The International Politics of Recognition

Erik Ringmar1

Identities matter to individuals and they matter to collective entities like football

teams, political parties, genders, ethnic groups, social classes, generations and

religious communities. In fact, few things matter more than the identities we put

together for ourselves since, without an identity, we have no idea who of we are. Yet

putting together an identity is often quite a struggle. We need to come up with an

account which describes us, but in addition, we need to have this account accepted

by people around us. We need to make sure we are recognized.

As the chapters in this book make clear, this logic of identity creation is

relevant also to the entities that populate world politics – most notably to the state.

States too are coming up with self-descriptions and struggling to have them

recognized. In fact, the struggle for recognition takes up much of a state’s time and

resources, and it makes states act, and interact, in specific ways. This is a logic of

action and interaction which so far largely has been ignored by scholars of

international relation. As a result, many international phenomena, including armed

conflicts, have been misinterpreted and badly explained. This book is an attempt to

improve on this state of affairs.

The reason why previous generations of scholars largely ignored questions of

identities is simply that they did not come up. The state was the indisputable

subject of a study of world politics and its existence was impossible to problematize.

The question was what the state did, and why, and never what, or perhaps who, the

state was. We are placed in a better position. In the twenty-first century, identity

1 Thanks to Jeffrey Alexander, Andreas Behnke, Felix Berenskoetter, Axel Honneth, Jorg Kustermans, Thomas Lindemann, Diane Pranzo, Reinhard Wolf and Yana Zuo for comments on a previous version.

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crises, and identity make-overs, are everywhere, and the position of the state in

world politics is questioned like never before. Abandoning the old Realpolitik for a

new Identitätsproblematik we need new intellectual tools.2 This book

unapologetically assumes that world politics is a social system which can be analyzed

with the help of the tools of sociology.3 More specifically, we believe that sociological

insights into how identities are formed, maintained and dissolved, have much to

teach a student of international relations. This introduction provides a first outline.

The identities of individuals

Lets begin by thinking about the identities of individuals. Reading old social

philosophers – G.W.F. Hegel, Alexandre Kojève – and some contemporary ones –

Axel Honneth, Alessandro Pizzorno -- we can paste together a basic model of how

identities are created.4 We begin by telling stories about ourselves. We make up an

account, or we make up many, which describe ourselves to ourselves. The problem

with these self-descriptions is how to get the story right. Unfettered in our fantasies,

we are wont to exaggerate our importance and our prospects, and as a result our

self-representations are likely to be hopelessly inflated. Or, alternatively, we are

only too ready to accept the accepted accounts, handed down to us by society and

by tradition, of what a person like ourselves is supposed to be. In either case we will

be mistaken about who we really are.

But even if we somehow manage to describe ourselves in a reasonably realistic

fashion, there are still many things about us that we simply do not know. Locating

ourselves inside our bodies, we believe we have privileged access to our mental

states – indeed we may believe that we are our mental states – but this privileged

2 As developed by, for example, Wendt, 1999:193-245; Bially Mattern, 2001:349-97; Haake, 2005:181-194; Greenhill, 2008:343-368.

3 Picking up themes from, for example, Alexander, 2004:527-5734 See Hegel, 1807/1979; Kojève, 1947/1980:3-30; Honneth, 1996:7-63;

Pizzorno, 1986:355-373.

2

perspective is also quite limiting. Above all, since we never can see ourselves –

except awkwardly, and in fleeting moments, in a mirror – we have only limited

knowledge of what we look like while interacting with others.5 Other people, by

contrast, are wont to describe us far more realistically. They are unlikely to

exaggerate our importance or our looks, but equally they may be able to see

potentials in us which we have ignored. Other people have a privileged perspective

too: seeing us from the outside they know far better what we are like as social

beings.

In the end identities are created through an interplay of these two alternative

perspectives. We start by telling stories about ourselves which we go on to test on

people around us. We let other people know who we believe we are, and they let us

know whether or not our account is reasonable. In this way, our stories about

ourselves are, or are not, recognized. If our story is recognized, we have a

preliminary version of an identity which we, increasingly self-confidently, can go on

to use in interaction with others. If our story is not recognized, however, we have to

reconsider our options. Maybe we decide to abandon our self-description, or maybe

we decide to stick to it, and to fight for it.

