An overview of existing approaches to less powerful states’ strategies in international relations shows that no theory explains the behaviour described in the introduction. By most logics, they should evade international attention or, if they do approach larger actors with ulterior motives in mind, they should become socialized to valuing the norms they once invoked with cynicism. On no account should they draw the attention of larger actors whose global missions they not only undermine, but depend on undermining for domestic stability. This chapter introduces two scope conditions that begin to explain this conduct. Domestically, these states rule by patronage, a logic of rule that distributes money, jobs, political voice and physical security as privileges rather than by right. Internationally, they are peripheral, which means that they lack material and agenda-setting power in relation to other countries. As such, when patronage rule brings them into conflict with the global rights-based order, they cannot afford to change the offending practices, but neither can they withdraw or bear punishment. A historical account of political development in several post-colonial regions illustrates why peripherality and patronage, while they do not always overlap, correlate highly.

The first chapter introduces the main themes and arguments of the book. It discusses the theoretical context in International Relations within which the study of long-term normative change is situated. It introduces the English School as the main theoretical perspective with which the rise of environmental stewardship as a fundamental norm of global international society will be analysed. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of the main argument and an overview of the structure of the analysis.

Chapter 11 summarises the main argument developed in the book, with regard to the rise of global environmental stewardship as a primary institution of global international society, the norm transfer from world society to international society, the globalisation of the environmental norm, ongoing norm contestation and consolidation. It discusses the interplay between the environmental norm and other primary institutions of international society: diplomacy, international law, sovereignty, territoriality, great power management, market and developmentalism. Further, it discusses the use of English School theory to derive predictions about the future development of the international normative structure in response to major ecological threats.

Although the American military record since 1945 has been pretty unimpressive, some argue, first, that the United States, aided perhaps by the attention-arresting fear of nuclear weapons, was necessary to provide worldwide security and thus to order the world, and, second, that the United States was vital in constructing international institutions, conventions, and norms, advancing economic development, and expanding democracy–processes, it is contended, that in various ways have ordered the world and crucially helped to establish and maintain international peace. However, it seems more plausible that the positive developments would mostly have happened even without much American security participation, and that, for the most part, world order has developed not from the machinations of the reigning superpower but from the aversion to international war embraced after World War II especially by developed countries. In fact, if the nearly 200 states that inhabit the world order come substantially to abandon the idea that international war is a sensible method for solving problems among themselves, the notion that they live in “anarchy” becomes misleading and could encourage undesirable policy developments. “World order” is based on a general aversion to international war and does not depend on the United States.

The volume closes by setting out an agenda for further research that follows from the findings of the case studies in three governance areas of security, environmental, and business governance. Based on the findings, we argue that responsibility should be considered as a methodological tool for scholars of global politics as it bridges the gap between politics, law, and ethics. The role of ethics in particular deserves further engagement, and responsibility as a category of practice provides a suitable approach towards this end. As the literature on ‘virtue ethics’ has highlighted, neither universal benchmarks nor a reliance on consequentialist arguments offer suitable leverage for analysis for communities and norms that develop and are maintained in practice. Rather, it is through an engagement with practices of knowledge creation and embedded ethics of the actors involved that we can shed light on the workings of global politics. Virtue ethics may be used for a critical and emancipatory research agenda that could be expanded to look into, for instance, global North-South relations or non-Western governance proposals.

The emergence of global environmental responsibility as a fundamental norm, or primary institution, in International Relations represents a dramatic expansion of the normative horizon of international society. The successful norm transfer from world society to international society was made possible by a transnational alliance of environmentalists and scientists, as well as representatives of states and international organisations, which acted as norm entrepreneurs to inject environmental ideas into the international agenda. In the end, its successful establishment in international society depended on it being championed by powerful states, which exported domestic environmental norms to the international level. As such, the greening of international relations represents a complex process of political enmeshment between international and world society, but it has done relatively little to slow down global environmental degradation. The norm of global environmental stewardship is still honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

Modern international relations theory purports to be universally applicable, but was inspired largely by the interstate politics of the West. From antiquity to the late nineteenth century, the international system of East Asia differed from those of the West on the four variables that international relations theory deems to be most important in shaping interstate politics: the balance of power, the regime types of most states, the role of trade, and the prevailing international norms. We therefore test international relations theory's claim to universality against the history of East Asia "before the West." We assess the extent to which the predictions of international relations theory fit the interstate politics of East Asia, focusing on cooperation under hegemony, the enforcement of order, international norms, trade relations, changes in the balance of power, changes in polarity, and state formation. We find several shortcomings that suggest profitable new avenues for improving international relations theory.

Why do some countries enact structural reforms to accommodate large-scale immigration while others maintain exclusionary policies? Why do some states expand migrant rights while others curtail them? Based largely on European and North American case studies, the dominant scholarship on immigration and citizenship has focused on three types of variables: culture, domestic political elites, and international norms. These works tend to assume that the countries in question have relatively open immigration policies to begin with and thus do not sufficiently explain patterns among so-called negative cases of immigration. Recent studies focusing on East Asia point us toward an important intervening variable: civil society. But the presence of civil society alone does not explain divergent immigrant incorporation patterns. Rather than assume that civil-society actors are unified in their goals, world views, or strategies, I introduce the concept of civic legacies to refer to the ideas, networks, and strategies applied in past struggles for democratic inclusion that differentially shape the direction of immigrant incorporation and the potential for structural reform.

The introductory chapter sets the conceptual and theoretical scene for the book. It justifies why examining the formative role of self-determination and territoriality is important to understand why and by whom the map of Kurdistan is produced and used, and how it is perceived. It argues that, as a means of communicating Kurdish nationalist ideals to international society, the map of Kurdistan is generated and perceived through prevalent assumptions on the link between nation and territory. These assumptions derive from the principle of self-determination. Changes in the meaning and function of self-determination have also changed assumptions on the link between nation and territory. Therefore, self-determination and the way in which the nation-territory link was understood had a formative role in the use and perception of the map of Kurdistan.

Fundamental rights and freedoms constitute the majority of agreed articles in the draft constitution produced by the Constitutional Conciliation Commission ‘Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu, AUK’. This chapter analyzes the content of these articles and seeks to explain why the AUK was able to achieve more consensus on these than on other provisions ‘e.g., principles of state organization’. It argues that constitutional borrowing, both horizontal and vertical, served as an inspiration and consensus-achiever in the discussions. The agreed draft text contains provisions that are either constitutional novelties or offer more far-reaching protection than the existing constitutional framework. We particularly emphasize the normative authority the European Convention on Human Rights enjoyed in the deliberations and the role of human dignity as a foundational constitutional norm “borrowed” primarily from the German Basic Law. The chapter concludes that the draft chapter on fundamental rights and freedoms was neither an unequivocal success story nor a complete failure. Nevertheless, the constitution-making process remains a missed opportunity for democracy in Turkey.