The Normativity of Global Ordering Practices

Abstract

AbstractThis article integrates normative theoretical analysis into accounts of international order by connecting the study of international practice to debates about the nature and moral purpose of states’ social association. Combining English School and social practice theory with insights from scholarship on colonialism, race, and empire, we conceptualize international order as a dynamic, contested, but often stable and durable, set of patterns of practice and show how they set ethical reference points and privilege certain claims over others in relation to legitimate agency and morally appropriate conduct. To allow for a grounded normative analysis of global ordering practices, we connect actors’ capacity to exercise creative normative agency to debates about legitimate membership and morally appropriate conduct in international society. We highlight the normative significance of historical context for the study of international practices and illustrate our theoretical arguments with examples from various ordering practices, including international law, war, diplomacy, and economic practice, where actors frequently draw on foundational values to construct normative claims about inclusion and exclusion. At the same time, agents’ creative capacity to alter existing and create new rights and obligations has transformed our thinking, acting, and arguing about the nature and moral purpose of world order.