Tracing Influence in International Law: Beyond the Antagonism between Doctrine of Law and Social Science

Abstract

While international lawyers constantly deal with the concept of influence, there is a significant lack of specification about what is meant by influence, as well as the methodology to identify under what conditions influence exists. Yet, without a realistic picture about the way actors of international law actually behave, the competition of theory propositions is continuously perpetuated along the lines of differences in assumptions rather than the accuracy of explanations. Process-tracing, as is presented in this chapter, is a useful methodology to study and capture the process where consequences is brought about. This chapter particularly explains why and how most existing studies stop short of elaborating on the mechanism that links the causal elements and the consequence (1). Then, it moves onto the insights given from the process-tracing, and how it can help international legal scholarship to overcome its weakness identified in the chapter (2). Lastly, it ends with a few remarks on legal studies in general and suggests a move beyond ontological contestations between legal orthodoxy and social science, as well as a use of insights of process-tracing to empower those actors currently held in the periphery by international law’s assumptions and doctrines (3).