Constructivist international relations (IR) research concerned with analyzing political action is increasingly focused on studying political rhetoric.Footnote 1 Over the last two decades, this research on disentangling the argumentation and communication dynamics of actors has developed important perspectives for understanding how rhetorical actors aim to persuade audiences, the success and failure of legitimization attempts, and the consequences of argumentation on political outcomes. It draws upon the broad agreement that among all other considerations contributing to the efficacy of rhetoric such as rhetorical techniques, proofs, or public conscience, political rhetoric can be effective when it engages the accepted norms of behavior and language in the society (Perelman Reference Perelman1979, 7; Garsten Reference Garsten2009, 162; Martin Reference Martin2015, 40). However, the two major strands of constructivist IR that study the link between political rhetoric and norms make divergent and contradictory claims. Some point to the centrality of legitimate universal norms in the rhetoric of both actors and activists in their pursuit of a persuasive political project (e.g. Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1998; Wheeler Reference Wheeler2001; Finnemore Reference Finnemore2004). Others caution that normativity is inconsequential for a strategic use of rhetoric aimed at achieving political outcomes (Schimmelfennig Reference Schimmelfennig2001; Hurd Reference Hurd2005; Krebs and Jackson Reference Krebs and Jackson2007; Krebs and Lobasz Reference Krebs and Lobasz2007; Goddard Reference Goddard2015). With these divergent claims, the existing research does not offer a clear conceptualization of the link between political rhetoric and norms. It tends to overlook the different types of norms and the variety of rhetorical strategies in the actor's pursuit of political projects.
In this article, I consider the question what political actors do with norms in rhetorical deployments and how norms work in audiences' evaluations of rhetoric, thus theorizing the link between political rhetoric and norms in international politics. This is particularly relevant in settings where political actors deploy different types of rhetoric for different projects such as foreign military intervention, sanctions against perpetrators of mass atrocities, or for seeking new alliances in the pursuit of geopolitical strategies. Here the divergent debates on the importance of universal norms or the irrelevance of norms do not offer an informative way to approach practical issues where the situation is in the making, where issues of validity, applicability of norms, and how rhetoric-wielding actors and audiences justify the choice of competing norms matter. In this regard, understanding how political rhetoric affects foreign military intervention projects, for example, cannot be subsumed within the existing constructivist IR vocabularies for ‘testing’ divergent claims. Instead, it requires a principled engagement with the pragmatic processes of actor–audience relationships for a properly informed debate. Thus, it is important to ask, in practical issues such as foreign military intervention projects, how do political actors deploy rhetoric, draw upon competing norms, and how do audiences evaluate the rhetorical deployments in political projects?
Drawing on recent advancements in pragmatic philosophy, I theorize the link between political rhetoric, norms, and how it affects foreign military intervention projects via actors' reasoning with audiences (Brandom Reference Brandom1994, Reference Brandom1998; Levine Reference Levine2015; Tindale Reference Tindale2018). I call this process rhetorical reasoning where political actors deploying rhetoric draw upon norms that underwrite interactions to make claims about the purpose of a political project and the audiences evaluate the reasoning by making a series of inferences in line with the norms of reasoning. Making claims and counterclaims is a form of rhetorical game played both by political actors and their audiences. Specifically, audiences take the role of ‘scorekeepers’ in keeping track of the sort of norms underwriting a situation, assessing the inferences in political rhetoric, and evaluating the reasoning of rhetorical agents in choice situations (Brandom Reference Brandom1994, 141–91). Different types of norms lead to different patterns of rhetorical reasoning (Perelman Reference Perelman1979, 25–31; Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1989, 40–44; Brandom Reference Brandom1998, 133–36). In other words, there are identifiable types of norms around which political rhetoric coalesces and the actor–audiences' engagement shapes the political project in distinct ways.
I elaborate on three different types of norms: instrumental, institutional, and moral norms that underwrite interactions in international politics and the different processes through which rhetorical reasoning works in political projects such as military intervention. Briefly, instrumental norms conceptually belong to prudential ought conditions that require the agent to take effective means to achieve their self-chosen end in the sense of promoting desire-satisfaction. Here, political actors engage in strategic rhetorical reasoning making connections between means and ends, and audiences as scorekeepers make inferences about the actor's motives in order to evaluate the project's effectiveness. Since desires can compete and political actors can change their personal preferences, any conclusive proof of the effectiveness of persuasion is elusive. Institutional norms, on the other hand, are conceptually part of shared practices and conventions with established rules concerning right and wrong moves. Here, rhetorical reasoning involves political actors making claims about obligations that aim to be logically implied by the institutional conventions and shared rule structure. Audiences as scorekeepers assess the actor's commitments and entitlements based on one's constitutive obligations in the game and evaluate the effectiveness of political projects based on their fit with the agreed conventions. Finally, moral norms conceptually belong to categorical imperative conditions that bind agents to the deeply held values of international society. Here, rhetorical reasoning involves practice-independent claims and shaming opponents into submission by highlighting the deeply held values at stake. Audiences as scorekeepers evaluate the rhetorical reasoning and the political project based on common conceptions of the duties and responsibilities of actors in international society. These norm types, the relevant rhetorical reasoning, and the audiences' evaluation of political projects, are not exhaustive. In international politics, they function simultaneously and often interact. But as ideal-types, they allow for an empirical investigation of the ‘generative grammar’ of these principles and their links to practice.
Foregrounding varieties of political rhetoric via reasoning within norm types makes two important contributions to the IR literature. First, it contributes to the existing debates on argumentation in IR by showing that rhetoric functions through a variety of norms and the different ought conditions in the interactional situation. Recognizing this variety is important because the different types of rhetorical deployments are evaluated differently by scorekeeping audiences and have a different normative pull and concomitant political processes in weighing of reasons for and against by the interlocutors. The reigning view, however, treats rhetoric as a disruptive force by reducing norms to intervening causal variables or testing strategic vs. communicative interests of interlocutors thereby reducing politics to one common denominator. By challenging this conventional understanding and elaborating on different rhetorical reasoning strategies, the article shows the diverse political processes embodied in different communicative environments. Here, the presentation of Brazil's Chapter VII peace enforcement operation in Haiti in 2004 shows the political processes in the institutional social world and the normative pull in the game that is distinct from reducing politics to either means-end considerations or transcendent morality of Brazilians in Latin America. Second, the role of audiences in international politics is an understudied area of research in argumentation theories in IR (Watson Reference Watson2012; Goddard and Krebs Reference Goddard and Krebs2015). By foregrounding audiences' role through their varieties of ‘scorekeeping’ practices, the article integrates actor–audience relationships throughout the entire episode in shaping the political outcome. Rhetorical actor–audience relationships thus are complicated appraisal and accountability linkages through diverse normative underpinnings that the rhetorical reasoning framework brings on board.
On rhetoric and norms in constructivist IR
Political rhetoric, as it is used throughout this article, is the politicians' intentional use of arguments, appealing to reason, passion, and even to prejudice, in a particular context to particular audiences, to influence political outcomes: ‘Its goal is to intensify an adherence to values, to create a disposition to act, and finally to bring people to act’ (Perelman Reference Perelman1979, 7). As Kratochwil puts it, ‘Rhetoric is concerned with the problem of praxis, i.e., with gaining adherence to an alternative in a situation in which no logically compelling solution is possible but a choice cannot be avoided’ (Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1989, 210). Political rhetoric is value-centered, can affirm or transform hegemonic narratives, mediate ‘which ideas remain in settled frames’ and unlike framing it is concerned not merely with those things others prefer, but with those things which others ought to prefer (Eubanks Reference Eubanks, Golden and Pilotta1986, 81; Martin Reference Martin2015, 28).Footnote 2 Importantly, rhetorical theorists agree that among all other considerations such as technique, proofs, or public conscience, political rhetoric can be effective when it engages the accepted norms of behavior and language in the society (Perelman Reference Perelman1979, 7; Garsten Reference Garsten2009, 162; Martin Reference Martin2015, 40; Tindale Reference Tindale2018, 45).
