Ontological Security in International

Relations

The central assertion of this book is that states pursue social actions to
serve self-identity needs, even when these actions compromise their physical
existence. Three forms of social action, sometimes referred to as ‘‘motives’’
of state behavior (moral, humanitarian, and honor-driven) are analyzed here
through an ontological security approach.
Ontological Security in International Relations develops an account of social
action which interprets these behaviors as fulfilling a nation-state’s drive to
secure self-identity through time. The anxiety which consumes all social agents
motivates them to secure their sense of being, and thus the book posits that
transformational possibilities exist in the ‘‘Self’’ of a nation-state. The book
consequently both challenges and complements realist, liberal, constructivist,
and post-structural accounts to international politics.
Using ontological security to interpret three cases – British neutrality during
the American Civil War (1861–1865), Belgium’s decision to fight Germany
in 1914, and NATO’s (1999) Kosovo intervention – the book concludes by
discussing the importance for self-interrogation in both the study and practice
of international relations.
This book will be of particular interest to students and researchers of Inter-
national Politics, International Ethics, International Relations, and Security
Studies.

Brent J. Steele is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University

of Kansas, USA.
The New International Relations
Series editors: Richard Little, University of Bristol, Iver B.
Neumann, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI),
Norway, and Jutta Weldes, University of Bristol.

The field of International Relations has changed dramatically in recent

years. This new series will cover the major issues that have emerged and
reflect the latest academic thinking in this particular dynamic area.

International Law, Rights and Politics Realism in International Relations

Developments in Eastern Europe and International Political Economy
and the CIS The Continuing Story of a Death
Rein Mullerson Foretold
Stefano Guzzini
The Logic of Internationalism
Coercion and Accommodation International Relations, Political
Kjell Goldmann Theory and the Problem of Order
Beyond International Relations
Russia and the Idea of Europe Theory?
A Study in Identity and Interna- N.J. Rengger
tional Relations
Iver B. Neumann War, Peace and World Orders in
European History
The Future of International Relations Edited by Anja V. Hartmann and
Masters in the Making? Beatrice Heuser
Edited by Iver B. Neumann and Ole
Wæver European Integration and National
Identity
Constructing the World Polity The Challenge of the Nordic states
Essays on International Institutio- Edited by Lene Hansen and Ole
nalization Wæver
John Gerard Ruggie
Shadow Globalization, Ethnic Africa and the North
Conflicts and New Wars Between Globalization and
A Political Economy of Intra-State Marginalization
War Edited by Ulf Engel and Gorm Rye
Dietrich Jung Olsen

Contemporary Security Analysis and Communitarian International

Copenhagen Peace Research Relations
Edited by Stefano Guzzini and Die- The Epistemic Foundations of
trich Jung International Relations
Emanuel Adler
Observing International Relations
Niklas Luhmann and World Politics Human Rights and World Trade
Edited by Mathias Albert and Lena Hunger in International Society
Hilkermeier Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez

Does China Matter? A Reassessment Liberalism and War

Essays in Memory of Gerald Segal The Victors and the Vanquished
Edited by Barry Buzan and Rosem- Andrew Williams
ary Foot
Constructivism and International
European Approaches to International Relations
Relations Theory Alexander Wendt and His Critics
A House with Many Mansions Edited by Stefano Guzzini and Anna
Jörg Friedrichs Leander

The Post-Cold War International Security as Practice

System Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian
Strategies, Institutions and Reflex- War
ivity Lene Hansen
Ewan Harrison
The Politics of Insecurity
States of Political Discourse Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU
Words, Regimes, Seditions Jef Huysmans
Costas M. Constantinou
State Sovereignty and Intervention
The Politics of Regional Identity A Discourse Analysis of Interven-
Meddling with the Mediterranean tionary and Non-Interventionary
Michelle Pace Practices in Kosovo and Algeria
Helle Malmvig
The Power of International Theory
Reforging the Link to Foreign Culture and Security
Policy-Making through Scientific Symbolic Power and the Politics of
Enquiry International Security
Fred Chernoff Michael Williams
Hegemony & History Ontological Security in International
Adam Watson Relations
Self-Identity and the IR State
Territorial Conflicts in World Brent J. Steele
Society
Modern Systems Theory,
International Relations and Conflict
Studies
Edited by Stephan Stetter
Ontological Security in
International Relations
Self-identity and the IR state

Brent J. Steele
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
# 2008 Brent J. Steele

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced

or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-415-77276-1 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-203-01820-
0 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. National state–Case studies. 2. National
interest–Case studies. 3. National security–Case studies. 4. Sovereignty–
Case studies. 5. International relations–Case studies. I. Title.
JZ1316.S74 2007
327.101–dc22
2007012476

ISBN 0-203-01820-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13: 978-0-415-77276-1 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-01820-0 (ebk)
To Mindy Marie and the Little Belle: My sources of Security
Contents

