Punishment in International Society Norms, Justice, and Punitive Practices

Punitive practices are highly revealing of a society's social fabric, its normative order, and power structure. Punishment in International Society examines the penal philosophies and practices in international society. The contributions to this book show the added value of a punitive lens to international politics in two major ways: First, punitive practices reveal the contours of the international normative order, its structures, and hierarchies. Such a perspective highlights the prominent position of individuals in the current normative order, but it also reveals a major divergence in the international normative order between a global North that emphasizes individualized, retributive punishment for atrocity crimes and a global South that puts reparations for past colonial wrongs on the agenda. Second, in contrast to a nation-state, the authority to sanction and act in defense of the normative order is far more dispersed and contested in international society. Although there is a demand to embed punitive practices in procedures and institutions, the most legitimate site of such authority remains contested as regional organizations such as the African Union compete with the United Nations for the authority to defend the normative order.

This book brings together an international roster of scholars from the social sciences, law, and humanities. The contributions demonstrate that punitive practices have been more prevalent than commonly acknowledged as they have often been masked as (self-)defence, reparations, or coercive diplomacy. By approaching international punishment from various disciplines, this volume sheds new light on different dimensions of the punitive practices across the globe.

Wolfgang Wagner is Professor of International Security at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Linet R. Durmusoglu is PhD candidate in Political Science at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) of the University of Amsterdam.
Barbora Holá is Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement and Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Ronald Kroeze is Associate Professor of Political History at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Director of the Centre for Parliamentary History at Radboud University, Nijmegen.
Jan-Willem van Prooijen is Associate Professor of Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Senior Researcher at the NSCR, and Endowed Professor of Radicalization, Extremism, and Conspiracy Thinking at Maastricht University.
Wouter G. Werner is Professor of International Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Chapter 1: Norm Violations and Punishment Beyond the Nation-state. Normative orders, Authority, and Conflict in International Society
Wolfgang Wagner, Linet Durmusoglu, Barbora Hola, Ronald Kroeze, Jan-Willem van Prooijen and Wouter Werner

Chapter 2: A Social-psychological Approach to Punishment
Mario Gollwitzer, Melissa de Vel-Palumbo, Moritz Fischer and Mathias Twardawski

Chapter 3: The Fruits of Wrongdoing in International Law. What Does (and Does Not) Happen When Laws are Broken
Stephen C. Neff

Chapter 4: Penal Logics in International Politics. Nordic Foreign Policy on International Justice
Kjersti Lohne

Chapter 5: Punishment Beyond Borders: Attitudes Towards Punishment in Interpersonal and International Contexts
Linet Durmusoglu, Jan-Willem van Prooijen and Wolfgang Wagner

Chapter 6: Why Sanctioning? Rise and Purpose of Sanctions in International Politics
Michal Onderco

Chapter 7: Supporting the Punishment of Atrocity Crimes. A Broad Coalition Among a Narrow Elite
Mikkel Jarle Christensen

Chapter 8: International Sanctions and Contested Normative Authority
Elin Hellquist

Chapter 9: Deciphering International Punishments: A Perspective from the Global South
Siddharth Mallavarapu

Chapter 10: Punitivity and Norm-setting in the History of Colonial and Postcolonial Relations. The End of the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI) in 1992
Farabi Fakih and Ronald Kroeze