Conceptualizing International Practices: Directions for the Practice Turn in International Relations

This book brings together the key scholars in the international practice debate to demonstrate its strengths as an innovative research perspective. The contributions show the benefit of practice theories in the study of phenomena in international security, international political economy and international organisation, by directing attention to concrete and observable everyday practices that shape international outcomes. The chapters exemplify the cross-overs and relations to other theoretical approaches, and thereby establish practice theories as a distinct IR perspective. Each chapter investigates a key concept that plays an important role in international relations theory, such as power, norms, knowledge, change or cognition. Taken together, the authors make a strong case that practice theories allow to ask new questions, direct attention to uncommon empirical material, and reach different conclusions about international relations phenomena. The book is a must read for anyone interested in recent international relations theory and the actual practices of doing global politics.

Table of Contents:
List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Part I. Introduction: Conversations and the Evolution of Practice Theorizing: 1. Conceptualizing international practices: establishing a research agenda in conversations Alena Drieschova and Christian Bueger; 2. Critiques of the practice turn in IR theory: some responses Ted Hopf; Part II. Key Concepts of IR Scholarship: 3. Epistemic communities of practice Emanuel Adler and Michael Faubert; 4. Practices and norms: relationships, disjunctures and change Steven Bernstein and Marion Laurence; 5. The Normativity of international practices Frank Gadinger; 6. Resistance as practice: counter-conduct after foucault William Walters; 7. For a practice approach to authority: the case of the emergence of central bankers' international authority Joelle Dumouchel; 8. Evolution in international practices Vincent Pouliot; Part III. Innovative Concepts: 9. The dynamics of repetition: translocal practice and transnational negotiations Hilmar Schäfe; 10. Visibility: practices of seeing and overlooking Jonathan Luke Austin with Anna Leander; Part III. Conclusion: The Future of Practice Theorizing: 11. Practices and a 'theory' of action? some conceptual issues concerning 'ends', 'reasons' and 'happiness' Friedrich Kratochwil; 12. Conclusion: The semiotic web of international practice theorizing Alena Drieschova and Christian Bueger; References; Index.

About the Author :
Alena Drieschova is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Cambridge. She is currently working on her book manuscript, which provides a macro-historical analysis of international order stability and change based on changes in material culture. Christian Bueger is professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen, honorary professor at the University of Seychelles and a research fellow at the University of Stellenbosch. He is the author of International Practice Theory (2018 with Frank Gadinger). Ted Hopf is a Research Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium of Advanced Studies. His main fields of interest are international relations theory, qualitative research methods, and identity. His article, "Change in International Practices," published in the European Journal of International Relations, received the European International Studies Association Award for Best Article in EJIR, in 2017.

Review :
This marvelous collection well charts the variety of practice theories drawn on in contemporary international relations research, thereby revealing what makes practice theory coherent as a distinct general approach in the field. Insightfully exploring new understandings that theories of practices provide of familiar IR concepts such as knowledge, norms, power, and change, the book also examines new concepts such as repetition and visibility that they offer to the field. Of undoubtedly great value to IR scholars, the volume is also recommended to scholars outside the field who are interested in the concepts that it explores. Ted Schatzki, Professor of Geography, Philosophy, and Sociology, University of Kentucky A first-rate volume on the present and future directions of the study of practices by many of its most important exponents. Michael Barnett, Professor of International Relations, George Washington University