Congratulations to CIS student Denton Forner, who successfully defended his dissertation proposal July 11, 2025!
His committee commended the quality of his proposal, highlighting its timely focus and skillful use of network analysis alongside qualitative methods. With this milestone, Denton officially advances to All But Dissertation (ABD) status.
Grounded in an interpretivist paradigm and informed by strategic constructivism, this study examines norms not as fixed rules but as contested social constructs shaped by power, identity, and interaction. The theoretical framework integrates regime theory, network institutionalism, and authoritarian international law (AIL) to analyze how institutional structures, networked relationships, and governance ideologies intersect in shaping international norms.
Methodologically, this dissertation employs a mixed methods design that combines network science with qualitative case study analysis. The law of the sea, with its well-established institutional regime, is contrasted with the more fragmented domain of space governance to highlight variation in norm development and contestation. Network analysis identifies coalition structures and assesses institutional resilience, while qualitative methods examine how actors deploy rhetorical strategies and institutional leverage to shape normative outcomes. Initial cases focus on NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as influential platforms for coalition behavior.
This study makes several contributions: it advances theoretical understanding of authoritarian norm entrepreneurship, demonstrates the utility of integrating network and interpretive methods for studying norm dynamics, and offers empirical insights into the evolving governance architectures of sea and space. It also identifies broader implications for how emerging regimes may reflect a contested normative order shaped by both liberal and authoritarian influences. In doing so, it provides a framework for anticipating future shifts in global governance and assessing the resilience of international norms amid geopolitical rivalry.