Crime and Punishment in International Politics
On the Agency and Moral Standing of Community
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9977181 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Evgeny Roshchin (0000-0002-5481-8348, Center for European Policy Analysis, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/isq/sqaf062 |
| OpenAlex | W4413959432 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 57 |
This article investigates how the concept of the international community was rhetorically constructed in public diplomatic discourse and endowed with both agential status and moral authority. It argues that this conceptual innovation emerged during a critical juncture in the 1920s–1930s, amid debates on collective security within the League of Nations. In response to acts of aggression that undermined the newly established international order, diplomats employed contested notions of “crime” and “punishment” to characterize state behavior. In the League's debates over the first international sanctions, references to extra-legal moral principles were used to bolster both the legitimacy and efficacy of the legal regime. Since the principle of sovereign equality precluded any single state from claiming moral authority, diplomats instead innovatively portrayed the international community as a fictive agent endowed with superior moral standing. This rhetorical move helped legitimize calls for punishing aggressors. Adopting a historically informed constructivist approach, the article illuminates how conceptual transformations within the normative order unfold through diplomatic practice. It shows how diplomatic forums can serve as platforms for conceptual innovation with lasting impact on public discourse on world politics
Agency (philosophy · Criminology · Moral agency · Political science · Politics · Punishment (psychology · Social science · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Rise and Fall of Political Orders
Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes
After Victory
The Guardians
Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law
Political innovation and conceptual change
Saving Strangers
International Relations and Historical Sociology
Inventing International Society
International Society and its Critics
Can Institutions Have Responsibilities?
The English School of International Relations
Humanitarian Imperialism
The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War
Beyond the Anarchical Society
The Anarchical Society
From International to World Society
Group Agency
The League of Nations
On the Possibility of “International Community”
The International Community Needs to Act’
The Worst of all Worlds
Stories we live by
Imagining the International Community
Coalitions of the Willing and Responsibilities to Protect
Crime and Punishment
The Standard of ‘Civilisation’, the Expansion Thesis and the 19th-century International Social Space
Reading History through Constructivist Eyes
The Hague Conferences and ‘international community’
Concepts at work
The Community Trap
The triumph of the dark
Worldmaking after Empire
War in International Thought
The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions
Taking Preferences Seriously
The History of Concepts as a Style of Political Theorizing
Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms
The Study of Critical Junctures
Collective Identity Formation and the International State
Politics Among Nations
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |