Vicarious Identity in International Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Browning ◽  
Pertti Joenniemi ◽  
Brent J. Steele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Uk

This book theorizes and problematizes the politics of vicarious identity in international relations, where vicarious identity refers to processes of “living through the other.” While prevalent and recognized in family and social settings, the presence and significance of vicarious identification in international relations has been overlooked. Vicarious identification offers the prospect of bolstering narratives of self-identity and appropriating a sense of reflected glory and enhanced self-esteem, but insofar as it may mask and be a response to emergent anxieties, inadequacies, and weaknesses it also entails vulnerabilities. The book explores both its attraction and potential pitfalls, theorizing these in the context of emerging literatures on ontological security, status, and self-esteem, highlighting both its constitutive practices and normative limits and providing a methodological grounding for identifying and studying the phenomenon in world politics. Vicarious identification and vicarious identity promotion are shown to be politically salient and efficacious across a range of scales, from the international politics of the everyday evident, for instance, in practices associated with (militarized) nationalism, through to interstate relations. In regard to this latter the book provides case analyses of vicarious identification in relations between the United States and Israel, the UK–US special relationship, and between Denmark and the United States, and it develops a framework for anticipating the conditions under which states may be more or less tempted into vicarious identification with others.

How geopolitical becomes personal: Method acting, war films and affect

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Evren Eken
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
War Films ◽  
Method Acting ◽  
Performance Arts ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Emotional Level

This article is about weaponisation of emotions through visual culture. It interrogates how geopolitics trickles down to everyday life and becomes personal through the embodiment of screen actors. While International Relations is attempting to move beyond the limits of existing disciplinary methods and methodologies to better grasp the emotional depths of world politics, this article delves into the ‘method’ in performance arts to understand how visual culture diffuses emotional narratives of the state to the population and affectively enables people to experience the international from the perspective of the United States. In this sense, focusing on ‘method acting’ which revolutionised performance arts in the United States from the 1950s, the article examines the mundane encounters in visual culture through which screen/state actors emotionally situate the audience to make them viscerally experience geopolitics, personally feel like a state/warrior and embody a commitment to the war effort at an emotional level.

scholarly journals Formation of the Chinese School of International Relations: Analytical Approaches and Research Methods

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-200
Author(s):  
Evgeny Nikolayevich Grachikov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
World Community ◽  
Chinese School ◽  
Analytical Approaches

In 1987, the first All-China Conference of international scholars took place in Shanghai, which is associated with the beginning of the process of creating the Chinese School of International Relations. Over these decades, a vast array of scientific literature has accumulated, exploring the interaction China with other countries and world community. The article is devoted to the study of analytical approaches prevailing in the Chinese academic environment in the study of foreign policy and world politics of the PRC, and specifically, in relation to the United States. Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and openness” policy contributed to the revival of the discipline of “international relations” and the intensification of international research in academic institutions and universities in China. A deep and systemic influence on these processes was exerted by several factors: uncritical borrowing of western international political knowledge, full-scale training of Chinese scholars in Western, mainly American, universities, and the translation into Chinese of most theoretical works of Western scientists. Methodological tools which include the analytical approaches used by Chinese scientists are taken from publications on realism, liberalism and constructivism. In realism, the emphasis is done on the balance of power, which is investigated in the framework of foreign policy analysis. The interdependence of China and the United States, primarily economic, the subject of study from the point of view of neoliberalism. The socialization and involvement of China in the world community and the liberal world order led by the United States are constructivist studies of bilateral relations. Yan Xuetong’s “theory of moral realism”, Qin Yaqing’s “theory of relations”, the Shanghai school’s “international symbiosis”, and Tan Shiping’s “social evolution of world politics” did not go beyond these paradigms, but are already used as their own innovative methods in a study of China’s relations with external actors. The article pays special attention to the dual identity of the Chinese state, as a developing country and a global power, which is publicly voiced by its representatives. This duality imposes regulatory restrictions on the use of analytical tools and, of course, affects the results of research.

Canadian International Relations, American social science? Evidence from academic journals and comprehensive reading lists

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. A. Murphy ◽  
Michael J. Wigginton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
The United States ◽  
French Language ◽  
American Social Science ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Science Evidence ◽  
Science Evidence

The last two decades have witnessed growing attention to the “Canadianization” of the field of International Relations. In this article, we forward a novel approach to testing the influence of domestic factors in Canadian International Relations. By analyzing the reading lists of comprehensive examinations from Canadian doctoral programs in International Relations, we can understand the ways in which Canadian institutions’ reading lists construct the hierarchy of the field’s journals. Among these journals, those based in the United States are most frequently assigned, with others hosted in the UK and around Europe. Canadian journals are rarely assigned to reading lists. French-language journals are also rarely assigned to reading lists, even in francophone institutions, and when they are, the journals are much more likely to be hosted in France than in Canada. We offer a series of guiding questions for future consideration of the “Canadianization” of International Relations education in Canada.

Implications for American Leadership

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-224
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
World Politics ◽  
New Era ◽  
Innovative Economy

This chapter reviews the central arguments of the book and its findings about a democratic advantage in international politics. It then discusses the implications for international relations theory and for U.S. foreign policy. This book advances international relations theory by providing a novel theoretical explanation that traces the origins of power in world politics to domestic political institutions. It makes a “hard power” case for democracy. The chapter then lays out a competitive strategy for the United States in this new era of great power rivalry. It urges the United States to strengthen its democratic form of governance domestically. Washington should also ensure it maintains an innovative economy, a robust financial sector, strong alliances, and a favorable military balance of power in Europe and Asia. Internationally, the chapter urges the United States to revitalize, adapt, and defend the rules-based international system. The chapter concludes with a challenge to Russia and China. If these countries wish to be true leading global powers, then they must adopt democratic forms of government.

