Accounting for Knowledge in Policies of Responsibility

This article develops a framework that aims to account for knowledge in practices of responsibility. It embarks from the observation that norms in global governance are contested, and increasingly so, triggered by processes of globalisation which make inter-national encounters ever more likely. By understanding these encounters as inter-cultural, the article focuses on knowledge practices that inform (diverging) understandings of fundamental norms. We argue that in order to increase long-term sustainable normativity under conditions of globalisation, researcher needs to uncover meso-level norms. These norms form the organising principles that may reconcile stakeholders diverging interpretation of fundamental norms, on the one hand, and the ensuing contestation over standardised procedures, on the other. We hold that negotiated, and therefore: sustainable, normativity at the meso-level may fill the gap between different actors involved in putting norms into practice.