Exemplarity in Global Politics - (Bristol Studies in International Theory) by Dorothy Noyes & Tobias Wille (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Available open access digitally under CC-BY licence.

How is political change claimed and recognized? How is it attached to actors and transferred between them? This volume gives a new account of a mechanism that is celebrated in liberal discourse but trickier in practice: the performance and uptake of examples.

Bringing together thinkers from different disciplines and places, this book considers the networks of reception and emulation within which a political act can become an example, circulating beyond the bounds of identities, norms, and ideologies. Tracing short- and long-term interactions among aspirational, dissident, and establishment performances, the volume reveals exemplarity to be a shaping force in global politics.

Review Quotes

'How do exemplary acts become themselves? This impressive, wide-ranging volume interrogates the intricate interplay of political claims, performance events and recognition. The chapters offer the reader refreshing and important transdisciplinary insights into the global politics of exemplarity.' Srdjan Vucetic, University of Ottawa

'This conceptually compelling and empirically scrumptious collection edited by Noyes and Wille unpicks the modalities and uptakes of exemplarity in world politics with rare anthropological sensibility. For a finely imaginative example of empirical theorising, defying disciplinary boundaries and engaging a range of perspectives, look no further. A treat.' Maria Mälksoo, University of Copenhagen

'We live in a world full of exemplars, but far from an exemplary world, a contradiction that fuels these subtle and richly satisfying analyses of how aspirational models of people and forms might circulate. This nuanced bouquet of chapters brings together interdisciplinary approaches that reveal the types of social coordination that must exist for exemplars to emerge, circulate, and in turn structure future possibilities that people thus learn to find worthwhile. This collection is a vital starting point for all who want to understand a world built to enable exemplars to spark social change.' Ilana Gershon, Rice University

About the Author

Dorothy Noyes is College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English and Director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University.

Tobias Wille is Assistant Professor of International Security in the Department of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt and John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University's Center for European Studies.