The stories we tell about ourselves make four separate claims on their

listeners.6 On the most basic level, we demand the attention of an audience. When

we meet someone we shake hands, give a kiss, slap hands, embrace or bow – thus

acknowledging each other's existence. But our stories also ask for respect. That is,

we insist that our audiences treat us as human beings, equal to others and endowed

with the same rights as everyone else in our community. In addition to being equal

to others, however, we also want to be different from others. We ask our listeners to

5 Mead, 1964:152-164. Cf. Honneth, 1996:71-92.6 Cf. Honneth, 1996:92-130. Honneth, 000-000 this volume, expresses doubts as

to the applicability of this schema to international politics since the motivations of a population are difficult to ascertain. While this may be true as a matter of empirical investigations, this has no bearing on the analytical distinction.

3

recognize us as a clearly identifiable someone, a person with a life which is uniquely

our own. Finally our stories make statements about our affiliations – they place us

in an affective field made up of friends and enemies. From our friends we ask

support and from our enemies we ask enmity.7 Stacked inside each other, all stories

about ourselves simultaneously make these four demands: we want our existence to

be acknowledged; we want respect, individuality and an affiliation.

Thus described, identity-creation is a profoundly theatrical process.8 “All the

world's a stage,” as Shakespeare put it, “and all the men and women merely

players.”9 Compare the Latin word persona, derived from the masks carried by

actors in the Roman theater. “The word Person is latine,” as Thomas Hobbes pointed

out, and it “signifies the disguise, or outward appearance of a man, counterfeited on

the Stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it, which disguiseth the

face, as a Mask or a Visard.”10 Like a Hobbesian actor we carry our identities as

masks before the audiences we address. If the audience cheers, the persona will be

attached ever-more securely to our person. If the audience boos and hisses, we will

have to put on some other mask, or rehearse our role better so as to make a more

convincing performance on another occasion.

An identity gives a measure of coherence to the ever-shifting impressions,

sensations and memories that float through our minds. Once our identities are

recognized, this cognitive flotsam can be attached to a particular subject; they

become ours. It is only as recognized that our identities will come have continuity

over time and space.11 To the extent that we are able to achieve recognition for our

performance, and to the extent that our audience remains loyal, we are able to take

our identities increasingly for granted. In the end, we will even forget that we are

7 Barker, 2007:18-34; Berenskoetter, 2007: 647-676.8 Goffman, 1959:249-255.9 Shakespeare, 2003. Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166.10 Hobbes, “Of Persons, Authors, and things Personated,” in Hobbes,

1651/1982:217.11 Pizzorno, 1986:365-372.

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play-acting and that our identity originally was nothing but a make-believe.

The subjectivity of the state

The argument which follows assumes that this basic model of identity-creation and

recognition is applicable also in international relations, notably in relations between

states. The problem is of course that states are not persons. They can be compared

to persons to be sure, but that does not make them persons. Most obviously, a state

has no unified consciousness, no single memory, and no subjective will. As a result,

it is difficult to talk about the “identity” of a state, and to assume that this identity is

fashioned in the same way as the identities of individuals.12

The best answer to these objections is a historical one. A person may not be

what a state is, but this is surely how states have been talked about, at least for the

last 500 years. In the Middle Ages, political relations, like all human associations,

were understood through the metaphor of the corpus, the body.13 Guilds and

fraternities were bodies, but so were cities and kingdoms, and all bodies were

ultimately incorporated into the universal body which was the body of the Church.

In early modern Europe, the sovereign state found it useful to adopt this body

language and to use it for its own purposes.14 It was common to talk about the

“body politic,” and to endow this body with “arms,” “legs,” “stomach” and a “heart.”

Naturally, it was the king, or the “head of state,” who directed the state’s overall

movements.

