158 MICHAEL BARNETT

Further Reading

Adler, E. (2003), 'Constructivism', in W. Carlneas, B. Simmons, and T. Risse (eds), Handbook of

lnternational Relations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). Reviews the origins and fundamentals of
constructivism and its relationship to existing theories of international politics.
Adler, E., and Pouliot, V. (eds) (2012}, lnternational Practices (New York: Cambridge University Press).
A wide-ranging collection of essays on the value of focusing on what actors do in international
affairs. Poststructuralism
Barnett, M. (1998), Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order (New York: Columbia
University Press). Examines how Arab leaders played the game of Arab politics and, in doing so, LE NE HANSEN
transformed the very nature of Arab politics. An example of how constructivists might think about
how strategic action is shaped by a normative structure.
Fearon,J., and Wendt, A. (2003}, 'Rationalism vs. Constructivism', in W. Carlneas, B. Simmons, and
T. Risse (eds), Handbook of lnternationa/ Relations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). Surveys how rational
choice and constructivism overlap.
Finnemore, M., and Sikkink, K. {1999}, 'lnternational Norms and Political Change', in P. Katzenstein
et al. (eds), Explorations and Controversies in World Politics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Framing Questions
Finnemore, M., and Sikkink, K. (2001 }, 'Taking Stock: The Constructivist Research Program in
• Does language matter for international relations?
lnternational Relations and Comparative Politics', Annual Review of Politica/ Science, 4(1 ): 391-416.
An insightful account of constructivism's insights. • Do all states have the same identity?
Hollis, M., and Smith, S. (1990), Explaining and Understanding lnternational Relations (New York:
• Is the state the most important actor in world politics today?
Oxford University Press). An exceptionally clear exposition of the contrast between a conception
of world politics driven by self-interested action anda conception informed by rules and
interpretive methods.
Katzenstein, P. (ed.} {1996}, The Culture of National Security {New York: Columbia University Press).
Explores how identities and norms shape state interests in a range of security areas.
Price, R. (ed.} (2008), Moral Limit and Possibility in World Politics {Cambridge: Cambridge University Reader's Guide and those persecuted by 'their own' states. The cen -
Press). Constructivist scholars gather to consider the relation ship between ethics and various tral status that the state now has is not inevitable,
outcomes in world affairs.
Thi s chapter focuses on poststructuralism, one of but rather the result of political and academic prac-
Wendt, A. (1999), A Social Theory of lnternationa/ Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Un iversity Press). t he lnternational Relations (IR) perspectives furthest tices that reproduce this status. Poststructuralists
The 'bible' of modern constructivism.
away from the realist and liberal mainstream. hold that foreign policies always imply a particu-
Poststructuralists in IR draw on a larger body of lar representation of ou r and others' identities.
ph ilosophical texts known as poststructural ism. They These identities have no fi xed meaning, but are
Online Resources
argue that the state stands at the centre of world constituted in language. Using the concept of dis-
politics and that we should understand the state as course, poststructuralists argue that material 'things'
To access more learning resources for this chapter go to www.oxfordtextbooks.eo.uk/orc/ a particular form of political community. This chal - only come to have meaning as they are represented
baylis7e/
lenges mainstream IR's conception of the state as a by particular words and images. Poststructural ists
rational actor driven by a self-help imperative and also argue that world pol itics is practiced not only
relative or absolute gains. Poststructuralism argues by governments and international organizations,
t hat this conception is ahistorical and that it margin- but through popular culture including film , video
alizes non - and trans -state actors, stateless people, games, and television shows.
160 LEN E HANSEN
lntroduction
Like constructivism , poststructuralism became part
oflnternational Relations (IR) in the 1980s (see Ch. 9).
As constructivists, poststructuralists in IR were influ-
enced by social and philosophical theory, which had
played a major role in the humanities since the 1970s.
Politically, the second cold war's domination of the
early and mid-1980s impacted poststructuralists, who
feared that the two blocs would destroy each other in
a nuclear holocaust (see Ch. 3). Poststructuralists held
that the key to the cold war lay in the enemy construc-
tions that both East and West promoted. The cold war
is of course now long gone, but poststructuralism is
still very much focused on high politics (themes high
on the foreign policy agenda, such as war, security, and
the military), and it maintains a concern with states'
constructions of threats and enemies.
Poststructuralists bring a critica! perspective to
the study of world politics in two important respects.
They are critica! of the way that most states conduct
their foreign policies and how most IR theories tell
us to study what states do. Poststructuralists disagree
Studying the social world
Because poststructuralism adopts a critica! attitude to
wo~ld politics, it raises questions about ontology (what
is in the world) and epistemology (how we can study the
world). For students of world politics, the most impor-
tant ontological questions concern the state. Is the state
the only actor that really matters, orare non-state actors
as-or more- important? Does the state that we know
today act in essentially the same terms as states in the
past, or are the historical changes so important that we
need specific theories for other times and places?
Are states able to change their views of others from
hostility and fear to collaboration? As you have learned
from previous chapters, there has never been a consen-
sus in IR on how to answer these ontological questions.
Realists hold that the self-help state is the essential unit
in international relations and that its drive for power or
security makes it impossible to move beyond the risk of
war (see Ch. 6). Liberalists (see Ch. 7) disagree, argu-
ing that states can build a more cooperative and peaceful
international system. Both realism and liberalism agree,
though, that the state is the main building block.
with realism (see Ch. 6) that we should see the state
as a self-help actor or as a unit that stays the same
through history. Rather, the state is a particular way
of understanding political community-that is, who
we can trust and who we feel we have something in
common with (see Ch. 27). Likewise, if the inter-
national system is anarchic , it is because states and
other actors reproduce this system, not because it
is given once and for ali. Poststructuralism wants us
to take seriously what existing policies and theories
exclude and marginalize, and it tells us to think criti-
cally about how we construct the world. To poststruc-
turalists, there is no objective yardstick that we can
use to define threats, dangers, enemies, or underdevel-
opment. We need to investigate how constructions of
the world, and the people and places within it, make
particular policies seem natural and therefore legiti-
mate. Poststructuralism tells us to take the state and
power very seriously, but it does so in a manner that
sets it apart from the other theories of world politics
that you have encountered so far (Chs 6-9).
Although ontological assumptions are absolutely
central for how we think about the world, scholars and
students often go about studying world politics with-
out giving ontology much thought. That is because it
comes into view only when theories with different
ontological assumptions clash. As long as one works
within the same paradigm , there is no need to discuss
one's basic assumptions, and energy can be devoted to
more specific questions. For example, instead of dis-
cussing what it requires to be a state, one tests whether
democratic states are more or less likely to form alli-
ances than non-democratic ones. One of the strengths
of poststructuralism has been to call attention to how
much the ontological assumptions we make about the
state actually matter for how we view the world and for
the more specific explanations of world poli tics that we
formulate.
