Introduction

This chapter is inspired by a simple observation. In the almost 500 pages of his recent work Praxis, Fritz Kratochwil pays little attention to the distributive role of rules (legal or otherwise), institutions and decisions (Kratochwil, 2018). This is not a criticism: it would be like criticizing Leo Messi for not playing basketball, or complaining that Lebron James does not play chess very often (assuming this to be the case). In all his work, Kratochwil has pioneered the constitutive role of rules, institutions and decisions, and he has more than made his mark on the study of international affairs. The fact remains, though, that while he has pioneered the constitutive effects of rules, institutions and decisions, he has rarely zoomed in on their distributive effects. That said, few others have done so beyond positing assumptions about the effectiveness of governments or markets. There are some exceptions: some scholars of (neo-)Marxist or (neo-)Gramscian persuasion (e.g. Cox, 1987), or the odd institutional economist (e.g. North, 1990), some revisionist historians and historiographers (e.g. Hobsbawm, 1975), and some international political economists (e.g. Strange, 1994); they all concentrate on issues of distribution in one way or another. But, by and large, in doing so they often neglect the specific role of rules, institutions or decisions. Put differently: for many, distributive results are results of political processes that are then cast in rules, institutions or decisions. Those rules and institutions are thought to reflect distributive outcomes rather than contribute to them: rules and institutions are often treated as the outcome of political processes, rather than key structures which help determine those very outcomes. For others, some branches of law address distribution as attaching to specific occurrences – tort law and insurance law may qualify as examples. But the role that rules, institutions and decisions play in achieving, channelling, promoting or facilitating particular distributive results remains under-illuminated; it is precisely here that my interest resides.

The ambition of this chapter is to start a conversation at precisely the point where others often sign off: on the distributive role of rules, institutions and decisions. My interest rests with the distributive effects of rules, institutions and decisions rather than with distribution per se – how is it that rules, institutions and decisions can best be conceptualized so as to take their distributive effects seriously?