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Global Discourse, 2014

BOOK REVIEW SYMPOSIUM: THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS


OF RECOGNITION, BY THOMAS LINDEMANN AND ERIK
RINGMAR

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The international politics of recognition, by Thomas Lindemann and Erik Ringmar,


Boulder, CO, Paradigm, 2011, 256 pp., US$150.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-59451809-6; US$42.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-59451-810-2
On the reality of mental constructs
Erik Ringmar
Every attempt to illuminate the world will inevitably leave some things obscured. By
setting ones theoretical focus on one set of objects, other objects will become blurred.
The fact that the world is in this way obscured or blurred is not, in itself, problematic. The
question rather is what the net gains are of each theoretical innovation. Have we learned
more or less? Is the picture as a whole more representative of what we take as the most
salient, most important, features of the world to be? Of the three readers of The
International Politics of Recognition represented in this review symposium, Constance
Duncombe (2014) and Yana Zuo (2014) insist, with some reservations, that our attempt is
worth it, whereas Christian Olsson is far less sure.1 The task is consequently to remove
Duncombe and Zuos reservations and to reassure Olsson either that our project can be
amended to incorporate his concerns or, alternatively, that his worries are misplaced. Since
Zuos comments refer mainly to Thomas Lindemanns contribution, they will be
addressed by him. Comments by both Duncombe (2014) and Olsson (2014) will be
discussed here.
Bias towards Western examples
Constance Duncombe focuses, above all, on the relative lack of attention to non-Western
examples in our discussion. There is a tendency, she says, for The International Politics of
Recognition to universalize Western experiences and thereby to ignore examples from
other parts of the world. A broader focus, she suggests, might also provide a space to
consider conceptions of emotions from a broader range of cultural perspectives
(Duncombe 2014, 2). There is no doubt that Duncombe points to an oversight. There is
a chapter on Taiwans search for recognition in the book and other chapters, discussing
nuclear proliferation and terrorism, touch on other non-Western experiences, yet there
could, and perhaps should, have been more. There is absolutely no reason why the
recognition logic would not apply in these cases too. Indeed, recognition logic is arguably
particularly applicable to relations between Western and non-Western states. These relations, after all, have always been characterized by a lack of recognition, and states in
Europe and North America do still not recognize states in other parts of the world as their
equals.

Book review symposium

My contribution to this special issue tries to make up for this oversight by focusing
explicitly on the practices of non-recognition through which relations between
Europeans and non-Europeans have been conducted (see Ringmar 2014). The international society of civilized states as it came to be formed in Europe in the course of the
nineteenth century was possible, I argue, only because non-European states actively were
excluded from it. It is the non-recognition of the non-European that made recognition of
the European possible. To the extent that this logic continues to apply and it does we
can expect continued misunderstandings and more wars. There is a rich, and largely
unexplored, research field here to which we can only hope others will make contributions
(Ringmar 2013, 9093).

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The personification of the state


Christian Olssons points are more critical. He questions some of the fundamental assumptions on which our discussion rests, most obviously the idea that the state can be compared
to a person. He objects, he says, to the tendency to reduce the state or society to a
representative agent with ideas, emotions and motivations (Olsson 2014, 1). The volume,
he says, is replete with cases where states think or feel. This encourages a naive form of
social psychology, reduces complex organizations to the individual decision-makers said to
represent them, essentializes states, and ignores the historical and social context of their
development. There is too much variation among the political units that we call states for us
to treat them all as agents of the same kind.
The question of the personhood or otherwise of the state is by now fairly
well discussed, and as the discussion has revealed, the question has far-reaching philosophical, historical and methodological implications (Ringmar 1996, 439466; Jackson
2004, 255258). Briefly stated, this is the justification for our position: subjects who
regard themselves as sovereign states and individuals have a curious ontological
status. They are real and yet they are at the same time imagined. Indeed, it is their status as
imaginary constructs which makes them real (Searle 2006, 24). There would be no sense
of self but for this imaginary construction. Sovereign subjects exist first and foremost
in the stories that they tell about themselves and that are told about them (Ricur 1996,
137198; Stanghellini and Rosfort 2013, 7986). The alternative is to follow Hobbes and
to make the subject into a transcendental entity, which exists prior to all empirical
investigations. Alternatively, we can follow Hume and see the subject only in its empirical
manifestations. In either case, however, the subject disappears from our investigation
from the world, with Hobbes, and in the world, with Hume (Hollis 1985, 217233).
References to the material foundation of the state or to its coercive institutions or
class structure are not a solution to the problem we pose. The question of the
ontological status of sovereign subjects can have no material answer since the sovereign
subject is not a material thing but instead an entity which emerges from material things.
If this sounds mysterious, we should remember that the same emergence takes place in
our own brains where physiological processes give rise to consciousness and to a sense
of self. The similarities between the processes that give rise to individual minds and to
collective subjects have often been pointed to, by Hume, for example, but also by the
latest research in neuroscience (Hume 1986, 299311; Damasio 1994, 299311).
Obviously, the fictional status of the state does not in any way detract from an attention
to international conflicts and war. Stories have empirical, and all too concrete, consequences. When stories clash, so will political projects and, all too often, also armies
(Ringmar 2006, 403421).