Poststructuralism also brings epistemology-
questions of knowledge-to the fore. As with ontol-
ogy, the importance of epistemology is clearest when
theories clash over which understanding should be
adopted. Mainstream approaches adopt a positivist
epistemology. They strive to find the causal relations
that 'rule' world politics, working with dependent and
independent variables. In the case of democratic peace
theory, for example, this implies a research agenda
where the impact of state type (democratic/non-
democratic) on foreign policy behaviour (going to
war or not) can be tested systematically (see Chs 7
and 15). Poststructuralists, by contrast, embrace a post-
positivist epistemology. They argue that the social
world is so far removed from the hard sciences where
causal epistemologies originate that we cannot under-
stand world politics through causal cause-effect
relationships. Compared to constructivists, who adopt
a concept of causality as structural pressure, poststruc-
turalists hold that causality conceptualized as such is
inappropriate, not because there are no such things as
structures, but because these structures are constituted
through human action. Structures cannot therefore
be independent variables (see Box 10.1). Constitutive
theories are still theories, not just descriptions or sto-
ries about the world, because they define theoretical
concepts, explain how they hang together, and instruct
us on how to use them in analysis of world politics.
Thus it is not easier or less rigorous to develop non-
causal, constitutive theories; it is just different.
The distinction between causal and non-causal theo-
ries is also captured by the distinction between explana-
tory theories and constitutive theories. As you read
through the literature on world politics, you will encoun-
ter other labels that point to much the same things,
with causal-constitutive, explanatory-constitutive, and
foundationalist-anti -foundationalist being the most
common ones. Foundationalists hold that we can say
whether something is true or not if we examine the facts;
anti-foundationalists, by contrast, hold that what counts
as 'facts' and 'truth' differ from theory to theory, and that
we cannot therefore find 'the' truth. Different IR theo-
ries take different views on whether we can and should
agree on one set of facts, and thus on whether we should
adopt a foundationalist position. Explanatory, positivist
theories .are usually foundationalist, and constitutive,
Poststructuralism as a political philosophy
As mentioned in the Introduction, IR poststructural-
ists bring philosophical ideas and concepts to the study
of world politics. These can be quite complex and hard
Chapter 1O Poststructuralism 161
Box 10.1 Causal and constitutive theories-
the example of piracy
Causal and constitutive theories produce dffferent research
questions and thus create different research agendas. Taking
the example of contemporary piracy, a causal theory might
ask: 'What explains variation in the level of piracy in differ-
ent African states? Is the cause economic deprivation, military
capabilities, or failed political structures?' A constitutive theory
asks instead: 'Which activities are being included when gov-
ernments define piracy? And do such definitions constitute
military measures as legitimate policy responses?'
non-positivist theories are usually anti-foundationalist.
Because poststructuralism argues in favour of a consti-
tutive, post-positivist, anti-foundationalist position, it
is seen as one of the most alternative approaches in IR
(see Chs 11, 12, and 17).
Epistemology is also important at a more concrete
level of analysis, because one's epistemology leads one
to select different kinds of 'facts' and to treat them
differently. To take the example of ethnic war, realist
and liberal analyses look for the factors that explain
why ethnic wars occur. Here, the relevant facts are
the number of ethnic wars, where and when they took
place, and facts we hypothesize might explain them: for
instance, forms of government or economic capabili-
ties. Poststructuralism, by contrast, asks what calling
something an 'ethnic war' implies for our understand-
ing of the war and the policies that could be used to
stop it. Here, the facts come from texts that document
different actors' use of 'war labels'.
Key Points
• Poststructuralists raise questions about ontology and
epistemology.
• Poststructuralism is critica! of statism and of taking the
anarchical system as fixed and timeless.
• Poststructuralism adopts a constitutive epistemology.
• What count as facts depends on the ontological and
epistemological assumptions a theory makes.
to explain, but let us begin with four concepts that have
been particularly influential: discourse, deconstruc-
tion, genealogy, and intertextuality.
162 LEN E HANSEN
Discourse
Poststructuralism holds that language is essential to
how we make sense of the world. Language is social
because we cannot make our thoughts understandable
to others without a set of shared codes. This is cap-
tured by the concept of discourse, which the promi-
nent French philosopher Michel Foucault defined as a
linguistic system that orders statements and concepts.
Politically, language is significant because politicians-
and other actors relevant to world politics-must legiti-
mate their foreign policies to audiences at home and
abroad. The words we use to describe something are
not neutral, and the choice of one term over another
has political implications. To take an example, if what
happens in Darfur, Sudan, is described as 'a genocide',
there is a strong moral pressure on the international
community to 'do something', but not if what happens
is described as 'tribal warfare'.
As this example demonstrates, poststructuralism
understands language not as a neutral transmitter, but
as producing meaning. Things do not have an objec-
tive meaning independently of how we constitute them
in language. You may recall from Chapter 9 that con-
structivists make a distinction between social facts and
brute facts, but poststructuralists hold that even brute
facts are socially constructed. This does not mean that
things do not happen in the real world-for instance, if
someone fires a loaded gun at you, then you will get hurt.
But it does mean that there is no given essence to 'a thing'
or 'an event': is the shooting an accident, an attack, or
divine retribution for something bad you did? What pos-
sible meanings can be assigned to a specific event thus
depends on the discourses that are available. For exam-
ple, we might attribute an illness such as a heart attack
to either our lifestyle (how we eat, live, drink, and exer-
cise), orto our genes (which we cannot do much about),
orto divine punishment. Using the concept of discourse,
we can say that heart attacks are constituted differently
within a 'lifestyle discourse', a 'genetic discourse', and a
'religious discourse'. Each discourse provides different
views of the body, what can be done to prevent disease,
and thus what policies of disease preventiori should be
adopted. Poststructuralists stress that discourses are not
the same as ideas, and that materiality or 'the real world'
is not abandoned (see Box 10.2). To take materiality seri-
ously means, for example, that advances in health tech-
nologies can change the way that discourses construct
those afflicted by heart attacks or other diseases such as
cancer or HIV/AIDS.
Box 10.2 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe
on the materiality of discourse
The fact that every object is constituted as an object of
discourse has nothing to do with whether there is a world
externa! to thought, or with the realism/idealism opposi-
tion. An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that
certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now,
independently of my will. But whether their specificity as
objects is constructed in terms of 'natural phenomena' or
'expressions of the wrath of God', depends u pon the struc-
turing of a discursive field. What is denied is not that such
objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different
assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects
outside any discursive condition of emergen ce ... we will
affirm the material character of every discursive struc-
ture. To argue the opposite is to accept the very classical
dichotomy between an objective field constituted outside
of any discursive intervention, and a discourse consisting
of the pu re expression of thought.
(Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 108)
Deconstruction
To see language as a set of codes means that words (or
signs) make sense only in relation to other words. We
cannot know what ' horse' meaos unless that word is
connected to other words: 'animal', 'furry', 'hoofed',
and 'fast'. Moreover, we know what something is only
by comparing it to something it is not. A 'horse' is not
'human', 'feathered', 'legless', or 'slow'. To see language
as connected signs underscores the structural side of
poststructuralism (see Box 10.3).
Box 10.3 'Postmodernism' and
'poststructuralism'
Poststructuralism does not mean 'anti-structuralism', but
a philosophical position that developed out of structural-
ism .. ., a position which in many ways shares more with
structuralism than with its opponents.
(Wrever 2002: 23)
'Postmodernism' refers to a historical period (usually after
the Second World War) and also to a direction in art, litera-
ture, and architecture; it is used to describe new empirical
phenomena such as 'postmodern war' (see Ch. 14). In con-
trast, poststructuralism refers to a body of thought that is not
confined to a specific historical period. Poststructuralism and
postmodernism are often conflated by non-poststructuralists
in lnternational Relations (Campbell 2007: 211-12}.
What differentiates poststructuralism from struc-
turalism (or more precisely structural linguistics) is
that poststructuralism sees sign structures as unstable
beca use connections among words are never given once
and for all. To take the 'horse', it might be 'an animal',
but in many situations it is seen as more 'human' than
'real animals' such as 'pigs' or 'worms'. lts 'animal-
ness' is itself unstable and given through other signs at
a given time and place. This might at first seem quite
far removed from world politics, but it tells us that
the ways we describe events, places, peoples, and states
are neither neutral nor given by the things themselves.
For example, in 2002, when President George W. Bush
spoke about an 'axis of evil' threatening the Western
world, this implied a radical difference between the
US and the countries (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea)
claimed to make up this axis.
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida's theory
of deconstruction posits that language is made up of
dichotomies, for instance between the developed and
the underdeveloped, the modern and the pre-modern,
the civilized and the barbarie. These dichotomies are not
'neutral', because in each case one term is superior to the
other. There is a clear hierarchy between the developed-
modern-civilized on the one hand and the underde-
veloped-pre-modern-barbaric on the other. Think, for
example, of how Western politicians and media repre-
sented the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as irratio-
nal-sometimes even crazy-and thus radically different
from 'normal', Western heads of state. Deconstruction
shows how such dichotomies make something look like
an objective description, for instance how developed a
country is, although it is in fact a structured set of val-
ues. Poststructuralists disagree on whether one might
describe deconstruction as a methodology (see Box
10.4), but agree that a central goal is to problematize
dichotomies, show how they work, and thereby open up
alternative ways to understand world politics.
Genealogy
Genealogy is another ofFoucault's concepts, defined as
a ' history of the present'. lt starts from something con-
temporary, say climate change (see Ch. 24), and asks
two questions: what political practices have formed the
present and which alternative understandings and dis-
courses have been marginalized and often forgotten? A
genealogy of climate change might start by asking who
are allowed to speak and make decisions at events such
as the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
Chapter 10 Poststructuralism 163
Box 10.4 Views on poststructuralist
methodology
Poststructuralists differ in their assessment of whether a post-
structuralist methodology is possible and desirable.
Lene Hansen holds that 'Many of the methodological ques-
tions that poststructuralist discourse analysis confronts are
those that face all academic work: what should be the focus
of analysis?, how should a research design be built around
it?, and how is a body of material and data selected that
facilitates a qualitatively and quantitatively reliable answer?
Poststructuralism's focus on discourses as articulated in written
and spoken text cal Is in addition for particular attention to the
methodology of reading (how are identities identified within
foreign policy texts and how should the relationship between
opposing discourses be studied?) and the methodology of
textual selection (which forums and types of text should be
chosen and how many should be included?}' (Hansen 2006: 2).
Others, including Rita Floyd, are more sceptical, holding
that 'Derrida would have been fundamentally opposed to
even the possibility' (Floyd 2007: 216).
held in Paris. Then it asks what constructions of 'the
climate' and 'global responsibility' are dominant, and
how these constructions relate to past discourses. By
looking into the past, we see alternative ways to con-
ceptualize humans' relationship with 'the climate' and
gain an understanding of the discursive and material
structures that underpin the present.
The concept of power
The concepts of genealogy and discourse point us
towards Foucault's conception of power. Power, to
Foucault, is 'productive': it comes about when dis-
courses constitute particular subject positions as the
'natural' ones. 'Actors' therefore do not exist outside
discourse; they are produced through discourse and
need to be recognized by others. We can see such actor-
recognition processes unfold when oppositional move-
ments challenge existing governments, as occurred
during the Arab Spring, making the question of who
represents 'the people' become crucial. lt is also an
instance of power when states and institutions establish
themselves as having the knowledge to govern a par-
ticular issue. Knowledge is not opposed to power-as
in the classical phrase 'speaking truth to power' -but is
integral to power itself. As a concrete example, take the
way Western scholars have 'gained knowledge' about
non-Western peoples by describing them as inferior,
backward, underdeveloped, and sometimes threaten-
ing. This takes for granted that a foreign identity exists
164 LENE HANSEN
and that it can be studied (see Ch. 11). More broadly,
to speak from a position of knowledge is to exercise
authority over a given issue.
Poststructuralists in IR have also picked up one of
Foucault's more specific conceptualizations of power,
namely that of 'biopower'. Biopower works at two levels:
at the individual level we are told to discipline and control
our bodies, and at the collective level we find that govern-
ments and other institutions seek to manage whole popu-
lations (Epstein 2007). A good example of biopolitics is
that of population control, where states have promoted
such 'body-disciplining' practices as abstinence before
marriage and use of contraceptives in an attempt to
reduce the number ofbirths or prevent particular groups
of women from getting pregnant. Practices targeted at
the individual are built around the idea that there is 'a'
Case Study 10.1 Discourses on the Ebola outbreak in 2014
Ebola in Liberia, December 2014
Photographer 1BUREX/Shutterstock
Epidemic diseases are situated at the heart of discussions of
globalization , because they move from one country to another,
from regions to continents, and from continents to the entire
planet (Elbe 2009). Air travel in particular has increased the
risk that diseases can Jump' from one location to another far
away. States try therefore to protect themselves from exposure
to epidemics through screenings at airports, harbours or other
points of entry. In response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus in
West Africa in 2014, for example, the US decided that travellers
from that region had to enter the country through five specified
airports only.
