southeast Asian security complexes during the Cold War 6. The 1990s and beyond: an emergent east Asian complex Conclusion Part III. The Middle East and Africa: Introduction 7. The Middle East: a perennial conflict formation 8. Sub-saharan Africa: security dynamics in a setting of weak and failed states Conclusions Part IV. The Americas: 9. North America: the sole superpower and its surroundings 10. South America: an under-conflictual anomaly? Conclusion: scenarios for the RSCs of the Americas Part V. The Europes: Introduction: 11. EU-Europe: the European Union and its 'near abroad' 12. The Balkans and Turkey 13. The post-Soviet space: a regional security complex around Russia Conclusion: scenarios for the European supercomplex Part VI. Conclusions: 14. Regions and powers: summing up and looking ahead 15. Reflections on conceptualising international security.

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/3437/1/75.pdf

Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security

The concept of power is central to international relations. Yet disciplin- ary discussions tend to privilege only one, albeit important, form: an actor control- ling another to do what that other would not otherwise do. By showing conceptual favoritism, the discipline not only overlooks the different forms of power in inter- national politics, but also fails to develop sophisticated understandings of how global outcomes are produced and how actors are differentially enabled and constrained to determine their fates. We argue that scholars of international relations should employ multiple conceptions of power and develop a conceptual framework that encourages rigorous attention to power in its different forms. We first begin by producing a tax- onomy of power. Power is the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their circumstances and fate. This general concept entails two crucial, analytical dimensions: the kinds of social rela- tions through which power works (in relations of interaction or in social relations of constitution); and the specificity of social relations through which effects are pro- duced (specific/direct or diffuse/indirect). These distinctions generate our taxonomy and four concepts of power: compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive. We then illustrate how attention to the multiple forms of power matters for the analysis of global governance and American empire. We conclude by urging scholars to beware of the idea that the multiple concepts are competing, and instead to see connections between them in order to generate more robust understandings of how power works in international politics.

/pdf/power-in-international-politics-4o1pdthii5.pdf

Power in international politics

The dominant role of the realist paradigm in international relations theory has left little room for the study of the role of cultural variables in world politics. The two central tenets of the realist theoretical game-plan—the primacy of the sovereign state system, and the autonomy of that system, from domestic political, social and moral considerations—focus our attention on the vertical division of the world into sovereign states, rather than on the horizontal forces and ties that cut across state frontiers. The result is the metaphor for the interaction of states as the mechanical one of the billiard table, with power politics as the primary dynamic.

The Other in European self-definition: an addendum to the literature on international society*

Drawing on international relations theory, this article seeks to both account for and analyze the contestation that continues to surround the norm of R2P. It begins in Section I by arguing that while the 2005 Summit Outcome Document – as an example of ‘institutionalization’ – provided greater precision about the source, scope, and bearer of the responsibility to protect, there is continuing debate about when the international community’s remedial role in protection can and should be activated. In order to understand this reality – which is a challenge to positivist and linear accounts of normative change – we must embrace the intuitions of post-positivist constructivist scholars about the intersubjective nature of norms, and their emphasis on analyzing norms’ ‘meaning in use’. Section II demonstrates in more detail the two kinds of contestation surrounding R2P: procedural contestation concerning who (which body) should ‘own’ its development as a norm; and substantive contestation about its content. R2P is particularly susceptible to contestation, given its inherently indeterminate nature, and the erroneous tendency to measure its impact in terms of whether or not military intervention occurs in particular cases. To respond to these issues, it is argued that the norm of R2P is best conceived as a responsibility to consider a real or imminent crisis involving mass atrocity crimes - what in legal literature is sometimes called a ‘duty of conduct’. Whether or not international action actually occurs - particularly action involving military force - depends on a series of other factors. The final section addresses the challenge to constructivist scholars to be more transparent about the normative commitments that underpin their empirical studies of normative change. It argues that the contestation surrounding R2P can be better understood by giving greater attention to the normative underpinnings of contemporary critiques of the principle – most prominently those which stress the importance of sovereignty equality.

Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect

1. Introduction PART 1: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY AND HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 2. Limiting Sovereignty 3. The Humanitarian Responsibilities of Sovereignty: Explaining the Development of a New Norm of Military Humanitarian Intervention for Humanitarian Purposes in International Society 4. Taking Consequences Seriously: Objections to Humanitarian Intervention PART 2: THE POLITICS AND PRACTICE OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 5. The United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention 6. Humanitarian Intervention in the Balkans 7. Humanitarian Intervention and International Society: Lessons from Africa 8. International Intervention in East Timor 9. Humanitarian Intervention and Afghanistan 10. Conclusion: Humanitarian Intervention after 11 September Bibliography

Humanitarian intervention and international relations

Implementing the ‘responsibility to protect’

As noted by other contributors to this roundtable, the response of the international community to civilian deaths in Libya—and the threat of further mass atrocities—is unusual in two key respects. First, Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians without the consent of the “host” state. The Council's intentions, and actions, could not be interpreted as anything other than coercive. Second, in contrast to other crises involving alleged crimes against humanity (most notably Darfur), diplomacy produced a decisive response in a relatively short period of time. Both of these features suggest that many analysts of intervention (including myself) need to revise their previously pessimistic assessments of what is possible in contemporary international politics.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0892679411000207

Jennifer M. Welsh

Papers

The Other in European self-definition: an addendum to the literature on international society*

Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect

Humanitarian intervention and international relations

Implementing the ‘responsibility to protect’

Civilian Protection in Libya: Putting Coercion and Controversy Back into RtoP