Foreword x
Acknowledgments xii

1 Introduction 1

2 Identity, morality, and social action 26

3 The possibilities of the Self 49

4 The power of self-identity: British neutrality and the American

Civil War 76

5 ‘‘Death before dishonor’’: Belgian self-identity, honor, and World

War I 94

6 Haunted by the past: shame and Nato’s Kosovo operation 114

7 The future of ontological security in International Relations 148

Notes 165
Bibliography 191
Index 208
Foreword

Thomas Hobbes’s triad of grounds on which states act – fear, glory, gain –
is still pivotal to the study of politics generally, and global politics specifi-
cally. At the same time, however, it is often argued that emotions have no
place in discussions of state action. Since Hobbes’s principal ground for
action – fear – is what psychologists call a basic emotion, there is a basic
contradiction here that needs unpacking.
In this workmanlike book, Brent Steele takes it upon himself to investi-
gate what it means for a state to feel secure. He does not start from fear,
however, but from a variation of glory, namely honor. This is not because he
does not acknowledge fear, but because he has other fish to fry, namely
cases where fear cannot by itself account for the course of action taken. The
thrust of Steele’s argument is that security, in addition to being about fear,
is also to do with the consistency of the story that the collective agent tells
itself about who it is.
Steele’s argument leans heavily on two works by British sociologist
Anthony Giddens on the agency–structure relation and self-identity,
respectively. For Giddens, agents are constrained and enabled by structure,
by which he simply means sets of norms and resources. Steele posits that a
polity needs ontological security, and treats that security as a norm and a
resource. Giddens argues that in order to be able to ‘‘go on’’ an agent has to
be able to tell a reasonably consistent story about where it came from and
where it is going; it has to have a certain bearing. When this is not the case,
the agent experiences shame. Steele posits that ‘‘States are ‘rational egoists,’
but they base their ‘egoism’ not upon (independent and exogenous) material
structures but upon self-identity needs.’’ When there is a break in the nar-
rative an agent tells itself about who it is, or ‘‘a temporary but radical
severance of a state’s sense of Self,’’ Steele, again with Giddens, posits that
the state feels shame. This has been done before in International Relations
(IR), perhaps most eloquently by Frank Schimmelpfennig, but, contrary to
Schimmelphennig, Steele insists that shame should be understood as a feel-
ing whose source is internal to the agent. Steele contrasts shame with guilt,
which he sees as a transgression of a recognized norm of a community. In
Steele’s world, others may say that you are guilty but they do not say shame
 Foreword xi
on you. Steele stakes his argument on this difference, for if shame is not an
internal quality which arises and asserts itself independently of what other
agents do, then it cannot be the inner-driven phenomenon that he needs it
to be for states to appear as rational egoists.
The book fights on two fronts. In addition to exposing the mainstream
view that emotions have no place in state action as fallacious, Steele also
attacks extant post-structuralist work on ontological security for treating
security exclusively as a question of reacting to others and hence neglecting
internal debates about identity and indeed the element of agency overall.
This attack follows logically from his Giddensian commitments, and makes
the book part of a wider attempt by constructivists in contemporary IR
theory to seize the middle ground between rationalists on the one hand and
post-structuralists on the other. In this sense, it is a nice coda to the book
by Emanuel Adler that was recently published in this series.
Steele’s undertaking speaks directly to my own concerns. I have grappled
with the tension between the work of the early Foucault, who treats identity
as alterity, and of the late Foucault, whose key concern is the self’s work on
the self. During the 1990s, I was involved in a protracted debate with Ole
Wæver about this question as it pertained to European identity. I high-
lighted the constitutive role of ‘‘others’’ such as Russia and Turkey to Eur-
opean identity, whereas Wæver highlighted the European self’s relation to a
previous incarnation of the self from which it was imperative to get away.
As a result of that debate, I have come to feel that these are complementary
and that this complementarity follows logically from the collective self being
necessarily a composite phenomenon which is a result of struggle.
This is not the place to discuss constitutive intersubjectivity and its
importance for the limning of an actor’s self. Suffice it to say that Steele’s
work further strengthens my feeling that the self’s work on the self is a key
site for studying identity politics. In the degree that Steele is able to change
the discourse that he writes up against, this text is able to carry off its own
Giddensian program performatively. That is quite a feat.
Iver B. Neumann
Acknowledgments