Like other subjects, the states told stories about themselves. States in early

modern Europe were compulsive self-mythologizers, attaching their often quite

undistinguished present to a past filled with classical, or biblical, references. The

12 For an assessment of these arguments, see Ringmar, 1996b:439-466; Wendt, 2004:289-316; and the contributions to Jackson & Ringmar, forthcoming; as well as Honneth, 000-000, and Wolf, 000-000 in this volume.

13 Kantorowicz, 1957/1997:3-23; Maitland, 1900:vii-xlv.14 Kantorowics, 1957/1997:23-41; Skinner, 1989:90-131.

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nationalists of the nineteenth-century rearranged these account to include more

references to “the people,” inventing traditions designed to bring legitimacy to their

claims to national self-determination.15 Propagated through the new systems of

public education, these stories were soon established as the official histories of the

nation-state.16 Most of us still believe in some versions of these accounts.

In early modern Europe, the world was often compared to a stage.

Sometimes, as in Shakespeare, the metaphor was used, slightly pathetically, to

express the superficiality and vanity of human pretensions. But it soon became the

standardized way in which international politics was discussed. The body-metaphor

and the stage-metaphor were combined, that is, as the body of the state was turned

into an actor. After the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648, the state emerged as a

sovereign, self-directing, actor constrained only by the actions of other states. At

the royal courts, but also on more popular occasions such as country fairs, plays

were performed which illustrated the political relations of the day.17 On the stage

before them, the audience would literally see their state acting and interacting with

other states.

The stage was a world, and the world was a stage. Together the various states

formed a theater company which regularly met for performances on the battle fields

of Europe, or in the conference halls where the peace treaties were signed. It was

an illustrious troupe: the actors were civilized, they were Christian, they had an

awesome military and political capability. It was in their company that lesser

political units one day aspired to appear. And this is how we still think about

international politics. Pick up any newspaper article on world affairs and it will be

replete with states “considering options,” “acting aggressively,” “signing agreements”

or “threatening sanctions” -- all before the critical, or the approving, eyes of world

15 Hobsbawm, 1992:1-14.16 Weber, 1976:303-338.17 Orgel, 1975:10-11.

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opinion.

This is how the subjectivity of the state originally came to be established. This

metaphorical cluster, and associated performative practices, were eagerly adopted

by absolutist rulers for which they seemed ideally suited. The l'état c’est moi, of

Louis XIV was not an egocentric indulgence as much as an expression of the official

French theory of sovereignty.18 But the subjectivity of the state was equally useful to

republics and, later, to the needs of democratic governments. Both citizens and

leaders identify themselves with their states; the state is the protector of our

national culture and our status in the world. We tie our hopes to our states and

make careers in their institutions; we celebrate their successes and lament their

defeats. Funnily enough, such étatisme is often strongest in places where state

institutions are least appreciated. L'état, even Americans agree, c'est nous!19

In international law the subjectivity of the state is a well-established

commonplace. The state is the persona of international law in much the same way

as individuals are the persona of civil law, and corporations the persona of

commercial law.20 In international law a state is a subject endowed with rights and

obligations, and it is an actor who can think rationally, and be held responsible for

the consequences of its actions. In fact, in legal treatises the state has usually

attained something of a transcendental status.21 The state remains the same even

as it changes it rulers, its citizens, its political system, or as territory is added to, or

subtracted from, it. It is only if the state is completely divided up by others that its

subjectivity comes to an end.

We may perhaps object that this language is metaphorical through and through

and that the subjectivity of the state for that reason is a matter of language rather

18 Baker, 1990:59-85.19 “In a poll from 1999,” Lieven reports, “72 percent of adult Americans declared

that they were proud of their country. In the country with the next highest score, Britain, the figure was 53 percent.” Lieven, 2005:19.

20 On the state as an “International Person,” see Oppenheim, 1912:107, 116.21 Ibid:122-25.

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than any real, observable, facts. Perhaps it is nothing more than a hermeneutic

device – a way to illustrate and explain things; a way to show how international

politics works. And admittedly, beyond this metaphorical language there can be no

additional proof of the state's subjectivity. But much the same can be said about the

subjectivity of individuals.22 If we probe our brains for evidence of our identities we

will necessarily be disappointed. Brain states, after all, is not what we are.

