Pub Date : 2023-03-02DOI: 10.1177/13540661231158529
Alexandria J Innes
Ontological security studies have added complexity to the state level of analysis in International Relations (IR) by embracing an approach that permits moving across and between levels of analysis without calcifying an assumption as to who or what constitutes the key actors of international politics. I draw on a case study of gender-based violence and subsequent responses to argue that ontological security studies in IR have thus far failed to fully account for intersectional inequalities within social narratives of security. I argue that the state is incapable of providing ontological security because of inherent inequalities that underlie national identity. It is only in attending to those inequalities that we can attend to the biases at the heart of the state. Looking to ontological insecurity in the context of trauma provides a delineated means of accessing these dynamics in a way that is formulated around a pathologised ontological insecurity (rather than an existential, and therefore normalised, process of ontological insecurity). Through the case study of the murder of Sarah Everard and the responses, the value and necessity of an intersectional approach is made clear: trauma responses that are positioned as transgressive by the patriarchal and White supremacist dominating narrative are used within that narrative to undermine the credibility of alternative narratives of security. The state adopts a technique of dividing identity and constructing normatively oppressed identities as transgressive to consolidate the state narrative of security.
{"title":"Accounting for inequalities: divided selves and divided states in International Relations","authors":"Alexandria J Innes","doi":"10.1177/13540661231158529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231158529","url":null,"abstract":"Ontological security studies have added complexity to the state level of analysis in International Relations (IR) by embracing an approach that permits moving across and between levels of analysis without calcifying an assumption as to who or what constitutes the key actors of international politics. I draw on a case study of gender-based violence and subsequent responses to argue that ontological security studies in IR have thus far failed to fully account for intersectional inequalities within social narratives of security. I argue that the state is incapable of providing ontological security because of inherent inequalities that underlie national identity. It is only in attending to those inequalities that we can attend to the biases at the heart of the state. Looking to ontological insecurity in the context of trauma provides a delineated means of accessing these dynamics in a way that is formulated around a pathologised ontological insecurity (rather than an existential, and therefore normalised, process of ontological insecurity). Through the case study of the murder of Sarah Everard and the responses, the value and necessity of an intersectional approach is made clear: trauma responses that are positioned as transgressive by the patriarchal and White supremacist dominating narrative are used within that narrative to undermine the credibility of alternative narratives of security. The state adopts a technique of dividing identity and constructing normatively oppressed identities as transgressive to consolidate the state narrative of security.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":"29 1","pages":"651 - 672"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47368080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-24DOI: 10.1177/13540661231156347
M. Sabaratnam
What does international order look like when analysed from its margins? Such a question is the obvious consequence of efforts within International Relations (IR) to take empire, colonialism and hierarchy more seriously. This article addresses this question by examining one of IR’s most important touchstones – the Great War – through the experiences of peoples in southeast Africa. It argues that to do this, we should use the methodological approaches of histories ‘from below’ and contrapuntal analysis. When looking at the Great War from the vantage point of southeast Africa (contemporary Mozambique), the key patterns of interaction organising the international look different to those emphasised in traditional accounts of international order and hierarchy. Notable features are the significant continuities and intersections between structures of war and colonialism, the racialisation of death and suffering, the effects of white imperial prestige as a strategic preoccupation and the deep historical roots of anti-colonial resistance. Reading upwards and contrapuntally from these histories, the paper argues for a redescription of international order as reflecting not predominantly a balance of power or a normative framework for the organisation of authority, but a dynamic matrix of structural violence. Reading order from below in this way helps us better capture how the international is implicated in the production and reproduction of everyday life for many people, as well as in more dramatic political transformations such as those generated by experiences of war and resistance to colonialism.
