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The ontological security of special relationships: the case of Germany’s relations with Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2018

Kai Oppermann  and
Mischa Hansel
Kai Oppermann*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Mischa Hansel
Affiliation:
RWTH Aachen University
*
*Corresponding author. Email: k.oppermann@sussex.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article suggests studying special relationships in international politics from an ontological security perspective. It argues that conceptualising the partners to special relationships as ontological security seekers provides a promising theoretical angle to address gaps in our understanding of three important dimensions of such relations: their emergence and stability; the processes and practices of maintaining them; and the power relations within special relations. The article illustrates its theoretical argument in a case study on the German-Israeli relationship. The close partnership between the two countries that has developed since the Holocaust ranks as one of the most remarkable examples of special relationships in the international arena. We argue that foregrounding the ontological security that the special relationship provides, in particular for Germany, sheds important new light on how German-Israeli relations have developed. Specifically, we hold that Germany’s ontological security needs were already an important driver in establishing the relationship and have been a key stabiliser of it ever since; that the ontological security perspective can make sense of three interrelated practices of maintaining the ‘specialness’ of the relationship; and that the asymmetries between the ontological security needs of the two partners help account for Israel’s political leverage in the relationship.

Keywords

Special RelationshipsOntological SecurityIsraelGermany
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 79 - 100
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2018 

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153 Meeting in the Israeli Foreign Ministry (1953), cited in Jelinek (ed.), Zwischen Macht und Moralpolitik, p. 246.

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