The study of international norms from a social constructivist perspective has been one of the major conceptual innovations to the discipline of international relations (IR) over the past forty years. However, despite the concept's ubiquity, there is only a limited understanding of the large-scale trends in research associated with its rise. This analytic essay interrogates conventional wisdom, using a dataset of 7,795 mainstream, English-language journal articles from the Teaching, Research and International Policy Journal Article Database, supplemented with data from Web of Science. How have international norms been studied substantively and methodologically, what are major contributions and blind spots, and which opportunities for future innovation might exist? Although norms research has historically helped expand the scope of issues covered in IR (e.g., gender issues and public health), others have evidence gaps relative to the broader discipline of IR (e.g., terrorism and public opinion). Over the years, the proportion of empirical studies has increased, while purely theoretical, epistemological, and methodological work and innovation have decreased. Despite calls for methodological pluralism, norms research is significantly more qualitative and conceptual than mainstream IR in general and far less multi-method. While more international and less US-based than IR in general, norms research in mainstream journals seems to be no closer to a “Global IR,” measured by regional focus and author affiliation. This suggests three promising avenues for future innovation: greater attention to specific substantive blind spots, more multi-method research, and increased attention to the agenda of Global IR. Beyond these individual insights, this review illustrates the general utility of complementing narrative literature reviews with ones based on quantitative data. It also provides a case study on conceptual proliferation and innovation in IR.

中文翻译：

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国际关系中建构主义规范研究的贡献和盲点，1980-2018：系统证据和差距分析

从社会建构主义的角度研究国际规范是过去四十年来国际关系学科的主要概念创新之一。然而，尽管这个概念无处不在，但对其兴起相关的大规模研究趋势的理解却很有限。这篇分析文章质疑传统智慧，使用来自教学、研究和国际政策期刊文章数据库的 7,795 篇主流英语期刊文章的数据集，并辅以 Web of Science 的数据。如何对国际规范进行实质性和方法论研究，主要贡献和盲点是什么，未来可能存在哪些创新机会？尽管规范研究在历史上帮助扩大了国际关系所涵盖的问题范围（例如，性别问题和公共卫生），但其他一些相对于更广泛的国际关系学科（例如，恐怖主义和公众舆论）而言存在证据差距。多年来，实证研究的比例有所增加，而纯理论、认识论和方法论的工作和创新却在减少。尽管呼吁方法论多元化，规范研究总体上比主流国际关系更具定性和概念性，而多方法则少得多。虽然总体而言，与 IR 相比，国际关系更国际化，美国本土化程度更低，但主流期刊的规范研究似乎并不接近“全球 IR”，以区域焦点和作者隶属关系衡量。这表明了未来创新的三个有希望的途径：更多地关注特定的实质性盲点，更多的多方法研究，以及对全球 IR 议程的更多关注。除了这些个人见解之外，这篇评论还说明了用基于定量数据的评论来补充叙事文学评论的一般效用。它还提供了有关国际关系中概念扩散和创新的案例研究。