Constructivist IR theories of argumentation and communication make divergent and contradictory claims about the link between rhetoric and norms in the pursuit of a political project. Further, the recent Bourdieu-inspired ‘practice turn’ dispenses with the vocabulary of norms in action altogether. Let us briefly examine these debates. First, early constructivist IR emphasizes the importance of universal norms in the rhetorical campaigns of actors. Here transnational agents aim to diffuse good global or universal norms through advocacy networks in international politics (Finnemore and Sikkink Reference Finnemore and Sikkink1998; Keck and Sikkink Reference Keck and Sikkink1998). Specifically, on foreign military intervention, rhetorical agents must construct a fit between existing moral norms and their argumentation to justify intervention (Wheeler Reference Wheeler2001; Finnemore Reference Finnemore2004).
At least two problems were prominent in this early wave of liberal constructivist optimism in the persuasive force of rhetoric in international politics. First, it does not elaborate on the argumentation process in detail and assumes that good norms are desirable, has universal agreement, and will automatically prevail in persuading audiences (for a good critique see Kornprobst Reference Kornprobst2007). Such optimism for global cosmopolitanism reduces political rhetoric to mere matching function (framing) with legitimate norms. Second, the relationship between political rhetoric and universal norms is reduced to ‘moral proselytism’ (Nadelmann Reference Nadelmann1990, 481) without opportunity for other interlocutors to ‘weigh’ and ‘balance’ different factors in their adherence to or disavowal of a political position. Thus, advocacy literature cannot convincingly show rhetoric's link with foreign military intervention without also assuming some form of the teleology of progress both among political actors and their audiences.
Two contending IR perspectives improve upon these limitations in important ways. The first perspective is inspired by a Habermasian theory of communicative action and foregrounds the importance of legitimate norms in argumentation in general and political rhetoric in particular. Political actors faced with multiple competing norms of appropriateness engage in argumentation – through the logic of truth-seeking – to deliberate which norms apply under given circumstances (Risse Reference Risse2000; Deitelhoff Reference Deitelhoff2009). Others emphasize how rhetorical agents pick up taken-for-granted ideas from a repertoire of commonplaces and link these to new ideas through different forms of reasoning and through public justifications (Crawford Reference Crawford2002; Kornprobst Reference Kornprobst2007, Reference Kornprobst2017). It led to the understanding that contested norms and weak institutions favor rhetorical action (Müller Reference Müller2004, 401). Thus, for scholars committed to Habermasian communicative action, rhetoric thus really impedes sincere deliberations (see Payne Reference Payne2001, 46; Crawford Reference Crawford2002, 416).
The second perspective transcends the communicative action framework by being skeptical of sincere deliberative processes in argumentation and concomitantly challenges the centrality of norms in political rhetoric. Some authors emphasize strategic use of language in political rhetoric to influence outcomes (Schimmelfennig Reference Schimmelfennig2001; Hurd Reference Hurd2005; Krebs and Jackson Reference Krebs and Jackson2007; Krebs and Lobasz Reference Krebs and Lobasz2007; Goddard Reference Goddard2015; O'Mahoney Reference O'Mahoney2017). Here too rhetorical agents pick up taken-for-granted ideas, but they weave their public arguments strategically to corner opponents to endorse a stance they may, or may not, find anathema. Since public semiotic codes constrain and enable actors irrespective of their inner motives, the public or audience plays a crucial role in the rhetorical battles between claimants and opponents. As Krebs and Jackson (Reference Krebs and Jackson2007, 44) explain: rhetorical coercion works when opponents, ‘regardless of its private beliefs, can no longer sustain its public opposition.’ Thus, rhetorical entrapment is consequential in the pursuit of foreign military intervention, as Krebs and Lobasz show Democratic opposition to Bush's intervention in Iraq was hindered because they were victims of Bush's successful rhetorical coercion (Reference Krebs and Lobasz2007, 447).
These divergent and sometimes contradictory perspectives on the link between political rhetoric and norms are also problematic in at least three ways. First, despite the variety, these accounts focus on how already legitimate norms drive rhetorical legitimation rather than recognizing how different types of norms lead to different patterns of political rhetoric to influence political outcomes. The broader IR scholarship recognizes this variety of norms in social situations with different classificatory schemes on norm types (Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1989, 15, 97; Frost Reference Frost1996, 105; Raymond Reference Raymond1997, 225–26; Wiener Reference Wiener2014, 35–39). In other words, some prudential norms, institutional norms, regional norms, local conventions, or moral norms are fraught with different ought conditions – implying different patterns of inferences, legitimation, and evaluations for rhetoric-wielding actors and their audiences – which the existing accounts sideline. Second, the issue is not only that there are identifiable types of norms around which political rhetoric coalesces, but also how actors and audiences engage in evaluating claims and counterclaims over the choice of competing norms. It is a political issue that requires legitimate justification. The existing accounts problematically assume that good norms are automatically justifiable to audiences. Or within the dominant discourse public semiotics constrain opponents without elaborating on any (constitutive) intersubjective agreement on why they ought to be constrained (for this elimination of intersubjective consensus see Krebs and Jackson Reference Krebs and Jackson2007, 42).
Third, some accounts problematically argue that we can analyze the logic of political action with a non-normative vocabulary. Adler and Pouliot began this debate when they argued that the often-used ways of understanding political action through the logic of consequence, appropriateness, or arguing is problematic and should be replaced by focusing on the background knowledge of practitioners that are ‘ontologically prior’ to these factors (Adler and Pouliot Reference Adler and Pouliot2011). Thus, traditional ways of understanding political action through argumentation is problematic because it presupposes that rhetorical actors engage in a profound reflection on the appropriateness of norms in a context. It is problematic because practical or ‘background knowledge’ of practitioners informs the commonsense way of proceeding where the norms as logic of appropriateness cannot capture (Pouliot Reference Pouliot2008, 258). By reducing practices to the intuitive reactions of a football goalkeeper attempting to save a penalty, such accounts disregard the constitutive normative attitude even in the intuitive exercise of political judgments (Brennan et al. Reference Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood2013, 19).
Thus, existing perspectives do not sufficiently conceptualize how norms matter in political rhetoric. In rhetorical deployments, political actors make a connection among ‘facts’ to persuade the audiences. Accounts that rely on Habermasian communicative theory understand that rhetorical political actors make connections by subsuming the facts under the general norm of truth-seeking; rhetorical coercion accounts focus only on the instrumental normativity within the dominant strategic means-end games; and, the Bourdieu-inspired logic of practicality account in IR argues that political actors make connections through an unreflective, inarticulate, common-sense background knowledge. In other words, some search for genuine foundations to link norms and rhetoric, others take that political agents fix ex-ante the ends of their rhetoric and go about strategically manipulating their opponents, and the logic of practicality sidelines vocabulary of norms altogether. Addressing these limitations requires a rethink on the rhetorical actor–audience relationships in a political campaign.
Political rhetorical reasoning: varieties, norm types, and evaluations
In constructivist IR, it is a commonplace that reasons and reasoning play an important role in choice situations. In the political world, reasoning with the opponents validates the legitimacy of one's claims, commands assent, establishes obligations, and shows that one's claims and assertions are justified and not based on idiosyncratic factors (Crawford Reference Crawford2002, 14–16; Müller Reference Müller2004, 407; Kornprobst Reference Kornprobst2007, 75–81; Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil2018, 151). Through reasoning, one rationalizes positions, even ones taken for strategic reasons. As Kornprobst puts it, ‘Argumentation is public reasoning aimed at persuading an audience’ (Reference Kornprobst2007, 75). Yet, what is rhetorical reasoning? What role do norms play in political rhetoric? How does it affect a political project?
Rhetorical reasoning is a process by which rhetorical deployments and their evaluations by others proceed through a game of giving and asking for reasons and these interlocutors make inferences and evaluate these inferences in line with the norms of reasoning. In keeping with the value-laden force of rhetoric to generate practical knowledge, rhetorical reasoning focuses on claims and counterclaims and the pragmatic emphasis is on the role of acceptable and unacceptable reasons rather than appealing to representational truth-claims (Brandom Reference Brandom1994, 141). Further, in giving and asking for reasons, there are norms that enable and constrain rhetorical actors and their audiences, and different norm types lead to different patterns of rhetorical reasoning.
