II. Criticising IR’s practice turn

Lechner and Frost’s critique of IR’s practice turn is stark, and in large parts centres around the idea that a Bourdieu-inspired practice turn confuses action and practice, and hence does not sufficiently acknowledge the constitutive role of rules.^{Footnote 22} Accordingly, their core critique in Chapter 2 uses an analysis of Bourdieu’s theory of practice to preface their discussion of IR’s practice turn. When discussing micro practices, Lechner and Frost turn to a critique of Foucault and add, as a side note, that the same criticism purportedly applies to Bourdieu.^{Footnote 23} Other sources of inspiration and cross-fertilisation for IR’s practice turn, such as the work of Luc Boltanski, remain unmentioned.^{Footnote 24}

When taken together, the criticism of IR’s practice turn thus presented appears to be reductionist, to the extent that it risks overlooking important parts of the discussion. Lechner and Frost’s treatment of IR’s practice turn is mainly confined to three selected chapters within Adler and Pouliot’s 2011 edited volume, as well as Pouliot’s 2010 monograph.^{Footnote 25} Indeed, their discussion of IR’s practice turn seems to treat the literature as if it had barely moved on since the publication of Adler and Pouliot’s edited volume (which, after all, was published almost a decade ago).^{Footnote 26} One can, of course, respond that this has probably been a conscious choice that sacrifices breadth for depth, and Lechner and Frost indeed explicitly do so.^{Footnote 27} Furthermore, this is not to question that both Boudieu’s oeuvre, as well as Adler and Pouliot’s work that takes inspiration from Bourdieu, have been highly influential. However, the book arguably would have benefited from a more detailed treatment of a larger variety of authors, even if just as a brief acknowledgement of other strands within and around IR’s practice turn that serves to contextualise the discussion. Indeed, I would have been curious to learn how the authors think their argument relates to parts of IR’s practice turn that extend beyond Bourdieu-inspired frameworks.

Turning to the content of their critique, Lechner and Frost then make the astute observation that Adler and Pouliot’s framework under-theorises practices, and that the definition of practices as ‘competent performances’ is problematic.^{Footnote 28} Indeed, with this observation, they put the finger where it hurts. However, it similarly seems that Lechner and Frost could have sharpened their contribution by setting it in relation with other voices that have taken issue with Adler and Pouliot’s view of international practices.^{Footnote 29} After all, Adler and Pouliot’s work has not only opened a lively debate, but also frequently serves as a starting point for a ‘next generation’ of IR practice theorists.

To be sure, not all of this is Lechner and Frost’s fault. Part of the blame arguably rests with IR’s practice turn itself, and the foil for criticism that it leaves. Since its beginning, the charge has been made that is not really a ‘turn’, given its lack of coherence.^{Footnote 30} In this situation, Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger not only made the (rather brave) attempt to identify core notions of practice theory.^{Footnote 31} They also distinguished between five strands exhibiting these characteristics that they, by 2014, saw as ‘striving in IR’, including work that draws on the concept of communities of practice or Actor-Network Theory.^{Footnote 32} Confronted with this slightly messy debate, and especially in light of the criticism that it conflates important differences,^{Footnote 33} Lechner and Frost may be forgiven for deciding to block out much of this confusion. Still, it is noteworthy that they diverge considerably from Bueger and Gadinger’s key characteristics. At the very least, Lechner and Frost’s idea of macro practices is squarely at odds with Bueger and Gadinger’s perceived focus on ‘multiplicity’, which rejects the idea of investigating one global, all-encompassing social order.^{Footnote 34} Indeed, Lechner and Frost end up with an approach that is remarkably removed from the rich empirical insights of Bourdieu’s work.