Global Discourse

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The fact is, of course, that people really do speak about the state in this fashion. The
state-as-body is a metaphor of medieval origin, and in the Renaissance the state came to
be talked about as an actor on the world stage, personified by its ruler or by diplomats
acting in its name. The state-as-it-appears-in-a-story is an actor who deliberates, plans and
emotes. As such, it can be compared to a person. Indeed, for the purposes of the story, it is
a person in exactly the same way that an individual human being is. The state, as Olsson
points out, can indeed be studied in many other ways, and it can be compared to other
things an institution, a coercive machinery, a legal structure, a protection racket
and so on. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these alternative metaphorical
descriptions. As always, the relevance of a particular metaphor is determined by what it
allows us to learn about the world. We are interested in the subjectivity of the state, and
we have chosen our metaphor accordingly.
Reification of self-conceptions
Olsson is also unhappy with what he refers to as the ontological idealism of many of the
contributions to The International Politics of Recognition. What he objects to here is the
way the self-conception of a state is discussed as a matter of ideas, without taking into
account the fact that these conceptions have a history which is highly conflictual and the
result of exercises of power. A states self-conceptions, Olsson says, is either nothing
more than the self-perception of foreign policy elites, or they are homogeneously shared
by larger parts of a politically organized society (Olsson 2014, 2). In the former case, it
is important to understand the structural inequalities that domestically constitute them as
elites with objective/material interests and subjective self-perceptions, and in the latter
case, to understand the material underpinning of the infrastructural power through which
these collective self-perceptions are broadly diffused and disseminated, be it intentionally
or not, throughout the nation. Again, in other words, Olsson calls for more of a focus
on material factors. Claims regarding identities, and questions of international recognition,
are inseparable from objective and at least partly material social structures within states
(and questions of domestic hierarchies).
Accusations of idealism are often bandied about in the social sciences, and always
used as an indictment. No one wants to be called an idealist since the implications are
that idealists make up worlds to fit their own fancy, without proper attention to the way
the world really is and works. Yet Olsson is surely correct to point out that all ideas, and
in this case all self-conceptions, come from somewhere. They are produced by certain
people in certain circumstances, for certain reasons, to serve certain interests, and these
self-conceptions, moreover, are often contested by groups and individuals who advocate
their separate versions, for their separate reasons. Self-conceptions, we have argued
elsewhere, are often the result of rhetorical battles in which traditional power-holders
will try to reaffirm, or reinterpret, the old meanings which have kept them in power, while
challengers will try to recode the established symbols to suit their purposes (Ringmar
2008, 85). As a result of rhetorical battles such as these, a certain conception of the state is
often the result of a hegemonic use of power, of rhetoric and propaganda, or of cultural
preconceptions which are morally dubious or just plain wrong.
All of this is important, and it could, no doubt, have been discussed in more detail in
The International Politics of Recognition. It would indeed, as Olsson suggests, have
deepened and improved the analysis. And yet, this is not the topic which the articles in
the book set out to address. As the title of the book indicates, we are interested in the
international politics of recognition and not primarily in issues of historical and domestic

Book review symposium

genesis. Much as when it comes to Duncombes point regarding Western-centric bias, this
relative neglect provides an opportunity and not a challenge. Olsson is certainly correct to
point out that we need to know far more about how concepts of the state are formed. We
need to study the rhetorical battles and the formative moments in which a certain
conception of the collective self came to be established. These are tasks for another
book one to which the historical sociology which Olsson proposes can make crucial
contributions.

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The historical sociology of the state


Closely related to the point concerning the reification of self-conceptions is Olssons point
about the history of the state and the state system. States, he argues, and thereby interstate
relations, are the result of a process of concentration of resources, accumulation of
territory, centralisation and bureaucratization of power, and monopolization of claims to
legitimate violence (Olsson 2014, 2). Since these processes take place at different times
and rates in different societies, not all states are states to the same degree and in the same
fashion. In particular, the transformation of states into nation states takes place at an
uneven pace. The existence of nation states makes a difference to the nature of the
international system since the ideologies through which ordinary people are included
into the state nationalism, democracy and socialism, above all are used to legitimate
subsequent state action. In particular, these ideologies provide the language in which
states set themselves apart, define themselves as superior to others or in which they nurse
their resentment. As Olsson concludes: The likely link between mass-ideologies criminalizing or animalizing the enemy and collective violence is hence linked to particular,
historically situated, features of the modern state (Olsson 2014, 3).
As Olsson acknowledges, Thomas Lindemann addressed this issue already in his
original contribution to The International Politics of Recognition. Wars, Lindemann
pointed out, are often the result of narratives which contain inflated self-presentations,
or in which a state is seen as offended against by foreigners (Lindemann 2011, 209212).
Yet Olsson insists that the correlations between such self-conceptions and warfare are best
explained as a result of the conditions under which states developed. As he sees it,
psychological accounts are always somewhat epiphenomenal, and they never get at the
proper cause of a conflict. Wars fought for recognition, or for dignity, become less of a
universal characteristic of international relations than a phenomenon embedded in a
particular historical and geographical context characterized by total war, mass-conscription and formally egalitarian mass-ideologies (Olsson 2014, 000000). National identities
are not the causes of wars but provide at best their permissive conditions.
What Olsson urges us to do here is to probe into the economic, social and political
preconditions for a certain conception of the self. And he is no doubt correct to point out
that the inclusion of ordinary people in the affairs of the state from the end of the
eighteenth century onward be it on ever so unequal terms posed particular demands
on the stories told about the state. Nationalistic appeals, after all, are a notorious way to
rally the people behind traditional elites and to lessen the demands for domestic reforms.
Stories of national humiliation helped keep British aristocrats in power in the 1860s much
as it helps keep Chinese leaders in power today (Ringmar 2011, 532; Wang 2008, 783
806). The ra-ra rhetoric associated with foreign wars limited the demands for social
reforms in France in the 1870s much as it has done in the United States during the last
decade. Liberalism is an imperialistic ideology in whose name barbarian wars have been

