H. Class 7

Prof. Andreas Bieler and Prof. Adam D. Morton

Poststructuralism and War: Writing Security

 'Language thus continues to provide previous resources for breaking open the corsets of universals and returning to the contingent, the particular and the empirical. The signifying systems at play in specific historical context, or discourses, thus constitute the focal points of a constitutive theorising concerned with the making of the social'.

- Charlotte Epstein, 'Constructivism, or the Eternal Return of Universals in International Relations.

A focus on discourse

The radical extension of constructivism, or radical constructivism, is poststructuralism, which is the topic of this Class. Core to poststructuralism is the understanding that knowledge is shaped by and in the service of prevailing power relations. Hence, it situates the production of knowledge and ‘truth’ at the centre of historical and political analysis. In relation to international relations, for example, different discourses of power/knowledge give rise to different conceptions of sovereignty, statehood, intervention, etc. Unsurprisingly, the main focus of poststructuralist approaches is on discourses. A material world does exist. Poststructuralism does not deny this. Nevertheless, we can only know this world through discourse. Therefore primacy is granted to the discursive constitution of the world.

The next section focuses on particular poststructuralist methods and techniques. Section 3 is dedicated to the example of theories and practices of statecraft by Richard Devetak (1995), while Section 4 deals with David Campbell’s Writing Security (1998). The Conclusion summarises the contributions of poststructuralism and outlines several points of criticism.

Methods and Techniques

Poststructuralism is characterised by a set of key methods and techniques. First, genealogy refers to a style of thought which exposes and registers the significance of power/knowledge relations. The main aim is to write counter-histories to expose processes of exclusion, violence, and domination. Poststructuralists trace dominant discourses back to their origins to uncover what rival discourses have been side-lined at the time. Thereby, they rediscover alternative ways of theorising for present day use in the challenge of existing dominant forms of knowledge. Thus, rather than an ‘objective’ theory, poststructuralism uncovers, for example, that ‘neorealist theory is theory of, by and for positivists’ (Ashley 1984: 248).

Second, the technique of deconstruction is a general mode of radically unsettling what are taken to be stable concepts and conceptual oppositions. Binary dualisms such as gender (masculine/feminine) or sovereign statehood (strong states/weak states) are never neutral, but reflect and confirm power imbalances. Deconstruction is a strategy of interpretation and criticism that unsettles theoretical assumptions. This often leads to harsh responses by theorists from other approaches. Feeling unsettled in their own core beliefs about how to understand international relations, these theorists find it difficult to cope with the challenge. See, for example, Robert Keohane’s dismissal of poststructuralist feminism in Class 5 on feminist IR theory.

Third, in the method of double reading, a first reading faithfully represents the dominant assumptions, builds up the foundational principles and repeats the taken-for-granted arguments. Based on an interpretive monologue of discourses, it demonstrates how a text, discourse, or set of practices appear coherent and consistent with themselves. Importantly, it identifies what Ashley describes as the ‘heroic practice’ of a discourse, the foundation from which to explain events. Ashley’s double reading of the anarchy problematique provides a good example of the application of this method. In his first reading, he outlines how, in its ‘heroic practice’, the mainstream discourse grants privilege to the positive ideal of sovereignty over the negative condition of anarchy, with the former as the basis to understand the latter and to put order into its chaotic nature. ‘The power of the anarchy problematique is attributable to the effectiveness of the heroic practice in the disciplining of the interpretation and conduct of modern life’ (Ashley 1988: 239).

