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

1: Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security, by Peter J. Katzenstein2: Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security, by Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. KatzensteinI. Norms and National Security3: Status, Norms, and the Proliferation of Conventional Weapons: An Institutional Theory Approach, by Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman4: Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos, by Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald5: Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention, by Martha Finnemore6: Culture and French Military Doctrine Before World War II, by Elizabeth Kier7: Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China, by Alastair Iain JohnstonII. Identity and National Security8: Identity, Norms, and National Security: The Soviet Foreign Policy Revolution and the End of the Cold War, by Robert G. Herman9: Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan, by Thomas U. Berger10: Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO, by Thomas Risse-Kappen11: Identity and Alliances in the Middle East, by Michael N. BarnettIII. Implications and Conclusions12: Norms, Identity, and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise, by Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro13: Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World, by Peter J. Katzenstein

The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics

Social constructivism in international relations has come into its own during the past decade, not only as a metatheoretical critique of currently dominant neo-utilitarian approaches (neo-realism and neoliberal institutionalism) but increasingly in the form of detailed empirical findings and theoretical insights. Constructivism addresses many of the same issues addressed by neo-utilitarianism, though from a different vantage and, therefore, with different effect. It also concerns itself with issues that neo-utilitarianism treats by assumption, discounts, ignores, or simply cannot apprehend within its characteristic ontology and/or epistemology. The constructivist project has sought to open up the relatively narrow theoretical confines of conventional approaches—by pushing them back to problematize the interests and identities of actors; deeper to incorporate the intersubjective bases of social action and social order; and into the dimensions of space and time to establish international structure as contingent practice, constraining social action but also being (re)created and, therefore, potentially transformed by it.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2601360.pdf

What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge

Case study researchers use diverse methods to select their cases, a matter that has elicited considerable comment and no little consternation. Of all these methods, perhaps the most controversial is the crucial-case method, first proposed by Harry Eckstein several decades ago. Since Eckstein’s influential essay, the crucial-case approach has been used in a multitude of studies across several social science disciplines and has come to be recognized as a staple of the case study method. Yet the idea of any single case playing a crucial (or critical) role is not widely accepted. In this article, the method of the crucial case is explored, and a limited defense (somewhat less expansive than that envisioned by Eckstein) of that method is undertaken. A second method of case-selection, closely associated with the logic of the crucial case, is introduced: the pathway case.

Is There a (Viable) Crucial-Case Method?

The bargaining model of war envisions the initiation, prosecution, termination, and consequences of war as part of a single bargaining process. This article focuses on the most recent works on this topic, many of which employ formal techniques, and it applies the model to the different phases of war. It also discusses the state of empirical work on the bargaining model. Finally, the article considers how the bargaining model meshes with other theories of war and international relations, including cognitive psychology, organization theory, domestic politics, and constructivism.For comments, he thanks Risa Brooks, Hein Goemans, Ted Hopf, Robert Powell, Bruce Russett, Alastair Smith, Allan Stam, and Suzanne Werner. He would like to note that any remaining errors are exclusively his own.

Shelford Bidwell

Papers

The sources of military doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the world wars

Race to the swift: thoughts on twenty-first century warfare

The Theory and Practice of Peacekeeping

The War of Atonement and Perception, Deception and Surprise: The Case of the Yom Kippur War

Liddell Hart: A Study of his Military Thought