Person in International Relations Theory

323 Pages·2015·2.45 MB·English

The State-as-Person in
International Relations
Theory

Katharina E. Höne

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD
Aberystwyth University, Department of International Politics
30 September 2014
DECLARATION
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being
concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree.
Signed ...................................................................... (candidate)
Date ........................................................................

STATEMENT 1
This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where
*correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly
marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit
references. A bibliography is appended.
Signed ..................................................................... (candidate)
Date ........................................................................
[*this refers to the extent to which the text has been corrected by others]

STATEMENT 2
I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for
inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside
organisations.
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Date ........................................................................
Summary
Having identified a prevalence of the discipline to treat the state as a person, the thesis
critically engages with the idea of psychological state personhood in IR, prominently put
forward by Alexander Wendt. As a result, an alternative conception in the form of the
constructed state-as-person is suggested which argues that the state-as-person is best
understood as a metaphor and utilises constructionist psychology to point out that self
and emotions are best located at the discursive level.
In contrast to Wendt, who insists on the reality of the state-as-person, this thesis argues
that the state is a real social structure which is made intelligible through the idea of
state personhood. Agency firmly rests with individual human beings, acting alone or in
groups. Concepts such as the state-as-person become relevant when they engage in the
production and reproduction of the social structure.
Wendt’s position on the role of metaphors and his conception of psychological
personhood are areas in which this thesis suggests an alternative perspective. It is
argued that metaphors are more than figures of speech and need to be taken seriously
as theory-constitutive elements in IR scholarship. Constructionist psychology is utilised
to present an alternative vision of how people make sense of themselves and how self
and emotions are created discursively. In this regard this thesis aligns itself with the
“emotional turn” in the discipline to argue against the dichotomous treatment of
rationality and emotions and to suggest that emotions should be treated as forms of
knowledge.
With the constructed state-as-person, this thesis presents an account of the state that
allows for theorising about self and emotions of states. With regard to systemic
interactions, this thesis points to the importance of culturally specific concepts of self
and emotions and, ultimately, suggests that anarchy is what we make of it.
Acknowledgements
Part of this thesis draws on constructionist psychology which maintains that we acquire
our key psychological characteristics only in interaction with other people. In this sense,
I owe a lot to the people that have been part of my life. In the following, I would like to
acknowledge those who have been vital during my work on this thesis.
This thesis benefited tremendously from the encouragement and intellectual support
that I received throughout my time at the Department of International Politics. I am sure
that my time in Aberystwyth has shaped me in more ways than I can presently imagine.
The work would not have been possible without support from the Department of
International Politics in the form of the EH Carr PhD Studentship. I would like to thank
my supervisors, Prof. Toni Erskine and Prof. Andrew Linklater, for their patience,
support, and invaluable feedback. In addition, I am grateful to Dr Berit Bliesemann de
Guevara who, as Director of Postgraduate Studies, offered immense support. Last but
not least, I would like to extend my gratitude to my former teacher at the University of
Leicester, Prof. Geoff Berridge, whose support has been immeasurable in enabling me to
further pursue my academic interests.
I am grateful for the comments that I received presenting this work on the panel “The
State as Person: Re-Assessing the Debate” at the 2012 Annual Convention of the
International Studies Association and at the International Politics Research Seminar in
Aberystwyth. I am also thankful to Prof. Alexander Wendt who took the time to discuss
some of my ideas in their early stages.
I would like to thank Mareike Jenner, Nadja de Oliveira, Rose McCormack, Erzsebet
Strausz, Ciaran McDonald, Harmony Dewez, Catrin Wyn Edwards, Stefani Dritsa, Tom
Marshall, Carolin Kaltofen, and Gillian McFadyen for much needed moral support,
encouragement, and wonderful company during breaks from the PhD. For making the
working environment a much more enjoyable place, I am especially thankful to my office
mates Sarah Jamal, Alexandros Koutsoukis, and Michael Seibold. For his enduring and
unfailing support throughout the last years, I am grateful to Florian Edelmann. Last but
not least, I would like to thank my parents, Angela and Reinhard Höne, for enabling me
to follow my own path.
Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1: The state and the state-as-person in IR theory .............................................................. 13
Four observations on the state in IR .................................................................................. 17
“From the state of princes to the person of the state” ...................................................... 25
The state-as-person in IR theory ....................................................................................... 31
Towards the constructed state-as-person: metaphors that matter .................................... 39
Towards the constructed state-as-person: personification as representation .................... 43
Towards the constructed state-as-person: bringing emotions in ........................................ 48
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 51

