Anyone following the myriad “turns” in constructivist international relations over the past few decades may be forgiven for feeling intellectual whiplash. Norms, discourse, practices—Foucault versus Bourdieu—what difference does it really make? Fortunately, Antje Wiener provides a valuable remedy for this affliction. Tackling complex terrain, Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations sorts through the theoretical stakes of these debates and distills an ambitious agenda for future research.

Chapter 1 sets the stage by asking “Whose Practices Count?” and then by calling for the inclusion of a wider range of actors in the analysis of normative change. Wiener’s agenda to develop a global “multilogue” (p. 4) opens an avenue for more nuanced understanding of recursivity, a conceptual and methodological issue that has dogged researchers for decades. Norms structure practices, while practices recreate norms, and so linear arguments necessarily bracket one or the other process. Consequently, no single theory or method suffices, leading to the proliferation of “new” approaches and their corollary, academic mud slinging (hence, intellectual whiplash).

To circumvent this bracketing problem, which underpins debate over norms versus practices, Wiener builds on her own earlier empirical work on meaning-in-use to concentrate on contestation. In contrast to conventional discourse analyses, which typically privilege visible texts (whether documents or physical actions), contestation as a methodological focal point helps to illuminate taken-for-granted ideational structures that otherwise remain hidden. Going a step further, to capture inherent tensions between ethical principles and everyday practices, this chapter previews a helpful distinction between proactive critiques and reactive objections. This distinction features prominently in both the framework and illustrations that follow.

Because the book features two distinctive parts, half framework and half illustrations, readers can approach it in multiple ways. Those familiar with theoretical disagreements about norms in IR might plunge directly into Chapters 2–4, where Wiener presents a multifaceted grid framework to untangle the ways in which recursive processes operate. Alternatively, those concerned with how these theoretical nuances manifest empirically might prefer to read one or more of the illustrations offered in Chapters 5–7 before engaging the framework.

Not a book to skim, Contestation and Constitution of Norms never claims to be an introduction; people less familiar with these literatures should start with one of the illustrations, each of which includes a summary table linking it to the framework. In the context of counterterrorism, Chapter 5 examines due process for individuals as central in disagreements between the European Court of Justice and the United Nations Security Council over the enforcement of targeted sanctions. Rather than viewing legal objections as an example of compliance failure, Wiener concludes that the European Union prioritized what it viewed as more fundamental rights. Yet she does not blithely conflate norms with ethics, as Chapter 6 offers sharp criticism of attempts by the United States to redefine torture. Nor does ethical agreement preclude other types of contestation, as illustrated in Chapter 7, which explores disagreements over the implementation of the widely endorsed prohibition on sexual violence during wartime.

These cases illustrate merely three of nine types of contestation that Wiener explains in Chapters 2–4 and encapsulates in a synthetic grid framework summarized in Figure 2.1 (p. 44). Sifting deftly through dense philosophical and legal literatures, she disaggregates two distinct dimensions—scales and phases—to provide nine potential “sites” of contestation. Analysts can concentrate on dynamics within each site or factors that drive transitions from one to another. Reaggregated, these two analytical tasks can provide leverage on how norms arise, evolve, or collapse over time. Wiener offers a typology, summarized in Table 3.1 (p. 62) that differentiates macro-level fundamental norms of wide-ranging moral scope, meso-level organizing principles, and micro-level procedures most prone to reactive challenges.

Not all stakeholders have equal voice within these sites, nor are norms necessarily ethical principles, as clearly illustrated in the three case studies. Therefore, Wiener argues, procedural validation does not suffice to dampen potential discontent; social and cultural validation also matter, especially at the micro level. Chapter 3 provides more details on this notion of validation and its implications for including ethics in the analysis of practices.

To guide implementation of this framework, Chapter 4 outlines three steps for research, which the author then employs in Chapters 5–7. First, analysis should identify the site of contestation on the grid, based on scale and phase. Second, analysis should identify the opportunity structure that enables or constrains who can contest norms and how. Third, analysis should assess the impact of contestation on both procedural and principled aspects of normative change. Wiener stresses the exploratory rather than explanatory nature of her analysis. Each case of contestation (individual rights, torture prohibition, and wartime rape, summarized in Table 8.1, p. 222) highlights tensions overlooked in studies that concentrate on formal institutions.

Attempting to situate this project within a broader agenda of “Global” IR, Wiener does better in mapping abstractly how diverse voices might participate than in actually demonstrating their influence. The examples remain firmly embedded in the Global North, with the Global South featuring mainly as the passive arena of norm violation. For instance, the protagonist of Chapter 7 on gender violence turns out to be the British foreign secretary. Certainly, white male allies play critical roles, as Wiener acknowledges, but that racial and gendered dynamic merits deeper analysis within the grid framework. Notably, given the emphasis on contributing to the Global IR agenda, why not explore the issue of indigenous rights? For example, Sheryl Lightfoot’s Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution (2016) merits engagement, both theoretically and empirically, because the author makes strikingly similar arguments about how and why normative change happens.

While Wiener does not seek to illustrate all cells of the grid framework, nor transitions between them, greater attention to questions arising from explanatory aims would be helpful. For instance, the rationale for selecting these three cases, and not others, could be stronger. Also, prior studies on transnational social movements might offer hypotheses about particular aspects of opportunity structure—a notoriously broad category—that might be salient for each cell in the grid. Similarly, given three types of norms, how should “change” be gauged across multiple dimensions?

Methodologically, Wiener may inadvertently create confusion by referring to “local sites” within “local–global” processes to mean micro-level dynamics. Her recurring encouragement to “zoom in” apparently means to pay close attention to what individual people do and to what meanings individual texts convey. Perhaps this terminology makes sense as a bridge between IR and international law scholars. However, field researchers may think of zooming in as paying attention to local-level dynamics in a geographical sense, which would entail the use of ethnographic methods.

No project is perfect, and these clarifications and omissions remind us that the most valuable interventions in any debate set out new questions. Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations has the potential to frame the next generation of IR scholarship, precisely at a time when the field stares at a potential new world order in which many taken-for-granted liberal norms confront strident opposition.