Practice Theory and International Relations

Silviya Lechner is a visiting researcher at King's College London, Department of War Studies, where she was previously a lecturer. She specialises in international relations theory and philosophy, especially social and political philosophy and philosophy of action. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of International Political Theory, the Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, Oxford Research Encyclopaedia on International Studies, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy and The American Journal of Bioethics. Mervyn Frost is Professor of International Relations in the Department of War Studies, King's College London and Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg. His monographs include: Towards a Normative Theory of International Relations (Cambridge, 1986), Ethics in International Relations (Cambridge, 1996), Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States (2002) and Global Ethics: Anarchy, Freedom and International Relations (2008). He edited a 4 volume reference book of articles entitled International Ethics (2011).

• Introduction: mapping out the problem of practices; Part I. A Philosophical Analysis of Social Practices: 1. Practice theory: a preliminary view; 2. Bourdieu and the practice turn in international relations; 3. Practice theory: a basic philosophical template; Part II. Practices in International Relations: 4. Two core practices in international relations: a neo-Hegelian perspective; 5. The dialectic of global practices; 6. Practice theory, macro practices and the study of international relations.

'Lechner and Frost propose a genuinely novel way to advance practice theory in international relations (IR) theory by taking normativity into account. Based on careful scrutiny, the enterprise is conducted in a most succinct, elaborate and refreshingly accessible way. The result is a giant theoretical advance for IR theory. The book's value-added consists in developing a theoretical framework which successfully links practice and normativity. The book's advancement is largely due to first, distinguishing micro- and macro-practices and explaining why this matters, and second, theorising the internal and external meanings of practices, thereby offering a conceptual access point for socially constructed, societally or constitutionally constituted and politically challenged normativity. The book is of outstanding quality and highly recommended for students of international relations in political science, law and sociology.' Antje Wiener, Chair in Political Science, University of Hamburg