For analytical purposes, we can disentangle rhetorical reasoning into a three-stage interconnected process. First, political actors utilize rhetoric to make claims, bolster their position, and seek others' adherence to their rhetorical deployments. Second, rhetorical deployments comprise reasons. These reasons are constitutive of norms that underwrite interactions that enable and constrain interlocutors to make a series of inferences on the political project. These are material or non-formal inferences in the sense that interlocutors use certain norms to bring their own appraisals of the situation and these norms constrain them on what sort of appraisals are (politically) permissible rather than to search for formally valid inferences based on the truth conditions of the rhetorical claim.Footnote 3 And third, audiences as ‘scorekeepers’ keep track of the rhetoric, evaluate the inferences, and judge the rhetorical moves of actors in line with the norms of reasoning. Thus, rhetorical reasoning is a game because the process involves claims and counterclaims through a norm-guided transition from premises to conclusions – that is from thoughts to actions or intentions (Perelman Reference Perelman1979, 25–31; Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1989, 40–44; Brandom Reference Brandom1994, 17–25). Importantly, different types of norms in the social–political world correspond to different forms of rhetorical reasoning but norms in rhetorical reasoning enables or constrains agents and their scorekeepers in evaluating good or bad rhetorical reasoning qua reasoning (see below for illustrations).
But what are norms? Despite the ubiquity of norms, a general definition cannot rightly capture all their functions. Thus, the widely used definition of norms in IR as collective expectations for proper behavior for a given identity is only a useful first step for further investigating the guidance function of norms. Crucially, recent studies of norms points to how norms are not free-standing statuses but are instituted by practical attitudes ‘whereby agents take or treat these normative proprieties as committing and entitling other agents and themselves to further beliefs and actions’ (Levine Reference Levine2015, 252; also see Brennan et al. Reference Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood2013, 28–39). This relational understanding of norms gets sharper by studying different types of norms and their functions. Here, I offer a conceptualization of three different norm types and their relation to different patterns of rhetorical reasoning: instrumental, institutional, and moral norms in international politics. These three norm types are clearly not exhaustive (for norm types in IR see Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1989, 69–97; Frost Reference Frost1996, 105; Raymond Reference Raymond1997, 225–26; Wiener Reference Wiener2014). Yet, they are sufficiently broad and distinct to offer a conceptual elaboration, specify rhetorical deployments under each type and the evaluation functions it entails, and outline the actor–audience relationships in the inferential processes in rhetorical games.
Instrumental norms require rhetorical agents to take effective means to achieve their self-chosen end, in the sense of promoting desire-satisfaction. Specifically, rhetoric under instrumental norm is strategic in the sense that the actor develops plans for achieving the end, modifies the plans along the way but the attitude corresponds to presenting means-end reasoning to audiences that the chosen means is in consideration of the particular end and they are necessary for an action to be performed to realize the end. It is not simply the idea that whoever wills the end also wills the means but the practical proposition that in setting the end there is a norm that one ought to follow where there are (instrumental) normative reasons for doing so (Wood Reference Wood, Timmons and Baiasu2013, 67–68).Footnote 4 Thus, conceptually instrumental norms belong to the hypothetical imperative ‘If you want x you ought to do y’ given the desirability of the goals.
Let us take the following example to illustrate how rhetoric functions under the instrumental norm type, the actor–audience inferences in the rhetorical reasoning process, and the evaluation processesFootnote 5:
α: Only invading Afghanistan will keep the U.S. a safe place after 9/11, so
I shall invade Afghanistan.
With this rhetoric, President Bush subjects himself to a prudential ‘ought’ condition with an attitude that corresponds to the means-end principle: ‘If you want to keep the U.S. safe you ought to invade Afghanistan. That is, invasion is the necessary means to keeping the U.S. a safe place.’ It enables Bush to deploy rhetoric on the safety of the United States. Now, several audiences as scorekeepers evaluate Bush's rhetorical deployment and his political project by making a series of inferences on Bush's motives (beliefs and desires):
α*: Terrorists like Osama bin Laden make the US an unsafe place to live and therefore, Bush believes that only by invading Afghanistan can the US can arrest Osama.
α**: Only by invading Afghanistan can the US deter another terror attack, so Bush desires to deter another attack on the US soil.
α***: Bush prefers to promote democracy abroad
so, Bush shall wage war in Afghanistan.
In making these inferences, audiences as scorekeepers evaluate the rhetorical deployment by attributing a preference to Bush to keep the United States safe. Making inferences on his motives are important to evaluate the project's effectiveness. Second, these inferences as evaluations of motives rests on what audiences would take as a right sort of instrumental reason for realizing the end. This distinguishes mere explanatory reasons (Bush acting for a reason) from motivating reason (Bush acting with a reason to keep the United States safe).
To persuade the audience, Bush's rhetorical reasoning ought to engage with the audience evaluations of his motives through legitimation and offering further reasons and inferences that find a fit between motives attributed by the audiences to Bush and Bush's own understanding of the motives of these interlocutors. In other words, if the scorekeepers are to be persuaded Bush ought to elaborate his motives so that they make sense of his rhetorical deployments.Footnote 6 However, pinning down motives and finding a fit might be elusive thus making persuasion difficult when instrumental norms underwrite interactions. Since desires can compete, Bush can easily change his mind from a preference for keeping ‘the US a safe place,’ to one of keeping ‘the world a safe place,’ from the problems of terror. This entails further patterns of inferences by his scorekeepers and different reasons through which they might be persuaded.
Yet, as audiences continuously evaluate Bush's rhetoric there is a cost to frequently changing preferences and still be treated as a rational agent in a political game. Briefly, there are standards of appropriateness even within the instrumental norm if Bush ought to remain a rational agent (see Müller Reference Müller2004, 411–14). Thus, within the force of instrumental norms, Bush's rhetoric ought to give reasons to his audiences for an invasion as the effective means to the desired end, offer reasons for the change in desires, justify another preference, rationalize his strategy, or show analogies between the safe United States and a safer world. This might involve strategic deployments of rhetoric but absent this form of legitimation through reasons to scorekeepers, Bush might not have persuaded the challengers. Under an instrumental norm, Bush might as well discard the idea to persuade and proceed to wage a war in Afghanistan. However, evaluators might then take Bush's rhetoric as irrational. As Brandom puts it,
In the deontic framework, such irrational actions are intentional in that they are acknowledgments of practical commitments (or arise from the exercise of reliable noninferential dispositions to respond differentially to them), and they are irrational in that the practical commitment in question is not the one the agent is entitled to by a good practical inference from premises that the agent is committed and entitled to – either because one has no reason or because one has an overriding reason to do something incompatible with what one is fact does (Brandom Reference Brandom1994, 244).
To summarize, in political rhetorical reasoning under instrumental norm we should expect that actors deploy certain means as necessary to achieve the desired ends and make inferences on consequences of such means for achieving the outcome. Scorekeeping evaluations through inferences aim to keep track of actor's motives in the deployments. We should expect that the political processes that arise in the actor–audience relationships should aim to get each other's motives right for judging the effectiveness of the project.
Institutional norms, on the other hand, are conceptually part of shared practices and conventions with established rules of the game concerning right and the wrong moves. Here, rhetorical reasoning involves political actors making claims with normative attitudes that are constitutive of shared practices, conventions, and institutional rule structure. As Kratochwil puts it, ‘…moving the rook and king at the same time means simply, within the game of chess, “castling.” Practice-type rules usually concern performances and thus specify the conditions under which a given action – often characterized by such terms as “hereby,” “therefore,” etc. – shall be held valid. They try to limit the circumstances which might serve as defeating reasons for the validity of such an act’ (Reference Kratochwil1989, 92). In contrast to the instrumental norm type, here rhetorical reasoning is based on a distinct ‘ought’ of the sort: ‘If you are part of the institutional rules of the game, you are obliged to do X.’ Here rules of the game are understandings among actors for not merely coordinating each other's moves with certain bounds of mutual expectations but as attitudes that accept conventional demands upon each other.
