The significance of emotions is often implicitly addressed in norm research. Some International Relations (IR) scholars, for example, suggest a regulatory function of emotions when it comes to norm-based behaviour, norm compliance, norm persuasion, and norm contestation. Yet, the literature on norms often takes these affective dynamics for granted without making them explicit. This contribution seeks to address this imbalance by examining the relationship between emotions (as moral value judgements) and norms (as collective expectations about appropriate behaviour). Specifically, we extend the current analytical focus by proposing a framework for the empirical investigation of emotional resonance in norm research. We argue that emotional resonance is crucial to the impact and enforcement of international norms because emotions assign specific value to norms within normative orders. We identify pathways and build bridges between norm research and research on emotions in IR and develop a theoretical model to show how emotional resonance is helpful for explaining failures of norm compliance. The way in which the absence of emotional resonance facilitates non-compliance is illustrated by the example of the Bush administration’s reaction to torture allegations in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

This chapter explores the material temporal work involved in protecting a radical artistic innovation, conceived ahead of its time, from incomprehension and projecting it into the future in search of receptive audiences. Inspired by the trajectory and recent rediscovery of the pioneering abstract artist Hilma af Klint, we suggest that it is temporal agency (i.e. anticipating of and acting upon one’s future significance) and material temporal work (i.e. influencing, sustaining, or redirecting interpretations of time through materiality) that enable the radical artistic innovation to reach receptive audiences, spanning over a century. We distinguish two processes of material temporal work: bifurcating time by working in parallel along established and unknown temporalities, and bridging time by narrative construction, waiting time, and emotional resonance with distant-future artists, museum curators, and critics. Taken together, these two processes power time as the ultimate organizer of a radical artistic innovation’s comprehension and appreciation, i.e. engage time in the politics of meaning.