Introduction: The resort to norms

Summary

HISTORICAL RECOLLECTION AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF “FIELDS”

This book examines the role of norms in international life. To the extent that the focus is on interactions in the international arena, it is a book about international relations. To the extent that the investigation is interested in legal norms it is a book on legal theory. Insofar as issues of “interpretation,” “precedent,” and “sources of law” will be discussed, it is in a way a treatise on jurisprudence. To the extent that rules and norms are viewed as means to maintain social order, it is a book on social theory. Finally, to the extent that the analysis is occasioned by the re-reading of some of the classics of international law and political theory, it is – at least indirectly and without wanting to claim comprehensiveness or completeness – a study of political thought.

Locating the inquiry at the boundary or intersection of various established fields has obvious dangers because it may satisfy none of the respective specialists and draw the ire of all of them. Nevertheless, interdisciplinary works, when successful, have their own rewards. Two justifications can be tendered in support of such an enterprise. First, an interdisciplinary approach can pose new and theoretically interesting questions. It can show important conceptual and empirical links which are lost in the more specialized inquiries that take a well-defined “field of study” for granted.