From a poststructuralist perspective, policies towards epidem-
ics like Ebola are not simply seeking to salve a material problem-
combating the Ebola virus-but also to constitute the disease and
those who are affected by it in specific ways. To define a 'disease'
asan 'epidemic' is not just to use a technical yardstick based on
the number of deaths within a specific time span. lt is also to
invoke a particular discourse: epidemics are threatening because
population that can be studied and steered in a particular
direction (see Case Study 10.1 for a further discussion
of how the concepts of discourse and biopolitics can be
used to understand global politics surrounding epidem-
ics such as Ebola).
lt is clear that poststructuralism's concept of power
goes beyond that of realism, which defines power as
material capabilities (see Ch. 6). Compared to con-
structivism, which also considers knowledge and
identities (see Ch. 9), poststructuralism looks more
critically at how actors get to be constituted as actors in
the first place. One of the key issues in the discussions
over poststructuralism as an approach to international
relations is whether it provides a good account of the
way that materiality and power impact world politics
(see Opposing Opinions 10.1).
they risk spreading rapidly and often involve the lack of a cure or
viruses that mutate and beco me resistant to treatment. H istorical
accounts of the plague during the Middle Ages and contempo-
rary movies such as Outbreak and Contagian alike play important
roles in producing and circulating a broader epidemic discourse.
As power is central to discourse, poststructuralism asks who
has the responsibility-and the right- to define how epidemics
should be combated.
We can study how power is performed through discourse in a
speech given by US President Barack Obama ata UN meeting on
the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea
(Obama 2014). Obama opened by declaring Ebola 'an urgent
threat to the people of West Africa, but also a potential threat to
the world', and he continued that 'an urgent, strong and coordi-
nated international response' was needed . He also stressed the
responsibility of the international community to help the United
States handle the situation. On first view, this might look like a
sympathetic attempt to get victims of the epidemic the help that
they urgently needed. But on closer examination, and adopting a
poststructuralist perspective, we see that the speech constitutes
the United States as the unquestioned leader with the author-
ity to determine which policy should be adopted, for example
setting up a military command in Liberia. What is strikingly
absent is any explicit mention ofWest African governments, what
policies they might have adopted, or what assistance they have
requested . In short, it appears as if 'West Africa' is a space devoid
of agency, sovereignty and authority.
Question 1: In your opinion, would the international community
have responded differently to the 2014 outbreak of Ebola had it
occurred in Western Europe? lf so, how? lf not, why?
Question 2: What do you think are the consequences of leaving
local governments out of the discourse on Ebola?
,1
Opposing Opinions 10.1 Does poststructuralism provide a good account of the role that
materiality and power play in world politics?
For
Material objects get their meaning through discourse. Taking
the hard case of nuclear weapons, it clearly matters which country
has them: sorne countries are considered 'safe' owners, others are
not. For example, it is impossible to understand the United States'
attempt to prevent lran from gaining nuclear weapons without an
analysis of how 'lran' is represented in Western discourse.
Discourse is a form of power. Representations of states,
institutions, and other actors in world politics are not neutral
descriptions that describe the world as it 'really is'. For instance,
non-Western countries have historically been constructed
through terms that are inferior to those of Europe and the United
States and this has legitimized policies of colonialism.
Foreign policies are justified through historical discourse.
Foreign policy discourse is saturated with references to history,
for example to 'we' as the legitimate inhabitants of a given terri-
tory. Such historical claims are also practices of power and often
deeply politicized. Thus they cannot be settled by pointing to 'the
facts'. For example, the Armenian government is seeking to have
events in 1915 where huge numbers of Armenians were killed
acknowledged as a genocide, while the Turkish government
refuses to represent history using that term.
1. Do you agree with critics that poststructuralism cannot be used to understand the materiality of issues such as climate change and
genocide?
2. Can you think of a way that non-discursive structures of power could be acknowledged by poststructuralists?
3. Do you find the claim that objective historical facts exist convincing?
1ntertextual ity
The theory on intertextuality was developed by the
semiotic theorist Julia Kristeva. It argues that we can
understand the social world as comprised of texts.
This is because texts form an 'intertext'-that is, they
are connected to texts that carne before them. In sorne
situations this is self-evident. Take, for example, dec-
larations made by international institutions such as
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the
European Union (EU), and the United Nations, which
quote previous declarations and perhaps statements by
member countries. But intertextual relations are also
made in more abstract way_s. For example, to say that
'the Balkans' is filled with 'ancient hatred' is to draw
on a body of texts that constitutes 'the Balkans' as
pre-modern and barbarie. Intertextuality might also
involve images, or interpretations of events that are
not exclusively written or spoken. For instance, when
Chapter 10 Poststructuralism 165
Against
Material objects exist and matter independently of discourse.
Poststructuralists overly emphasize representations in language;
this causes them to overlook the importance of non-linguistic fac-
tors. For example, there is a real threat that rising sea levels will
eradicate small island states such as Tuvalu, independently of
whether the threat is talked about or not.
Discourses mayoverlook structures of power. Poststructuralism
misses differences in material power that are not put i nto language.
For instance, only five states are permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council, while others have less power to influence
its decisions and resolutions. And in sorne cases, individuals might
actually put themselves at risk by openly voicing critique of 'their'
state.
Not all of history is constructed. Although history might be
contested from time to time, we should not dispense with the
idea that objective historical facts exist. For example, it is a fact
that around 8,000 men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serbian
forces at Srebrenica injuly 1995.
presidents meet in front of television cameras express-
ing their commitment to solving the financia! crisis, we
look not just at what is said but at what having such a
meeting signifies. The presidential press conference is,
in other words, an important 'sign' within the larger
text that defines diplomacy. Intertextuality also implies
that certain things are taken for granted because previ-
ous texts have made the point so many times that there
is no need to state it again. Ifyou read through NATO
documents from the cold war, you will find that they
might not necessarily mention the Soviet Union all that
much. That is because everyone at the time knew that
NATO's main purpose was to deter the Soviet Union
from attacking members of NATO. Working with
intertextuality, we should therefore ask ourselves what
a given text <loes not mention, either because it is taken
for granted or because it is too dangerous to say.
At the same time that intertextuality points to the
way in which texts always 'quote' past texts, it also holds
166 LENE HANSEN
that individual texts are unique. No text is a complete
reproduction of an earlier one. Even when one text
incorporates another by quoting it in full, the new con-
text modifies the older text. This is of significance to the
study of world politics because it underscores the fact
that meaning changes when texts are quoted by other
texts. Take the Muhammad cartoons that were printed
by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September
2005. They have now been reproduced by many other
newspapers and on the Internet, and many different
interpretations have been offered. If you look at the
cartoons today, you cannot therefore 'read' them in the
same way as when they were first published.
