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Frustrated sovereigns: the agency that makes the world go around

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Charlotte Epstein ,
Thomas Lindemann Open the ORCID record for Thomas Lindemann [Opens in a new window]  and
Ole Jacob Sending
Charlotte Epstein
Affiliation:
The University of Sydney
Thomas Lindemann
Affiliation:
L'École polytechnique, Université Paris-Saclay
Ole Jacob Sending*
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
*
*Corresponding author. Email: ojs@nupi.no
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Abstract

In this article, the introduction to this Special Issue, we underline the importance of the dynamics of misrecognition for the study of world politics. We make the case for shifting the focus from ‘recognition’, where it has long been cast in social, political and, more recently, International Relations theory, to misrecognition. We do so by returning to the original theorisation of misrecognition, Hegel’s dialectic of the master and servant. Our point of departure is not only that the desire for recognition is key social dynamic, but that the failure to obtain this recognition is built into this very desire. It is a crucial factor for understanding how international actors behave, including, but not only, states.

Thus understood, the desire for recognition is not simply a desire for social goods, for status or for statehood, but for more agency – more capacity to act. We explore the logic of misrecognition and show how the international system is a symbolic structure that is ordained by an unrealisable ideal of what we call ‘sovereign agency’.

Keywords

MisrecognitionHegelSovereigntyAgencythe NegativeRecognition TheoryConstitutive TheorisingSystemic TheorisingDialecticsMaster–ServantDesire
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 44 , Special Issue 5: Special Issue on Misrecognition in World Politics: Revisiting Hegel , December 2018 , pp. 787 - 804
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2018 

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References

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2 Our argument tracks close to Cynthia Weber and others’ discussion of subjectivity and state performance as an ongoing effort that is never complete and stable. Our focus on agency differs by highlighting that subjectivity, like identity, follows from and is a result of (frustrated) efforts at achieving agency. See Weber, Cynthia, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange, Vol. 37 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar . See also Butler, Judith, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar .

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3 This does not mean, however, that the dynamic is limited to states, as we discuss below.

4 The category of the negative is explained and developed in Charlotte Epstein’s contribution to this volume: Epstein, Charlotte, ‘The productive force of the negative and the desire for recognition: Lessons from Hegel and Lacan’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

5 See Epstein, Charlotte, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes's wake: the rational actor, the self, or the speaking subject?’, International Organization, 67:2 (2013), pp. 287–316 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Sending, Ole Jacob, 'Agency, order, and heteronomy', European Review of International Studies, 3 (2016), pp. 63–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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19 Ibid.

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54 Ibid, p. 11.

55 Ibid, p. 12.

56 Ibid, p. 12.

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87 Holm and Sending, ‘States before relations’.

88 Katzenstein (ed.), Cultures of National Security. For a discussion of recognition and identity, see Neumann, Uses of the Other, pp. 223, 226.

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94 In which we include economic systems; see Waltz, Theory.

95 Ibid.

96 Holm and Sending, ‘States before relations’.

97 Ayşe Zarakol, ‘Sovereign equality as misrecognition’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018), this Special Issue.