In the second reading, then, the first monologue is unsettled by applying pressure to the points of stability within the discourse. Through a dialogical reading the internal tensions and contradictions of the first reading are exposed in order to open up new possibilities where closure reigned. In relation to the anarchy problematique, Ashley unmasks the ‘heroic practice’ of the first reading, i.e. the problem that the sovereign presence of a state, a bounded territory with internal order and harmony, is taken for granted and cannot be questioned, while the sphere beyond the state is represented as dangerous and anarchical. Ashley takes the uncertainty of anarchy as his starting-point of investigation and, thereby, ‘inverts the sovereignty/anarchy dichotomy, now privileging the latter over the former’ (Ashley 1988: 233). By focusing on non-state actors Ashley unsettles bounded national sovereignty. He disables ‘heroic practice’ as a means of disciplining thought and action. ‘The turn to nonstate actors renders radically unstable any attempt to represent a historical figure – the state or any other – as a pure presence, a sovereign identity that might be a coherent source of meaning and an agency of the power of reason in international history’ (Ashley 1988: 234). In short, the method of double reading allows us to unsettle what is generally taken for granted, opening up new questions. In relation to the anarchy problematique, the new question is how did it historically come about that states with clear boundaries have emerged as the way of geopolitical organisation and order? The next section on statecraft addresses this issue.

THINK POINT:

Poststructuralists are often accused of deconstruction without making a positive contribution to IR theory. Are these criticisms justified?

Theories and Practices of Statecraft

Richard Devetak addresses the issue about how it has been possible to conceptualise the state as a coherent, unitary actor in IR theory. Neo-realism, he argues, is an outside-in approach. Explanations are derived from an analysis of the inter-state structure, characterised by anarchy. Nevertheless, only the causality is outside-in. The structure of the international system, however, is not generating states as the main actors. It is actually considered to be the result of state interaction, i.e. an inside-out ontology. ‘The structure of anarchy does not generate the states or states system, rather, it generates constraints on the given state-as-actor’ (Devetak 1995: 23). Ontological issues of the constitution of states and the state-system cannot be addressed as a result. The state as uniform actor is taken for granted by neo-realists. It cannot be questioned.

For critical international theory, by contrast, located by Devetak in the work of Ruggie and Cox amongst others, the state-system is only one of many international systems including the capitalist economy, class structure, the society of states, etc. Hence, the constitution of the state needs to be understood from the ‘outside’, constituted by wider forces than only the state-system. As a result, critical international theory locates the unitary form of states in a generative notion of structure: state sovereignty is an intersubjective property, i.e. it only exists because states accept it of each other and know that it is accepted by the others.

Poststructuralism goes beyond both these sets of approaches and focuses more precisely on how the state has become constructed as a unitary actor. Thus, poststructuralism emphasises statecraft as a performative act. Thereby, it overturns the ontological opposition between inside-out (neo-realism) and outside-in (critical international theory). Statecraft, Devetak argues, consists of internal discipline instilling some homogeneity on a specific territory and exclusionary practices towards the outside via foreign policy. State formation is nothing fixed, but constantly needs to be maintained: the state is a contested product of multiple practices and may actually change over time. It is here that the practices around key markers of nation-state formation such as remembrances and occasions of ceremonies, for example, become important. Through these instances, the coherence of the state is affirmed. ‘For post-structuralism … the political begins with the practices that inscribe and administer the boundary which establishes space for political institutions. The political is not inaugurated after political space appears demarcated, but is inherent in the very acts of demarcation, that is, statecraft’ (Devetak 1995: 30). In short, the state as unitary actor is the result of concrete discourses and practices that constantly needs to be re-affirmed through further practices.

THINK POINT:

Can you identify examples of practices of statecraft related to your own country?

Writing Security

In his book Writing Security (1998), David Campbell focuses on a ‘discursive economy’ shaping US foreign policy. The discursive economy of the Cold War, he argues, reflects an ongoing reproduction of American identity. Rather than perceiving the Cold War as a balance of power act between the US and the USSR, Campbell describes it as a struggle over American identity instantiated in US foreign policy. Discourses of danger, representations of fear, enumerating threats, these practices of foreign policy were crucial for the shaping of American identity. Foreign policy, thus, is understood as a discursive economy of identity articulated against difference, the other. It included most importantly the USSR, but also communism more generally or the Japanese economic boom or the war on drugs. In sum, ‘the Cold War was a struggle which exceeded any military threat of the Soviet Union, and into which any number of potential candidates – regardless of their strategic capacity to be a threat – were slotted as a danger’ (Campbell 1998: 186).