Chapter 2: The Wendtian state-as-person ....................................................................................... 55
Wendtian constructivism: the via media and ideas not all the way down .......................... 58
Scientific realist commitments .......................................................................................... 63
The state as an agent, the state as a person ...................................................................... 69
Real states and real states-as-persons ............................................................................... 73
The essential state-as-person ............................................................................................ 76
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 81

Chapter 3: The state-as-person as a metaphor ................................................................................ 84
Understanding metaphors – interaction view and theory constitutive metaphors ............ 88
An interaction view of metaphor .............................................................................. 91
Metaphors to build theories and metaphors to explain theories .............................. 98
Other perspectives on metaphor ............................................................................ 100
A definition and two distinctions ............................................................................ 105
Metaphors in IR theory ................................................................................................... 109
Metaphors in Wendt’s work ........................................................................................... 115
Constructing a metaphor: source domain selection and structural mapping .................... 126
Relating mind and world: is the (metaphorical) state-as-person real? ............................. 132
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 142

Chapter 4: A psychological and emotional turn in IR ..................................................................... 145
Psychology, emotions, and the discipline ........................................................................ 149
Possibilities for utilising psychology: the cognitive bias of the researcher ....................... 154
Possibilities for utilising psychology: the state-as-individuals and the state-as-group ...... 159
The state-as-person: yet, which psychology? .................................................................. 167
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 175
Chapter 5: Person, self, and emotions from the perspective of constructionist psychology ........... 177
A world-seen-as-people and a world-seen-as-molecules ................................................. 180
Person and self in Harré’s account .................................................................................. 186
One person, three selves ................................................................................................. 193
Constructing emotions .................................................................................................... 202
Yet, the body matters after all ........................................................................................ 213
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 218

Chapter 6: Developing the constructed state-as-person ................................................................ 220
Mapping the metaphor of the constructed state-as-person ............................................. 223
Creating a second-order person: material and embodied implications ............................ 229
The three selves of the state ........................................................................................... 234
States’ emotions ............................................................................................................. 237
States as friends and enemies, systemic cultures of enmity and friendship ..................... 240
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 245

Chapter 7: The constructed state-as-person – implications for IR theory ....................................... 247
Making the state intelligible: overcoming a disciplinary divide ........................................ 250
Rethinking systemic interactions and systemic change .................................................... 264
Bringing emotions in to understand “irrational” behaviour and the potential for systemic
change ............................................................................................................................ 273
Processes of radical change: re-thinking persons, re-thinking states ................................ 277
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 283

Conclusion: The constructed state-as-person in IR theory ............................................................. 286

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 297
Introduction
This thesis is driven by a fascination with the idea of the state-as-person in International
Relations (IR) theory. Its starting point is marked by the observation that ideas of persons and
ideas of states influence each other and that state-as-person thinking is still prevalent in IR
theory. More specifically, it critically engages with Alexander Wendt’s conception of the state-
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as-person, which led to his strong statement that “states are people too”.
This thesis suggests an alternative to Wendt’s approach. This alternative conception is driven by
the conviction that the idea of the state-as-person is indeed valuable, and – given the current
self-understanding of the mainstream of the discipline as well as prevalent lay perceptions –
even necessary in making sense of IR. However, it also maintains, in contrast to Wendt, that
agency rests with individual human beings, acting alone or in groups, and that we have to seek,
first, to understand how people make sense of themselves in order to engage with the state-as-
person.
Following a critical engagement with Wendt, it is argued that the relation between concepts of
the state and concepts of the person is a metaphorical one. States are people, too, but they are
so only metaphorically. It is also argued, however, that this metaphorical connection does not
mark the idea of the state-as-person as unscientific or as a mere rhetorical device. Indeed, the
argument pursued here is that such metaphorical processes are inescapable in making sense of
the (social) world. Going beyond the metaphor as a rhetorical device, we can understand
metaphors as those tools that connect concepts and structures by facilitating an understanding
of the social structure and by also becoming relevant for social action that ultimately plays and
important part in the production and reproduction of the structure.
With regard to the state-as-person, a position is developed in this thesis that maintains that in
order to make sense of the state, understood as a person, we need to look at how people make

1
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 215.

