Abstract
This chapter first outlines the dominant approach to norms in international relations, and on the basis of that analysis, demonstrates how morphogenesis can help illuminate how norms emerge, develop, change; and hence shape accepted modes of behaviour in the international political system. Essentially, the argument has two aspects. First, that the concept of a ‘norm life cycle’ is a useful way to consider how norms emerge, develop and die, but that it can be improved if placed within the context of morphogenesis. Second, that a fundamental aspect of late modernity, or the morphogenic society, is the manner in which cultural and structural elaboration now operate in (almost) the same temporal dimension. Cultural elaboration has an almost instantaneous impact on structural elaboration and vice versa. What explains this is the compression of time and space, which is itself explained by the emergence new modes of interaction, new technologies and the glimmers of an emergent global civil society. As a nascent, yet to be, society, however, its norms are highly dynamic, fragmented, fluid, constantly changing, and highly contested.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the capitalised form to refer to the Discipline of International Relations, and the non-capitalised form to refer to the practices that the Discipline studies.
- 2.
Realism here refers to political realism and bears no relationship to the philosophical realism that is embraced by morphogenesis.
- 3.
This is an interesting example because, in many respects, the norms surrounding this issue have led to a situation where the rules are underpinned by a different standard of proof than that required by the law. Thus, for example, campus authorities in the USA have moved to a norm of ‘more likely than not’ when considering these claims, rather than the one adopted in criminal cases where the standard is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. MacDonald N. (2014) Washington throws the book at ‘campus rape culture’. CBC News. (accessed 20 December 2014). There is also no doubt that the weakness of the norms surrounding these interactions is playing a major role here. It is as if the men and the women involved in these interactions no longer know where the normative boundaries are.
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Wight, C. (2016). Emergence, Development and Death: Norms in International Society. In: Archer, M. (eds) Morphogenesis and the Crisis of Normativity . Social Morphogenesis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28439-2_4
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