Divergent Accounts of Normativity

Towards a New International Relations Theory

In times of international crisis social scientists should be able to position themselves vis-à-vis a world that has arguably come out of joint. Yet, particularly those engaging in theory all too often remain silent. A major goal of this project is to counter this silence and encourage more critical engagement with the world. Towards that end, the group addresses the interplay between practice-approaches and normative theory in International Relations Theory. Without a deep understanding of everyday practice and its role in the reproduction of order, quick entries to normative theory are hardly available. Assuming the pitfalls of global order to be visible ‘on the ground,’ the project focuses on crisis as a contradictory process during which the meaning of order becomes subject to contestation. The underlying rationale of the project is thus to scrutinize the configuration of normativity in and through everyday practice. 

The project is funded by the Landesforschungsförderung Hamburg for the period February 2017 to June 2018.

Please find information about outcomes here: Workshop Norms, Practice, Normativity (Hamburg), Workshop Practice-Normativity Nexus in IR Theory (Geneva), Symposium The Future of Norm Studies Research.