Identities are social facts created through the interaction between, often nervous,

story-tellers and, often critical, audiences. And what is true for the identities of

individuals is true for the identities of states.23 We are not in the realm of reality, we

are in the realm of interpretation.

Recognition in international law & diplomacy

Recognition is a key concept both for international lawyers and diplomatists. Since

the state is the subject of their treaties, the lawyers need to determine what it is

that makes a state a state. And since diplomats are sent by their states to other

states, or to international conferences, they need to know how to behave once they

arrive. It is the same in all membership clubs: we must establish some criteria by

which members can be selected, non-members excluded, and the relations between

members and non-members regulated.

The majority opinion among contemporary lawyers seems to be in favor of a

“declarative” interpretation of statehood.24 Accordingly, a state is a state as long as

it has a permanent population; a defined territory; a government; and the “capacity

to enter into relations with the other states.”25 Thus, a land with a nomadic

22 What we are, said Hume, is “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” Hume, 1738/1986:300.

23 Like Hume we might as well turn the question around and compare the identity of an individual to “a republic or a commonwealth.” Ibid:309.

24 Oppenheim, 1912:108-9. 25 Avalon Project, 1933.

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population cannot be a state, nor people living in a diaspora, nor a “failed state”

without an effective government, nor a federal sub-unit or a territory under colonial

occupation. However, as long as these criteria are fulfilled, no further recognition is

required.26 Or rather, what is to be recognized are not identities as much as facts.

According to the declarative view, it is not recognition by others which makes a state

a state; instead statehood is a fact which others have no choice but to recognize.27

There is no doubt that the international lawyers are right. A political unit can

surely be a state without being recognized, just as a person can be a person without

being recognized. Yet the state, and the person, have these identities merely in

their own estimations. Before long, their self-understandings must be confirmed by

others or they cannot credibly be maintained. It is only as recognized that the state

can enter the “international community,” or the “Family of Nations.” This is the, so

called, “constitutive” view of statehood:

International Law does not say that a State is not in existence as long as it is not recognised, but it takes no notice of it before its recognition. Through recognition only and exclusively a State becomes an Internation-al Person and a subject of International Law.28

The constitutive view has solid empirical backing. In the nineteenth-century, many

states outside of Europe – despite qualifying on declarative grounds -- were not

included in the international community since they failed to adequately adhere to the

rules of international law. And still today some states exist without being universally

recognized.29 It is also possible for the declarative requirements of statehood to

deteriorate over time without the state thereby losing its status. Many governments

with seats in the UN have only a tenuous control over the territories they represent,

26 Ibid, article 3: “the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states.”

27 Lauterpacht, 1944:385-458.28 Oppenheim, 1912:117; Kelsen, 1941:605-617.29 Taiwan, North Cyprus, Puntland, Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia, Kosovo, Western

Sahara, South Ossetia, and possibly a few others. See Fowler & Bunck, 1996:381-404.

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yet they are still considered as states since they once were recognized as such by

the community of other states.30

Diplomatic recognition is not the same as legal recognition, but it is through

diplomatic recognition that the international community is both created and made

manifest. Manuals on diplomacy describe, in long and anxious detail, the etiquette

to be followed on these occasions.31 In a formal audience at the foreign court the

diplomat should bow his head and put his letters of accreditation in the hands of the

head of state who will provide him with an official acknowledgment.32 The visit is

then returned, the states “exchange ambassadors,” and thus mutual recognition.

But diplomatic recognition is also continuously granted at international conferences

and in international, governmental, organizations. Here too the etiquette is often

elaborate and designed to make sure that everyone feels properly respected.

