ABSTRACT
Only one society exists and that is world society, in that the ultimate horizon of all humans today is the world as such and not a confined segment of this world. One of many consequences following from this insight is that states cannot be understood as overarching and closed entities. When viewed from a world-society perspective, states instead appear as particularistic entities which are located within a far broader societal terrain. But, although the category of states is too narrow and therefore cannot serve as the ultimate unit of analysis for law and the social sciences, the concept of world society remains too broad and under-determined. As an alternative, the concept of normative orders is introduced. A normative order is defined as a social structure that is self-sufficient in so far as it reproduces independent sources of meaning (Sinn), which enable it to constitute a comprehensive and condensed universe through the integration of functions and norms over time, thereby providing a framework through which an unknown future can be addressed. In practice, the concept of normative orders serves as a meso-level concept, capable of including social structures as different as organisations, regimes, ethnic and religious communities and states. A further advantage of the concept of normative orders is that it, in contrast to the system-theoretical world-society perspective, enables a dynamic understanding of the relationship between cognitive and normative structures of expectations as a relation of mutual increase in which more of one implies more of the other. Finally, the existence of multiple normative orders in world society means that exchanges, in terms of collisions and transfers, between normative orders become a central focus point. Governance structures, defined as frameworks of transfer located in between normative orders which are characterised by legal and organisational heterarchies, are identified as the institutional form aimed at stabilising such exchanges.