Popular culture
The argument that we should understand world poli-
tics through the lens of intertextuality has prompted
poststructuralists to look at forms of text that are not
normally discussed by IR theories. James Der Derian
has studied the intertext of popular spy novels, jour-
nalism, and academic analysis (Der Derian 1992).
Others, including Michael J. Shapiro (1988, 1997)
and Cynthia Weber (2006), analyse television shows,
film, and photography. Poststructuralists hold that
there are severa! reasons why we should pay atten-
tion to popular culture. For one, states take popular
culture seriously, even if it is 'just fiction'. In 2010, a
Turkish television drama's depiction of Israeli security
forces led the Israeli Foreign Ministry to protest to the
Turkish ambassador. In 2014, the American comedy
The Interview, which features an assassination plot
against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, became
the subject of North Korean government protest and
hacking against Sony Pictures, the company that pro -
duced the movie. Another reason why we should take
popular culture seriously-and why states do too- is
that film, television, music, and video are watched and
Deconstructing state sovereignty
Poststructuralists use the four key concepts (discourse,
deconstruction, genealogy, and intertextuality) to
answer the 'big questions' of IR. What is the status of
the state? Is the international system doomed to recur-
ring conflicts and power politics, as realism holds? Or is
it possible to move towards more cooperative arrange-
ments, as liberalism argues?
listened to by millions of people across the world (see
Case Study 10.1). As the world has become increas-
ingly globalized, popular culture can spread quickly
from one place to another and new media technolo-
gies, such as smartphones, Facebook, and Twitter, have
fundamentally changed who can produce the 'texts' of
world politics. Think, for example, of the photos show-
ing inmates being abused by American guards working
at the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib, which caused a global
uproar in 2004, and the videos of beheadings that
circulate on the Internet today. Finally, popular cul-
ture provides us with complex, critica), and thought-
provoking visions of world politics. For example, films
made about the Vietnam War such as The Deer Hunter
and First Blood (the first of the Rambo movies) helped
generate debate over the war itself and the traumas
fac_yd by returning soldiers. Another example is the
widely acclaimed graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane
Satrapi, which shows what it was like growing up in
Iran during and after the revolution in 1979.
- Key Points
• Four concepts from poststructuralist philosophy have been
used to produce new knowledge about world politics:
discourse, deconstruction, genealogy, and intertextuality.
• To look at world politics as discourse is to study the
linguistic structures through which materiality is given
meaning.
• Deconstruction argues that language is a system of unstable
dichotomies where one term is valued as superior.
• Genealogy asks which political practices have formed the
present and which alternative understandings and
discourses have been marginalized and forgotten.
• lntertextuality holds that we can see world politics as
made up of texts, and that all texts refer to other texts yet
each is unique.
The inside-outside distinction
Poststructuralists agree with realists that the state is
absolutely central to world politics. Yet, in contrast to
realists, who take the state for granted, poststructural-
ists deconstruct the role the state plays in world poli-
tics as well as in the academic field of IR. Arguing that
t he state is not 'a unit' that has the same essence across
time and space, R. B. J. Walker holds that the state
Is a particular way to organize political community
(L990). The question of political community is of
utmost importance to national as well as international
politics because it tells us why the forms of governance
Lhat are in place are legitimate, who we can trust, who
we have something in common with, and who we
should help if they are under attack, suffering, or hun-
gry (see Ch. 27). The significance of political commu-
nity is perhaps most striking when states fall apart and
separate into new states, such as happened with the
Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia in the
1990s, and more recently with Sudan. Such processes
involve reconstruction of who 'we' are and an idea of
how new collectives differ from those who were part of
the old state.
The sovereign, territorial state's unrivalled posi-
tion as the unit of political community in contempo-
rary world politics resulted from a series of events and
processes that began with the Treaties of Westphalia
(see Ch. 2). Walker tells us that this transition from
the medieval to the modern state system is impor-
ta nt because it shows us two different ways of orga-
nizing political community. In the medieval world
there were so-called overlapping authorities. This
means that religious and political authorities-the
Pope and the emperors and those below them-were
interwoven and that there was no single institution
that could make sovereign decisions. This changed
with the Treaties of Westphalia as states became the
sovereign authorities in their own territories and
in relations with each other. In terms of relations
among people, the medieval world worked accord-
ing to what Walker calls a principie of ' hierarchical
subordination'. Hierarchical subordination assigns
each individual to a particular position in society.
At the top were the Emperor and the Pope, next carne
the bishops and the kings, then the priests and local
nobility, and at the bottom were those who owned
nothing and who had no rights. The Treaties of
Westphalia began a process whereby people became
more closely linked to states, and after the French
Revolution each citizen had the same status. This did
not mean that all individuals were citizens or that all
citizens had the same amount of wealth, education,
or property, but there was no longer anything in a
person's nature, as with the principie of hierarchical
subordination, that made him or her inherently supe-
rior or inferior.
Chapter 1O Poststructuralism 1167
lnside-the state ......... Outside-the international
Order ..---. Anarchy
Community ..---. Difference
Reason ..---. Power
Trust ..---. Suspicion
Progress ..---. Repetition
Cooperation ..---. Self-help
Law ..---. Capabi 1ities
Pea ce ..---. War
Figure 10.1 The inside-outside dichotomy and its
stabilizing oppositions
State sovereignty implies, in Walker's words, a
division of the world into an 'inside' the state (where
there is order, trust, loyalty, and progress) and an
'outside' (where there is conflict, suspicion, self-help,
and anarchy). Walker then uses the principie of decon-
struction to show that the national-international dis-
tinction is not simply an objective account of how the
'real world' works. The distinction is not maintained
by something that is externally given, but rather by
the way in which the two sides of the dichotomy rein-
force each other: we know the international only by
what it is not (national), and likewise the national only
by what it is not (the international). The world 'inside'
states not only differs from the international realm
'outside'; the two are constituted as each other's oppo-
sition. The inside-outside dichotomy is stabilized by
a long series of other dichotomies, including those of
peace and war, reason and power, and order and anar-
chy (see Fig. 10.1).
Poststructuralists have shown how the inside-
outside dichotomy, which like all dichotomies is
inherently unstable, is held in place by being repro-
duced again and again. For example, the negotiations
between the EU and Greece over how to handle the
latter's debt crisis show how state sovereignty is chal-
lenged by the conditions Greece has to accept. Yet state
sovereignty is also reproduced in that the EU can-
not force the Gre~k government to accept a particu-
lar solution in the way it could if Greece was a county
within a state. The debates among Greek politicians on
how far one can go before one's sovereignty disappears
168 LENE HANSEN
also show the continued importance of the inside-
outside dichotomy. States reproduce state sovereignty,
and so do academic texts. For example, Richard K.