States that are not recognized, no matter how state-like, cannot exchange

ambassadors, sign international treaties, or join international organizations; they

have no voice and they command no attention.33 And yet there is a tendency for all

political entities that fulfill the requirements of statehood to become recognized over

time.34 We may not like their political systems, or decide that the state gained

independence through unfair means, but to go on ignoring these states is

cumbersome, and a disadvantage to everyone concerned. For this reason, the class

of factually existing states and states that are recognized in the basic sense of being

given attention, tend over time to converge.

But attention is not enough. In addition, we also want to be treated as fully-

fledged members of our communities and given the same respect as others. In

30 As the example of Palestine – recognized by 100 plus states -- shows, recognition alone is not sufficient for statehood. You must also have control over your own territory.

31 See, for example, Foster, 1906; Satow, 1917. Cf. Oppenheim, 1912:438.32 Foster, 1906:15.33 Oppenheim, 1912: 440.34 Ibid:118.

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international law this is assured through the stipulation that all states are equal and

endowed with the same kinds of rights. What exactly these rights are is a matter of

some dispute, but the lists commonly include items such as “the right of existence,

of self-preservation, of equality, of independence, of territorial supremacy, of holding

and acquiring territory, of intercourse, and of good name and reputation.”35

Diplomatic protocols are designed to make sure that states are given an equal

treatment. During the Diet of Regensberg, 1630, ambassadors were each given

precedence over the others exactly twice in ten days. At the the Congress of

Ryswick, 1697, when seating arrangements proved to be a source of contention, the

diplomats dispensed with tables and sat in a ring on chairs; and when the

arrangement of chairs proved contentious, they did away with the chairs and

negotiated standing up.36 Since the Congress of Vienna, 1815, the practice has been

for states to seat themselves in alphabetical order; for the doyen -- the most senior

diplomat in a capital -- to enter an audience chamber ahead of his peers; and for

states to sign copies of treaties in alternative order, usually starting with

themselves.37

To say that states are equal to each other is of course a complete fiction.

States, just like human beings, differ widely in their endowments and in the power

they wield.38 They are similar only in the sense that they are actors on the same

stage; they are equal as actors, but not all actors play equally important parts. For

this reason the rights that states are given are not natural but always social in

character.39 “Right” is not a noun as much as an adverb; is not something that you

have as much as as description of something that you do. A performance is right

when it is judged by members of the audience to be so. To the extent that you can

35 Ibid:165.36 Foster, 1907:15-20; Mattingly, 1988:217-19.37 Oppenheim, 1912:174.38 Ibid:169-70.39 Kurtulus, 2002:759-777.

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pull off a convincing performance you have the rights which your status as an actor

gives you.40 As a result, rights in international politics cannot be absolute. A state

which makes wars on others has forfeited its right not to be made war on in turn,

and a state which systematically mistreats its own citizens can legitimately be

invaded.

Recognition in international politics

What states want, however, is not only to be treated as equal to others but also as

different from others. As soon as a state is securely recognized in its statehood, and

endowed with the same rights as other states, it goes on to tell stories that

distinguishes itself from others. A community of story-tellers is usually referred to

as a “nation.”41 A nation consists of people who mutually recognize each other as

belonging to the same, imagined, community. Their collective self is expressed

through tales of origins, through commitments and plans. The stories locate the

national self in space and time; they provide the nation with a descent and a future,

a “national character,” certain traditions, ways of behaving, and long lists of things

that people like ourselves are likely to think, do and eat. The stories are expressed

in our particular vernacular and disseminated through national printing presses and

electronic media. Reading, hearing or watching these accounts, we know where we

belong. The state can be understood as the political guardian of this story-telling

community. For that reason it is important – important to nationalists – that each

nation should have a state, and each state only one nation.

