The implicit normativity of political practices. Analyzing the dynamics and power relations of committee decision-making

Abstract

If one understands political decisions as normatively binding, the question arises as to how bindingness in this sense is produced. Political decisions are not only binding for the citizens concerned. First of all, mutual bindingness has to be achieved between the political agents involved. This paper aims to present a process-oriented analysis of the normative forces at work in political face-to-face decision interactions. In this context, we introduce a two-dimensional conception of political normativity. The dimension of implicit, in-process normativity complements the dimension of explicit, rule-following normativity. The second part of the paper provides an empirical illustration of a typical political practice of decision-making, taken from an analysis of actual committee meetings. This illustration serves to exemplify the processual character and the dynamics as well as the internal power relations of bindingness-production.