Differences Beyond Theory: Structural, Strategic, and Sentimental Approaches to Normative Change

Abstract

Widmaier, Wesley W. and Susan Park. (2012) Differences Beyond Theory: Structural, Strategic, and Sentimental Approaches to Normative Change. International Studies Perspectives, doi: 10.1111/j.1528‐3585.2012.00459.x © 2012 International Studies Association Over the past two decades, one of the main themes in IR theory debates has been a concern for the interplay of agents, structures, and change. In this article, we engage with these debates as they pertain to “the state of the art” by highlighting in broad fashion three “constructivist turns” and their implications for efforts to explain the rise and demise of norms. More specifically, we offer a stylized history of a debate marked by shifting emphases on structural constraints, strategic practices, and sentimental forces. In the context of this symposium, while we accept many of our colleagues’ critiques of extant scholarship, we draw on the work of Richard Rorty to argue that the most important differences pertain to matters “beyond theory,” regarding the effects of norms in enabling the establishment of either an open community or disciplinary society.

Bringing the outsiders in: an interactionist perspective on deviance and normative change in international politics

“…Second, under the behavioural revolution in social sciences (Hafner-Burton et al 2017), scholars started to study emotions in the research of international norm dynamics. The 'sentimental' approaches to norm research (Widmaier and Park 2012) highlight strong emotional reactions connected with violations of internalized norms, as well as the absence of emotional reactions when the norms had not been fully internalized (see Mercer 2006, 298-299;Crawford 2000, 154). Non-IR researchers in cognition have likewise observed feelings of disgust, fear, anger, and contempt in response to violations of social norms (Keltner and Haidt 1999;Smith 2007).…”

Office Hours: How (Critical) Norm Research Can Regain Its Voice

“…The articles of Epstein (2012), Inayatullah and Blaney (2012a), MacKenzie and Sesay (2012) and Widmaier and Park (2012) (Epstein 2012: pp. 140-141;MacKenzie and Sesay 2012: pp.…”

“…For exampleAdler (1997);Finnemore and Sikkink (1998);Checkel (1999); see alsoWidmaier and Park (2012) for a recent review of constructivist norm research. 2Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: p. 891); see alsoKatzenstein (1996: p. 5) andKowert and Legro (1996: p. 483); Florini (1996: p. 380).…”

Advocacy strategies for human rights: the campaign for the moratorium on the death penalty

“…Persuasion-related communication plays a crucial role in strategic decisionmaking related to human rights. This paper interprets persuasion as the act that makes people change their attitude toward a specific issue, and assumes this to derive, in the case of transnational campaigns, not only, as conventionally expected, from the unidirectional influence of the macro-framing of the mobilization, but also from an inter-subjective process in which emotions and sentiments play a significant role in changing the attitude of individual gate-keepers (Widmaier and Park, 2012). In an attempt to capture the actual weight of persuasion in the strategic thinking of transnational actors, it is thus important to (1) identify the different levels of persuasion, that is, macro-frames and micro-emotions; and (2) understand their interplay.…”