Of course, the Cold War came to an end in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Already in 1998, Campbell asked quite prophetically, ‘are we going to witness the persistence of Cold War practices even after their most recent objects of contention have passed on?’ (Campbell 1998: 197). From our perspective in 2016, we can quite clearly see how, since 9/11 in 2001, the global war on terror has taken up the mantle of the Cold War, and American as well as Western identity more generally has been increasingly defined through our foreign policy vis-a-vis this war. Again, a brutal ‘other’ is put forward in order to define our own identity.

Conclusions

By troubling other IR theories through its methods of genealogy, deconstruction and double reading poststructuralism clearly unsettles other IR approaches. By troubling broadly accepted assumptions, it pushes us to re-think again those notions, which we have come to accept unquestioningly.

Poststructuralism pursues a post-positivist epistemology similar to other post-positivist IR theories by linking the production of knowledge closely to prevailing power relations. Unlike other post-positivist approaches, however, poststructuralism claims to be anti-foundational in that it denies the existence of any permanent foundations and related truth claims. Nevertheless, the very claim that there are no foundations (or truths) can be regarded as a foundational statement in itself, resulting in a deterministic non-determinism!

Richard Ashley, a leading poststructuralist himself, captures this deterministic non-determinism well in his comparison of poststructuralists with the ‘itinerate condottieri’. In medieval Italy, condottieri, the leaders of armies, sold their services to whichever city state was prepared to pay the most. Today, he may lead the troops of Firenze against Pisa, tomorrow he may direct the troops of Venice against Milano. While employed by a particular city state, this is his basis to which he pledges his allegiance. However, this is the case only until the condottieri has a new employer, when allegiances will shift. The poststructuralist, in Ashley’s words, is no different. The theorist holds an ‘ideal of inhabiting a securely bounded territory of truth and transparent meaning beyond doubt, a place given as if by some author beyond time, a place where it is possible to appeal to the word in order to decide what things mean …’ (Ashley 1996: 252). Nevertheless, this ideal can only be accomplished for short moments. Any foundationalism can never be permanent, but is soon replaced by another ‘bounded territory’ from which temporarily to explain the world. Instead of despairing, however, the poststructuralist accepts this as desirable, as the only possible way of engaging with the world. A short-lived order is never mistaken as the concrete realisation of the ideal. 

As positive as the contributions by poststructuralism to IR theory are, this notion of itinerate condottiere is worrying, as one can easily see how poststructuralists may have different positions on very similar events in international relations depending on wherever their current, temporary foundational basis is. It is difficult to see how this can result in a coherent normative and ethical politics.

References

Ashley, Richard K. (1984) ‘The Poverty of Neorealism’, International Organization, 38(2): 225-86.

Ashley, Richard K. (1988) ‘Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17(2): 227-62.

Ashley, Richard K. (1996) ‘The Achievements of Post-Structuralism’, in Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (eds.) International Theory: Positivism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. PP.240-53.

Campbell, David (1998) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, revised edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Devetak, Richard (1995) ‘Incomplete States: Theories and Practices of Statecraft’, in John MacMillan and Andrew Linklater (eds.) Boundaries in Question: New Directions in International Relations. London: Pinter. PP.1-37.

Epstein, Charlotte (2011) 'Constructivism or the Eternal Return of Universals in International Relations: Why Returning to Language is Vital to Prolonging the Owl's Flight', European Journal of International Relations, 19(3): 499-519.

Textbook chapters:

Campbell, David and Roland Bleiker (2016) ‘Poststructuralism’, in Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith (eds) International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, Fourth edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 11.

Devetak, Richard (2013) ‘Post-structuralism’, in Scott Burchill et al (eds) Theories of International Relations (fifth edition). London: Palgrave, Chapter 8.

Diez, Thomas (2014) ‘Postmodern Approaches’, in Manuela Spindler and Siegfried Schieder (eds) Theories of International Relations. London: Routledge, Chapter 17.