Criticising how other authors relate to the existing literature arguably always carries the risk of raising a moot point – after all, one can always do more. However, in Lechner and Frost’s case, their engagement that seems to be too broad and too narrow at the same time is almost puzzling, and might have hindered their ability to make their points as clearly as possible. That the authors call their own approach to international practices simply ‘practice theory’ in the conclusion rather exacerbates the problem.^{Footnote 35} In the end, their engagement with the literature may reveal what reads like a key tension within the book. At least part of the problem might thus be that Lechner and Frost seem to aim at a moving target. As it becomes apparent in the conclusion, their primary concern seems to be not so much with IR’s practice turn, but with the dominance of scientific realism within IR (‘Scientific realism in IR, in other words, is the main philosophical challenger to our practice theory.’).^{Footnote 36} At the same time, they acknowledge their closeness to constructivist thought,^{Footnote 37} and explicitly draw on the English School.^{Footnote 38} Against this backdrop, it would have been very interesting to hear in more detail how the authors situate themselves not vis-à-vis IR’s practice turn, but more recent work following into the footsteps of the English School (and especially its view of practice),^{Footnote 39} as well as – indeed – critical constructivist scholarship, or IR scholarship more generally that does not fall within the category of scientific realism. In the end, it almost seems like this would have been a more natural starting point.

III. Hegel meets the English School

This observation brings me to my second point, and to Lechner and Frost’s neo-Hegelian account of the dialectical tensions between and within two overarching practices, the practice of sovereign states and the global practice of rights. While their account of the practice of sovereign states highlights equal, mutually recognised freedom among states as constitutive, the practice of global rights turns our attention to the protection of individuals’ basic rights.^{Footnote 40} Both practices are portrayed as containing tensions within and between them entailing their respective ‘ethical self-erosion’, which have only partly been mitigated.^{Footnote 41} The ensuing account of these two practices is rewarding, and leads to insightful reflections especially on the deepening of global inequality. Specifically, the authors develop an intriguing account of the unintended ethical consequences of the (‘ethically legitimate’) pursuit of freedom within a global economy.^{Footnote 42}

When introducing their discussion of the practice of sovereign states, Lechner and Frost explicitly refer to the English School idea of the expansion of international society.^{Footnote 43} Furthermore, they use Hedley Bull’s view of anarchy as a starting point for their discussion of the ethical and mutually recognised status of states as free and equal as enshrined within the practice of sovereign states.^{Footnote 44} However, Lechner and Frost then clarify that their account is not interested in history. In their own words, ‘[m]etaphorically, we might say that we are focussed on examining [the practice of sovereign states’] logical architecture, leaving aside its history’.^{Footnote 45} For an account that takes its initial point of discussion in the English School and that, after all, still mentions the idea of the expansion of international society, this decision is remarkable. The choice to mention, but then exclude history also comes with the downside that it does not prompt the authors to discuss some of the criticisms that were raised against the initial versions of the expansion story itself (as populated by Bull and Adam Watson, whom Lechner and Frost draw on).^{Footnote 46} Most notably, Bull and Watson’s version of the narrative of the expansion of international society has been criticised as Eurocentric, given that it, among others, downplays the agency of non-European states, and overlooks the violent struggles and exploitation this ‘expansion’ brought with it.^{Footnote 47}

One may object that for Lechner and Frost’s book, this is surely a minor point. After all, the authors soon leave the English School behind, and do not mention it explicitly in their subsequent discussion of the global practice of rights. However, at least partly due to their ‘a-historical’ approach, Lechner and Frost may have inadvertently incorporated some similar drawbacks into their own analysis. Specifically, when discussing the global practice of rights, they distinguish between a ‘mature’ international society, in which states protect basic rights of individuals regardless of their citizenship, and an ‘immature’ international society, in which such rights are not readily recognised.^{Footnote 48} These basic rights comprise, but are not limited to: the right to bodily integrity, property, free association and free speech, as well as the right to freely cross state borders, including refugee rights.^{Footnote 49} Such a ‘“mature” domain’, according to the authors, ‘is roughly coextensive with the trans-Atlantic society of states, though it is not strictly limited to it’.^{Footnote 50} In a footnote, they follow Chris Brown to ‘lis[t] Canada, the United States, the European Union, Norway and Switzerland …, and [potentially] add Japan’ as members.^{Footnote 51} Germany (and the EU more generally) is explicitly mentioned as an example, due to the number of refugees from Syria it took in in 2017.^{Footnote 52} States within the ‘immature’ part of international society, in turn, are repeatedly described as ‘autocratic, totalitarian or weak (failed or quasi)’ states.^{Footnote 53}