Let us take the following example to illustrate how rhetoric functions under the institutional norm type, the actor–audience inferences in the rhetorical reasoning process, and the evaluation processes:
β: UNSC authorizes intervention in East Timor, so
I shall intervene in East Timor to end violence.
With this rhetoric, Australia deploys its claim based on the convention that UNSC authorization is a constitutive rule that is antecedently relevant to its rationality to intervene in East Timor. Its obligations arise not out of the ‘formal design’ of the UN as an institution or mere ‘interactions among institutional actors,’ although these two factors are relevant, but because of the practice-based condition under which any intervention is intersubjectively valid. Rhetorical agents thus aim to justify their obligations by showing continuity with the conventions to other interlocutors who have the same social-institutional status. Unlike instrumental norms, audiences as scorekeepers do not rely on motives (they need not) but evaluate Australia's entitlements based on how the rhetorical reasoning advances (or reneges on) the constitutive obligations and conventions of the institution:
β*: Australia is going into East Timor under UN mandate, so
It shall not occupy any territory in the humanitarian military intervention
β**: Australian action is based on a UN Resolution, so
It shall ensure peacekeeping operations
β***: Australia is going into East Timor under UN support, so
It shall adhere to the principles of jus in bello (just conduct in war)
In making these inferences, audiences as scorekeepers are evaluating the constitutive obligations of Australia where any idiosyncratic changes in the actor's preferences are not permitted. In the social world, this leads to important contestations among members on the right and wrong moves in the game (Wiener Reference Wiener2014). In other words, through reasoning and justifying a stance on military intervention, Australia might endorse certain commitments (to not occupy territory or to conform to jus in bello e.g.) that were not already present in its rhetoric. Even if Australia does not appreciate many of the implications of working under the shared UN conventions, audiences will evaluate the political rhetoric based on this status and attribute, challenge, or contest commitments in line with their normative attitude toward the institutional rules. Thus, if Australia's practices aim to exercise hegemony in East Timor then other interlocutors can take it as wrong, unacceptable, or as incompatible within the peacekeeping conventions. In this way, rhetorical reasoning and scorekeeping evaluations under the institutional norm type aim to take roles, intersubjective agreements, and shared traditions right whereas rhetorical reasoning and scorekeeping evaluations under instrumental norm type, as we saw, aim to get the motives right. In other words, what matters in the institutional norm type is political actors and their scorekeepers occupying roles based on conventions and scorekeepers' endorsement of the status of objectively good reasons in political rhetoric is due to the intersubjective validity of these reasons in the practice (Brandom Reference Brandom1994, 135).
To summarize, in political rhetorical reasoning under institutional norm we should expect that actors justify their obligations within the shared conventions of the game and make inferences on their role to secure intersubjective agreement from members. Scorekeeping evaluations through inferences and contestations aim to keep track of actor's commitments and entitlements to the shared practices. We should expect that the political processes that arise in the actor–audience relationships should aim at securing intersubjective validity of the moves for judging effectiveness of the project as one that is constitutive of their socio-institutional rules.
Finally, moral norms conceptually belong to a categorical imperative condition that binds agents to the deeply held values of international society. Specifically, rhetoric under the moral norms aims to accomplish a goal through certain universalizable demands upon individuals. As Brennan et al. puts it, ‘…moral norms create a distinctively individual kind of accountability. Individual accountability is accountability among individuals qua individuals. This is, in part, a matter of who is accountable, namely, all individuals, regardless of membership in any particular contingent community or association, or any particular social arrangement or practice’ (Brennan et al. Reference Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood2013, 87; emphasis original). Unlike the institutional norm type, moral norms are practice-independent (deontic). Not in the sense that they are those mysterious unconditional principles that impinge upon every individual, but as duties individuals have vis-à-vis each other in the international society. These duties are not automatically forced upon actors but work through indignation and shame that are constitutive of moral precepts and require actors taking and treating each other as moral agents bound by judgments concerning right and wrong (Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1989, 229; Reference Kratochwil2018, 35–36; Garsten Reference Garsten2009, 107; Brennan et al. Reference Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood2013, 87).
Let us take the following example to illustrate both the role of practical reasons under the moral norm type and the actor–audience inferences in the rhetorical reasoning process:
γ: One should not be complacent to gross violation of human rights, so
I shall exercise diplomatic criticism against Assad.
With this rhetoric, one subjects to a categorical ‘ought’ condition with an attitude that corresponds to the duty of respecting human rights. The ought factor under γ is a categorical imperative of the sort, ‘One ought to address human rights violations abroad and ought not to remain silent in the face of many deaths of innocent people in Syria.’ The inferences follow a distinct form of accountability criteria different from instrumental and institutional norm types. Here rhetorical agents in international politics aim to engage with the intrinsic duties of individuals, offer reasons that such proprieties apply to anyone regardless of desires, institutional membership, or social statuses, and shame others whose actions violate deeply held values of the international society. Given the moral precept underlying the political rhetoric, audiences will make sense of the rhetorical deployment by reconstructing – not the desires and institutional statuses of the political actors – but principles that are obligatory by itself:
γ*: Human rights protection in international politics is an end in itself.
γ**: Syrian use of chemical weapons is a red line punishable by military intervention.
γ**: Political actors who kill dissenters are not members of international society.
If the scorekeepers are to be persuaded the rhetorical reasoning of actors should involve reasons and inferences that are compelling to all moral agents engaged in international politics. Audiences as scorekeepers who evaluate such rhetorical reasoning, shame actors who are inconsistent by keeping track of hypocrisy and objectionable parochialism that masquerade as moral sentiments. Moral norms also give rise to contestations, but different from ones that arises from the institutional norm type.Footnote 7 Audiences' evaluations through contestations seek a convergence on common conception of duties and responsibilities of agents in international politics. Scorekeepers shame rhetorical agents who aim to engage with Syria violating these principles (a case in point is liberal Western democracies shaming Russia and China in contemporary negotiations and these powers criticizing the ‘West’ for its hypocrisy). Only within the ethical standards of treating each other as moral agents can shaming and indignation work to converge views on duties and responsibilities.
To summarize, in political rhetorical reasoning under moral norm we should expect that actors make universalizable demands upon individuals and make inferences on duties of moral agents. Scorekeeping evaluations through inferences, shaming, and contestations keep track of the proprieties in claims that are obligatory by itself. We should expect that the political processes that arise in the actor–audience relationships should aim at convergence toward common and universal duties of agents.
Rhetorical reasoning is thus consequential for political projects and different types of norms leads to different patterns of rhetorical deployments, reasoning, inferences, and evaluations by audiences as scorekeepers of the project. Recognizing this variety makes an important difference in understanding how rhetorical agents and their audiences engage with each other and the different political processes that emerge among interlocutors. The precise political process that emerges in rhetorical actor–scorekeeping audience engagement is an empirical question. However, in substantive terms, the ideal-types elaborated above offers opportunities for empirical investigation, to make sense of the rhetorical actor–scorekeepers' experience in a practical project, and for understanding how this simplified framework interacts and manifests in practice.
Research method and case justification
Empirical investigation based on the ideal types elaborated in this article requires a commitment to an interpretive method that examine the generative grammar of these conceptualizations to practice (Jackson Reference Jackson, Yanow and Schwartz-Shea2006; Guzzini Reference Guzzini2012, 47–48). In other words, the ideal type tells us what to expect and through interpretations we make sense of how actual politics unfolded in context. There are two reasons for emphasizing this research method. One, although it is the actors and audiences themselves who put together the games and enter a norm-generating discourse, there is no direct access to the sort of norms underwriting interactions. We do not ex-ante establish the norms and the relevant scorekeepers (de facto and de jure) but utilize the ideal type elaborated in this article to then inductively identify the norm type through analyzing the processes in actor's claims and the evaluations of scorekeepers who join the game. Two, sometimes accounts of rhetoric wielding actors themselves or the explicit accounts of some scorekeepers might be ‘wrong’ or ‘confused’ in identifying the type of norms that are embedded in the interactions. Interpreting these processes from the third-person perspective of the analysts who observe the observations of these actions is important and here one cannot capture the social reality through objective tests (Lynch Reference Lynch2014, 38). In other words, we should expect that the idealized concept of rhetorical reasoning and norm types will allow us to open the ‘black-boxes’ with expectations for different types of norms that underwrite interactions, the crucial role of scorekeepers who are de facto in the event and de jure join the game, normative vocabulary in evaluations, assessments of right and wrong sort of inferences by actors and audiences, contestations, and the transformation of a political project due to these social accountability mechanisms.
