Beyond Rule: Conventions, Confidence, and Creativity in International Orders

• In Event: The Politics of International Norm Adoption, Evolution, and (non)Compliance

Abstract

IR theory posits that rules are the basis of institutions and institutions are the basis of international orders. In recent years, two developments have challenged the idea that we can rest structural theories of order on rules and norms. First, processual and relational approaches to IR theory have challenged the assumption that we should think of norms and rules as stable entities at all. Instead, they argue that continuously reproduced routines, habits, and network structures explain the stability of social orders. Moreover, new work in this vein has shown that the practices of making and enacting rules are more creative and contextual than we previously thought. Second, the sudden sense that the international order itself is unstable highlights the important role of conventions and degrees of confidence. As conventions are flouted and confidence undermined by reckless foreign policy behavior, the system becomes more unstable than it would if it rested on enduring norms and rules. Both trends question the very idea that we can build some generalizable body of theory about the conditions under which norms and rules become stable or why some rules take hold and not others. Instead, they seem to push us to theorize elements of international politics that rules-based theories of the rules-based order missed.

Author

• Bentley B. Allan, Johns Hopkins University