Contestation 'all the way down'? The grammar of contestation in norm research

Research output: Journal contributionsScientific review articlesResearch

Authors

  • Holger Niemann
  • Henrik Schillinger
The meaning of norms is empirically contested. Supposing an inherent instability of norm meaning, contestation, therefore, represents a fundamental conceptual challenge to the mainstream view on norms as shared understandings. By offering a grammatical reading of Antje Wiener's approach to contestation, we examine how norm research addresses this challenge to its theoretical core assumption. We argue that the grammar of Wiener's approach, despite its reflexive starting point, ultimately reintroduces an understanding of norms as facts and leads to a normative 'politics of reality'. This effectively turns contestation into a disruption of the 'normal' state of norms. Demonstrating the challenges of theorising norms with rather than against contestation, the article concludes that norm research has yet to find ways to account for contestation 'all the way down' in order to sustain norms as a productive analytical concept in IR.
Original languageEnglish
JournalReview of International Studies
Volume43
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)29-49
Number of pages21
ISSN0260-2105
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.01.2017

    Research areas

  • Contestation, Norm Research, Grammatical Reading, Meaning-in-use
  • Politics