ABSTRACT
This chapter re-examines some of the conceptual frames underpinning the study of international norms. It focuses on the concept centrally mobilised within that scholarship to appraise normative change, socialization. The chapter uses an issue-area of international politics that has been extensively mined under the constructivist socialization lenses, whaling, as a prism for highlighting some of the pitfalls that have taken shape in the way the concept has been adopted from sociology. 'Socialization' provides the conceptual hook that links the study of identity, norms and the appraisal of change in international politics. A first flaw to the use of socialization in conventional constructivism is its in-built normative teleology. Returning to socialization's conceptual origins in sociology is useful for further separating out the unidirectionality from the logic inherent to the concept itself and for locating it in the assumptions underpinning its adoption in conventional constructivism.