As with anything I produce, this book’s completion would have been

unthinkable without the help of many friends, colleagues and especially
family I’ve known over the course of several years.
This book began in an earlier form as my Ph.D. dissertation at the Uni-
versity of Iowa. Without the guidance of one individual – Rodney Bruce
Hall – I might have neither finished earlier versions of this manuscript nor
completed my Ph.D. I am especially grateful that Rod was not a mentor
who micro-managed toward what passes these days as a ‘‘popular’’ research
topic for students of International Relations. As such, I have made this
topic ‘‘my own’’ as a labor of love rather than hard labor. I must also thank
Rod for the many hours he spent looking over several drafts of this book,
and for the time he spent in his office helping me sharpen my understanding
of various bodies of major social theory. Rod not only is a fantastic scholar,
but in my case has been a great mentor and friend. I only hope that some-
day I will have the opportunity to pay him back for all his mentoring, which
continues to this day. I would also like to thank Friedrich Kratochwil of the
European University Institute for serving as an external member on my
dissertation committee, and providing critical, probing, and even entertain-
ing feedback during my dissertation defense.
Professor Alfonso Damico also provided many insightful comments and
served as a de facto mentor at Iowa when Rod was not available. Besides
providing detailed and provocative feedback on earlier versions of the book,
Al’s intense spirit for political theory coupled with his amiable nature served
to remind me at an early stage in my graduate career that being an aca-
demic could be fun. Special thanks to Denise Powers and John Conybeare,
both of whom provided helpful feedback on various chapters of this work.
Frederick Boehmke and Tom Rice also provided detailed comments on
portions of this work. I am also grateful for the dissertation fellowship
provided by the University of Iowa’s Graduate College. I am especially
thankful for the assistance I received and the friendships I made with sev-
eral of my graduate colleagues. Andrew Civettini provided much encour-
agement and feedback on various papers that I presented on ontological
security. Tracy Hoffmann Slagter, besides being a positive source of
 Acknowledgments xiii
encouragement in our graduate program, provided helpful guidance on
Chapter 4, and in providing detailed suggestions about writing structure she
also endeavored to improve my sophomoric prose. Jeremy Youde and Jack
Amoureux were above all wonderful friends and colleagues, providing
detailed professional and theoretical advice, often over too many consumed
cups of coffee. By creating an environment for theoretical innovation, Jeremy
and Jack were (and continue to be) welcome sources of collegial support.
Past the dissertation, this work benefited from many individuals. Two
anonymous reviewers channeled my attention towards engaging some
important critical scholarship that I had up until recently overlooked. Sev-
eral individuals I met, even momentarily, at past conferences provided
useful suggestions on various portions of this work, including Howard
Adelman, Hayward Alker, Neta Crawford, Patrick Jackson, and Hans Peter
Scmitz. Oded Lowenheim, as I acknowledge in Chapter 5, provided detailed
comments on the Belgian case, and through several discussions at con-
ferences and over email he has helped me continue to sharpen my under-
standing of the state-as-person issue. As readers will notice, I found Tony
Lang’s scholarship particularly helpful for various sections of my argument.
Tony has also proven to be a helpful guide on the process of writing a book.
I am thus especially grateful to individuals as busy and productive as Oded
and Tony for lending their assistance. Here at the University of Kansas, I
am thankful for the direction several colleagues provided as this book
entered its final drafts, including Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Hannah Britton,
Paul Danieri, Don Hader-Markel, Thomas Heilke and Kate Weaver. In an
earlier form, Chapter 5 was presented at the Hall Center’s Peace, War and
Global Change seminar at the University of Kansas, and I received valuable
historical information from, especially, James Quinn, Ted Wilson, and Bob
Berlin. Most notably, I am indebted to the research assistance that Tashia
Dare has provided in getting this ready for delivery. Moreover, the book was
written in part because of a General Research Fund grant provided by the
University of Kansas.
Thanks also to the editors of the New International Series – Richard
Little, Iver Neumann, and Jutta Weldes – for their willingness to consider
the book for publication, and to Heidi Bagtazo, Harriet Brinton, and
Amelia McLaurin of Routledge for their work in publishing the book.
Chapter 4 and portions of Chapter 3 are rewritten versions of my article
‘‘Ontological Security and the Power of Self-Identity: British Neutrality and
the American Civil War,’’ published in Review of International Studies (vol.
31: 519–540, 2005). I am grateful to Cambridge University Press for grant-
ing permission to republish.
Finally, and most importantly, I have benefited from the most loving and
supportive network of family a scholar could ever hope for. The entire
Strohman family, including, especially, Dan and Sherry Strohman, have
been fantastic in-laws whose assistance served to make it possible to write
this book. I wish to thank the entire Akers family, and especially my
xiv Acknowledgments
grandparents, Eldon and the late Dory Akers, who taught me valuable les-
sons about selflessness and unconditional love which I will carry with me
always. My parents, Ted and Barb Steele, have been inestimable sources of
encouragement and support throughout my life and academic career. The
many rounds of golf that I have played with my father over the years have
(most of the time, depending upon the consistency of my driving) served to
alleviate my notoriously high levels of anxiety. My brother, Kyle Steele, has
been my best friend, whose affable and jocular nature keeps me upbeat
about life. I am especially appreciative of my brother’s family – Lisa,
Brenan, and Kaleb Steele. My nephews expect very little from me other
than requiring me to be a rowdy uncle, a role I am all too willing to play,
and one I wish I could enact more often.
Last, but not least, my wife patiently listened to the many absurd rants
which come coupled with writing any academic work, and without her
companionship and encouragement I might have lost any purpose for writ-
ing this book, or pursuing an academic career altogether. And conversely,
but just as importantly, she kept me grounded during those moments when
I was a bit too inspired or optimistic. I thank my little girl, Annabelle
Kathleen, who provides a daily source of joy and amazement. My only
regret in writing this book is that, during the many hours it took to revise, I
missed seeing several wonderful and iconic moments in her early life that I
will never be able to recuperate. But at the same time the work away from
home has made me more greatly appreciate the time I spend with her and
her mother, and it is to them that I dedicate this book.
Brent J. Steele
1 Introduction

There are two positions that I confront in this book. The first derives from
an assumption in International Relations (IR) theory that has been a target
for critical security studies for some time – that nation-states are primarily
concerned with their survival. This book seeks to expand upon those critical
studies – problematizing that assumption by asking whether states desire
something more than survival in international politics. By way of introduc-
tion, I should state that my decision to confront the survival assumption in
IR theory was not made in a vacuum. I wrote the majority of this book
during the post-9/11 era in a country where literally almost any policy can
be legitimized if it can plausibly, even tangentially, be portrayed as securing
the physical integrity of the United States and its citizens. Whether it be
torture and all forms of prisoner abuse or the invasion of a sovereign state
that posed no actual threat to the US, such policies have been enacted
because they were perceived as necessary to protect the United States from
some existential threat. The obvious costs to such policies were evident but
not fully articulated and resulted in a counter-narrative that was less than
effective and did not speak to my overwhelming concerns as an IR scholar
and an American (in that order).
That counter-narrative asserts that the above policies, while sup-
posedly shoring up American physical security, compromised America’s
position as a leading member of the international community and violated
America’s moral obligation to promote its security interests through legit-
imate, multilateral channels. The binary of ‘‘self’’ v. ‘‘collective’’ interest in
this matter was hardly new, and operationally and theoretically it makes
sense – either the US had an interest in unilaterally promoting its security,
or it needed to formulate its individual security interests as a collective
problem requiring collective action.1 The former ‘‘interest’’ implies a selfish
action, the latter a ‘‘moral’’ commitment to uphold collective principles. Yet
politically it has become unpopular in the United States to reference these
‘‘moral’’ commitments to international standards. And so Americans are
left with a choice – either pursue policies that are selfish yet (they are
informed) best ensure their physical survival, or continue to uphold inter-
national standards that are popular with the international community but
2 Introduction
(they are also informed) compromise American security. With such a choice,
Americans are usually forced to hold their noses and prefer the former over
the latter. It is unfortunate that no alternative meta-narrative exists which,
frankly, represents a ‘‘third possibility’’ – that the US has an interest in
protecting its vision of who it is, an appeal that recognizes what can be
accomplished (both good and bad) through an internal reflection that
tackles who and what the United States (or any nation-state) has been, has
become, or will be; an account that recognizes the importance of physical
existence and social needs, but places the driving force for both upon the
securing of self-identity through time.

