Normativity of International Practices

With the intro­duction of prac­tice theories to Inter­national Re­lations (IR), the discip­line has begun to re­visit several of its key con­cepts by taking inter­national practices as the central unit of ana­lysis. This in­cludes the notions of norms and norma­tivity. How can prac­tice theories con­tribute to the vivid re­search area of IR norms re­search? How are inter­national prac­tices linked to inter­national norms and vice-versa? How can we criti­cize inter­national practices? This project ex­plores the mani­fold and in­tricate links bet­ween norma­tivity and practice. Dra­wing on field-theo­retical approaches and the prag­matic socio­logy, the project con­tributes to a better under­standing of how actors cope with and shape over­lapping fields and multiple, hybrid “orders of worth”. Theo­reti­cally, the project shifts the focus from study­ing indi­vidual norms to the nor­mative multi­plicity and hybri­dity of inter­national practices. Em­pirically, the project studies dis­putes about trans­national practices such as corruption in the German par­liament or infra­structure pro­jects in China’s Belt and Road Initia­tive. It ana­lyses situated dis­putes in which inter­national practices are e­valuated, con­tested, and changed.