Framing Responsibility Research in International Relations

Against the background of critical norms research, this chapter distinguishes two dimensions to operationalize responsibility research, the practical dimension and the conceptual dimension. The proposed frame represents a principled approach that is based on the ethics of knowledge production as well as the contestedness of norms in global society. Together, these two dimensions account for the dynamics of reflexive theorizing as a process which involves value- based critical analysis of everyday practice in international relations and its reflection in IR theory-building. The chapter is organized in three sections. Section one presents the argument for framing value-based norms research and introduces the two central tools of the framework (norm-typology and the cycle-grid model). Section two details the use of the norm-typology with reference to the R2P norm. And section three addresses the empirical mapping and staging of contestations with reference to the responsibility of protect (R2P) norm drawing. The summary argument holds that using the framework offers an interface for reflexive research engagement that helps avoiding responsibility researchers to talk past each other despite taking distinct and often mutually exclusive epistemological standpoints on responsibility.