Introduction to ontological security

The central argument of the book is that states pursue social actions to
serve self-identity needs, even when these actions compromise their physical
existence. I use an ontological security approach to make intelligible three
forms of social action that are sometimes referred to as ‘‘motives’’ of state
behavior (moral, humanitarian, and honor-driven). While IR scholars have
developed various interpretations of these actions they have done so by
differentiating them into dualistic ‘‘forms.’’ Moral actions, we are told, are
‘‘costly,’’ honor is ‘‘dangerous,’’ and humanitarian actions compromise the
‘‘strategic’’ or ‘‘realist’’ interests that states must satisfy for their own physi-
cal existence.2 This dualism assumes that for states to pursue ‘‘non’’-strate-
gic actions they must be pulled in a direction that they otherwise do not
wish to go (either by domestic groups or by the international community).
Yet why do states themselves feel compelled to pursue such actions? How
do such actions serve the national interest? How are moral actions rational?
The short answer to such questions is that these actions satisfy the self-
identity needs of states. Or, conversely, that if states avoided these actions
their sense of self-identity would be radically disrupted, and such a disrup-
tion is just as important to states as threats to their physical integrity.
States pursue their needs through social action, yet not to impress an
external society so much as to satisfy their internal self-identity needs, and
this book explicates such actions as rational pursuits to fulfill the drive for
ontological security, as developed from the structuration theory of sociolo-
gist Anthony Giddens.3 The traditional notion of security in International
Relations theory assumes that nation-states have one driving goal in their
relations with other states – their own survival. Thus they should calculate
their foreign policy decisions with solely that goal in mind. The cases
explored in this book directly contradict, to varying degrees, the survival
assumption which pervades mainstream IR, and the ontological security
approach elucidates the actions pursued in those cases.
While physical security is (obviously) important to states, ontological
security is more important because its fulfillment affirms a state’s self-identity
(i.e. it affirms not only its physical existence but primarily how a state sees
 Introduction 3
itself and secondarily how it wants to be seen by others). Nation-states seek
ontological security because they want to maintain consistent self-concepts,
and the ‘‘Self’’ of states is constituted and maintained through a narrative
which gives life to routinized foreign policy actions. Those routines can be
disrupted when a state realizes that its narratived actions no longer reflect
or are reflected by how it sees itself. When this sense of self-identity is dis-
located an actor will seek to re-establish routines that can, once again,
consistently maintain self-identity.
Ontological security reveals how crises that garner the attention of states
challenge their identity. As the disparate behaviors of states illustrate, iden-
tity needs compel them to pursue actions that are seemingly irrational – yet
such behavior must have made sense to the state agents who decided upon
that course of action at the time. While the costs of ignoring physical
security threats are obvious, such as ‘‘missile gaps,’’ world wars, eventual
arms races, etc., little work has been done on the costs of ignoring threats to
ontological security. Consistently ignored threats to ontological security
produce what I refer to as ‘‘shame’’ for nation-state agents. Shame is used as
a metaphor to understand how identity disconnects can compel states to
pursue social actions which sacrifice physical security interests but
strengthen ontological security. As developed in Chapter 3, shame is a pro-
blem in ontological security — nation-states seek to avoid it at all costs;
however, its presence is needed if a state is going to confront its disrupted
self-visions and therefore regain ontological security (although the former
does not always guarantee the latter, as will also be demonstrated). Shame
produces a deep feeling of insecurity – it is a temporary but radical sever-
ance of a state’s sense of Self. Its presence means that a state recognizes how
its actions were (or could be) incongruent with its sense of self-identity.
Ontological security-driven action, because it attempts to change behavior
in relation to experienced shame, is thus self-help behavior.
Compared to the manner in which IR theorists have treated social action,
using the need for ontological security in states leads to novel empirical
findings. For example, humanitarian forms of social action presented a
puzzle to mainstream IR theorists in the 1990s, who often understood such
actions as a form of empathy that, in the following author’s view, contra-
dicts the ‘‘self-help’’ behavior predicted by neorealist theory:

[Prosocial behavior] is derived from an assumption of other-regardingness –

a sense of community or collective identity that fosters the well-being of
others. Evidence that state behavior is motivated by this kind of empa-
thetic identity would contradict neorealism, since such behavior would
not be predicted by any neorealist theory.
(Elman 1996: 24, emphasis added)