In the next section, I investigate Brazil's rhetorical reasoning in its major foreign policy move in assuming the leadership of the U.N. peacekeeping project in Haiti in 2004. Note that I do not provide a comprehensive case study of Brazilian intervention, which is outside the scope of this article (for good comprehensive studies see, Kenkel Reference Kenkel2010, Reference Kenkel2013; Stuenkel and Tourinho Reference Stuenkel and Tourinho2014; but for a good critical engagement see Gomes Reference Gomes2016). Yet, Brazil is the most relevant case for three reasons.Footnote 8 First, the burgeoning crisis in Haiti since the end of the Cold War was the first time the United States sought UN authority for the use of force in the Western Hemisphere (von Einsiedel and Malone Reference von Einsiedel and Malone2006, 156). The entire event is replete with argumentation from multiple actors on the appropriateness and inappropriateness of great power politics in the crisis. Brazil long opposed humanitarian interventions and in 1994 categorically argued against intervention practices in the Western Hemisphere. However, in 2004, Brazil not only acknowledged U.N. peacekeeping but also commanded the entire operation in what is acknowledged as a major foreign policy of the state in recent years. The contradictory value shifts among actors in the event are an important resource in understanding the link between political rhetoric and foreign policy outcomes.
Second, the U.N. legitimized Brazil's peace enforcement military intervention in Haiti in 2004 is a ‘hard’ case because one might expect that U.N.-based multilateral solutions do not involve any role for rhetoric. Within liberal IR, one might mistakenly expect that Brazil's military intervention is an incremental progress of a rising power's acceptance of the legitimate norms of the liberal international order (Ikenberry and Wright Reference Ikenberry and Wright2008). Yet, Brazil's rhetorical reasoning is consequential in showing that even an identical outcome in the form of engaging in a military intervention is the result of a different form of political project that was shaped by different scorekeeping practices, as the following analysis demonstrates. Instead of standard bifurcations between communicative and strategic interests in political rhetoric, the Brazilian case makes clear that an entirely new heuristics emerges in the audiences' evaluation of the political project through Latin American conventions and through the politics of the institutional social world. Finally, the existing literature on Brazil's foreign policy focuses on its role as ‘consensual hegemon,’ ‘entrepreneurial power,’ or one that exercises ‘regional leadership’ (Soares De Lima and Hirst Reference Soares De Lima and Hirst2006; Burges Reference Burges2009; de Almeida Reference de Almeida2010; de Sá Guimarães and Herminia de Almeida Reference de Sá Guimarães and Herminia de Almeida2018). These studies do not emphasize political rhetoric although it is important in such roles. By foregrounding political rhetoric, the illustration thus adds to the existing conversation for studying Brazilian foreign and security policies through novel viewpoints.
Brazil's U.N. Chapter VII peace enforcement military intervention in Haiti 2004
Historical context
Haiti has been in the throes of political instability since the 19th century. Only seven of its 44 presidents have served their terms, and there have been only two peaceful transitions of power since the beginning of the republic in 1801 (Fatton Reference Fatton, Shamsie and Thompson2006, 15). On 29 September 1991, the Haitian armed forces under General Raoul Cedras overthrew the democratically elected administration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. With the wave of liberal humanitarianism in the post-Cold War period, the United States along with France and Canada wanted to restore democracy in Haiti. Through UN Resolution 940, a US-led Multi-National Force (MNF) under a Chapter VII peace enforcement mission aimed to create a ‘secure and stable environment’ in Haiti. Brazil abstained from Resolution 940 because it felt that action in Haiti should be a Chapter VI peacekeeping – and not Chapter VII peace enforcement – operation (Diniz Reference Diniz, Fishel and Andrés2007, 101). Yet, the MNF deployed smoothly as ‘Operation Restore Democracy’ and Aristide returned to power in Haiti on 17 October 1994 (von Einsiedel and Malone Reference von Einsiedel and Malone2006, 156). Thereafter, Aristide was re-elected as President for a second time in November 2000 in what was widely seen as a ‘flawed method of calculating the election results’ (Hallward Reference Hallward2008, 78). Immediately, the United States and France forced Aristide to step down and on 29 February 2004 forcefully exiled him to the Central African Republic (Podur Reference Podur2012, 54–55). Haiti was once again in a severe crisis with large-scale kidnapping and killing of the local population by competing gangs.
An inductive study of the crisis in Haiti since late 2000 shows the role of several important scorekeeping audiences who kept track of the situation. Specifically, (1) the Western liberal interventionists states – United States, France, and Canada; (2) Argentina; (3) Chile; (4) Caribbean countries, institutionalized as Caribbean Community CARICOM; (5) the Aristide administration in Haiti; (6) Brazil's domestic public; (7) the Lula administration; (8) the Global Media; (9) the Organization of American States (OAS); and (10) the UN.Footnote 9 A preliminary survey of their attitudes will shed light on what sort of – duties, responsibilities, permissions – they attributed, endorsed, challenged, and acknowledged – and the norm type that underwrites interactions.
The discursive practices of the Western liberal interventionist powers are important because they exhibited a particular normative attitude of establishing democracy in Haiti, the duty of protecting human rights, and overthrowing the ‘illegitimate’ Aristide from power.Footnote 10 Other interlocutors such as the UN, Chile, and Argentina, acknowledged and endorsed these claims from their socially situated viewpoints. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan endorsed the primacy of the United States and France in resolving the crisis as a duty to secure liberal peace.Footnote 11 Similarly, Chile endorsed the American position in order to mend relations after its refusal to support American-sponsored UNSC resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq (Feldmann and Montes Reference Feldmann, Montes and Kenkel2013, 156). Chile also explicated a normative commitment to liberal peace and deployed a sizeable military force to the Multilateral Interim Force (MIF) for mopping up operations in Haiti (Heine Reference Heine, Newman, Thakur and Tirman2006). Further, the Argentine administration, with a long history of participation in the UN peacekeeping operations in Haiti (1993–96; 1997–2000) acknowledged its role to restore order in Haiti (Diamint Reference Diamint and Kenkel2013, 140). Crucially, Argentina was a member of the ‘Group of Friends of Haiti’ established by the UN and the OAS and thus justified its commitment in terms of its responsibility to the principles of the United Nations (Follietti Reference Follietti2005).
The only real challenge to the rhetoric of bringing order to Haiti came from the Aristide administration, some members of the CARICOM community, Brazil's domestic public, particularly the opponents of the Lula administration, Venezuela, and sections of the media. The Aristide administration challenged the assertions of the Western liberal interventionist states and its commitments by calling it a ‘coup.’ As Aristide himself put it, ‘During the night of the 28th February 2004, here was a coup d’état. One could say that it was a geo-political kidnapping. I can clearly say that it was terrorism disguised as diplomacy’ (quoted in Podur Reference Podur2012, 55–56). Similarly, CARICOM,Footnote 12 Brazil's domestic public,Footnote 13 and some media reportsFootnote 14 also challenged the overthrow of Aristide and the reigning spirit of liberal interventionism in the region (Hirst Reference Hirst2007). These interlocutors, prima facie, challenged the imposing of peace from outside and broadly endorsed the norm of non-intervention in the internal affairs of Haiti.
Institutional norm type in the Haitian crisis situation
In keeping with the model elaborated in this article, two developments show that these interlocutors put together a practice-type game and settled on institutional norm type in managing the crisis in Haiti. First, all interlocutors including those who challenged and offered important contestations against interventionism in Haiti worked within the authority structure of the UN despite acknowledging the role of power politics and the connivance of Western liberal states in the UNSC Resolutions on Haiti. The United States, as we saw above, worked through UNSC Resolution 940, which first authorized a military force in Haiti in 1994 (von Einsiedel and Malone Reference von Einsiedel and Malone2006, 156) and the mandate for further intervention in Haiti in 10 years also came from the authority of the UNSC. Both the UNSC Resolutions 1529 and 1542, which established the MIF and United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH) respectively had UN institutional legitimacy for a military intervention.