Ashley points to realism's 'double move' (Ashley 1987:
413-18). The first move is to assume that we can only
understand 'community' in one way: the one we know
from domestic politics. When we think of 'interna-
tional community', our understanding of this concept
is built on what we know from the state. The second
move consists of arguing that such a community is
possible only within the territorial state. The harmony,
reason, and justice that are possible within states can-
not be extended to the international sphere, as this is
fraught with anarchy, recurring warfare, and power
politics. The realist scholar must therefore educate gov-
ernments not to incorporate ethics and justice in their
foreign policies. For example, one group of prominent
activists opposed to invading Iraq in 2003 based their
opposition on an assessment of the American national
interest, not moral concerns.
The strength of state sovereignty
When poststructuralists write about the inside-out-
side dichotomy, however, they are not claiming that
the world works neatly that way. There are plenty of
states where domestic politics <loes not follow the
description of the 'inside' as one of progress, reason,
and justice, yet the national-international dichotomy
still manages to govern much of world politics. More
critically, we might say that the success of the inside-
outside dichotomy is shown by how well it silences
numerous 'facts' and 'events' that should undermine
it. For example, we can see the national- international
dichotomy at work when states choose not to intervene
in other states that are persecuting their 'own' citizens,
despite increased invocation of the 'right to protect'
principle in recent years.
One of poststructuralism's strengths is that it
points to how state sovereignty is often both ques-
tioned and supported. For instance, the 9/11 attacks
and the war on terror undermined state sovereignty at
the same time that Western states saw them through
the lens of state-based territoriality: 'American soil'
was attacked and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
was held responsible for what ~appened on ' its'
territory. Or consider Somali pirates, who 'work' in
a way that escapes the control of the Somali state. In
response, a broad array of states have tried to restore
order by sending warships to patrol the waters off the
Somali coast. As the pirates transgress state sover-
eignty, states respond by protecting 'their' ships from
being attacked. Before we declare the inside-outside
distinction dead and gone, we should therefore take
its flexibility and resilience into account.
Universal alternatives
Poststructuralists warn that although our decon -
struction of state sovereignty makes it look less like an
objective fact, it is not easy to transcend, nor can it be
replaced by a 'global community'. As R. B. J. Walker
puts it, 'The state is a political category in a way that
the world, or the globe, or the planet, or humanity
is not' (Walker 1997: 72). To engage a dichotomy is
not simply to reverse the hierarchy between its terms
(that is, replace 'the state' with 'the global'), but rather
to rethink all the complex dichotomies around which
it revolves. If we leave the state in favour of the global,
a crucial question becomes how to prevent a return to
the model we know from the medieval world-that
is, one of a global community where individuals are
ranked and given different value. Poststructuralists
hold that claims to 'global', 'universal' solutions
always imply that something else is different and 'par-
ticular'. And that which is different is almost always
in danger of being forced to change to become like
the universal. Poststructuralists are therefore scep-
tical of idealists or liberals who advocate universal
principles, but who overlook the power involved in
defining what is 'the universally' good and right (see
Ch . 31).
The dangers-and power-of universal discourse
are demonstrated by the discourse of Western govern -
ments with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the mid-
and late 2000s (see Ch. 7). In this discourse, 'fighting
terrorism ' sought to defend 'freedom', 'liberty', 'secu-
rity', and 'democracy' (see Ch. 25). Although this might
at first sound unproblematic-even appealing-the
problem is that this set of universally good categories
is spoken and defined not by a truly global voice, but by
a particular set of states. The good 'universal' catego-
ries were aimed at those who were not-yet or ever-
part of that universal project, and this universalist
discourse reinforced 'the West' as the only entity that
could define 'real' universalism. To many, and not only
poststructuralists (see Ch. 11 on post-colonialism), this
echoes the time when the colonial West had the power,
right, and 'obligation' to define what was good for the
rest of the world.
Poststructuralism's critique of universalism shows
that although poststructuralists are critica! of realism,
they agree with realists that we should take power
and the state seriously. Many poststructuralists see
much of value in classical realism because it is histori-
cally sensitive and concerned with the big political and
normative questions of world politics. On the other
hand, they criticize neorealism for its ahistorical view
of the state, its reification of the international structure,
and its positivist epistemology.
ldentity and foreign policy
Poststructuralists have also moved from the general
study of state sovereignty to ask how we should under-
stand foreign policy. In traditional foreign policy analysis,
foreign policies are designed to defend the state (security
policies), help it financially (economic policies), or make it
do good in the world (development policies). By contrast,
poststructuralists hold that there is no stable object-the
state-from which foreign policies are drawn, but that
foreign policies rely on and produce particular under-
standings of the state. Foreign policies constitute the
identity of the Self through the construction of threats,
dangers, and challenges-that is, its Other(s). As Michael
J. Shapiro puts it, this means that the politics of repre-
sentation is absolutely crucial. How we represent others
affects the representation of our selves, and this repre-
sentation is decisive for which foreign policies we choose
(Shapiro 1988). For example, debates within the EU over
whether Turkey should be accepted as a new member
centre on judgments about whether Turkey is a European
country and whether it is possible to be European and
Muslim at the same time. The way in which EU countries
answer these questions has implications not only for the
construction ofTurkey's identity, but for that of Europe's.
Foreign policies are thus not protecting a given and fixed
identity, but rather are discourses through which identi-
ties are (re)produced (see Case Study 10.2 about Russian
discourse on and policy towards Crimea).
ldentity as performative
Theoretically, poststructuralism conceptualizes identity
as relational and performative. The concept of performa-
livity comes from Judith Butler: it holds that identities
Chapter 1O Poststructuralism 169
Key Points
• State sovereignty is a practice that constitutes identity and
authority in a particular manner.
• Poststructuralists deconstruct the distinction between the
national and the international by showing that the two
terms stab ilize each other and depend on a long series of
other dichotomies.
• The global is nota political category like the state, and
therefore cannot rep lace it.
• Poststructuralists warn against the danger of universal ist
discourse because it is always defined from a particu lar
position of power.
have no objective existence, but rather that they depend
on discursive practices (Campbell 1992). Identities are
socially 'real', but they cannot maintain their 'realness'
if we do not reproduce them. Because identities have no
existence independently of the foreign policies that pro-
duce and reproduce them, we cannot say that identities
cause foreign policy. To take the example of the EU and
Turkey, there is no objective European identity that can
be used to arbitrate a decision on Turkish membership.
Rather, it is through debates over Turkey's membership
application that European identity is being defined.