Elman’s statement about ‘‘humanitarianess’’ being prosocial is still the basic

assumption in IR theory, and the concomitant proposition in the above
4 Introduction
quotation is that such behavior contradicts the notion of ‘‘self-help.’’ And
so IR scholars have attempted to explain these actions as the reconstitution
of interests due to mitigating influences outside capability distributions. For
instance, liberal scholars have argued that shifts in domestic coalitions
explain ‘‘costly moral action.’’4 For constructivists, humanitarian action
develops from changes in social or collective identities (as Elman posits
above). And English School solidarists like Nicholas Wheeler would argue
that the defense of individuals is a principle which states uphold through
interventions because it establishes the order that members of international
society value.5 Regardless of their differences, all of these non-materialist
accounts commonly assume that humanitarian or moral action is socially
determined by collective intersubjective understandings that can best be
understood by looking at changes in international or domestic context. At
the very least, this research has concluded that what drives states to inter-
vene on behalf of others is empathy; therefore the strangers who are being
saved are not really ‘‘strangers’’ after all because ‘‘we tend to help those we
perceive as similar to ourselves’’ (Finnemore 2003: 157). The whole concept
of empathy implies a connection with others. The source for the repetition of
this affective pull, according to this view, can be found at the international
level in institutions of international law, organizations, norms, or regimes.
There is thus an environmental focus in many mainstream approaches –
and it is one whose import goes well beyond the issue area of humanitarian
action. The biggest departure the ontological security account finds with all
mainstream approaches is one of their shared core assumptions, according
to Lebow that ‘‘identities and interests at the state level depend heavily on
international society. . . . Actors respond primarily to external stimuli. Rea-
list, liberal and institutionalist approaches all focus on the constraints and
opportunities created by the environment’’ (Lebow 2003: 336, 347, emphasis
added).
Yet the same constructivists who place such an emphasis upon social
environment, who thereby tacitly de-emphasize reflexive agency – when our
needs are heavily intertwined with those of a community we have less con-
trol over what or who we are as individuals – also recognize ‘‘the need to
adumbrate the mechanisms by which actors free themselves from dominant
discourses and possibly transform the culture that is otherwise responsible
for their identities’’ (Lebow 2003: 269, emphasis added). Furthermore,
Finnemore states:

We lack good understandings of how law and institutions at the inter-

national level create these senses of felt obligation in individuals, much
less states, that induce compliance and flow from some change in peo-
ple’s understanding of their purpose or goals . . . pursuing these issues
will take us down a road we have lately avoided – toward understanding
change.
(Finnemore 2003: 160–161, emphasis added)
 Introduction 5
One response to Lebow and Finnemore’s calls is to acknowledge that
emancipation is much more difficult if we view that which must be trans-
formed as the mountain of some embedded international ‘‘variable’’ (cul-
ture, identity, society, etc.). Furthermore, outside-in approaches, by focusing
on international context, fail to conclude that social actions which appear
to us to be driven by international context, such as ‘‘humanitarian’’ or
‘‘moral’’ actions, might instead be rational responses meant to fulfill a sense
of self-identity. Actors might not be able to ‘‘free’’ themselves from inter-
national context, but they can free their Selves from routines which ulti-
mately damage their self-identity. This does not mean that they will do so,
however, but it does imply that the possibilities for ‘‘humanitarian’’ actions
rest not upon a change in international context – nor even what to me
seems like a Herculean effort to transform the discursive or ideational
culture within which states operate – but upon a state interrogating its sense
of Self.
Such an understanding of social action would address why states in
similar structural contexts pursue different policy choices. Why would the
United States fail to stop the genocide in Rwanda but feel compelled to
do so in Kosovo (albeit in limited fashion in both cases). Are we to believe
that the ‘‘social’’ context of world politics changed that remarkably in
those five years? Why would the British fail to intervene (until 1995)
in Bosnia but be so adamant about an intervention, through NATO, in
Kosovo? These situations threatened the ability of states to effectively
narrate their sense of selves and thus the context that did change was
internal to each state’s sense of self-identity. In 1999, NATO leaders were
influenced by the recall of past disasters in weighing whether to intervene in
Kosovo. Beginning with the Holocaust prior to and during World War II
and leading up through Rwanda and Bosnia, these crises were discursive
resources used by state agents that resulted in national remorse and onto-
logical insecurity. The source for each NATO member state’s particular
insecurity differed – yet all equally wished to atone for past policy dis-
asters that radically disrupted their sense of Selves. By looking at the
British case of neutrality in the American Civil War, the Belgians in the
First World War, and the case of the Kosovo intervention, we can better
understand why states feel compelled to pursue (what appear to us) moral
or ‘‘costly’’ actions and, most importantly, why such action is rational and
in a state’s self-interest even if it contradicts our prevailing conception of
state security.
This does not imply that ontological security ‘‘determines’’ the actions of
states – nor, furthermore, that politics plays no role in such action. Like the
realist who assumes that leaders use politics and rhetoric to satiate the
masses and activate them to engage in unsavory ‘‘security’’ policies, ontolo-
gical security scholars assume that state agents use politics to secure self-
identity commitments. Indeed, is there anything more political in social life
than the struggle over identity?
6 Introduction
Interpreting ontological security
How do I demonstrate my argument? Because I am interested in how actors
create meanings for their actions and this book is a ‘‘motivational’’ or
‘‘intentional’’ account of action (see Kratochwil 1989: 23–25), and because I
explicate the intentions of those actions where, instead of what necessarily
‘‘caused’’ them, my study is informed by the Verstehen approach to social
scientific inquiry. Also known as the ‘‘interpretivist’’’ or ‘‘hermeneutic’’
approach, Verstehen assumes that facts and observations are not independent
entities reducible to the law-like generalizations of the physical sciences. Rather,
understanding the objects of inquiry means also understanding, in a holistic
manner, what processes motivate those actions. This is made possible by

plac[ing] an action within an intersubjectively understood context, even

if such imputations are problematic or even ‘‘wrong’’ in terms of their
predictive capacity. To have ‘‘explained’’ an action often means to have
made intelligible the goals for which it was undertaken.
(Kratochwil 1989: 24–25)