This story-telling capacity is acknowledged by international law. Each state has

the right to “national self-determination,” meaning not only a right to independence,

but a right to determine the character of its own collective self.42 This right has been

40 Oppenheim, 1912.41 Anderson, 2006:41-49.42 Kedourie, 1993:24-43.

12

protected at least since the Peace of Augsburg, 1555, where the principle of cuius

regio, eius religio stipulated that the religion of a country should follow the religion of

its ruler. After the Second World War, the idea of “non-intervention” has similarly

affirmed the right of states to “exercise their inalienable right to self-determination

and national independence,” and to “determine their political, economic and social

systems, without interference.”43

Many of the stories concern the role of the state in world politics. People tell

themselves what kind of a state they live in and what a state such as theirs is likely

to do under particular circumstances. There are myths of national destinies and

sacred missions; some states need Lebensraum, others carry “the white man's

burden,” try to ensure that “democracy will take root in the Middle East,” or lament

the cultural and intellectual predominance of the West. Some states see themselves

as superpowers, others as great powers, as revisionists, revolutionaries or as

neutrals. They have traditional allegiances and “special partnerships”; they are

members of international organizations and alliances. But they also have traditional

enemies: they hate the people across the border, people with a different language

and a different faith.

It is not always clear who or what the sources are of these accounts. Many of

them are traditional themes thoroughly embedded in well-established national

discourses. Others are invented by particular groups for particular purposes, such as

when, after a war or some similar national disaster, the hunt for culprits and traitors

begins. The stories are not necessarily generally shared, and different stories often

contradict each other, yet through public discussions, and obfuscations, some

dominant accounts usually emerge. But national life is not an academic seminar.

The discussions are always dominated by groups that yield disproportionate

economic or political power, and in some societies public discussions are of course

43 Koskenniemi, 1994:241-269.

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far from free. This, however, does not stop states from telling stories about

themselves, and most people from believing in them.

In contrast to stories that demand attention and respect – discussed by

international lawyers and diplomats – these stories make demands regarding

individuality and affect. They give our state a particular identity and they describe

us by reference to our friends and enemies. Many of these tales are outlandishly

exaggerated or in some other ways inappropriate or inapplicable, and as always,

they need to be recognized before they can become firmly established. There are

two audiences that provide such recognition: our fellow citizens and co-nationals,

first of all, but also an international audience made up of other states, multinational

companies, NGOs, and what often, somewhat elusively, is referred to as

“international public opinion.”

Domestic audiences are not such a problem. Domestically, recognition is

granted, or not, through public debate. We discuss the conceptions we have of our

state and we try to make up our minds regarding their applicability. In democracies

people can vote for the party which best represents their vision of their country, and

in dictatorships people can often be forced to believe, at least superficially, in the

official account. International audiences are a bigger problem. Since foreigners do

not usually share in our domestic discussions they are difficult to convince, and since

power in international politics is decentralized they are difficult to coerce. In the

end, our identities are at the mercy of foreigners over whom we have little or no

control.

All stories we tell about ourselves, to recap, make four separate demands on

their audiences: we want our existence to be acknowledged; we want respect;

individuality; and we need an affiliation. The existence of a state is acknowledged

when it is given legal and diplomatic recognition; it is respected when the state is

given rights and duties and treated as equal to other states. The individuality of a

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state is recognized as others accept our self-conceptions; and affect is expressed as

our friends, or our enemies, reassure us regarding the strength of our alliance, or our

enmity. In all cases we are greatly relieved. Our self-conception seems to be

working. We can pass ourselves off as what we previously only imagined ourselves to

be.

Denials of recognition

If the audiences we address refuse to recognize our stories as valid descriptions of

ourselves, we have a problem. For outsiders it is not easy to detect such rejections

since they leave few traces in the historical record. But if we ourselves are offended

against, we know it immediately since denials of recognition hurt. We feel slighted,

insulted, and brought low; our pride is injured, we have lost our status and our face.

To the extent that people identify with their states – and they do – they will demand

redress. Doing nothing is not an option: we cannot be without being described and

unless we are recognized we have no social identity.

When faced with a denial of recognition, we basically have three options. The

most obvious alternative is to give up; to accept that others are right about us and

that we cannot be the person we thought we were. Our stories, clearly, do not apply

to someone such as ourselves. This is the situation a state faces in the wake of a

loss in a war or some similar calamity.44 As a result it is, for example, no longer

possible to lay claims to a status as a “super,” “great,” or a “colonial,” power. Instead

the state in question has to come up with an alternative self-description. It has to

re-brand itself as something else. Such a reconsideration of one's role is often a

long and painful exercise, and there is no guarantee that the new identity ever will

be recognized.