Other interlocutors such as Chile, France, and Canada including those who challenged the intervention such as Argentina, CARICOM, and Brazil's domestic public accepted the authority of the UN, resolved to work within its institutional mandate, and rejected any possibility of unilateral humanitarian intervention in Haiti.Footnote 15 CARICOM relied on the institutional support of the OAS and submitted a formal request to the UN to end the violence in Haiti and restore the political position of Aristide (Bravo Reference Bravo2005; Howland Reference Howland2006, 470).Footnote 16 Similarly, the administration in Brazil deferred to the UN Secretary-General Report on Haiti in seeking entitlement for engaging in Haitian reconstruction.Footnote 17 Brazil's endorsement of the UN as the significant body for the collective legitimization of major political functions in post-Cold War internationals society was in line with how other interlocutors deferred to the legitimacy of the UN on the crisis.
Second, most scorekeepers aimed to find a negotiated solution to the political crises in Haiti. Even those who initially opposed the intervention like Argentina, Brazilian domestic public, and the CARICOM did not proceed in a beggar-thy neighbor fashion to worsen the relative situation of others (Hirst Reference Hirst2007, 2–3). This institutional commitment came through both past-shared practices and through the situated interactions regarding crises management in South America. The role of ABC (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile) in the commitment to the Mercosul treaty for a common market and Brazil's leadership in Brasilia Summit in late August 2000 to save Mercosul, in the wake of the sharp economic crisis of Argentina, established important ties between actors on the common concern for economic and political stability in South America. It established a predictable environment upon which members held discussions for a cooperative pursuit of collective goals. Thus, Brazil's leadership in the Ecuador–Peru peace process (1995–98) and Paraguay's democratic transition (1997) meant that an issue of regional stability offered opportunities for political agreements despite differences. The regular interactions between members in the OAS and the joint endorsement among Latin American, Caribbean, and North American states of the June 1991 OAS declaration, the ‘Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter-American System,’ put institutionalized interactions at the forefront (Schnably Reference Schnably1994). These shared practices of the past created incentives for weaker and secondary states to establish patterns of interactions on issues that do not translate into risks of arbitrary domination by some. Thus, on the situational interactions on Haiti, even the United States, France, and Canada were not unilateral but skillfully engaged with existing institutional structures such as the UN and OAS and negotiated with Latin American countries for the first time in a UN military operation in the Western Hemisphere.
The institutional norm type underwriting the Haitian crisis is also endorsed by extensive secondary literature on Brazil's foreign policy practices on the crisis (Hirst Reference Hirst2007; Kenkel Reference Kenkel2010, Reference Kenkel2011). However, the institutional norm type in the situation did not make Brazilian rhetoric for an intervention inevitable. It only established the baseline for how other scorekeepers would evaluate the rhetoric of the Lula administration, what inferences follow, what reasons are good reasons in this environment, what sort of ‘correctness’ conditions follow from both the institutionalized practices in South America and the rhetorical moves of Brazil.
Brazil's rhetorical reasoning first cut
In this institutional context, the Lula administration deployed its first rhetorical reasoning between 1 January 2003 and 29 February 2004. Brazil's rhetoric on solidarity, humanism, and poverty alleviation relied on ideas of exceptionalism, based on its political and economic stability in the region, to exercise responsible leadership in South America. As Lula asserted in his inaugural ceremony in the National Congress:
Several of our neighbors are today facing difficult situations. If called up, and with the means that are available to us, we will contribute towards finding peaceful solutions to resolve these situations of crises, based on dialogue, democratic principles and on the constitutional precepts of each country.Footnote 18
First, the core of the Lula administration's rhetoric based on its political exceptionalism drew a sharp contrast with unstable and crisis-driven neighbors. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim put it, ‘Several of our neighbors are experiencing difficult situations or even moments of crisis. The democratic process of change that Brazil is presently going through under the Lula Government may serve as an element of inspiration and stability to the whole of South America.’Footnote 19 Thus, the administration's reasoning is that Brazil's political stability is an inspiration for those unstable states and the administration is willing to help engineer a stable South American region. Second, Brazil's rhetoric on political exceptionalism sought entitlement to engage in conflict resolution in the region. Again, as Celso Amorim put it, ‘We earnestly respect the principle of non-intervention, in the same way that we defend our right to be respected by others. But we will not balk at making our contribution toward finding solutions of conflict, provided that we are invited to do so and only when we believe that we may play a useful role, taking into account the primacy of democracy and constitutional principles.’Footnote 20 A mix of solidarity and multilateralism with assertive rhetoric is certainly new with the Lula administration.Footnote 21 As Lima and Hirst put it, ‘the government's fight against poverty and unequal income distribution at home and its assertive and activist foreign policy can be viewed as two sides of the same coin’ (Soares De Lima and Hirst Reference Soares De Lima and Hirst2006, 21). Thus, publicly the Lula administration's rhetorical reasoning emphasized Brazil's political and economic stability as the baseline for exercising a responsible leadership in the region.
Interrogating Brazil's commitments and entitlements
In line with the institutional norm type underwriting interactions, other scorekeepers kept track of Brazil's rhetoric reasoning and the evaluation of its constitutive obligations in important ways. Specifically, scorekeepers aimed to broadly evaluate the regional conventions under which the Lula administration deployed its rhetoric, the consequences of such rhetoric deployment, assess how Brazil follows established patterns of institutionalized solutions to regional problems, and judge Brazil's entitlements in the problem. In other words, audiences as scorekeepers evaluated whether Brazil's rhetorical reasoning and inferences are licenses for the continuation of institutionalized solutions and interrogated whether proffered reasons make or break institutional norms in Latin America. As we saw in the ideal-type, contestations are part of scorekeeping practices in the institutional social world. What matters is not the hidden beliefs and desires but evaluations whether Brazil's entitlement claims rightfully follow from the shared conventions and social practices and the validity of its commitments in the game.
The contestations made explicit the fundamental normative incompatibilities between Brazil's political rhetoric and the institutional norms underwriting interactions. First, some members challenged Brazil's entitlement to regional leadership because of its political exceptionalism. A close contender of Brazil in the region is Argentina, and already in the 2000s it implicitly rejected Brazil's regional leadership initiatives. The relation instead is one of the equals rather than a hierarchy led by one state (Russell and Tokatlian Reference Russell and Tokatlian2003; Malamud Reference Malamud2011). By inferentially taking Brazil's exceptionalist rhetoric as claiming entitlements for a unilateral firefighting role in the region, Argentina challenged Brazil's reasoning by asserting equality (for an excellent discussion see Follietti Reference Follietti2005). The Kirchner administration demonstrated its own commitment to human rights as a regional and international responsibility and Argentinian senators rhetorically emphasized its equal status in international society on the issue of human rights protection and order (Follietti Reference Follietti2005, 47). Similarly, Chile under the Ricardo Lagos administration pressed for equality in the regional institutional environment, and within the reigning idea of liberal peace contributed troops to MIF to overthrow Aristide. Participation in MIF, therefore, served to show that Chile could assume equal regional responsibilities.
Second, some interlocutors made explicit the incompatibility between the Lula administration's rhetorical reasoning about Brazil's political exceptionalism on the one hand and its commitments to solidarity and equality in engineering South American stability.Footnote 22 Inferentially asserting exceptionalism is ‘irresponsible’ to regional norms of cooperation; and has consequences for whether the Lula administration will ‘abide’ by institutionalized norms that underwrite interactions.Footnote 23 Within Brazil, diplomat and special representative of OAS Ricardo Seitenfus advocated for the diplomacy of solidarity – without any claims of Brazilian exceptionalism – as the only way for the resolution of problems in Haiti.Footnote 24 In this way, Seitenfus also set the stage for a broader moral conception of humanitarianism by developing countries (Seitenfus Reference Seitenfus2014).
