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Foreign Military Presence and the Changing Practice of Sovereignty: A Pragmatist Explanation of Norm Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2014

SEBASTIAN SCHMIDT
SEBASTIAN SCHMIDT*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
*
Sebastian Schmidt is a Ph.D. candidate, Political Science Department, The University of Chicago, 5828 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 ([email protected]).
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Abstract

Recent years have seen an increasing interest among international relations scholars in applications of pragmatist thought. Few works, however, have gone beyond discussing the epistemological and methodological implications of pragmatism. This article draws on a pragmatist understanding of human action to develop a novel explanation of norm change in contexts not amenable to more common analytical approaches. Specifically, concepts derived from pragmatism help explain how the creative recombination of practices by actors in response to changes in the material and social context of action can transform largely tacit notions of appropriate behavior. The article demonstrates the value of the approach by explaining the origin of a common contemporary security practice unknown prior to the Second World War and incompatible with the then-prevailing norms of sovereignty: the long-term, peacetime presence of one state's military on the territory of another equally sovereign state.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 108 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 817 - 829
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2014 

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