Why these states, and why these rights? Does this distinction imply that every state that is not included within the list of ‘mature’ states qualifies as authoritarian? And how would Lechner and Frost assess Lebanon, for example, which according to the UNHCR hosted 992,100 refugees from Syria in 2017 (compared to 496,700 in Germany)?^{Footnote 54} Furthermore, Angela Merkel’s decision to open the borders in 2015 has been far from uncontroversial in Germany. How would this controversy fit into Lechner and Frost’s story, not to mention the property damage, as well as violent and arson attacks committed against asylum seeker homes (estimated to have together been roughly one per day across Germany in 2017)?^{Footnote 55} Finally, why focus on these rights in the first place, also with regard to the (somewhat odd, but contemporary) addition of the right to seek refuge? After all, which rights should be favoured has, of course, historically been part of a political endeavour coloured by the Cold War, as reflected in the separation between the two 1966 International Covenants.

Lechner and Frost probably have a well thought-through, Hegel-inspired response to at least some of these questions. My point here is a different one. First, especially when set into the context of the criticism the story of the expansion of international society has received, one has to wonder how much Lechner and Frost miss when ‘paint[ing] in the bold strokes of the theorist and not with the detailed palette of the historian’.^{Footnote 56} After all, historical ‘details’ sometimes do matter, not least to provide an avenue for critique, and especially as a tool to counter Eurocentrism.^{Footnote 57} What is more, not providing a more fine-grained account almost seems like a lost opportunity, given that Lechner and Frost’s outline might have generated further insights on the recent populist pushback against refugee rights, for example, which is only mentioned indirectly and in passing.^{Footnote 58}

Second, when moving from their more general, philosophical outline of their practice theory to an analysis of international relations, I could not help but wish that Lechner and Frost had provided a more detailed discussion on how to implement their strand of internalism. After all, they reject all but their own version of internalism on epistemological grounds, arguing that the result would otherwise risk arbitrariness.^{Footnote 59} It is not that Lechner and Frost do away with empirics altogether though. Instead, their discussion of the global practice of rights is supplemented with anecdotes that highlight, for example, Germany but not the Lebanon. For Lechner and Frost, this is not a problem. As they explain when outlining which rights they chose to focus on, their hermeneutic approach does not intend to build a theory that ‘seek[s] confirmation in actual social facts’, but ‘starts with the interpretation of social facts and seeks to render these facts coherent’.^{Footnote 60} However, Lechner and Frost seem to have other social facts in mind than I do, even though we are all presumably internal to the same global practice of rights.

Part of the challenge might be that Lechner and Frost seem to mostly focus on epistemology and their brand of internalism, as opposed to exploring their understanding of hermeneutics and methodology and how it might bridge the tension between internalism rooted in individual self-consciousness and a focus on normative macro structures. Indeed, in the only paragraph that discusses methodology more generally, they (rather forcefully) squeeze interviewing and participant observation in under the (rejected) label of methodologies ‘modelled on the hard sciences’.^{Footnote 61} In their analysis of their key two practices, however, what we are then left with is a series of anecdotes, which, in turn, seem to exhibit some considerable blind spots. Ultimately, I agree with the authors that there are some difficult epistemological and methodological challenges when attempting to understand someone else’s reality, as well as the normative pull of the rules and norms they follow. However, if my choice was between a certain degree of arbitrariness and mere approximation on epistemological grounds and an account that remains confined to a selection of anecdotes to explore macro structures, I am not sure whether the latter option is all that more appealing. Furthermore, Lechner and Frost’s combination of their brand of internalism with a focus on macro practices might also significantly limit the possibility for critique and disagreement with their approach, a point that I will return to in the subsequent discussion.