{"title":"Bring up the bodies: international order, empire, and re-thinking the Great War (1914–1918) from below","authors":"M. Sabaratnam","doi":"10.1177/13540661231156347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231156347","url":null,"abstract":"What does international order look like when analysed from its margins? Such a question is the obvious consequence of efforts within International Relations (IR) to take empire, colonialism and hierarchy more seriously. This article addresses this question by examining one of IR’s most important touchstones – the Great War – through the experiences of peoples in southeast Africa. It argues that to do this, we should use the methodological approaches of histories ‘from below’ and contrapuntal analysis. When looking at the Great War from the vantage point of southeast Africa (contemporary Mozambique), the key patterns of interaction organising the international look different to those emphasised in traditional accounts of international order and hierarchy. Notable features are the significant continuities and intersections between structures of war and colonialism, the racialisation of death and suffering, the effects of white imperial prestige as a strategic preoccupation and the deep historical roots of anti-colonial resistance. Reading upwards and contrapuntally from these histories, the paper argues for a redescription of international order as reflecting not predominantly a balance of power or a normative framework for the organisation of authority, but a dynamic matrix of structural violence. Reading order from below in this way helps us better capture how the international is implicated in the production and reproduction of everyday life for many people, as well as in more dramatic political transformations such as those generated by experiences of war and resistance to colonialism.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":"29 1","pages":"553 - 575"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41769995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-14DOI: 10.1177/13540661231153259
Italo Brandimarte
Following a widespread fascination with drones, the materiality of aerial warfare – its bodies, embodied experiences, technologies – has received increasing attention in International Relations (IR) scholarship. This article pushes for a deeper, political theorisation of air in the study of war in its material and embodied dimensions through a critical reading of the Abyssinian War (1935–1936) – a central yet largely neglected conflict in the colonial history of world politics. Exploring the joint deployment of aeroplanes and mustard gas in Ethiopia via a mosaic of sources – literature, strategic thought, cartoons and memoirs – I argue that aerial relations expose the production of a racialised global order underpinned by more-than-human war experiences. Bringing together geographer Derek McCormack’s concept of ‘envelopment’ and Black Studies scholar Christina Sharpe’s idea of ‘the weather’, I show how Italy’s imperial desires – and their international perceptions – cannot be theorised in separation from aerial experiences that are conceived as excessive of human bodies, sensing and imagination. This analysis thus makes two central contributions to the critical study of war in IR. First, an aerial reading of the Abyssinian War highlights the political importance of war experience beyond the human. Second, it challenges studies of drone warfare that reduce discussions of air to either the strategic, technical and ontological plane or to the intimate, embodied and phenomenological one. Instead, the more-than-human aerial experiences of the Abyssinian War call for a theorisation of air as both material and affective, technical and embodied, and grand strategic and intimate.
{"title":"Breathless war: martial bodies, aerial experiences and the atmospheres of empire","authors":"Italo Brandimarte","doi":"10.1177/13540661231153259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231153259","url":null,"abstract":"Following a widespread fascination with drones, the materiality of aerial warfare – its bodies, embodied experiences, technologies – has received increasing attention in International Relations (IR) scholarship. This article pushes for a deeper, political theorisation of air in the study of war in its material and embodied dimensions through a critical reading of the Abyssinian War (1935–1936) – a central yet largely neglected conflict in the colonial history of world politics. Exploring the joint deployment of aeroplanes and mustard gas in Ethiopia via a mosaic of sources – literature, strategic thought, cartoons and memoirs – I argue that aerial relations expose the production of a racialised global order underpinned by more-than-human war experiences. Bringing together geographer Derek McCormack’s concept of ‘envelopment’ and Black Studies scholar Christina Sharpe’s idea of ‘the weather’, I show how Italy’s imperial desires – and their international perceptions – cannot be theorised in separation from aerial experiences that are conceived as excessive of human bodies, sensing and imagination. This analysis thus makes two central contributions to the critical study of war in IR. First, an aerial reading of the Abyssinian War highlights the political importance of war experience beyond the human. Second, it challenges studies of drone warfare that reduce discussions of air to either the strategic, technical and ontological plane or to the intimate, embodied and phenomenological one. Instead, the more-than-human aerial experiences of the Abyssinian War call for a theorisation of air as both material and affective, technical and embodied, and grand strategic and intimate.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":"29 1","pages":"525 - 552"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48917103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-03DOI: 10.1177/13540661221146533
Stefan Elbe, Dagmar Vorlíček, D. Brenner
COVID-19 has exposed profound governance challenges that demand more diverse and creative approaches to global health governance moving forward. This article works towards such a pluralization of the field by foregrounding the vital role played by heterodox actors during the pandemic. Heterodox global health actors are backgrounded actors who improve health in different parts of the world, but who remain politically marginalized – and epistemically invisibilized – because they depart in crucial respects from the liberal orthodoxy pervading the field of global health governance. The article analytically foregrounds those heterodox actors through an architectural inversion – a relational approach to the study of global health governance that builds upon recent methodological insights from postcolonial studies, infrastructure studies, and science and technology studies. The article then harnesses that methodological approach to empirically investigate the COVID-19 activities of three different heterodox actors: rebel groups providing public health in the borderlands of Myanmar, a women’s vigilante movement stitching face masks in the Czech Republic, and a maverick scientific platform for the international sharing of viral sequence data. Performing that architectural inversion begins to loosen the dominance of the liberal episteme within the practice and study of global health governance. It further visibilizes how that field is continually co-produced by the background activities of many such heterodox actors. It also lays conceptual foundations for a more heterodox future research agenda on global health governance – and arguably global governance more broadly – in response to the numerous unresolved challenges revealed by COVID-19.