Does this mean, then, that foreign policies cause identi-
ties? No, because foreign policies are at the same time
made with reference to understandings of identity that
are to sorne extent already in place. In the case of the EU,
the discourse on Turkey <loes not start from scratch, but
with historically powerful constructions of Europe as
white, Christian, civilized, and modern. In short, identi-
ties are simultaneously a product of and the justification
for foreign policies. If we go back to the discussion of
epistemology at the beginning of this chapter, we see that
we cannot theorize the relationship between identity and
foreign policy in causal terms. Instead, this is a consti-
tutive relationship (see Fig. 10.2). This also means that
poststructuralism theorizes identity differently from
liberalism. As you may recall from Chapter 7, liberalists
incorporate identity, but hold that it might determine a
state's outward orientation. According to this account,
identity has a causal impact on foreign policy.
Probably the most important development of a
performative theory of identity and foreign policy
is David Campbell's Writing Security: United States
Foreign Policy and the Poli tics of Identity, first published
170 LENE HANSEN
Case Study 10.2 Foreign policy and the construction of identity- Russian discourse on Crimea
by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 18 March 2014, as a case
in point, we can see that what is at stake is not simply a ques-
tion of 'material facts', but representations of identity, history,
and the norms that underpin world politics. Putin constituted
Crimea and Russia as possessing a long history of shared iden-
tity going back to the 980s when Prince Vladimir, the ancestor of
modern Russians, was baptized in the Ukrainian town Khersones.
This means, he stated, that 'In people's hearts and minds, Crimea
has always been an inseparable part of Russia. This firm convic-
tion is based on truth and justice and was passed from genera-
tion to generation, over time, under any circumstances, despite
...-
.. '!11<! ali the dramatic changes our country went through during the
r'I entire twentieth century' (Putin 2014). Therefore what happened
Sputnik/Topfoto in 2014 was notan annexation but a logical and rightful return
of Crimea to its natural place within Russia. In contrast to the
Western discourse on Russia as the aggressor, Putin constructs
Demonstrations aimed at the pro- Russian policy of Ukrainian
Russia as a democratic and civilized country committed to 'good -
President Viktor Yanukovych began in the capital city of Kiev in
neighbourly relations' with other states. Challenging American
November 2013. In February 2014, Yanukovych fled to Russia
representations of itself as upholding international law, Putin
and the Ukrainian Parliament voted in favour of holding a new
Presidential election. On 16 March 2014, a referendum in the
holds that the United States prefers 'the rule of the gun'. lt and
its partners 'have come to believe in their exclusivity and excep-
Ukrainian territory of Crimea showed an overwhelming majority
tionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that
in favour of the region becoming a part of Russia. Russia's mili-
only they can ever be right'. Thus, when it suits their interests
tary and political engagement in Crimea was widely condemned
Western powers support republics that want independence, such
by Western governments and institutions. For example, NATO
as Kosovo, and when it does not suit their interests, they do not.
described the region's changing status as an illegal and illegiti-
mate 'annexation' that breached international law. In response to
Russia's involvement in Crimea's secession and the war in Ukraine
more broadly, a long list of European countries, as well as the Question 1: How important do you think history is to Putin's rep-
United States and Canada, imposed economic and diplomatic resentation of Russian identity?
sanctions on Russia.
Question 2: Which discourse on the Crimean annexation/seces-
The Russian government adopted a very different discourse
sion is more correct, NATO's or Putin's? What criteria do you sug-
to describe the events in Ukraine and Crimea. Taking a speech
gest we use to assess the two discourses?
in 1992. Campbell takes a broad view of what foreign
involve gender and sexual relations, as when women
policy is and distinguishes between 'Foreign Policy'
are deemed unfit to participate in the military because
(the policies undertaken by states in the international
they lack the proper 'mind-set' (and thus would be dan-
arena) and 'foreign policy' (ali those discursive prac-
gerous for male soldiers to fight alongside), or when
tices that constitute something as 'foreign' in relation to
homosexuals are described as alien to the national
the Self). 'Foreign policy' might just as well take place
sense of self. By looking not only at Foreign Policy, but
within states as between them . lt might, for instance,
also at 'foreign policy', poststructuralism casts light on
the symbolic boundaries that are constituted within
and across states.
Much of poststructuralist scholars' concern has
focused on what Campbell calls the 'discourses of
ldentity Foreign policy danger'. Because such discourses work with very clear
dichotomies, it is easy to see how the Other defines the
Self. Yet poststructuralism also investigates those iden-
tities that are not so radically different from the Self.
Beyond the simple construction of Self- radical Other,
Figure 10.2 The constitutive relationship between identity
more complex identity constellations exist that can
and foreign policy
involve severa! Others. Such Others might threaten
each other rather than the Self and be constituted by dif-
ferent kinds of otherness. One case that highlights such
more complex constellations is the war in Bosnia in the
1990s, where one Other (Bosnian Muslims) was threat-
ened by another Other (Bosnian Serbs). This challenged
the international community to undertake a humani-
tarian intervention (see Ch. 32). Poststructuralists
have shown that this was legitimized in a discourse that
split the Other into 'innocent civilians' and 'Balkan
governments' (Campbell 1998). As Western responsi-
bility was extended only to the 'innocent civilians', a
full-and more political-understanding of Western
involvement was avoided. Another example ofhow for-
eign policy discourses try to establish the identity of the
Other is the on-going debate about whether China has
the ambition to become a fully fledged military super-
power, and if so, how it will use this power.
Subject positions
When poststructuralists write about identities as con-
stituted in discourse, they usually use the terms 'subjec-
tivities' or 'subject positions' to underscore the fact that
identity is not something that someone has, but rather
that it is a position that one is constructed as having.
Individuals and institutions navigate among different
subject positions and might identify with the positions
they are given by others to a greater or lesser extent.
Think, for example, about the way the subject position
of 'the Muslim' has come to be used in Western Europe.
Sorne 'Muslims' embrace this subject position and seek
to give it a positive status by showing, for example, that
Muslim organizations are as democratic as, say, 'nor-
mal' French, Danish, or Austrian ones. Other 'Muslims'
protest that they do not see themselves as Muslim at all,
but rather as women, Swedes, or athletes. As you can
see, it is crucial which subject positions are defined as
important, because they create the 'identity landscape'
that we have to operate within. We need to ask not only
what constructions of 'the Muslim' are available, but
why 'the Muslim' has become such an important iden-
tity to construct.
Obviously, sorne subject positions are more desir-
able than others because they provide a superior posi-
tion compared to other identities. Take 'the Muslim' in
Western discourses. Here the starting point is that the
Muslim is inferior to the European, Western, or Danish
subject. Thus, when institutions and individuals try
to present a more positive view of Muslims, this hap-
pens in critica! response to a reigning discourse of 'the
Muslims' as not quite as good as the 'real' Europeans.
