Discourse, normative change and the quest for reconciliation in global politics

Governing effectively in a complex world? How metagovernance norms and changing repertoires of knowledge shape international organisation discourses on institutional order in global health

“…Our proposition to study institutional order in the field of global health by studying metagovernance norms builds on recent trends in IR research on norms and, at the same time, constitutes an extension of these theories. In recent decades, critical currents of IR norms research have sought to move beyond via media constructivist conceptualizations of norms as relatively stable standards of appropriate behaviour (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998;Katzenstein 1996) towards anti-essentialist, context-sensitive understandings of norms as contingent, contested and interrelated (Bj€ orkdahl 2002; Engelkamp et al 2012; Krook and True 2012;Renner 2013;Wiener and Puetter 2009;Zehfuß 2002). This development has gone along with a shift in research focus, away from questions of norm diffusion, socialization and compliance to an emphasis on norm dynamism, enactment, meaning-struggle and translation of norms across social contexts (Acharya 2004;Almagro 2018;Deitelhoff and Zimmermann 2013;Lantis and Wunderlich 2018;Wiener 2009;Zwingel 2012).…”

“…A promising analytical direction for such inquiries is to focus on how metagovernance norms are underpinned and contested through changing i) causal beliefs about how governance functions and changing ii) discursively constituted problem constructions. Whilst IR norms research has long acknowledged that norm emergence and institutionalization depend on how new norms relate to existing ones (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), in recent years scholars have turned increasing attention to how norms are embedded in, draw certainty from, and are reproduced through their discursive surroundings and practical enactments (Almagro 2018;Renner 2013;Wiener 2009;Winston 2017). We extend on this line of thinking by arguing that metagovernance norms gain epistemic force, not only through connections to other norms but much more through connections to problem constructions i.e., governance problems and causal beliefs about governance.…”

Discursive institutions in non-transitional societies: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

“…Judith Renner (2013) has provided the most systematic account of the discourse of reconciliation. She argues that the South African TRC's discourse was constitutive, insofar as it created 'spaces for political intervention in the name of the meanings it displays' (34).…”

The public valuation of religion in global health governance: spiritual health and the faith factor

“…For example, the bureaucracies of international organizations, state agencies, or well-equipped non-state organizations develop assessment tools for measuring values such as political freedom, transparency, economic development or stability, and they increasingly use rankings that operationalize what are 'good' national health systems, 'creditworthy states' or 'environmentally sustainable' commodities (Cooley & Snyder, 2015;Dingwerth & Pattberg, 2009). They also develop new elaborate rituals such as the practice of 'truth telling' as a means to perform 'justice' and 'peace' (Renner, 2013). Thereby, 'universal' values such as peace, fairness or sustainability, which would otherwise remain thin and vague, take on manifest meanings that can be measured and drawn on in real-world interactions.…”