The governance of climate change has traditionally been conceived as an issue of international co-operation and considered through the lens of regime analysis. Increasingly, scholars of global governance have highlighted the multiple parallel initiatives involving a range of actors at different levels of governance through which this issue is being addressed. In this paper, we argue that this phenomenon warrants a re-engagement with some of the conceptual cornerstones of international studies. We highlight the conceptual challenges posed by the increasing involvement of non-nation-state actors (NNSAs) in the governance of climate change and explore the potential for drawing from alternative theoretical traditions to address these challenges. Specifically, the paper combines insights from neo-Gramscian and governmentality perspectives as a means of providing the critical space required to generate deeper understanding of: (a) the nature of power in global governance; (b) the relationship between public and...

Conceptualizing Climate Governance Beyond the International Regime

The article focuses on the normative connotation of European foreign policy and makes three points. First, through the criteria of inclusiveness and reflexivity, it draws a distinction between ‘normative power Europe’ and Europe as a ‘civilising power’. Second, the article puts forward a sociological institutionalist interpretation of the EU as a ‘civilising power’. It suggests that much of the EU’s action can be characterised as an unreflexive attempt to promote its own model because institutions tend to export institutional isomorphism as a default option. Third, the article shows the utility of a sociological institutionalist analysis by examining the case of the EU’s promotion of regionalism in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.

'Our Size Fits All': Normative Power Europe and the Mediterranean

An emergent paradigm, referred to as Open Economy Politics (OEP), now structures and guides research among many scholars. This essay sketches the general contours of the paradigm. Scientific accumulation is, in my view, the potential and great benefit of a self-conscious understanding of OEP as a single, unifying paradigm. The essay also provides a sympathetic critique of OEP and shows how the paradigm can be extended to capture some of the concerns and insights of other critics. Most important, this critique highlights the role and consequences of certain simplifying assumptions commonly used in OEP and calls for a closer examination of how international institutions and policies structure and change the interests of actors within countries that are now taken as exogenous.

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Open economy politics: A critical review

The core claims of the practice turn in International Relations (IR) remain ambiguous. What promises does international practice theory hold for the field? How does the kind of theorizing it produces differ from existing perspectives? What kind of research agenda does it produce? This article addresses these questions. Drawing on the work of Andreas Reckwitz, we show that practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social relations. Practice theories argue against individualistic-interest and norm-based actor models. They situate knowledge in practice rather than “mental frames” or “discourse.” Practice approaches focus on how groups perform their practical activities in world politics to renew and reproduce social order. They therefore overcome familiar dualisms—agents and structures, subjects and objects, and ideational and material—that plague IR theory. Practice theories are a heterogeneous family, but, as we argue, share a range of core commitments. Realizing the promise of the practice turn requires considering the full spectrum of its approaches. However, the field primarily draws on trajectories in international practice theory that emphasize reproduction and hierarchies. It should pay greater attention to practice approaches rooted in pragmatism and that emphasize contingency and change. We conclude with an outline of core challenges that the future agenda of international practice theory must tackle.

The Play of International Practice

This article identifies four key problems in the debate about normative power Europe that may be fruitfully tackled when linking it to the concept of hegemony: the debate about whether EU foreign and external policy is driven by norms or interests; the problem of inconsistent behaviour as a result of competing and contested norms; the question of the role of state and non-state actors in EU foreign and external policy; and the problematic standing of normative power as an academic engagement, in particular in regard to whether the theory is of primarily explanatory, descriptive or normative value. The author suggests that the concept of hegemony may address these problems. First, it combines norms and interests, thus transcending the divide that has resulted in endless debates about the EU’s standing as a normative power. Second, hegemony does not start from a pre-given set of norms with fixed meanings, but rather puts the struggles about these norms at centre stage, thus seeing inconsistencies not as und...

Normative power as hegemony

This edited volume examines power in its different dimensions in global governance. Scholars tend to underestimate the importance of power in international relations because of a failure to see its multiple forms. To expand the conceptual aperture, this book presents and employs a taxonomy that alerts scholars to the different kinds of power that are present in world politics. A team of international scholars demonstrates how these different forms connect and intersect in global governance in a range of different issue areas. Bringing together a variety of theoretical perspectives, this volume invites scholars to reconsider their conceptualization of power inworld politics and how such amove can enliven and enrich their understanding of global governance.

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Steve Lamy

Papers

Power in Global Governance