Resumen de Practices and the problem of world society

Oliver Kessler

• This contribution explores The Status of Law in World Society by looking at the practice turn in particular. Without challenging Kratochwil’s interest in practices per se, this contribution poses two questions: first, it acknowledges that the ‘practice turn’ itself is, like every intellectual movement, ambiguous with conflicting trends and developments. One of these ambiguities, however, concerns the position of the observer. Leaving this position undefined, the practice turn transports this ambiguity into constructivism with important repercussions on what constructivists assume to know and where the boundaries of their possible critique are. Second, this contribution asks whether there is a conflict between an interest in practices and the question of order. In particular, the latter incorporates the question of the ‘third’ that Kratochwil acknowledges, but does not develop in more detail.