Abstract
Controversy is at the heart of politics. Theories of practice offer a productive way of understanding controversies and potentially negotiating in them. In this paper, drawing on the work of Theodore Schatzki, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, I introduce a heuristic for understanding controversies. I argue that what is often at stake in controversies are different types of practices of how a political issue should be handled. I introduce five of these types of practices. I analyse a case from global politics to demonstrate the value of such a perspective – the controversies in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission are analysed as clashes between different practices of handling peacebuilding.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Evidence and Policy |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 171-191 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| ISSN | 1744-2648 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 May 2011 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Faculty of Social Sciences
- international organisations
- peacebuilding
- political controversy
- practice theory