Ontological Security, Civilian Power, and German Foreign Policy Toward Russia1

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Eberle ◽  
Vladimír Handl
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
International System ◽  
International Order ◽  
The Self ◽  
German Foreign Policy ◽  
Significant Other ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Layered Model ◽  
Changing World

Abstract The article analyzes Germany's policies toward Russia from an ontological security perspective. We argue that foreign policy should be seen as a tool that allows states to maintain a sense of a reasonably stable self, which enables them to cope in the changing world. We develop a three-layered model conceptualizing ontological security through narratives about the self, a significant other, and the international system and show its particular relevance for explicating policy change. When threatened by a crisis, states respond by narrative adjustment that highlights continuity on some levels, while enabling change on other levels. Developing the argument that Germany's ontological security is based in the “civilian power” narrative, we use our model to reconstruct Germany's response to Russia's wars in Georgia and Ukraine. In both cases, the discourse highlighted the ongoing validity of civilian power on the level of the international order, while challenges were accommodated by adjustments on the level of the self and the significant other. Ontological security was restored vis-à-vis the changing world by reinforcing the civilian power as a norm, while shifting blame to either both Germany and Russia (2008), or Russia exclusively (2014), for not adhering to it at a given time.

scholarly journals Shaping Global Sustainability in the Umbrella of “Comprehensive Globalisation”—Germany’s Role

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-35
Author(s):  
Dirk Messner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
German Foreign Policy ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Global Sustainability ◽  
Global Agenda

The current confrontation of irreconcilable concepts of global order poses a serious threat to international cooperation in crucial areas of global governance. German foreign policy faces many challenges in an international system characterised by “comprehensive globalisation”. This global constellation however also implies the great opportunity to establish new patterns of cooperation via transformative alliances with emerging actors of international politics. In this way, Germany could play a substantial transformative role in the global agenda for sustainability.

scholarly journals (Re-)imagining the ‘Self’ of Ontological Security: The Case of Brazil’s Ambivalent Postcolonial Subjectivity

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco A. Vieira
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
Postcolonial State ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Postcolonial States

In this article, I critically engage with and develop an alternative approach to ontological security informed by Jacques Lacan’s theory of the subject. I argue that ontological security relates to a lack; that is, the always frustrated desire to provide meaningful discursive interpretations to one’s self. This lack is generative of anxiety which functions as the subject’s affective and necessary drive to a continuous, albeit elusive, pursuit of self-coherence. I theorise subjectivity in Lacanian terms as fantasised discursive articulations of the Self in relation to an idealised mirror-image other. The focus on postcolonial states’ subjectivity allows for the examination of the anxiety-driven lack generated by the ever-present desire to emulate but also resist the Western other. I propose, therefore, to explore the theoretical assertion that postcolonial ontological security refers to the institutionalisation and discursive articulation of enduring and anxiety-driven affective traces related to these states’ colonial pasts that are still active and influence current foreign policy practices. I illustrate the force of this interpretation of ontological security by focusing on Brazil as an example of a postcolonial state coping with the lack caused by its ambivalent/hybrid self-identity.

Making sense of a changing world: foreign policy ideas and Italy’s national role conceptions after 9/11

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-147
Author(s):  
Anna Caffarena ◽  
Giuseppe Gabusi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
International System ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Role Conceptions ◽  
Middle Powers ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
National Role Conceptions ◽  
Changing World

In a rapidly changing world, middle powers with no obvious role to play on the global stage have the difficult task to read the international environment in order to formulate and implement a coherent and possibly effective foreign policy. In order to do so, decision makers either reproduce old ideas or develop new ones. Considering the ideas put forward in their inaugural speeches by Prime Ministers and Foreign Affairs Ministers in office after 2001, we suggest that Italy’s institutional actors appear to be aware of the changes occurred in the international system after 1989, and in particular after 9/11. The national role conceptions sustaining Italy’s present foreign policy goals reflect such awareness, being quite different with respect to the picture offered by Holsti in his seminal work published in 1970. Ideas expressing foreign policy goals are also reasonably well grounded in ideas on how the world works or linked to operational ideas, yet the country’s foreign policy appears feebly focused, even though focus is explicitly very much sought for. Some explanations for such a lack of focus which makes Italy’s foreign policy design rather ineffective are offered.