What does it mean to interpret action rather than explain it through causal
analysis? The ontological security process – a process which deals with
matters such as self-identity, the creation of meanings for actions through a
‘‘biographical narrative,’’ how actors decide upon certain actions to promote
a healthy vision of the self to others, how the internal dialectic of a divided
or severed Self overcomes (but not always) insecurity, and how all of this
influences the place of the national self in an international context – lends
itself to an interpretive approach. In short, one must properly evaluate the
context in which the self-regarding behavior of states takes place: ‘‘because
reflexivity is the way in which people actively make social reality, it cannot
be separated from the social context in which it occurs. Indeed, it is an
integral part of this social reality’’ (Tucker 1998: 57).
Mervyn Frost (1996: 26–28) notes several requirements for the inter-
pretivist. Three are noteworthy here: (1) that the interpretations (of the
investigator) be tested against the self-understandings of the investigatees;
(2) that the investigator stresses the importance of the constitutive language
of the investigatees; (3) that the investigator take notice of the value systems
of the investigatees. The third requirement does not mean that the investi-
gator must value the same system as the investigatees, but it does require
the investigator to recognize how those values influence the latter’s decision.
In this sense, the central objective of scholars engaged in the ‘‘normative
turn’’ in IR deals

[n]ot [with] whether ethical principles ought to guide behavior in this

realm or what the content of such principles ought to be. Rather, the
question to be addressed concerns the roles that ethical standards or
 Introduction 7
codes of conduct actually play in a social setting considered by many to be
antithetical to the operation of normative principles.
(Young 2001: 161, emphasis added)

Furthermore, and equipped with an ontological security interpretation, using

three of Frost’s interpretivist requirements means that I seek to reconstruct the
motives behind the actions of state agents in each empirical case. By resur-
recting these accounts, we might recognize not only the theoretical impor-
tance of ontological security but also the rationality of those state agents.
Interpretive approaches are not without their problems – because inter-
pretation captures the context and contingencies of social action, it falls prey
to relativity; all actions are a product of their context and environment.
Thus it becomes difficult to generalize about social action precisely because the
continuities in action (between time and place) cannot be recognized. Therefore
part of my inquiry into the empirical puzzles reviewed in this book includes
a proper understanding of not only the context of those actions but also the
underlying continuity the decisions for those actions serve. I do this precisely
because self-identity is secured through ontological security, which is itself
defined by a ‘‘sense of continuity and order in events’’ (Giddens 1991: 243).
Finally, interpretivist approaches sometimes disregard the importance of
how power (and power relations) structure human behavior. Contrary to
how it has been portrayed in certain accounts (Barkin 2003), structura-
tionist-constructivism has placed a central emphasis upon power as an
analytical concept – demonstrating how power might be constituted
through moral authority (Hall 1997) or moral prestige (Lowenheim 2003).
Nicholas Onuf emphasized how different types of rules – instruction,
directive, commitment – when coupled with resources (which vary across
actors), lead to different types of behavior: ‘‘agents do the ruling by getting
other agents to accept their ideas and beliefs. They do so by example and by
indoctrination. Rule in this form is hegemony’’ (Onuf 1998: 75).
While it is important to inquire about how the resources one agent pos-
sesses may be used to compel other agents toward a type of behavior,
ontological security explicates how ‘‘resource possession’’ brings greater
responsibility because the possession of resources is itself an identity com-
mitment. One must account for capabilities as a component of self-identity
in order to understand how, when, and why shame is triggered in the onto-
logical security process. To consider power relations is not only necessary to
avoid the problems of interpretive approach; it is vital for recognizing which
types of situations threaten the self-identity of nation-states.

Comprehensiveness of argument
Since I seek to demonstrate a more comprehensive interpretation of what
motivates states, or what sense of ‘‘security’’ they intend to satisfy, I am not
explaining the outcomes of decisions but rather seeking to understand the
8 Introduction
motivations behind a decision-making situation. I am arguing not that
ontological security falsifies alternative accounts of state action but that it
provides a more complete understanding of what motivates states in their
actions. As Martha Finnemore posited, her ‘‘argument is not so much that
neorealism and neoliberalism are wrong as they are grossly incomplete’’
(Finnemore 1996: 27). The ‘‘alternative explanations’’ sections in each case
study chapter reveal how these explanations are logically inconsistent or
grossly incomplete for understanding what motivated each of these states.
Finnemore has recently termed this method ‘‘abduction,’’ which involves:
‘‘present[ing] hypotheses that . . . quickly prove insufficient to explain
events’’ (Finnemore 2003: 13).
As will be noted in Chapter 3, traditional security studies derive ontological
assumptions from strategic schools such as realism that view state motiva-
tions as fixed across time and state agents, and myopically connected to the
survival drive of states. The theoretical assumptions generated in these stu-
dies build off this ontology – because security interests are similar across all
actors, they should act in a manner ‘‘predictable’’ according to the assump-
tions we make about which conditions drive those interests.6 In fact, Hedley
Bull sees a direct connection between the two as one of value. Because order
is a goal uniform across societies, predictable behavior itself is a value:

There does in fact exist a close connection between order in the sense in
which it is defined here, and the conformity of conduct to scientific laws
that afford a basis for (the researcher to) predict future behavior. . . .
Moreover, if we ask why men attach value to order . . . at least part of
the answer is that they value the greater predictability of human behavior
that comes as a consequence of conformity to the elementary or pri-
mary goals of coexistence.
(Bull 1977: 7–8, emphasis added)7