IV. Studying the evolution of international law

In this final section, I will consider how Lechner and Frost’s approach would play out with regard to one specific aspect: the evolution of international law. As mentioned in the beginning, this seems to be an adequate focal point to explore some of the authors’ core claims, and the promises and challenges their approach entails. International law is an aspect that is frequently mentioned throughout the book, and explicitly labelled as a practice.^{Footnote 62} Lechner and Frost repeatedly draw on the work of HLA Hart, among other legal theorists.^{Footnote 63} What is more, also change in international law more specifically should be of interest to Lechner and Frost, given their own emphasis on change in Chapter 5. Indeed, the authors see the potential for (gradual) change as a key characteristic that distinguishes practices from games.^{Footnote 64}

What would a Lechner and Frost-inspired inquiry into the evolution of international law look like? To begin with, any account would have to follow their theorisation of practices. Lechner and Frost define a practice as ‘a distinctive domain of rule-following activity [that is, rules learned not abstractly, but through application], defined by concrete constitutive rules and espoused as common understanding by a group of participants’.^{Footnote 65} Constitutive rules make an activity possible in the first place, as they outline which activity qualifies as such.^{Footnote 66} Furthermore, practices need to consist of ‘a unity of multiple rules’, instead of being confined to a single one.^{Footnote 67} Finally, according to the authors, practices can best be identified by contrasting them with each other.^{Footnote 68} International law arguably encompasses multiple constitutive rules and can be distinguished from other domains of practice such as morality (a distinction the authors draw explicitly).^{Footnote 69} Helpfully, Lechner and Frost themselves conclude that international law qualifies as a practice.^{Footnote 70}

Would international law also constitute a macro practice? Here, we might have to introduce a first caveat. According to the authors, macro practices have four main characteristics: they are ‘second-order’ practices, comprehensive, ‘ethically fundamental’ (that is, they constitute a ‘sense of self-worth’), and ‘coercive’ (in the sense that participants cannot leave them).^{Footnote 71} A key aspect is the last characteristic, that is, macro practices’ coercive nature. It seems to entail that, presumably, international law more generally constitutes a macro practice (as states as its participants cannot leave it), but not, for example, the International Criminal Court (which in Lechner and Frost’s vocabulary is a ‘purposive association’, not a practice).^{Footnote 72} Would human rights law as a subfield of international law qualify? Arguably not, given that Lechner and Frost advocate for a ‘holist logic of enquiry’ that does not ‘tackle isolated “issue areas” of international politics such as proliferation, international trade or terrorism’.^{Footnote 73} Applied to international law, thus only those parts of the international legal framework that have global reach and are not part of any voluntary legal regime seem to fit the bill. Ultimately, a focus on macro practices therefore seems to significantly limit the purview of IR theorisation. It is almost difficult to imagine which other macro practices, apart from the two they discuss, Lechner and Frost have in mind as potential candidates. For an approach that presents itself as a significant readjustment of IR theorising, such a limitation seems to be a key challenge.

A third question concerns who the participants of the practice of international law might be. In one sense, the previous discussion of macro practices already answered this question: all states are participants. As Lechner and Frost acknowledge, however, ‘states do not have values’.^{Footnote 74} In the end, the authors introduce the argumentative twist that ‘we’ (as ‘individuals living inside states’) ‘are constituted as citizens of free states related to other states within a common domain of sovereign freedom’ by being ‘participants in the society of sovereign states’.^{Footnote 75} Applied to the practice of international law, one reading would therefore be that all human beings are participants. However, when it comes to international law, surely there are some participants that have a better understanding of the practice than others. While the authors concede that some participants might understand a practice and its rules better than others, they do not conceptually distinguish between such groups of participants.^{Footnote 76}

In the case of the practice of international law, which is arguably heavily expert-based, this decision poses a challenge. After all, despite my colleagues’ and my best efforts, I suspect that I would be rather hard-pressed to find a very good understanding of basic principles of international law even within the population of my university’s law students, not to mention of all citizens across states. It also does not help to add that the focus should be on ‘rule-following activity’,^{Footnote 77} given that, as individuals, we barely follow international law rules. Instead, in most cases, we do so through states – which, however, as with the practice of sovereign states itself, makes the participant/rule-following link explicitly encompassed within Lechner and Frost’s definition of practices rather intangible. The core of the problem here is how the authors’ version of internalism applies to the practices of states, and how much ‘actuality’ (as the study of ‘actual’, not ‘hypothetical’ practices)^{Footnote 78} – and at which level – its study requires. After all, while Lechner and Frost criticise a focus on micro practices as ‘analytically incoherent’ as it ‘combine[s] micro practices with Bourdieu’s macro determinants’,^{Footnote 79} their own approach seems to exhibit a similar tension when it combines a focus on macro structures as well as states as practice participants with a view of internalism as rooted in individual self-consciousness. To be sure, the rules of a practice are learned through engagement within a practice community^{Footnote 80} – but how can we think about this process within a macro practice?