{"title":"Rebels, vigilantes and mavericks: heterodox actors in global health governance","authors":"Stefan Elbe, Dagmar Vorlíček, D. Brenner","doi":"10.1177/13540661221146533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221146533","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19 has exposed profound governance challenges that demand more diverse and creative approaches to global health governance moving forward. This article works towards such a pluralization of the field by foregrounding the vital role played by heterodox actors during the pandemic. Heterodox global health actors are backgrounded actors who improve health in different parts of the world, but who remain politically marginalized – and epistemically invisibilized – because they depart in crucial respects from the liberal orthodoxy pervading the field of global health governance. The article analytically foregrounds those heterodox actors through an architectural inversion – a relational approach to the study of global health governance that builds upon recent methodological insights from postcolonial studies, infrastructure studies, and science and technology studies. The article then harnesses that methodological approach to empirically investigate the COVID-19 activities of three different heterodox actors: rebel groups providing public health in the borderlands of Myanmar, a women’s vigilante movement stitching face masks in the Czech Republic, and a maverick scientific platform for the international sharing of viral sequence data. Performing that architectural inversion begins to loosen the dominance of the liberal episteme within the practice and study of global health governance. It further visibilizes how that field is continually co-produced by the background activities of many such heterodox actors. It also lays conceptual foundations for a more heterodox future research agenda on global health governance – and arguably global governance more broadly – in response to the numerous unresolved challenges revealed by COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42608963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1177/13540661221151038
Aurora Ganz
In this article, I explore how pride as a collective emotion is ontologically bound to the securitisation of energy and put forward an innovative method that engages materiality and discourse in securitisation theory. I examine the case of energy securitisation in Azerbaijan to show that collective pride is anchored to materialisations and reiterative identity discourses that stick to energy sites and align with the nation in ways that fit with the coercive and controlling nature of securitisation. While the existing literature on emotions and securitisation engages with the process of threat construction and focuses on the audience’s affective experience, I approach securitisation as threat construction and threat management and locate the affective dimension of the process in a transversal space that considers the affective experience of the audience alongside that of the securitising actor. This article pays considerable attention to methods and introduces an experimental new materialist discourse analysis, which accounts for the material, affective and non-human world exerting an agential force on the texts.
