Introduction

Abstract

This book critically assesses the role of normative theory in the study of international relations, and as an initial premise, it characterises this role as a central one: the attendance to essential questions of values. How and why it plays a central role, and what this role amounts to, are the questions this book seeks to answer. Values are considered in juxtaposition to interests or facts, although their intimate relationship is an important issue, and the importance is twofold: distinguishing values brings this latter variable into focus, but has also permitted its marginalisation in the study of international relations. The argument develops amidst conflicting attitudes to norms, since what is largely a philosophical sociology of international relations, exposing underlying theoretical assumptions and claims, is at some points an applied sociology of international relations indicating agreed norms in practice (such as inform the idea of ‘international society’) which inevitably imposes some limitations on the philosophical sociology because of the relation between theory and practice. Therefore, the use of the term ‘normative’ here does not mean simply ‘prescriptive’, but is used more generally to mean ‘of or having to do with norms’.