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sense of themselves. Imagining the state as a person is to be able to make sense of an abstract
concept in human terms. At the core of such as a metaphorical process is the idea that we make
sense of something abstract and intangible in terms of something more familiar and more
tangible. These categories are, of course, fluid and depend on the position of the observer.
However, drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, metaphorical reasoning is seen as a general
principle of how the world is rendered intelligible. And further, metaphors are seen as being at
the heart of the scientific process and those processes that constitute the social world. Yet, this
is not to argue that it is “ideas all the down”. Concepts are enabled and constrained by social
structures. The state is such a structure and as part of the metaphorical process it needs to be
carefully teased out what parts of the structure the metaphor of the state-as-person highlights,
what parts it hides, and what structural constraints the idea of the state-as-person is facing.
Part of the motivation behind this thesis is the conviction that the conceptualisation of the state
in human terms is preferable to mechanistic or biological understandings. It is suggested that
understanding states in terms of persons should start by looking at the ways in which selves,
identities, and emotions are fashioned and acquire meaning in everyday discourses. This allows
us to find answers to the question of how to conceptualise the state and the question of what is
appropriate or acceptable behaviour of states in IR.
Further, it is argued that, if we accept the person as a starting point, it is fruitful to draw on
psychology in order to develop an understanding of what it means to be a being with a
subjective understanding of the world and with the capacity for emotions. To a certain extent,
this position is already present, albeit in a nascent form, in Wendt’s change of focus from his
1999 book Social Theory to his 2004 article “The state as person in international theory”. While
Social Theory is ultimately aimed at conceptualising systemic interaction, the 2004 article begins
by asking “[w]hat is a person” and then moves on to define psychological personhood in more
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detail. I take this as an invitation to look to psychology for an answer.
However, this thesis also cautions that it is necessary to critically question the underlying
ontological and epistemological assumptions of the specific findings from psychology that we
wish to render useful for IR in general and the idea of the state-as-person in particular. In this

2
Alexander Wendt, 'The State as Person in International Theory', Review of International Studies 30 (2004),
292.

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regard, the thesis seeks to make a contribution to the recently renewed interest in incorporating
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findings from psychology into IR, especially as part of the so-called emotional turn. Ultimately, I
argue that it is most useful to look to constructionist psychology for an answer. Constructionist
psychology maintains that selves and emotions are socially constructed and fundamentally
bound up with language use. It avoids methodological individualism and the postulation of
entities “inside” the mind. It calls for a look not inside the mind of any particular person but for
research into the concepts about self and emotions held in a particular society. It is noticeable
that those approaches that are interested in the idea of the state-as-person or tacitly use such
an understanding of the state, often adhere to an understanding of person and the sate-as-
person that is strangely devoid of subjective experience and emotions. By drawing on
constructionist psychology, this thesis seeks to remedy this situation. By drawing on
constructionist psychology to theorise state personhood, it also makes an important addition to
the emerging emotional turn.
The aim of the project just outlined can be restated in the following terms. There is a prevalent
assumption in IR theory that the state is like a person. Any account that wishes to address the
idea of the state-as-person needs to grapple with the following concerns: Where is agency
located in this account? What is the structural context in which actors operate and what is its
impact on possibilities for construction? What is the specific understanding of the person
utilised to make sense of the state? How are concepts of persons and concepts of states
related?
Building on these questions, the central research question that guides this thesis is the
following: Can a constructivist approach with a strong input from constructionist psychology,
which treats the state-as-person as a metaphor while acknowledging the constraints of the
state-as-structure, provide a valuable alternative understanding of the assumption that the
state is like a person? In answering this question, I will offer what I call the constructed state-as-
person as an alternative to the conception of the state-as-person that prompted Wendt’s
proclamation that “states are people too”. In so doing, I will draw on conceptual metaphor

3
For seminal contributions to the emotional turn compare for example Neta C. Crawford, 'The Passion of
World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships', International Security 24, 4 (2000). And
Roland Bleiker and Emma Hutchison, 'Fear No More: Emotions and World Politics', Review of International
Studies 34, 115-135 (2008). Also Jonathan Mercer, 'Rationality and Psychology in International Politics',
International Organization 59, 1 (2005).

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theory and constructionist psychology. Having briefly outlined the project, I now turn to
situating the project further in terms of highlighting some of the fundamental assumptions that
the present investigation takes as starting points and that locate this project within wider IR
debates.

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