{"title":"Emotions and securitisation: a new materialist discourse analysis","authors":"Aurora Ganz","doi":"10.1177/13540661221151038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221151038","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I explore how pride as a collective emotion is ontologically bound to the securitisation of energy and put forward an innovative method that engages materiality and discourse in securitisation theory. I examine the case of energy securitisation in Azerbaijan to show that collective pride is anchored to materialisations and reiterative identity discourses that stick to energy sites and align with the nation in ways that fit with the coercive and controlling nature of securitisation. While the existing literature on emotions and securitisation engages with the process of threat construction and focuses on the audience’s affective experience, I approach securitisation as threat construction and threat management and locate the affective dimension of the process in a transversal space that considers the affective experience of the audience alongside that of the securitising actor. This article pays considerable attention to methods and introduces an experimental new materialist discourse analysis, which accounts for the material, affective and non-human world exerting an agential force on the texts.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42279606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-30DOI: 10.1177/13540661231151233
Alvina Hoffmann
This article argues that spokespersons who claim to speak on behalf of a social group cannot escape the structural problem of delegation whereby speaking in someone’s name entails speaking instead of someone. This form of delegated and authorised silencing through the promise of empowerment imposes symbolic violence on a group which recognises the spokesperson as a valid representative, without recognising its own potential disenfranchisement. I build on Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological writings on language and symbolic power to theorise the trajectories of authorisation of spokespersons. In doing so, I critically engage with theories in International Relations which rely on a separation between speaker and audience to analyse the legitimation of political speech. Instead, I reformulate the speaker/audience relation through the concept of symbolic power and introduce the category of the spoken-for. When spokespersons struggle over symbolic power, they seek to impose social classificatory categories on social groups and spaces. I illustrate these dynamics in the context of human rights politics in Crimea, showing how various spokespersons are engaged in a symbolic struggle over ‘authenticity’ of their speech and the ‘universal’ of human rights. I conclude by suggesting new lines of inquiry to analyse creative strategies to mitigate the spokesperson problem.
{"title":"What makes a spokesperson? Delegation and symbolic power in Crimea","authors":"Alvina Hoffmann","doi":"10.1177/13540661231151233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231151233","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that spokespersons who claim to speak on behalf of a social group cannot escape the structural problem of delegation whereby speaking in someone’s name entails speaking instead of someone. This form of delegated and authorised silencing through the promise of empowerment imposes symbolic violence on a group which recognises the spokesperson as a valid representative, without recognising its own potential disenfranchisement. I build on Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological writings on language and symbolic power to theorise the trajectories of authorisation of spokespersons. In doing so, I critically engage with theories in International Relations which rely on a separation between speaker and audience to analyse the legitimation of political speech. Instead, I reformulate the speaker/audience relation through the concept of symbolic power and introduce the category of the spoken-for. When spokespersons struggle over symbolic power, they seek to impose social classificatory categories on social groups and spaces. I illustrate these dynamics in the context of human rights politics in Crimea, showing how various spokespersons are engaged in a symbolic struggle over ‘authenticity’ of their speech and the ‘universal’ of human rights. I conclude by suggesting new lines of inquiry to analyse creative strategies to mitigate the spokesperson problem.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49003728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-30DOI: 10.1177/13540661221151036
Yehonatan Abramson
Securitization theory has paid extensive attention to transnational issues, actors, and processes. Surprisingly, however, only little attention has been paid to the securitization of diaspora communities, defined as overseas citizens or co-nationals abroad. This article fills this gap by developing an analytical framework to study the securitization of diasporas, focusing on three discursive formations: diasporas as threatening actors, as objects under threat, or as security resources. Building upon the recent literature on state–diaspora engagement and drawing on an analysis of Israeli elite discourse (from 1948 to 2022), this article demonstrates how the securitization of diasporas serves as a discursive mechanism that naturalizes and legitimizes extra-territorial policies towards Jews abroad. Thus, the article complements structural and rational explanations of state–diaspora engagement by examining the intersubjective process that endows diaspora policymaking with meaning. Against the backdrop of extensive securitization scholarship that focuses on attempts to keep “foreigners” out, this article shows how securitization justifies bringing certain people in or governing their national identity abroad.