Vicarious Identification as Foreign Policy Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Browning ◽  
Pertti Joenniemi ◽  
Brent J. Steele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Policy Strategy ◽  
The United Kingdom

The chapter reinterprets the United Kingdom-US special relationship through the lens of vicarious identification. It demonstrates how historical proclamations of the special relationship have responded to recurrent British anxieties related to its postwar, post-imperial, and now, following Brexit, its (impending) post-(EU)ropean decline. Vicarious identification with the United States is seen to offer the chance to reaffirm core narratives of self-identity central to British ontological security and which when successful enable the country to avoid serious reflection on its current situation. The chapter highlights the historical continuities of this move but also shows how vicarious identity promotion operates as a foreign policy strategy designed, not only to legitimize the special relationship, but also to entice the United States and its citizens to reciprocate in kind. Beyond exploring the temptations of vicarious identification as a form of foreign policy strategy, the chapter also explores its vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities crystallized during the course of the Trump presidency.

(Im)possible universalism: reading human rights in world politics

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
VÉRONIQUE PIN-FAT
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Large Role ◽  
Universal Human Rights

Tony Evans (ed.), Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998)Robin Holt, Wittgenstein, Politics and Human Rights (London: LSE/Routledge, 1997)Peter Van Ness (ed.), Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays from the United States and Asia (London: Routledge, 1999)Questions concerning the linkage, or lack of it, between theory and practice are perennial in International Relations (IR). This is particularly acute in the case of studies of universal human rights in world politics. Problems associated with universal human rights are familiar; what are their foundations?, what are their origins?, do they exist in all cultures?, why, when it comes to implementation, do we see such failure and inconsistency across the globe and the persistence of human wrongs?, why does power seem to play such a large role in stifling ‘progress’? All these questions appear in one form or another in the books under review here and readers will, perhaps, take comfort from their familiarity as old, difficult friends.

American Perspectives and Blind Spots on World Politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff D Colgan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The World ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Previous Scholarship ◽  
Blind Spots

AbstractScholars of international relations (IR) from the United States, like any country, view the world with particular perspectives and beliefs that shape their perceptions, judgments, and worldviews. These perspectives have the potential to affect the answers to a host of important questions—in part by shaping the questions that get asked in the first place. All scholars are potentially affected by national bias, but American bias matters more than others. This special issue focuses on two issues: attention and accuracy in IR research. While previous scholarship has raised principally normative or theoretical concerns about American dominance in IR, our work is heavily empirical and engages directly with the field's mainstream neopositivist approach. The collected articles provide specific, fine-grained examples of how American perspectives matter for IR, using evidence from survey experiments, quantitative datasets, and more. Our evidence suggests that American perspectives, left unexamined, negatively affect our field's research. Still, the essays in this special issue remain bullish about the field's neopositivist project overall. We also offer concrete steps for taking on the problems we identify, and improving our field's scholarship.

scholarly journals RESISTENSI DAN RESPON ETNIK AFRO-AMERIKA ATAS MARJINALISASI ETNIK ANGLO-AMERIKA DALAM PUISI-PUISI KARYA HUGHES

LITERA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sugi Iswalono
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Racial Hegemony ◽  
Civil War Era

This study aims to describe the forms of and responses to racial hegemony and theAfro-American ethnic group’s self-identity in Hughes’s poems. It employed the qualitativedescriptive approach. The data sources were Hughes’s poems entitled “I, Too, SingAmerica”, “Let America be America Again”, and “Theme for English B”. The data wereanalyzed by means of the postcolonialism theory, enriched by historical, socio-cultural,and political information during the post-civil-war era till 1960s in the United States ofAmerica. The findings are as follows. First, racial hegemony appears in the form of thenegative stereotype of the Afro-American ethnic group. The negative stereotype leadsto the marginalization of the Afro-American ethnic group, reflected by the injusticeand tyranny by the majority ethnic group. Second, responses to racial hegemony aremanifested in the Afro-American ethnic group’s awareness of dignity, self-esteem, andself-confidence as foundations to demand equality and to show their existence amid thewhite people ethnic group’s domination. Third, the pride of ethnic identity is actually apotential to realize Amerian ideals as a nation highly respecting equality and diversityas aspired by the founding fathers.

scholarly journals Ideology, socialization and hegemony in Disciplinary International Relations

2022 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Randolph B Persaud
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Foreign Policy ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The Uk ◽  
High Level

Abstract This article argues that Disciplinary International Relations (DIR) does not only explain international affairs, but it also socializes and hegemonizes publics and professionals into an ideological worldview consistent with the interest of states that underwrite the world economic and security order based on hegemonic liberalism. Considerable emphasis is placed on tracing the continuities between the early theorization of IR in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the contemporary academic/foreign policy/security ‘complex’ dedicated to the maintenance of a hegemonic world order. The article demonstrates that the call for a greater theory–policy nexus in international affairs is redundant because leading American scholars double up as policy-makers, either directly or through other avenues such as consultancies. Some of the most prominent IR scholars, such as Michael Doyle, John Lewis Gaddis, Samuel Huntington, G. John Ikenberry, Stephen Krasner, Theodore H. Moran, Joseph Nye and Anne-Marie Slaughter, among others, have served in high-level positions in the United States foreign policy and security apparatus. The article also shows the ways in which in the early days of IR theorizing in the UK, scholars such as Lionel Curtis, Alfred Zimmern and Norman Angell doubled as staunch defenders of the British Empire, albeit in the language of liberal internationalism.

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