A second option is to accept the verdict of the audience, but to stick to our

44 Schivelbusch, 2004, discusses the cases of France, Germany and the American South. Cf. Sartre, 2002.

15

stories and insist that we can live up to the self-descriptions they contain. Usually

this means embarking on a major program of self-reformation.45 We try to improve

ourselves, develop our bodies, our minds, our Kultur and our Bildung. Once this task

is completed, the ugly ducklings can go back to their detractors as beautiful swans.

This is, for example, the situation of a country which traditionally has been

denigrated as “barbarous” or “underdeveloped.” Its leaders may decide that these

verdicts indeed are correct but also try their best to reform and improve their

country. To the extent that this process is successful, they can return to their critics

and insist on being treated as “civilized” and “developed.”

A third option, is to stand by our stories and to fight for the self-descriptions

they contain. The task here is to convince our detractors that they are mistaken

about us and to force them to change their minds. Violence may work badly in

interpersonal relation since you cannot force someone to respect, or love, you. In

international relations, however, the use of force has greater use, and similar threats

are often successful. A state which is ridiculed as weak can arm itself; a state which

wants to be a “superpower” can develop a nuclear arsenal; a state which is not

taken seriously can to go war to prove to its importance.46 For a group fighting for

its “national independence” violence is often the only available option. If your claims

are rejected, you try to bomb your way to respectability. Experts in international law

have long recognized the right of such groups to be considered as belligerents rather

than as simple criminals, provided that they espouse political goals and are

organized into regular armies.47

Perhaps nothing very interesting can be said in general about why one of these

responses is chosen rather than another. Maybe it is simply a matter of historical

circumstances. What is certain, however, is that the actions undertaken often seem

45 Kojève, 1947/1980:21-25.46 The case of seventeenth-century Sweden is discussed in Ringmar, 1996. On the

symbolic nature of nuclear politics, see Jervis, 1989:174-225.47 Bluntschli, 1874:§ 512, 289.

16

to be out of proportion to the injuries suffered; in interpersonal relations, our

reactions seem irrational, childish, possibly hormonal. This is particularly the case

when viewed by people whose own identities are securely established. Taking their

own selves for granted, self-confident people will never understand the symbolism of

a raised eyebrow or a mismanaged seating arrangement. But our irrational reactions

actually make a lot of sense. Considerations of identities are always more basic than

considerations of utilities. If identities are yet to be determined, calculations of

utility cannot be reliably performed. Questions of interests follow from questions of

identities and not the other way around. It is only as some-one that you can want

some-thing. And as long as this someone remains to be securely established, there

is no one around to whom interests can be attached.

Actions undertaken in pursuit of identities cannot be reduced to actions

undertaken in pursuit of interests and they consequently need a separate theory to

explain them.48 Actions undertaken to gain recognition are still actions undertaken

for a reason, but they cannot be explained in terms of rational utility calculations.

True, much of the time it may be difficult to separate the two rationales, but this

does not invalidate the fact that there is a difference between them. And moreover,

there are times when our actions are more likely to be dominated by one rationale

rather than the other. Most of the time, to be sure, we are able to take our identities

for granted and to focus on utility maximization, but there are also times when our

personal and social identities break down, when the pursuit of utilities seems futile,

and we instead are forced to fight for who we take ourselves to be.

Giants on our shoulders

During the last thirty years or so, game-theoretical approaches have had a lot of

success within the social sciences, starting in economics but quickly spreading to

48 Pizzorno, 1986:355.

17

political science, sociology, and beyond. Game theory is rational choice theory in its

purest form. The games analyzed concern the utilities that actors derive from

following one strategy rather than another. But this is of course a complete

misunderstanding of what most games actually are about. In most real-life games,

it is the process of playing that matters and not the prize you win at the end. In

most real-world games the prize is a symbol of your victory but not worth very much

in itself.