What would happen, however, if we were to focus on legal experts as participants that have a particularly good understanding of the rules involved? After all, as Lechner and Frost argue, ‘[o]nly those agents who reason and act from within the practice count as its participants, and they are located inside its domain by virtue of their ability to understand and, occasionally, misunderstand its constitutive standards or rules’.^{Footnote 81} In the case of the practice of international law, we could then, for example, focus on non-empirical, doctrinal international law scholars and legal theorists. After all, there arguably isn’t anyone more ‘internal’ to international law than a black-letter lawyer, and better able to ‘make sense of the core rules and usages comprising [international law] as a meaningful whole’.^{Footnote 82} This answer, however, just opens up another problem: much ink has already been spilled by legal scholars on the constitutive rules of international law. Given the high level of sophistication of this strand of scholarship that already accounts for international law’s normative dimension, I am left wondering what Lechner and Frost’s approach might be able to contribute to this discussion (even though, to be fair, they probably never set out to do so). It could even be added here that parallel epistemological discussions surrounding the distinction between internalism and externalism inspired by, among others, HLA Hart not only already have a long tradition in legal scholarship, but also have again resurfaced recently in the wake of the so-called ‘empirical turn’ in international law.^{Footnote 83}

This brings me to my final point, namely the limits to analysis and critique that Lechner and Frost’s approach implies. How can we, for example, understand practices below the level of macro practices, such as the development of legal provisions through regional courts? Not at all, Lechner and Frost seem to suggest. Indeed, they compile a rather long list of issues we should not study: ‘Instead of researching problems such as power relations between states, discourses of power, global governance or structural inequalities between poor and affluent nations, IR theorists should study the macro practices that are global in scope.’^{Footnote 84} Furthermore, and as mentioned above, history seems to have very little space within their approach, apart from the occasional anecdote about the Cold War.^{Footnote 85} In the end, such a rather confined approach, rather than ‘re-opening and broadening the conversation’, might significantly limit the ability of IR theorists to say something meaningful about international relations, and about the possibility of change.^{Footnote 86} In a time in which the international rule-based system has come under significant challenge (a development which seems to underline the need for normative theorising), such a constraint seems like a missed opportunity.^{Footnote 87}

At least to me, the allure of exploring the normative dimension of international practices is that it opens up the possibility for critique and goes beyond merely ‘mirroring’ practices.^{Footnote 88} While Lechner and Frost’s approach accounts for international practices’ normative dimension, it does not allow us to use language (or apply criticism) not used by practitioners themselves, and rejects the study of any practice that we do not participate in.^{Footnote 89} The result may be that IR theorising would turn into a rather inward-looking and uncritical exercise. In the end, in the attempt to find additional macro practices that defy the challenge of particularism, it could even produce studies that might favour the norms and rules we, as situated individuals, are most familiar with, and in turn proclaim as universal. As Lechner and Frost say themselves, the extent to which participants understand a practice varies. But how do we know that we have reached an adequate understanding, and that we are not just presenting our own partial assumptions as part of a macro practice? And how can we criticise someone else’s theorisation of a macro practice? While Lechner and Frost claim that their approach allows ‘us to draw conceptual distinctions with precision’, I am not so sure how to assess the ‘actuality’ of studies that might use their practice theory.^{Footnote 90} Indeed, by assuming that we are all part of the same macro practices, and that we should confine our study to them, Lechner and Frost might also limit our ability to doubt, disagree with, and criticise the standard that is thus proclaimed as universal.