No abstract

This article proposes a framework for empirical research on contested meaning of norms in international politics. The goal is to identify a design for empirical research to examine associative connotations of norms that come to the fore when norms are contested in situations of governance beyond-the-state and especially in crises. If cultural practices shape experience and expectations, they need to be identified and made ‘account-able’ based on empirical research. To that end, the proposed qualitative approach centres on individually enacted meaning-in-use. The framework comprises norm-types, conditions of contestation, types of divergence and opposition-deriving as a specific interview evaluation technique. Section one situates the problem of contestation in the field of constructivist research on norms. Section two introduces distinctive conditions of contestation and types of norms. Section three details the methodology of conducting and evaluating interviews and presents the technique of opposition-deriving with a view to reconstructing the structure of meaning-in-use. Section four concludes with an outlook to follow-up research.

This article argues that ‘contested compliance’, i.e. a situation in which compliance conditions are challenged by the expected norm followers, offers an empirical access point for studying changes in the normative structure of world politics. It conceptualizes the normative structure as the ‘structure of meaning-in-use’ that works as a reference frame for decision-makers. The argument builds on a distinction between type, category and meaning of norms. In addition, the article distinguishes between a behaviorist approach to the impact of regulative and constitutive norms on state behavior, and a reflexive perspective on the impact of discursive interventions on the normative structure of world politics. The intention of the argument is twofold. First, it addresses the puzzle of good norm following despite increasingly contested norms, e.g. regarding the European Union’s accession criteria, on the one hand, and the United Nations Security Council resolution 1441, on the other. Second, it draws on and develops further the input of reflexive sociology on International Relations theory.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

A BSTRACT This essay develops a critique of modern constructivist approaches to norms in international relations theory. It distinguishes between a behaviourist and a societal perspective on norms. The former explains compliance with norms and/or norm diffusion via the logic of appropriateness and the logic of arguing, respectively, the latter understands divergence in normative meaning via the logic of contestedness. Using Habermas's approach to facts and norms as a framework, the article discusses the possibilities of legitimate governance based on core constitutional norms such as democracy, the rule of law and fundamental and human rights and their role in contexts beyond the modern nation-state.

No abstract