{"title":"Securitizing the nation beyond the state: diasporas as threats, victims, and assets","authors":"Yehonatan Abramson","doi":"10.1177/13540661221151036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221151036","url":null,"abstract":"Securitization theory has paid extensive attention to transnational issues, actors, and processes. Surprisingly, however, only little attention has been paid to the securitization of diaspora communities, defined as overseas citizens or co-nationals abroad. This article fills this gap by developing an analytical framework to study the securitization of diasporas, focusing on three discursive formations: diasporas as threatening actors, as objects under threat, or as security resources. Building upon the recent literature on state–diaspora engagement and drawing on an analysis of Israeli elite discourse (from 1948 to 2022), this article demonstrates how the securitization of diasporas serves as a discursive mechanism that naturalizes and legitimizes extra-territorial policies towards Jews abroad. Thus, the article complements structural and rational explanations of state–diaspora engagement by examining the intersubjective process that endows diaspora policymaking with meaning. Against the backdrop of extensive securitization scholarship that focuses on attempts to keep “foreigners” out, this article shows how securitization justifies bringing certain people in or governing their national identity abroad.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43682839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1177/13540661221143213
Marianne Dahl, K. Gleditsch
There is a long-standing debate over the impact of coups on democratization. Some argue that coups can help promote transitions to democratic rule. Yet, others contend that coups often spur increased repression and autocratization, undermining hopes of democratic reform. We argue that both democratic and autocratic changes are more likely after a coup and that popular mobilization plays a crucial role in shaping the post-coup trajectory. Democratization is more likely when coups occur in the presence of significant popular mobilization. A coup reveals cracks within a regime, and the combination of pressure from within and threat from below during popular mobilizations fosters greater incentives to promise democratic reform. In the absence of popular mobilization, autocratic rule is more likely, especially when a coup is successful. We test our argument on the combined effect of popular mobilization and coups on changes in democracy in a global dataset, considering the specific dates of events and institutional changes, the outcomes of coups, and using decay functions to capture persistent effects. The analysis provides strong support for our argument, with the key findings robust across a number of alternative tests. Our analysis underscores the value of examining variation in the context of coups to understand their likely political consequences.
{"title":"Clouds with silver linings: how mobilization shapes the impact of coups on democratization","authors":"Marianne Dahl, K. Gleditsch","doi":"10.1177/13540661221143213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221143213","url":null,"abstract":"There is a long-standing debate over the impact of coups on democratization. Some argue that coups can help promote transitions to democratic rule. Yet, others contend that coups often spur increased repression and autocratization, undermining hopes of democratic reform. We argue that both democratic and autocratic changes are more likely after a coup and that popular mobilization plays a crucial role in shaping the post-coup trajectory. Democratization is more likely when coups occur in the presence of significant popular mobilization. A coup reveals cracks within a regime, and the combination of pressure from within and threat from below during popular mobilizations fosters greater incentives to promise democratic reform. In the absence of popular mobilization, autocratic rule is more likely, especially when a coup is successful. We test our argument on the combined effect of popular mobilization and coups on changes in democracy in a global dataset, considering the specific dates of events and institutional changes, the outcomes of coups, and using decay functions to capture persistent effects. The analysis provides strong support for our argument, with the key findings robust across a number of alternative tests. Our analysis underscores the value of examining variation in the context of coups to understand their likely political consequences.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41403691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-03DOI: 10.1177/13540661221143925
Chris Deacon
The broad agenda of ontological security scholarship in International Relations is to examine states’ (in)security of Self-identity and the implications for their international conduct. While ontological security may be an illusory goal, states vary in their levels of ontological insecurity, with more extreme levels producing acute defence mechanisms. Such ontological crises are therefore an important area of focus gaining increasing attention. Thus far, however, they have generally been conceptualised as ‘critical situations’: unpredictable, transient and practically resolvable ruptures of routinised practices. I argue that such a conceptualisation neglects the possibility of a more fundamental, long-term crisis of Self-identity, which I term perpetual ontological crisis. Such crises stem from inherent contradictions within dominant constructions of identity that may have always existed – rather than exogenous shocks to a hitherto secure Self – and are therefore irresolvable within the bounds of those constructions. I develop the example of nation/state incongruence: when a state’s territorial boundaries do not accord with the national spatial imaginary dominant in that state, resulting in an inherent and enduring contradiction. I then illustrate these contentions with a case study of South Korea, whose borders have never matched the imagined spatial bounds of the Korean nation. To demonstrate the implications of this crisis, I conduct a discourse analysis evidencing a nexus between enduring ontological anxieties concerning Korean division and South Korea’s persistently antagonistic relationship with Japan. In doing so, this article has important implications for how we understand ontological crisis and offers a novel account of its empirical case.