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Global Discourse

fought, and states in the process of democratizing are often militarily aggressive (Ringmar
2013, 128134; Mansfield and Snyder 1995, 7997).
Yet a theory of recognition is not, and cannot be, a theory which explains the outbreak
of all wars. Instead a theory of recognition is a theory which explains how identities are
created, maintained, defended or lost, and in this process of identity creation, conflicts,
leading to wars, can sometimes take place. This is not to say that all wars are fought for
identity-based reasons (Ringmar 2008, 9091). There are, as already Thomas Hobbes
pointed out, wars fought for competition and diffidence in addition to the wars fought
for glory (Hobbes 1982, 185). To admit that a theory of recognition has limitations is not
to say that it is irrelevant. Once more traditional, interest-based, explanations have done
their job, there are still a sufficient number of cases left for identity-based explanations to
explore. The International Politics of Recognition provides a long list of examples.
The issue which Olsson raises is rather whether the stories told about the state can be
reduced to material factors. If they can, then we can safely dispense with a discussion of
self-conceptions and their reception by others and instead focus on the economic, social
and political changes which states, and the state system, have undergone. Olsson claims
that this can be done, yet we claim that it cannot. This is not to say that the material
context does not matter. All stories, after all, concern the environment in which they place
their protagonists, and this environment is in addition to everything else also material. Yet
material factors are insufficient. What counts as a material factor, what makes it meaningful and what it means for action must always be appropriated by a story. The
environment which matters is always interpreted and emplotted, and only through a
story can we make sense of what is happening. An inevitable feature of each story is an
account of its main protagonists in this case the state. This is why an account of the
identity of the state will come to feature in all explanations of state actions even if, as we
point out, the identity in question is not always put in question.
This holds true also for the examples that Olsson refers to. The rise of the working
class and other potentially disruptive effects of industrialization may certainly be easier to
control if resentments can be directed towards foreigners or wars undertaken for a national
cause. Yet as far as the political implications are concerned, processes of industrialization
mean nothing in themselves and only something as they are made sense of in a public
discourse. Public discourses vary depending not only on material factors but also depending on which stories people come to accept. Consider a contemporary example: the story
of national humiliation which the Chinese Communist Party uses to legitimate its hold on
power is a way to include, however deceptively, the quickly increasing Chinese working
class into the state (Ringmar, forthcoming). The result is a potentially aggressive form of
nationalism which relies heavily on demands that China should be recognized on its own
preferred terms. Yet it is not legitimate to explain the nationalistic rhetoric with the help of
the material changes the country has gone through. Between material changes and
nationalistic rhetoric is a process of identity formation which, far from being epiphenomenal, has its own political logic. As a result, the humiliation-based rhetoric is not the
only option. Other stories can be told about China, stories that describe a quickly
modernizing yet very different kind of country which also has far more amicable relations
with its neighbours. It is this logic of identity formation which a theory of recognition
captures.
As always, the question of causality can only be settled through a historical investigation of each particular case. Material factors cannot by themselves be the causes of wars,
but neither can a particular process of identity formation. It could very well be, for
example, that a story of resentment and revenge was widely entertained in a country

Book review symposium

and yet that a particular war was fought for some entirely different reason. Before a story
of resentment and revenge can explain anything it must be entertained by the decisionmakers and be made to matter. To establish whether this is the case to establish a motive
is often a tricky and intricate business, and it requires us to dig deeply into the historical
sources. This is why a theory of recognition often leads to extensive historical investigations. We must study the world as it really exists, but this reality includes mental
constructs.
Note

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1.

Lindemann and Ringmar (2011). A paperback edition of the book is due to appear later this
year.

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Global Discourse

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Erik Ringmar
Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden
erik@ringmar.net
2014, Erik Ringmar
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2014.947069

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