Yet, as we know, game-playing is ubiquitous in society. Homo ludens is at

least as reasonable a description of human beings as ever homo œconomicus.49 One

obvious reason why we play is that games are fun, and often, like computer games,

highly addictive. Another reason, never recognized by game theorists, is that many

games allow us to experiment with identities. For purposes of the game, we can

assume a certain identity and for a while we become that person. Acting out the

role, others can recognize us as persons of a certain kind. In fact, following the

rules of the game we learn to see also our own actions from a generalized point of

view.50 It is only once we develop such a generalized self-understanding –

recognizing ourselves through the reactions of others – that we can become other-,

as well as self-regarding, social beings.51

The academic study of international politics has for far too long been

dominated by rationalistic approaches. Scholars have focused on national interests

and assumed that states seek to maximize their power and security. Among

professors this body of theorizing was known as “Realism,” or Realpolitik. Realism

was a legacy of nineteenth-century authors, predominantly of legal and historical

persuasions, and predominantly of a Germanic background.52 After World War II this

literature was imported into the U.S. by the likes of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans

49 Huizinga, 1971:28-45.50 Mead, 1964:152-63.51 Compare the work of Donald Winnicott discussed in Honneth, 1996:95-107. 52 Iggers, 1968.

18

Morgenthau, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger. In the latter part of the

twentieth-century, Realism was married to rationalistic models and game-theory and

relaunched as “Neo-realism.”53 Ever since, from the seminar-rooms of American

academia, Neo-realism has followed itinerant PhD holders to universities and

research centers across the globe.

It is high time to turn the page on this rationalistic paradigm. The historians

and jurists of the nineteenth-century had to take the existence of the state for

granted. From their point of view, the state represented the culmination of world

history – es ist der Gang Gottes in der Welt das der Staat ist -- and they were

congenitally unable to imagine a world politics not constituted by state interests.54

In the international law literature of the period, as we saw above, the question of the

identity of the state was disposed of with a few off-the-rack definitions. The

question was not what the state was, but how its interests could be reconciled with

the interests of other states. All theorizing concerned Staatsräson.55

Compare how authors wrote about world politics in the Renaissance when the

state still was in the process of being established as a sovereign subject and its

apologists struggled to delegitimize the claims of rivaling institutions. At the time

there was a multiplicity of overlapping jurisdictions: the aristocracy made claims to

independence and so did peasants – most notably in the great uprisings in Germany

and France in the sixteenth-century. Meanwhile the Pope and the Emperor still

nurtured pan-European ambitions. Eventually the state emerged from this mêlée as

the undisputed winner, but at the time this was not an obvious, or inevitable,

outcome.

During subsequent centuries, the state established itself ever more firmly as

53 The seminal statement is Waltz, 1979. Cf. the critical contributions in Keohane, 1986.

54 Hegel, 1991:§258.55 Meinecke, 1997:370-408, discusses Fichte, Ranke and Treitschke from this

perspective.

19

the subject of international relations, and scholars could no longer make sense of the

concerns that had animated people in the Renaissance. Today, however, we are far

more sensitive to questions of identities. The state is not dead to be sure, but it is

surely well past its prime. There are today an assortment of competing powers and

transactional flows which serve to undermine the state’s sovereignty. The neat map

of the world which assigns each bit of territory to a specific sovereign is less and less

relevant. We are once again in a mêlée of competing jurisdictions.

This is why we finally are able to come back to the topic of identities after a

hiatus of some 350 years. We have regained our intellectual flexibility, not because

we are smarter than scholars of previous ages, but because we finally have shrugged

off those intellectual giants who were standing on our shoulders. The hegemony of

rational choice theory will surely pass into history with the passing of the hegemony

of the state. This does not mean that questions of identities will go away, but on the

contrary that they will become ever-more prevalent. Our collective subjectivities will

look for other vehicles to which they can attach themselves. There are many

competing candidates for such vehicles, and the process of identity realignment is

likely to be both protracted and messy. The struggle for recognition goes on.

20

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