Chapter 1O Poststructuralism 171
A superior subject position also usually provides the
subject with more room for agency. If you recall post-
structuralism's view of power as productive, it becomes
apparent that power is very much involved in the con-
struction of subject positions.
Poststructuralism's critica! take on subjectivity
makes it ask 'Who can speak within this discourse?' and
'How can the subject speak?' These questions also draw
attention to those who cannot speak or who can speak
only with limited authority and agency. One example
of how discourses exclude and marginalize is that of
statism in the UN system. Consider the United Nations
General Assembly, which has 193 members, all of them
states. Because Palestine is riot recognized as a state, it
is allowed access only as an observer. To the extent that
a state-centric discourse rules world politics, non-state
actors and stateless individuals have severe difficulty
gaining a voice. Another example of the 'who can speak
and how' issue is development discourse, where those
who receive aid are constituted as less knowledgeable
than Western donors. As a consequence, the develop-
ment subject is unqualified to say what kind of aid it
wants and can only listen and learn.
As explained in the presentation of the concept of
discourse above, discourses are also material. The con-
stitution of subjectivity happens not only as a linguistic
process, but as we engage our physical surroundings.
Poststructuralists such as Charlotte Epstein (2007) and
Mark Salter (2006) have studied how biometric pass-
ports, visa restrictions, and the way entry is regulated
at airports 'govern' who gains access, and how one
should look and act. Material technologies-the incor-
poration of chips into passports, online applications
for entry into a country, large data systems containing
huge amounts of information-work together with dis-
courses and policies to affect everyday life.
Key Points
-
• In keeping with poststructuralism's non-foundationalist
ontology, there are no natural or objective identities, only
those that are produced in discourse.
• The terms 'subjectivities' or 'subject positions' underscore
the fact that identity is not something that someone
objectively has, but rather a position that one is constructed
as having.
• The relationship between identity and foreign policy is
performative and mutually constitutive.
• Poststructuralism asks 'Who are the subjects and how can
they speak?' and 'What subjects are prevented from
speaking?'
172 LENE HANSEN
Conclusion
This chapter has introduced the main ideas and con-
cepts of poststructuralism. Poststructuralism is par-
ticularly good at drawing your attention to the fact
that actors, entities, and 'things' that we assume are
given actually depend on how we construct them.
Academic perspectives play an important role in the
reproduction of particular visions of world politics: if
we are told over and over again that the state is con-
cerned only with its national interest, power politics,
and survival, then we act according to that picture of
the state. Poststructuralisls also warn that there are
no easy solutions to state sovereignty and that liberal
calls for universal human rights, freedom, liberty, and
democracy inevitably involve constructions of power
and exclusions. While sympathetic to much in critica!
theory's account of the structures that produce global
inequalities, poststructuralists are also sceptical that
emancipation can tackle power and avoid the pitfalls of
universalist discourse (see Ch. 8).
Poststructuralism might not offer grand solu-
tions, but it has a critica! impact on world politics.
Deconstructions of policy discourses and the dominant
realist and liberalist positions force us to reconsider
what basic ontological assumptions guide our way of
thinking. Moreover, poststructuralists have always
been keen to point to the ways in which responsibility
is constructed.
Like all other theories of international relations,
poststructuralism has also been the subject of criticism.
Critics have held that poststructuralists use such dense
philosophical vocabulary that it borders on the incom-
prehensible, or that once one cuts through the fancy
language there is not much substance. Others argue
that poststructuralism fails to account adequately for
material processes, and hence for much of what actu-
ally happens 'outside of discourse'. Another line of
critique centres on epistemological and methodologi-
cal differences. Those International Relations scholars
who hold that theories should make causal claims, like
most of the US mainstream, simply do not accept post-
structuralists' embrace of constitutive epistemologies.
As in the case of the other theoretical perspectives in
this book, we advise you to think critically about post-
structuralism too.
Chapter 1O Poststructuralism 173
Further Reading
Campbell, D. {1992; 2nd edn 1998), Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of
/dentity {Manchester: Manchester University Press). Theorizes the importance of otherness for
states' foreign policy and provides a thorough analysis of the US case.
Der Derian,J. {1992), Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War {Cambridge, MA and Oxford:
Blackwell). Uses multiple forms oftext to explore how diplomatic interactions take place in many
settings, including computer simulations and real-time media coverage.
Der Derian, J., and Shapiro, M. J. {1989), lnternational/lntertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of
World Politics {Lexington, MA: Lexington Books). Early application of the theory of intertextuality
to world politics, with contributions by R. K. Ashley, W. E. Connolly, B. S. Klein, R. B.J. Walker, and
others.
H~nsen , L. {2006), Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War {London: Routledge).
Presents a theory of non-radical otherness anda poststructuralist methodology.
Hansen, L., and W<Ever, O. {eds) {2002), European lntegration and National ldentity: The Chal/enge of
the Nordic States (London: Routledge). Offers a poststructuralist framework for analyzing
discourses on European integration and applies it to the Nordic states.
Lisie, D. {2006), The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing {Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press). Demonstrates how poststructuralism can be used in an analysis of travel writing.
Shapiro, M. J. {1988), The Politics of Representation: Writing Practices in Biography, Photography, and
Policy Analysis {Madison, WI : University of Wisconsin Press). Shows that foreign policy relies on
representations of identity and takes place across multiple genres.
Walker, R. B.J. {1993), lnside/Outside: lnternational Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press). Explains how state sovereignty builds on particular understandings
of identity, community, authority, order, and power.
Weber, C. {2006), lmagining America at War: Morality, Politics, and Film {London: Routledge). A study
of the way films engaged national identity and foreign policy after 9/11 .

Online Resources

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Questions baylis7e/

1. Do you believe all theories should make causal claims?

2. How do you think that material technology influences discourses, for example in discussions of
border control?
3. How would a genealogy of the financia! crisis differ from a liberalist or realist study of the same
event?
4. Do you agree that it is a good idea to incorporate popular culture in the study of world politics?
S. How do you see identity constituted in policies on immigration?
6. What are the signs that state sovereignty might still be in place and what points to its erosion?
7. What alternative forms of political community could replace the state?
8. Discuss how realism, liberalism, Marxism, constructivism, and poststructuralism would analyse
the war in Syria. What are the differences and similarities among them?
9. Could 'terrorism' be replaced by another identity in Western discourse, and what would the
political consequences be?
1O. Which subject positions are central in the discourses on hunger? Who can speak and how? What
are the consequences for international policy-making?