{"title":"Perpetual ontological crisis: national division, enduring anxieties and South Korea’s discursive relationship with Japan","authors":"Chris Deacon","doi":"10.1177/13540661221143925","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221143925","url":null,"abstract":"The broad agenda of ontological security scholarship in International Relations is to examine states’ (in)security of Self-identity and the implications for their international conduct. While ontological security may be an illusory goal, states vary in their levels of ontological insecurity, with more extreme levels producing acute defence mechanisms. Such ontological crises are therefore an important area of focus gaining increasing attention. Thus far, however, they have generally been conceptualised as ‘critical situations’: unpredictable, transient and practically resolvable ruptures of routinised practices. I argue that such a conceptualisation neglects the possibility of a more fundamental, long-term crisis of Self-identity, which I term perpetual ontological crisis. Such crises stem from inherent contradictions within dominant constructions of identity that may have always existed – rather than exogenous shocks to a hitherto secure Self – and are therefore irresolvable within the bounds of those constructions. I develop the example of nation/state incongruence: when a state’s territorial boundaries do not accord with the national spatial imaginary dominant in that state, resulting in an inherent and enduring contradiction. I then illustrate these contentions with a case study of South Korea, whose borders have never matched the imagined spatial bounds of the Korean nation. To demonstrate the implications of this crisis, I conduct a discourse analysis evidencing a nexus between enduring ontological anxieties concerning Korean division and South Korea’s persistently antagonistic relationship with Japan. In doing so, this article has important implications for how we understand ontological crisis and offers a novel account of its empirical case.","PeriodicalId":48069,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of International Relations","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44615449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/13540661221143941
Aidan Hehir
‘Imperial overstretch’ and the role played by related ideational issues derived from particular liberal tenets and the United States’ belief in its ‘manifest destiny’ to lead the world have been regularly cited as explanations for why the United States’ ambitious project to transform the world in the post–Cold War era failed. In this article, I argue that these analyses have overlooked a crucial causal factor that also impelled the United States to undertake its ultimately doomed project: hope. I demonstrate that analyses of hope’s influence have found that while hope can exert a positive influence, it can also – if irrational – induce self-destructive behaviour. During the period of unipolarity, the United States repeatedly advanced teleological visions of a bright future for humanity routinely infused with the language of hope. I demonstrate that hope was, however, more than just a discursive device; it was itself a catalyst for the United States’ actions. I argue that a confluence of factors at the end of the Cold War aligned to impel the rapid emergence of a particular variant of hope – defined as ‘wilful hope’ – which inspired the United States to act as it did. I demonstrate how this disposition was evident in the rhetoric employed by both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush but also – more importantly – in the strategies they each implemented. Ultimately, this disposition played a crucial – though not exclusive – role in undermining international support for US leadership and precipitating the end of ‘the unipolar moment’.
“帝国过度扩张”以及源自特定自由主义信条的相关意识形态问题所发挥的作用，以及美国对其领导世界的“天定命运”的信念，经常被用来解释美国在后冷战时代改变世界的雄心勃勃的计划失败的原因。在这篇文章中，我认为这些分析忽略了一个关键的因果因素，这个因素也促使美国进行了最终注定失败的项目:希望。我证明，对希望影响的分析发现，虽然希望可以产生积极影响，但它也可能——如果不合理的话——诱发自我毁灭行为。在单极时期，美国一再提出人类光明未来的目的论愿景，并经常注入希望的语言。然而，我证明希望不仅仅是一种话语手段;它本身就是美国行动的催化剂。我认为，在冷战结束时，一系列因素共同推动了一种特殊形式的希望的迅速出现——定义为“任性的希望”——这促使美国采取了它所采取的行动。我展示了这种倾向是如何在比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)和乔治•w•布什(George W. Bush)两任总统的言辞中体现出来的，但更重要的是，在他们各自实施的战略中也体现出来。最终，这种倾向在削弱国际社会对美国领导地位的支持和加速“单极时代”的终结方面发挥了至关重要的作用(尽管不是排他的)。
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