To recognize within a ‘‘case’’ the importance of ontological security, I

employ in Chapters 4–6 what has been termed the ‘‘case-narrative’’
approach. Scholars using case-narrative seek to resurrect, within each case,
meaning as it relates to agents’ understanding of an event. Friedrich Kra-
tochwil describes the contextual purpose driving such an approach:

The single (historical) case study, on the other hand, focuses right from
the beginning on the issue of delimiting the case by providing a narra-
tive ‘‘plot’’ and examining its coherence and ‘‘followability’’ critically.
Here getting the context right and making judgment calls as to the
important dimensions that develop throughout the observation is the
actual puzzle. . . . Thus judgment and quick recognition (reasoning by
analogy rather than through logical inference or subsumption), both of
which depend substantively on experience rather than deductive rigor
and formal elegance, are required and provide help for orientation. To
 Introduction 9
that extent the knowledge appropriate for such an environment is
exposure to many cases, the actual training and recognition for con-
junctures rather than abstraction and formalization.
(Kratochwil 2006: 22–23)

Thus, the case-narrative approach does more than interpret – armed with a
refined theoretical account, it reconstructs a particular ‘‘story’’ in the case
by looking for conjunctures that would not have been recognized, would
not have appeared, may not have even existed otherwise. And yet the onto-
logical security approach to cases, while it interprets the continuity being
sought by state agents, also recognizes the points at which that continuity is
radically disrupted. Thus, in order to understand the purpose behind state
actions, a certain focus must be given to periods of disjuncture in the nar-
rative of state Selves – for within that disjuncture the disembodiment of a
state Self is revealed.
The case study chapters therefore include a presentation and then dis-
missal of the available alternative interpretations of each case. After setting
out the broad historical setting for each case study, I present some alter-
native interpretations for what happened in each case. This includes, gen-
erally, three sets of interpretations – strategic, economic, and ideational.
While I present specific versions of these alternative interpretations in the
following chapters, let me clarify what these sets of interpretations generally
entail in measurement terms.
Strategic arguments have taken many forms, and they, along with eco-
nomic arguments, form the basis for ‘‘traditional security assumptions.’’
Strategic arguments assume that states are driven by the need to survive and
motivated to pursue interests derived from power:

The concept of interest defined as power . . . infuses rational order into

the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the theoretical under-
standing of politics possible. On the side of the actor, it provides for
rational discipline in action and creates that astounding continuity in
foreign policy which makes American, British or Russian foreign policy
appear as an intelligible, rational continuum.
(Morgenthau 2006: 5)

Strategic interpretations are indeed just that, interpretations, and Mor-

genthau’s words indicate that understanding ‘‘rationality’’ in this way helps
us makes sense of what is motivating the ‘‘actor.’’8 The strategic incentives
approach takes several forms, whether it assumes that an element of state
power is ‘‘credibility’’ or reputation (Mercer 1996), which might allow one
state to compel other states to ‘‘do what they otherwise would not do.’’
Deterrence theorists since Thomas Schelling (1960) have predicted behavior
by assuming that a state’s reputation for resolve increases this ability to
control its environment. The focus here is upon outwardly driven behavior
10 Introduction
(hence the word ‘‘strategic’’) – states as relational beings that take into
account their welfare in relative terms. Therefore in each case study I review
the strategic incentives that existed for states to pursue the decisions that
were made. As the reader will notice in the Belgian case, such strategic
interpretations have almost no ground to stand upon, but they are still
entertained. When available, I use existing historical accounts that used
strategic interpretations to understand these cases.
Economic structuralist accounts understand states as structuring their
behavior to maximize profits. Thus I ask in Chapters 4 and 6 which eco-
nomic incentives could have motivated the analyzed states. How would
British neutrality increase Britain’s (real or perceived) sense of economic
well-being? Did NATO’s Kosovo operation open markets in southeastern
Europe for Western economic interests?
Finally, and for lack of a better term, those accounts outside the ontolo-
gical security interpretation that still posit an ideational, rather than mate-
rial, incentive for the actions of states I term ideational accounts. For
instance, I discuss, and then dismiss, the liberal interpretation for British
neutrality in Chapter 4, the ‘‘cognitive’’ or ‘‘misperception’’ argument for
why Belgium fought Germany in Chapter 5, and the liberal or ‘‘public opi-
nion’’ interpretation for each NATO member state’s participation in the
Kosovo operation in Chapter 6. Again, these are motivational accounts that
posit a different ‘‘ideas-based’’ assumption for state action – namely that
states are motivated to pursue policies which satisfy domestic-level coali-
tions or groups, or, in the case of cognitive arguments, assert that nation-
states sought to satisfy their physical security but that the intervening
variable of cognition forced them to misperceive such a threat.

Conceptual definitions

Biographical narrative
The biographical narrative is what Giddens also terms the ‘‘narrative of the
self’’: the story or stories by means of which self-identity is reflexively
understood, both by the individual concerned and by others (Giddens 1991:
243). All states justify their actions, even when such actions compromise
existing international principles. States ‘‘talk’’ about their actions in identity
terms, and this is necessary because ‘‘only in the telling of the event does it
acquire meaning, the meaning that makes such events politically relevant’’
(Lang 2002: 13). Those specific ‘‘tellings’’ which link by implication a policy
with a description or understanding of a state ‘‘self’’ constitute a state’s bio-
graphical narrative. Narrative is the locus from which we as scholars can
begin to grasp how self-identity constrains and enables states to pursue
certain actions over others.
Discourse analysis is used in the case studies not only to explicate the
content of a state’s biographical narrative but also to reveal how a discourse’s
 Introduction 11
effects constitute certain types of action: ‘‘discourse analysis is about study-
ing meaning, and it studies meaning where it arises, namely in the language
itself’’ (Neumann 2001: 3). In other words, as I have stated previously, I
assume that actors must create meanings for their actions to be logically
consistent with their identities. This means that state agents must explain,
justify, and/or ‘‘argue’’ what a policy would mean about their sense of self-
identity. Self-narratives are one manifestation of a ‘‘reality production,’’ as they
form the meaning of an agent’s self-identity. Jennifer Milliken avers that:

beyond giving a language for speaking about (analyzing, classifying)

phenomena, discourses make intelligible some ways of being in, and
acting towards, the world, and of operationalizing a particular ‘‘regime
of truth’’ while excluding other possible modes of identity and action.
(Milliken 1999: 229)

