Professorship of the Cluster of Excellence – International Relations and Theories of Global Order (Prof. Dr. Nicole Deitelhoff)

The professorship “International Relations and Theories of Global Order” addresses forms and practices of resistance emerging within normative orders, with a particular concentration on those orders that transcend national borders. Its research focuses on how rule is constituted in normative orders, how it is challenged and how resistance and rule fit together. Specific projects deal with: (1) the privatization of security as a particular strategy and challenge to national systems of rule, (2) conflicts arising around international norms and institutions, and (3) forms and practices of resistance and how they are connected with rule.

(1) Security privatization has grown extensively during the last decades, giving rise to new forms of governance in the production and provision of security and to concerns regarding the democratic legitimacy of such new forms of governance. The professorship has conducted case studies on security privatization in Germany and the United States and has compared the extent and consequences of security provision in weak and strong states. In particular, the projects have critically assessed the legitimacy problems entailed by specific forms of security privatization or the governance thereof and have outlined the available options for avoiding such problems. This research has led to a number of publications in journals and edited volumes and has resulted in an expert report for the research forum of the German Ministry of Education and Research on public security (Forschungsforum Öffentliche Sicherheit).

(2) With regard to conflicts surrounding international norms and institutions, research has focused on the major question of when contestation of international norms weakens their robustness. This question has been the focus of a lively debate in International Relations during the last years. Case studies on the contestation of various prominent international norms (the ban on torture, the responsibility to protect, the commercial whaling ban, international individual criminal accountability, and the prohibitions of slavery and privateering) have substantially confirmed the hypothesis that the effects of contestation on the robustness of norms depend heavily on the type of contestation. While contestation concerning the application of norms usually has no negative effects on the norm in question, contestation which focuses on the justificatory core of a norm is most likely to weaken a norm’s robustness. Meanwhile this research has resulted in the establishment of a working group at the German Association for Political Science, several publications, and a special issue on the topic is under review at a leading journal in IR. The final results of the project will be published in a book and in journal articles in 2018.

(3) Finally, the chair has increasingly turned its attention to forms and practices of resistance in world politics and how these interact with systems of rule and authority. In collaboration with the Cluster professorship “International Organization,” a research group on “International Dissidence” has been established which assembles five distinct research projects on forms of resistance and a number of doctoral students and postdocs whose research focuses on rule and/or resistance. The research group has organized an ongoing lecture series (Protest – Resistance – Insurgence. Normative Orders as the Focus of Struggles), several national and international conferences and workshops (the latest, an authors’ workshop, is scheduled for the end of May and will finalize the papers emerging from the international Cluster Lecture series “Beyond Anarchy: Rule and Resistance in the International System” for publication). Several publications have already emerged from this focus and new grant proposals have been developed.

The most important publications of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

*Deitelhoff, Nicole: „Billiges Gerede und leeres Geschwätz? Was ist eigentlich geblieben von der ZIB-Debatte?“ in: Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 24: 1, 2017, forthcoming

Deitelhoff, Nicole/ Priska Daphi/Dieter Rucht/ Simon Teune (eds.): „Protest und Bewegungen im Wandel?“, Sonderheft: Leviathan, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2017, forthcoming.

*Deitelhoff, Nicole/Christopher Daase/Ben Kamis/ Jannik Pfister/Philip Wallmeier (eds.): Herrschaft in den Internationalen Beziehungen, Wiesbaden: Springer, 2017.

*Deitelhoff, Nicole & Christopher Daase: “Jenseits der Anarchie: Widerstand und Herrschaft im internationalen System“, in: Politische Vierteljahresschrift 56: 2, 2015, 299-318.

*Deitelhoff, Nicole & Michael Zürn, “Internationalization and the State. Sovereignty as the External Side of Modern Statehood”, in: S. Leibfried/E. Huber/M. Lange/ J.D. Levy/J.D. Stephens (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Deitelhoff, Nicole & Christopher Daase: Privatisierung der Sicherheit. Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Studie, Schriftenreihe Sicherheit Nr. 11, Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2013-09.

The most important events of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

„Begriff und Phänomen der Norm“: Workshop of the newly founded working group (Themengruppe) „IB-Normenforschung“  of the German Political Science Association (GPSA) at the Cluster of Excellence, „The Formation of Normative Orders“, March 29-30, 2017.

International Conference: „International Dissidence. Rule and Resistance in a globalized world“, Goethe-University Frankfurt, March  2-4, 2017.

Lecture Series: „Protest - Widerstand - Aufstand. Streit um politische Ordnungen", November 2015 – July 2017, (co-organized with Christopher Daase)

Three panels organized by the Research Group “Internationale Dissidenz” at the  4th Global International Studies Conference of the World International Studies Committee (WISC),  August 6– 9, 2014, Frankfurt/M.

“IPA (International Public Authority) Meets Dissidenz“, interdisciplinary workshop with Armin von Bogdandy, Goethe University, Building „Normative Orders, April 4, 2014.