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Pragmatic ordering: Informality, experimentation, and the maritime security agenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2021

Christian Bueger Open the ORCID record for Christian Bueger [Opens in a new window]  and
Timothy Edmunds
Christian Bueger*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Timothy Edmunds
Affiliation:
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS), University of Bristol, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: christian.bueger@ifs.ku.dk
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Abstract

The question of when and how international orders change remains a pertinent issue of International Relations theory. This article develops the model of pragmatic ordering to conceptualise change. The model of pragmatic ordering synthesises recent theoretical arguments for a focus on ordering advanced in-practice theory, pragmatist philosophy, and related approaches. It also integrates evidence from recent global governance research. We propose a five-stage model. According to the model, once a new problem emerges (problematisation), informality allows for experimenting with new practices and developing new knowledge (informalisation and experimentation). Once these experimental practices become codified, and survive contestation, they increasingly settle (codification) and are spread through learning and translation processes (consolidation). We draw on the rise of the maritime security agenda as a paradigmatic case and examine developments in the Western Indian Ocean region to illustrate each of these stages. The article draws attention to the substantial reorganisation of maritime space occurring over the past decade and offers an innovative approach for the study of orders and change.

Keywords

OrderingPragmatismPractice TheoryInformalityMaritime Security
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 171 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British International Studies Association

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35 Ibid.

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40 An example is the Responsibility to Protect doctrine: proposed by a blue ribbon panel, it was discussed at a UN reform summit before it was embraced in the formal UN bodies. See Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008).

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54 Although sporadically, international security concerns brought some attention to the oceans, such as the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the ‘tanker war’ in the Persian Gulf in 1984–7, and the so-called ‘Turbot War’ between Canada and Spain in 1994–6.

55 Yet, from the 1980s onwards there was a growing awareness for the health of the oceans and gave rise to an environmental problematisation. Our analysis focuses on security at sea.

56 See Christian Bueger, ‘What is maritime security?’, Marine Policy, 53 (2015), pp. 159–64; Christian Bueger and Timothy Edmunds, ‘Beyond seablindness: A new agenda for maritime security studies’, International Affairs, 93:6 (2017), pp. 1293–311; Basil Germond, ‘The geopolitical dimension of maritime security’, Marine Policy, 54 (2015), pp. 137–42.

57 Bueger, ‘What is maritime security?’.

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71 The following discussion draws on a long-term study of maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean and draws on document analysis, ethnographic interviews with over eighty practitioners, as well as short-term participant observation at the experimental sites described below. Details of this broader project and the methodological approach are discussed in Christian Bueger, ‘Conducting field research when there is no “field”: A note on the praxiographic challenge’, in Sarah Biecker and Klaus Schlichte (eds), The Political Anthropology of Internationalized Politics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), pp. 29–45 and Christian Bueger, ‘Experimenting in global governance: Learning lessons with the contact group on piracy’, in Richard Freeman and Jan-Peter Voß (eds), Knowing Governance: The Epistemic Construction of Political Order (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), pp. 87–104.

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76 US Naval Forces Central Command, ‘Combined Maritime Forces’, available at: {https://www.cusnc.navy.mil/Combined-Maritime-Forces/} accessed 30 November 2020.

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79 See Kraska, Contemporary Maritime Piracy, pp. 98–9.

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81 Piracy Daily, Maritime TV panel discussion with Donna Hopkins, US State Department Coordinator on Counter Piracy and Maritime, Security, 26 June 2013.

82 Matthew Macleod and William M. Wardrop, Operational Analysis at Combined Maritime Forces, 32nd International Symposium of Military Operational Research, p. 3, available at: {http://www.lessonsfrompiracy.net/files/2015/12/32ismor_macleod_wardrop_paper.pdf} accessed 30 November 2020.

83 Gebhard and Smith, ‘The two faces of EU-NATO cooperation’, p. 12.

84 Ibid.

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86 Gebhard and Smith, ‘The two faces of EU-NATO Cooperation’, p. 12.

87 Robin Geiss and Anna Petrig, Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: The Legal Framework for Counter-Piracy Operations in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 26.

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96 Not all of these experiments were necessarily successful. See, for example, Huggins and Vestergaard Madsen, ‘The CGPCS’, pp. 31–2.

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102 See the documentation provided in Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS), ‘Lessons From Piracy’ (2016), available at: {http://www.lessonsfrompiracy.net} accessed 30 November 2020.

103 For a discussion of the experimental nature of these practices, see Bueger, Christian and Tholens, Simone, ‘Theorizing capacity building’, in Bueger, Christian, Edmunds, Timothy, and McCabe, Robert (eds), Capacity Building for Maritime Security: The Western Indian Ocean Experience (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2020), pp. 37–9Google Scholar; Edmunds, Timothy and Juncos, Ana E., ‘Constructing the capable state: Contested discourses and practices in EU capacity building’, Cooperation and Conflict, 55:1 (2020), pp. 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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106 The Information Fusion Centre in Singapore hosts Shared Awareness Meetings (SAM), which discusses maritime security in the South East Asian region. The so-called SHADE Med was introduced in December 2015 by the European Union to coordinate activities with NATO forces but also other actors such as the shipping industry, the US Navy, and UN organisations addressing migration at sea.

107 Flyvbjerg, ‘Five misunderstandings’.

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110 March and Olson, ‘The institutional dynamics of international’, p. 968.

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