Argumentation and Compromise: Ireland's Selection of the Territorial Status Quo Norm

Abstract

How do states come to select norms? I contend that, given a number of conditions are present, states select norms in three ideal-typical stages: innovative argumentation, persuasive argumentation, and compromise+ This norm selection mechanism departs from the existing literature in two important ways+ First, my research elaborates on the literature on advocacy networks+ I explain why agents engage in an advocacy for a normative idea in the first place; I add the epistemic dimension of reasoning to argumentation theory; and I show in detail the pathways through which persuasive argumentation links an advocated idea and alreadyestablished sets of meaning+ Second, synthesizing rationalist and constructivist selection mechanisms, I contend that successful argumentation makes recalcitrant actors eager to reach a compromise with the advocates as long as this does not violate their most cherished beliefs+ The Republic of Ireland's eventual selection of the territorial status quo norm in the late 1990s lends empirical evidence to this norm selection mechanism+ This study addresses two pervasive aspects of the social world: argumentation and compromise+ Drawing on taken-for-granted ideas that enable us to make the world intelligible to ourselves, we make and exchange arguments to make up our minds about a particular issue and to persuade others to follow our reasoning+ Some arguments convince us+ We are persuaded by the line of reasoning that the argumentation contains+ Other arguments, by contrast, are unconvincing+ Of these unconvincing arguments, some violate our most deeply held beliefs+ They upset us and we reject them categorically+ Others, by contrast, do not violate our most profound beliefs+ We discard them with less vigor and are prepared to compromise on our stance+ I would like to thank of all, Emanuel Adler for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article+ I am also greatly indebted to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of IO for their detailed and insightful comments+

Deterritorialisation, reterritorialisation, nations and states: Irish nationalist discourses on nation and territory before and after the Good Friday Agreement

“…McCall (1998McCall ( , 1999McCall ( , 2001 has clearly demonstrated that there has been a realignment of nationalist territorial identity but has chosen to focus on the SDLP (a leading Northern Irish Party) and has excluded southern constitutional nationalism (in particular the leading Fianna Fáil Party in the Irish Republic) from his remit. By limiting their study to the official nationalist discourse in the Republic of Ireland (Kornprobst 2007;Hayward 2006Hayward , 2009), others also minimize or even ignore the tensions and divergences between Irish constitutional nationalist parties, especially the SDLP (northern party) and Fianna Fáil (southern party).…”

“…The European institutions are not the only supra-state institutions that have led Irish nationalism to reshape its territorial discourse. Others such as the United Nations or the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), for instance, have also been influential in bringing about a redefinition of the nationalist conception of selfdetermination and its endorsement of the norm of the territorial integrity of states (Kornprobst 2007). …”

“…Paraphrasing Mansergh's words, this meant that Irish Republicans were invited to redefine their theory of self-determination in order to make it compatible with the norm of the territorial integrity of states, in this case the territorial integrity of the British and the Irish States. For Kornprost, it went even further and endorsed the territorial status quo norm (Kornprobst 2007).…”

Cheating on climate change? Australia's challenge to global warming norms

“…4. This conception of the domestic social structure is informed by the work of Bernstein (2001: 186), Kornprobst (2007) and Risse-Kappen (1994: 187, 208Á9). 5.…”

Functionalism, Normativity and the Concept of Argumentation

“…Secondly, the actual shape of the rules is somewhat moot. It is enough to make the point that argumentation is a social practice that one observes the Wittgensteinian principle 7 This point is also made--and illustrated byconcrete political examples--in Kornprobst (2007).…”