Further, CARICOM had already questioned the conditions under which Aristide was forced to leave and planned to exercise its own peacekeeping role and to deal with refugees.Footnote 25 Venezuela claimed that Brazil is displaying a pro-US sentiment and Haiti would transform into an American military foothold after Ecuador rescinded the lease for the US military base at Manta (Buxton Reference Buxton and Kenkel2013, 180). Similarly, sections of the Argentinian domestic public who remained committed to the principle of non-intervention were not fully convinced of US interventionist activism in the region.Footnote 26 Furthermore, neither the UN nor the general populace of Haiti extended a public invitation to Brazil to respond to the crisis.
Thus, multiple audiences who evaluated the Lula administration's rhetoric found Brazil's assertive political exceptionalism mixed with solidarity and humanism as incompatible with the institutional norms underwriting the crisis. Further, when the Lula administration rhetorically emphasized, ‘Several of our neighbors are experiencing difficult situations’ and ‘if invited Brazil will contribute to finding peaceful solutions,’ Brazil became answerable to the interlocutors (and to itself) on several fronts particularly, in identifying which countries in the neighborhood are facing crisis; what constitutes its regional ambit; to whose invitation will it respond; how it would respond to crises, and what constitutes their resolution; and how to fix the meaning of political stability. In other words, the scorekeepers compelled the Lula administration to make explicit its normative commitments in the region.
The Lula administration aimed to address this incompatibility in its rhetoric by voting for UNSC Resolution 1529, which authorized the deployment of a 3000-strong MIF in Haiti. Brazil did not contribute troops to this operation. In other words, the vote for MIF was now the Lula administration's attempt to play by the institutional rules in the region. As the former Uruguayan ambassador to the WTO, Carlos Péres del Castillo, noted at that time, ‘Brazil was simply not playing the leader's role: “If a country wants to be a leader, it must involve itself in regional problems”’ (quoted in Burges Reference Burges2009, 165). Thus, Lula would later claim in the UN, ‘We do not believe in interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries, but neither can we condone omission and indifference in the face of situations that affect our neighbors.’Footnote 27
Despite the costly move to vote for MIF to demonstrate Brazil's commitment to institutional norms that underwrite interactions on Haiti, Brazil's rhetorical reasoning at this stage based on exceptionalism did not secure entitlements from its scorekeepers. Many interlocutors attributed Lula's rhetoric to a quest for a seeking permanent seat for Brazil in the UNSC, which if sustained could derail regional cooperation. Thus, Brazil justified its non-participation in MIF because it was a Chapter VII peace enforcement operations (Diniz Reference Diniz, Fishel and Andrés2007, 101). As we shall see MINUSTAH was also a Chapter VII mission, but Brazil's claim became socially sustainable due to its change in rhetorical reasoning. Yet, the vote set the stage for further evaluations and distinct justificatory rhetoric by the Lula administration.
Brazil's rhetorical reasoning – second cut
The rhetorical reasoning of the Lula administration in Stage Two, between 29 February 2004 and 31 May 2004, is an important process both for understanding how the administration adjusted its rhetoric in light of contestations and for its interpretations of the institutional norms of UN-based interventions. In the period after 20 February 2004, the most comprehensive rhetorical reasoning of the administration occurred in the meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and National Defense (hereafter CREDN).Footnote 28 The reasoning is important because the National Congress retains the right to authorize military intervention abroad. Taking the justificatory responsibility of the administration seriously, one could understand the rhetorical shifts and policymakers' endorsements of the constitutive obligations in the game.
The Lula administration deployed two important rhetorical reasons: (1) the principle of non-intervention does not mean one can be indifferent to the mass atrocity crimes and suffering of the people in the region, and (2) diplomacy of solidarity is the pathway for Haitian reconstruction through the UN. Such deployments aimed at specifying the conditions under which Brazil will intervene in Haiti within the institutional rules of the game.
Two moves here require attention. First, the Lula administration shifted its rhetoric from Brazilian political exceptionalism to Latin American regional solidarity through a form of ‘we-reasoning’ – incorporating the role of Argentina, Chile, members of Latin America, and the UN as a team in helping Haiti. As the Minister of Defense of the Lula Administration, José Viegas Filho put it:
After the idea circulated and the news that the UN peacekeeping force would be led by Brazil, there was a flood of adherence on the part of South American countries – Latin Americans, Mexico joined too; Argentina, with 500 men; the Chileans, with about 300 men; the Paraguayans wanted to integrate directly into our force; Peruvians, Uruguayans and some as yet unconfirmed signs of Bolivians and Colombians. It is the cooperation that much distinguishes us, [it is those] decisions by countries, [and] our neighbors, to send military contingents to act specifically under the command of the Armed Forces of Brazil (CREDN 2004, 13).
The core of this team-rhetoric rested on the joint commitment that intervention in Haiti is a cooperative pursuit of a collective goal by Latin American states not because of Brazilian exceptionalism but because of mutual responsibility of states in the region. Thus, on the Haitian crisis, Brazilian policymakers asserted that ‘If we do not exercise our responsibility, others will’Footnote 29 essentially reasoning that the ‘we’ ought to be Latin Americans opposed to Western liberal interventionist states particularly the United States, defining solutions for regional humanitarian problems.
Second, the Lula administration's rhetoric now resorted to Brazil's values toward the black population and invoked this value to help the Haitian population. As Celso Amorim put it, ‘It would be strange [with Brazil's largest black population], then, if we do not extend our hands to a country with the second largest black population in Latin America and the third largest black population in the Continent. [It] is Haiti that searches for a chance to rebuild.’Footnote 30 Thus, Brazil's rhetorical reasoning emphasized Latin American cooperation, because Haiti is part of ‘our’ region, where indifference by members sharing the same socio-institutional status might lead to liberal interventionist states defining solutions for ‘our’ regional problems, and crucially with values to protect the suffering black population, ‘a brother country’ is seeking help which the UN has legitimized.Footnote 31 As Amorim stressed, ‘From both a political and a legal point of view, I do not know where [else] to seek more legitimacy for an action.’Footnote 32 This shift in Brazil's rhetoric echoed a powerful demonstration of Brazil's obligations within the Latin American conventions by disowning its exceptionalist preferences and situating its reasoning by appealing to other states by foregrounding joint commitments and collective regional goals. Thus, now the rhetorical reasoning and inferences of Brazil were that of ‘non-indifference’ to Haiti as one arising from its own inclusive commitment to the black population and ‘solidarity’ with other Latin American states to addressing regional problems through UN legitimacy.
Interrogating Brazil's commitments and entitlements
First, with Brazil's vote on UNSC Resolution 1529, Chile and Argentina examined Brazil's rhetoric of ‘non-indifference’ to the suffering Haitian population and the ‘diplomacy of solidarity’ based on Latin American cooperation and endorsed interdependence and the ‘we’ claim in the reasoning. Now occupying the UN Security Council as non-permanent members, Chile and Brazil agreed on a joint course of action in Haiti. Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdés appointed as the U.N. Special Representative for Haiti, claimed that ‘concerns of officials in Chile and other Latin American countries is legitimate [sic] regarding the deterioration in the situation in the Caribbean island nation.’Footnote 33 Thus, when Lula rhetorically deployed the idea of non-indifference in the region, Chile endorsed the rhetoric as one that is consistent with the institutional norms that emphasize ‘joint commitment’ with shared intentions to help Haiti.Footnote 34 Similarly, Argentina's Defense Minister Jose Pampuro would later claim that MINUSTAH operation is ‘a remarkable example of regional responsibility.’Footnote 35 As Monica Hirst points out:
The ABC countries have perceived the MINUSTAH as an opportunity to deepen inter-state diplomatic and military coordination. To pursue this goal the Chilean Juan Gabrial Valdes head of the UN Mission in Haiti collaborated closely with the Brazilian military command who relied upon an Argentinean official, the second military command and a Chilean official as Chief of Operations. This team spirit was strengthened by convergent foreign policy perceptions regarding the Haitian reconstruction process (Hirst Reference Hirst2007, 6).
