A profusion of international norms influences state behaviour. Ambiguities and tensions in the normative framework can give rise to contestation. While research on norm contestation has focused on open debates about norms, we identify a second type of norm contestation where norms are contested through particular forms of implementation. We therefore distinguish between contestation through words and actions, that is, discursive and behavioural contestation. Discursive contestation involves debates about the meaning and/or (relative) importance of norms.

Historians of early modern "scientia civilis" focus on two main understandings of that concept: the juridical and the rhetorical. This article focuses on another way of thinking about civil science in the early modern period, the origins and development of which are in the Aristotelian commentary tradition. This article begins with political science in Aristotle then turns to the works of commentators from Albert the Great in the thirteenth century, to the Oxford philosopher John Case in the late sixteenth.

Dr Bejan responds to reviews of her Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration from Sonu Bedi (Dartmouth), George Thomas (Claremont), and Wilfred M. McClay (University of Oklahoma).

A number of different actors are involved in protecting critical national infrastructure (CNI) systems within the United Kingdom. The breadth of expertise across varied sectors and industries means that UK CNI is ultimately protected by a loose network rather than a single empowered actor. Although the necessity of such an assemblage is inevitable, the roles and responsibilities of the participants remain ill-defined.

The post-cold war era has seen an unmistakable trend toward the proliferation of violent non-state groups-variously labeled terrorists, rebels, paramilitaries, gangs, and criminals-near borders in unstable regions especially. In Borderland Battles, Annette Idler examines the micro-dynamics among violent non-state groups and finds striking patterns: borderland spaces consistently intensify the security impacts of how these groups compete for territorial control, cooperate in illicit cross-border activities, and replace the state in exerting governance functions.