In my paper I develop a perspective on "the international" as politico-normativity which is inspired by the sociology of knowledge by Berger and Luckmann. It holds that "the international" is conceivable as a product of (ongoing) human activity and thus as a socially constructed reality. Accordingly, throughout my paper "the international" is understood as a socially conventionalized reality that is contingent upon social re-production and, if re-produced, pre-structures human activity as objective facticity. Conceptualizing "the international" in this way opens up the possibility of re-constructing the social construction and normalization of "the international" as a cognitive and normative reality. More precisely, it makes possible a re-tracing of the social emergence and authorization of a shared repertoire of social signification constitutive of international relations. However, as social institutionalization is by no means a self runner and as social institutions do "exist" only as long as they are re-produced, "the international" constitutes a reality and politico-normativity only insofar and as long as it is re-produced by means of signification. In my paper I use so called “international conferences” in order to illustrate this. It thereby becomes clear that taking seriously "the international" as reality implies not to retro-activate its politico-normativity from 1648 onwards. To sum up, the overall idea is to outline the normativity of international politics as a particularly legitimized model of politics (including agents and practices) as well as to show how a tradition of international politics in its temporal and spatial particularity becomes possible and accumulates as a function of social re-production.
