Putting on a Show? The Sovereignty of De Facto States Between Performativity, Performance and Virtuality

Abstract

De facto states are widely seen as temporal anomalies of the international system, and, in state-centric literature in particular, as entities lacking ‘real’ sovereignty that are simply putting on a show, pretending to be something they are not in the hope that faking it may one day lead to international recognition. Critically engaging with recent literature on de facto states as well as debates on performativity/performance, this article rejects as misguided the dichotomous ontologies of fake versus real. Instead, I argue that the most prominent examples of de facto states, that possess both internal and arguably also a considerable degree of external sovereignty, demonstrate that statehood is not the linchpin of the international system it is made out to be. Drawing on Bergson and Deleuze, I suggest that the sovereignty – of de facto states and beyond – should be understood as virtuality, where past and present are contemporaneous, and where sovereignty as virtual may or may not be actualised in statehood, thus posing for discussion a novel framework that elegantly disentangles sovereignty and statehood. The analytical promise of such an approach, in conclusion, is illustrated in a brief discussion of Iraqi Kurdistan and Taiwan.