Contesting the “Corrupt Elites,” Creating the “Pure People,” and Renegotiating the Hierarchies of the International Order? Populism and Foreign Policy-Making in Turkey and Hungary

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulya Hisarlıoğlu ◽  
Lerna K Yanık ◽  
Umut Korkut ◽  
İlke Civelekoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
International System ◽  
International Order ◽  
Vertical Stratification ◽  
International Level ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Do So

Abstract This article explores the link between populism and hierarchies in international relations by examining the recent foreign policy-making in Turkey and Hungary—two countries run by populist leaders. We argue that when populists bring populism into foreign policy, they do so by contesting the “corrupt elites” of the international order and, simultaneously, attempt to create the “pure people” transnationally. The populists contest the “eliteness” and leadership status of these “elites” and the international order and its institutions, that is, the “establishment,” that these “elites” have come to represent by challenging them both in discourse and in action. The creation of the “pure people” happens by discursively demarcating the “underprivileged” of the international order as a subcategory based on religion and supplementing them with aid, thus mimicking the distributive strategies of populism, this time at the international level. We illustrate that when populist leaders, insert populism into foreign policies of their respective states, through contesting the “corrupt elites” and creating the “pure people,” the built-in vertical stratification mechanisms of populism that stems from the antagonistic binaries inherent to populism provide them with the necessary superiority and inferiority labels allowing them to renegotiate hierarchies in the international system in an attempt to modify the existing ones or to create new ones.

The Adaptability of Ch'ing Diplomacy

1958 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Far East ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Tributary System ◽  
Changing World

Historians of the modern Far East have usually assumed that in spite of the founding of the Tsungli-yamen and the launching of the self-strengthening movement of the 1860's, Chinese foreign policy remained weak, inept, and uninformed. Typically, China's handling of the Korean problem is contrasted with the swift and sure diplomacy of the new Japan to show how little Chinese statesmen understood of changing world conditions or of the altered character of the threat from Japan. China's failure to prevent Korea from slipping out of the tributary system is held to offer such obvious proof of the inadaptability of Ch'ing diplomacy as to make the issue scarcely worth discussing.

Aspiring for Vicarious Identity Through Engagement in War

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-182
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Browning ◽  
Pertti Joenniemi ◽  
Brent J. Steele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Military Engagement ◽  
The Cold War

The chapter explores Denmark’s post–Cold War reorientation in foreign policy, where a previous emphasis on laying low and a reluctance to engage in military actions has been replaced by a willingness to support activist military engagement. The transformation has entailed a fundamental reappraisal of the Cold War past, where a once comfortable and ontological-security-affirming narrative has been recast as a betrayal of Denmark’s true being and its responsibilities for upholding a norms-based international order. The chapter argues that such self-shaming is designed to elicit anxiety and ontological insecurities that can only be salved through activist engagement. However, lacking sufficient resources itself, Denmark’s redemption is possible only by establishing a vicarious bond with the United States and partaking in American wars. In Denmark’s case, vicarious identification has therefore been central to driving change and reconstituting selfhood anew, rather than reaffirming extant identities as might be expected.

Identifying parameters of foreign policy change: An eclectic approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spyros Blavoukos ◽  
Dimitris Bourantonis
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Structural Parameters ◽  
International System ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Eclectic Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Change ◽  
The One

This paper examines foreign policy change, identifying structural parameters of domestic and international origins that bring about major foreign policy shifts. Domestic structural parameters comprise the politico-institutional setting and advocacy groups in support of alternative foreign policy options. International structural parameters refer on the one hand to systemic changes that may bring about foreign policy realignment and, on the other hand, to the country’s role in the international system and its interactions with other countries that may activate foreign policy changes. We posit that this eclectic approach is necessary to account for major, multi-dimensional and complex, foreign policy decisions. We use this analytical framework to examine the Israeli re-orientation that enabled the signing of the Oslo Peace Agreement in the early 1990s.

scholarly journals From Rivals to Partners: Constructing the Sino-Indonesian Strategic Partnership

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Gatra Priyandita
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
International System ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
International Order ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Multiple Channels ◽  
Strategic Partnerships ◽  
Target State

This study is an inquiry into the use of strategic partnerships as an instrument of diplomacy in Indonesia. Strategic partnerships have become a key fixture of Indonesia’s omnidirectional foreign policy in the post-Suharto era. However, the rationale behind the formation of strategic partnerships for Indonesia’s strategic interests, as well as the process behind its formation, remain understudied. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining how Indonesia utilizes its strategic partnership to engage China. Using Wilkins’ analytical framework for the study of strategic partnerships, this study finds that Indonesian policymakers have used strategic partnerships as instruments to create multiple channels of communication for the purposes of economic pragmatism and the overarching goal of socializing the target state into accepting Indonesia’s vision of the international order. The case study on China indicates that strategic partnerships have only been partially successful in helping Indonesia deliver its goals. While increased formal interactions have facilitated economic and social interaction, the utility of strategic partnerships has instruments of influencing Chinese behaviour in the international system remain minimal.

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