Research

Research Projects

The Politics of International Norms: A Rhetorical Approach (book project, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press; expected publication late 2024/early 2025)

Norm contestation is prevalent in international affairs: legal ambiguities and tensions generate debate, even when well-established international norms are applied to concrete situations. This book discusses a wide range of norm disputes and develops a rhetorical approach to the politics of international norms. I demonstrate how actors can agree or disagree on the norm frame (norm-based justification) and/or behavioural claim (implementing action) when applying international law. Thus, norm contestation can have four ‘alternate endings’: norm impasse, norm neglect, norm recognition and norm clarification. These alternate endings affect the clarity and strength of the contested norms, as well as subsequent debate, differently. Furthermore, this book explains how the three elements of rhetoric—speakers (including delegation to agents), argumentation and audience reactions— influence the duration and outcome of contestation. This rhetorical approach is applied to eight norm disputes, ranging from military interventions to contestation over the human rights of terror suspects. 

Disentangling norms, morality and principles (with Jess Gliserman, published by EJIR in Sept 2022)

We adapt a conceptual and methodological approach from political psychology for identifying actors’ motivations: moral convictions. The September 2019 Brexit rebellion allowed us to investigate the role of (moral) principles in decision-making because it endangered rebels’ careers, making material self-interest unlikely. Based on interviews with British Members of Parliament (MPs) and text analysis, we identify norm-principle interplay: when existing norms give unclear guidance and in-group identification weakens, actors are likely to rely on their subjective (moral) principles to interpret community norms. However, pre-existing norms channel and constrain morality and its consequences, such as intolerance towards those with opposing views.

Next, in our book project, we plan to apply this interview methodology and theory to a variety of actors who took equally costly and internationally significant actions: whistleblowing on sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, spying on UN Security Council delegations, and on NSA surveillance. These cases show the relevance of moral convictions research and ‘norm-principle’ interplay to international relations more generally.  

The interaction of law and politics in norm implementation (In: “Contesting the World: Norms Research in Theory and Practice” edited by Phil Orchard and Antje Wiener, 2024)

In international affairs, legal arguments and political actions shape each other. Unlike in domestic affairs, there is no enforcement authority in international affairs, and hence there is much debate over how international law affects politics. Some scholars focus on how seriously states take legal obligations in their justifications of contested actions. Other scholars apply a higher bar for the influence of international law on politics, namely whether law causes compliance. While the focus on justificatory discourse risks seeing legal influence everywhere, the latter emphasis of causation risks setting the bar too high and overlooking other ways in which law can affect politics. This chapter argues that for a richer understanding of the interaction of law and politics, we need to explore the grey zone between empty words and purposive action. To do so, it proceeds in two steps. First, I suggest that we can identify the degree of commitment to international law by looking at the publicity and consistency of actions and justifications and the degree of engagement with the international community. Secondly, I show that depending on whether the words and actions of states display a strong or weak sense of obligation, we can characterise norm implementation as exposing weakness or strength of law or attempts at discursive or behavioural norm avoidance.

Constitutionalism and Constitutionalisation (with Karolina Milewicz, under review)

I am currently working on an edited volume chapter on ‘Constitutionalism and Constitutionalisation’ in international affairs for the Oxford Handbook of International Institutions (eds. Michael Barnett and Duncan Snidal). We show that constitutionalization happens at different levels – national, regional and international – and that constitutionalisation in international affairs is at the same time deepening and stalling due to contradictory impulses from national sentiments and globalisation. This chapter will be a stepping stone to further co-authored projects on the role of ‘rhetorical entrapment’ in deepening commitments to international law.

Conference Papers

2022

Virtual Participation at ISA Annual Convention, March 28-29: “Norm contestation in the UN Security Council: Partial agreements and their relative stability,” “The interaction of law and politics in norm implementation,” “Widening Horizons in Norms Research.” Virtual Roundtable.

2021

“Disentangling norms, morality and modes of reasoning: The September 2019 Brexit rebellion.” Virtual International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference, April 9, 2021.

“The Interaction of law and politics in norm implementation.” ISA Workshop on Norms, organised by Antje Wiener and Phil Orchard, March 31, 2021.

2020

“The interaction of law and politics in norm implementation.” Virtual Workshop on Norms, organised by Antje Wiener and Phil Orchard, March 24, 2020 (originally to be held at the ISA Annual Conference in Honolulu).

2019

“A reversal of arguments rather than of law: Protracted contestation over the status of Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.” Presentation at the Workshop on “International law in times of transformation”, St Andrews, 8 November 2019.

2018

“Breaking Deadlock? Efforts to Meet Half-Way in Norm Contestation.” Presentation at the IR Research Colloquium, organised by the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), University of Oxford, 7 June 2018.

“All Things Come to an End: What Resolves Norm Contestation?”, “The Dynamics of Dissent: When Actions are Louder than Words” (with Lea Wisken), ISA Annual Convention, San Francisco, April 2018.

2017

“The Outcomes of Norm Contestation,” BISA Annual Conference, Brighton, June 2018.

 “Norm life cycle’ or ‘norm square’? Changes in the norms of territorial integrity and sovereignty in the post-Cold War Era,” ISA Annual Convention, Baltimore, February 2017.

2016

“Trust in international legal interpreters – a missing piece in the compliance puzzle?”, “The rise and fall of Star Wars in US security policy: Insights into the battle over norms,” “Motivations for liberal peace building: A complex interplay of interests and ideas,” ISA Annual Convention, Atlanta, US, March 2016. 

2015

“Motivations for liberal peace building: A complex interplay of interests and ideas,” BISA Annual Conference 2015, London, UK. ​