Political Difference and Global Normative Orders

Once considered a question of an international order based on consolidatedstatehood and homogeneous social communities within national borders, globalorder has become a question of alternative political articulations, resistancemovements, and cultural diversity, among others. This book first criticallyanalyzes the conditions for the struggles of theorizing global normative order inpolitical and IR theory. Second, to make sense of the presence of difference andpossibility for global normative order in view of the simultaneous absence of firstfoundations, the study draws on post-foundational thinking based on the seminalwork of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and Argentine political theoristErnesto Laclau. Finally, the author develops a theoretical framework for ahauntological approach to global normative order that provides an alternativeand theoretically coherent explanation for the emergence of global order. This isof interest to scholars as well as practitioners (including activists) concerned withglobal social relations, global political discourse, and the construction of globalidentity and normative order(s).

Fränze Wilhelm is a researcher at the Kiel University Research Group on International Political Sociology.