Such endorsements by Argentina and Chile remained crucial because it came from members occupying the same institutional status. Their endorsements established that ‘non-indifference’ and ‘exercise of solidarity’ as permissible reasons for an institutional member concerned about the Haitian crisis. Further, with Brazil's team rhetoric and its invoking of black values, one does not have to fear Brazil's leadership and its command of MINUSTAH troops under a UN Chapter VII peace enforcement mission. Brazil role under the institutional performance is obliged not to change its preferences and seek domination of its cooperative partners.
Second, with the ‘we’ claim in Brazil's rhetoric on Latin American responsibility other interlocutors evaluated the Lula administration's claim to solidarity with the Haitians not as a transcendental value but as one that comes from a bona fide player in the game. Domestic opponents despite initial contestations, acknowledged that Brazil has the largest black population in the region – it has a certain status as a Black majority country in the region – and thus deferred to the administration's claim that one cannot be indifferent to the suffering of the ‘Brother country’ in the region.Footnote 36 Similarly, the United States, dug into the controversial Iraq War, eagerly endorsed Brazil's bona fide status in Latin America and its responsibility in Haiti. In early 2004, Brazil's role in Haiti was important for the Bush administration, as one top American official would state, ‘Brazil really did take a leadership role at a crucial moment, and that's a big deal.’Footnote 37 President George Bush on a later occasion appreciated Brazil's leadership in the Haitian crisis.Footnote 38 The endorsements of the United States (one done for its own strategic geopolitical goals) and a chain reaction of acknowledgments from the United Nations and other Western liberal interventionist states concerned Brazil's importance in the addressing the crisis in Haiti.
Thus, Brazil's shift from exceptionalism to inclusive rhetoric on Haiti endorsed by members occupying the same institutional status was crucial in ensuring that the Lula administration's rhetoric is socially sustainable. Once the members associated with the same socio-institutional status came on board, Brazil's role, value claims on Latin American responsibility, non-indifference, and solidarity with the Haitians and other rhetorical deployments of the Lula administration became acceptable as following the institutional rules. Making explicit Brazil's commitment to cooperative solutions also sidelined challenges from other scorekeepers such as CARICOM, a few members of Brazil's domestic public and supporters of Aristide administration in Haiti. Thus, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim, stated in unequivocal terms that support of Latin American countries (even if Venezuela and Cuba differed) provides an institutional legitimacy to Brazil's intervention in Haiti. He rhetorically impressed on the idea that the intervention would work very differently from the model proposed by the United States.Footnote 39
For audiences such as Argentina, Chile, Western liberal interventionist states, and the UN, Brazil's shift in its rhetorical reasoning demonstrated its bona fide status within the regional institutional rules and its commitments to work jointly toward Haitian reconstruction. Thus, within the joint commitment, Brazil's claims to non-indifference and the diplomacy of solidarity became institutionally acceptable reasons for military intervention in Haiti. Accepting that there is such a joint responsibility among scorekeepers with the same socio-institutional status is also an endorsement that one is obliged to advance responsibility that conforms to institutional practices. Thus, interlocutors endorsed a pattern that Brazil led the intervention in Haiti and its leadership in commanding MINUSTAH troops as a multilateral Latin American peace enforcement operation for Haitian reconstruction. This is an important political process that worked through rhetoric and normativity within the institutional-social world. Some see Brazilian political project for U.N.-based humanitarian peace enforcement and military intervention in Haiti as the game of regional leviathan. However, the opening of the ‘black-box’ by examining political rhetoric, institutional norm type, the role of scorekeeping audiences, and shifts in members endorsing each other's commitments to constitutive obligations in the game qua reasoning shows a complicated role where Brazil's scorekeepers played an important role in creating a distinct pathway to the outcome.
Conclusions
Research on political rhetoric, often framed by competing theories, focuses mainly on how rhetoric is just disruptive to the ‘normal’ international politics. Others focus on why legitimate universal norms are relevant or merely irrelevant to a rhetorical project. By foregrounding a different perspective, in this article I theorized a link between political rhetoric and norms, thereby elucidating a neglected aspect of how different types of political rhetoric work through different norm types thus generating different political processes in the game. I argued that rhetorical reasoning by political actors differs based on instrumental, institutional, or moral norms that underwrite interactions where different sorts of accountability criteria arise when audiences take the role of scorekeepers in the diverse legitimation and justification politics in the game.
Clearly, norms play an important role in understanding how rhetoric shapes political outcomes. But neither as ‘intervening variables’ formulated by liberal constructivist IR nor by establishing truth-conditions as suggested by Habermasian constructivists. Nor through dominant legitimate discourse through rhetorical coercion or even disappearing into the unconscious background knowledge as suggested by Bourdieu-inspired practice turn theorists. Instead, the pragmatist idea that norms are constitutive of making a move in the language game through clusters of normative attitudes of interlocutors is important. Here, interlocutors keep track of the moves and hold each other and the rhetorical agent accountable for in different ways through their scorekeeping is fundamental to understanding the shape of a political project. As norms play an important role, the study adds to the analysis of power that lies at the heart of some IR theories of argumentation. How some political actors put together a game that calls for certain reasons as sufficient legitimation is an issue of power where practical considerations and judgment also take priority. In the illustration of Brazil's rhetorical reasoning, the liberal powers fixed the Haitian crisis as one that functions within the conventions and institutional rule structures of the UN. Thereafter, Brazilian political actors engaged with how the Western liberal states ‘made’ the situation and subsequently through rhetorical reasoning with multiple scorekeeping audiences made its own situation by working within the Latin American institutional norms. There are situations where some actors are not able to fix the norm types. The humanitarian crisis in Syria, Darfur, or Yemen and the ensuing rhetorical struggles among actors to authoritatively fix the type of norms that underwrite interactions is a case in point.
This brings us to several important avenues for further investigating the different links between political rhetoric and normativity in international politics. First, there are variations in instrumental rhetoric, different rhetorical politics within institutional norm types, and, counterintuitively, a variety of moral norms in international politics. Such an elaboration should deepen our understanding of the diversity of rhetorical practices through which different political processes comes into existence. Further, how political rhetoric and its scorekeeping practices revises certain customs, local and regional norms, or partner-specific unspoken assumptions in order to marginalize alternative political possibilities require critical investigations. Second, different types of norms interact in practical situations within a single episode. The model elaborated in the study should be pragmatically useful for examining norm interaction problems and the complex scorekeeping practices in international politics. Here, the interactions between fundamental norms and standardized procedures and the sort of normative substance that arise in the operationalization of norms is an important advancement in IR research (Huelss Reference Huelss2017). Thus, the recent practice-turn in IR that already began the funeral oration for norm studies is unwarranted (Pouliot Reference Pouliot2008; Adler and Pouliot Reference Adler and Pouliot2011) because it underestimates the constitutive norms and their evaluations in political action. Finally, IR scholarship on norms needs to transcend debates on the relevance or irrelevance of norms in international politics and keep in tune with recent developments in norms research where investigators are concerned with the pragmatic encroachment of epistemology where ‘what one knows can depend on what one should do’ (McHugh et al. Reference McHugh, Way and Whiting2018; also Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil2018). Investigating the interactions between practical and epistemic normativity in international politics with a distinct political problematique is another avenue for detailed conceptualization and empirical investigation. A pragmatic investigation of the problem of action through political rhetoric as suggested here is only a first step to investigating the crucial normative aspects of international politics.
Acknowledgements
This article is part of my doctoral project submitted to the School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations, Central European University (CEU), Hungary (2017). I revised the paper while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo, funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), under FAPESP Grant Number: #2017/10021-6, whose support I gratefully acknowledge. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for a variety of different forms of assistance at various points in the project to Xymena Kurowska, Paul Roe, Erin Jenne, Patrick Jackson, Viktor Friedmann, Rafael Villa, Kai Kenkel, Maíra Siman Gomes, Janina Onuki, Feliciano Guimarães, Robert Brandom, Stefano Guzzini (before assuming editorship of this journal), and Gunther Hellmann. My colleagues Aron Tabor and Vineet Thakur read earlier versions and offered helpful suggestions. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the current and the previous editors and the three anonymous reviewers of the journal whose comprehensive reviews, comments, and suggestions have helped me re-think and reformulate my ideas. Errors of judgment are mine.
