Societal multiplicity for international relations: Engaging societal interaction in building global governance from below

Abstract

This article discusses the societal multiplicity proposition as a welcome conceptual proposition for IR. First, it argues that against the background of the discipline’s trajectory and especially Adler’s call for a turn towards ‘the social’ in the 1990s, Rosenberg’s proposition offers a nudge towards scrutinising concepts for a more concise and systematic appreciation of societal multiplicity as a source of knowledge production in a globalised world. Second, this is illustrated with reference to the challenge of building global governance from below as the international liberal order stands contested and alliances are re-negotiated. Third, it demonstrates why during this period of global change it is key to diversify sources of meaning-making and the conceptual categories to reflect this diversification. And fourth, it turns to practices of contestation as drivers of inter-societal negotiations that target both established fundamental norms of global governance (e.g. the rule of law, human rights, and democracy) and more recently, negotiated fundamental norms (e.g. climate justice, gender justice, or intergenerational justice). The article concludes that a conceptual shift from the agency of states and their representatives as carriers of knowledge and mediators of normative change towards engaging societal agency represents a welcome contribution.