Admittedly, Giddens himself has a rather selective view of what represents

‘‘motivational language.’’ Relating language back to his core concept of
recall, Giddens posits that there are two forms in which agents can ‘‘reca-
pitulate past experiences in such a way as to focus them upon the continuity
of action.’’ One is discursive consciousness, or those forms of recall an actor
is ‘‘able to express verbally’’; the other is practical consciousness, involving
‘‘recall to which the agent has access in the duree of action without being
able to express what he or she thereby ‘knows’’’ (Giddens 1984: 49).
So the first problem with looking at discourse is that it is only one of two
possible recall mechanisms. In short, we can measure discursive conscious-
ness; practical consciousness we cannot. This problem is real, but by look-
ing at discursive consciousness we are still able to capture much of the
‘‘agency’’ that is taken for granted in mainstream IR. Even if this is an
incomplete practice for measuring ‘‘ontological security,’’ until we develop a
method to read the minds of decision-making groups, analysis of discursive
consciousness is the best we can do and it is a large improvement on exist-
ing assumptions made by social scientists about actor motivations.
A second problem with discourse analysis, according to Giddens, is that
we can read too much into actor language.9 While this problem of over-
emphasis, like the limited picture of discursive consciousness, is also real, it
too can be circumvented, because Giddens distinguishes slips of the tongue
from what he calls ‘‘well-ordered speech.’’ The former are more apparent at
the individual level, while the types of language we see international actors
use look more like the latter. Well-ordered speech ‘‘is geared to the overall
motivational involvements which speakers have in the course of pursuing
their practical activities’’ (Giddens 1984: 103), and therefore, in structura-
tion theory and in this study, the discourse that surrounds crisis decisions is
more well ordered than it is ‘‘slips’’ of diplomatic tongues. This makes sense
if we accept that ‘‘anxiety concerning the actual form of speech will be
heightened only when the actor has a specific interest in getting what he or
12 Introduction
she says ‘‘exactly right’’ (Giddens 1984: 104). Since international actors have
just such an interest when they justify their actions (or inactions) to them-
selves and others, we can assume that the words they employ have definite
purposes connected to their interests, rather than being unimportant slips.10
Discourse analysis helps accomplish three objectives in these case studies.
First, it explicates how actors connect a policy choice with a particular
narrative about self-identity. In other words, it uncovers how state agents
justify a policy by reasoning what such a policy means or would mean about
their state’s respective sense of self-identity. Second, discourse analysis spe-
cifies when considerations of self-identity lead to a certain policy decision.
While ‘‘large-N’’ studies in social science attempt to determine which factors
‘‘cause’’ certain outcomes, they do not specify when such factors within
cases obtain during a decision-making process, whereas I analyze the dis-
course used by British policy makers before, during and after Lincoln’s
issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation to identify how the timing of
the British decision relate to the timing of British understanding of the
American Civil War. Third, this analysis uncovers how the actors create
meanings not only of their vision of state self-identity but also of identity
threats (what ‘‘causes’’ them, why those threats must be dealt with, which
policy can best confront these threats, etc.).

Critical situations (self-identity threats)

Also discussed in Chapter 3, critical situations, according to Giddens, are
‘‘radical disjunctions of an unpredictable kind affecting substantial numbers
of individuals’’ (Giddens 1984: 61). These are situations which disturb the
‘‘institutionalized routines’’ of states. It is largely unimportant whether I as
a researcher decide that a series of events meets this definition. What is
important is whether agents (or policy makers within each state) interpreted
an event as a ‘‘critical situation.’’ In the strict sense, states solely concerned
with their survival-based (traditional) security will interpret critical situa-
tions in a much different way than states concerned about their ontological
security. Critical situations are identified by having three conditions. First,
as the definition implies, they are situations which affect substantial num-
bers of individuals. Second, also from the definition, they are situations
which largely cannot be predicted. These are situations that catch state
agents off guard – if an agent could foresee a critical situation it would be
able to adapt, presumably, to its effects a priori. Critical situations at the
interstate level include one additional condition. According to my theory,
critical situations threaten identity because agents perceive that something
can begin to be done to eliminate them. Linked to the issue of identity
disconnects, agents must perceive that they are capable agents, or they must
possess a capacity to alter/prevent/transform these critical situations so that
they no longer threaten their identity. As will be revealed, some agents surely
perceive this to be the case but obfuscate to attempt to absolve themselves
 Introduction 13
from doing any action or accepting any responsibility for past ‘‘failures’’ (in
self-identity terms). Such obfuscatory language can lead to policies which
haunt the Selves of states.
As I demonstrate in my case studies, the American Civil War constituted
a critical situation for the British, and the German ultimatum was a critical
situation for the Belgians in August 1914, as was the (1998–9) Kosovo crisis
for NATO member states.

Shame
As discussed in Chapter 3, shame is defined by Giddens as ‘‘anxiety about
the adequacy of the narrative by means of which the individual sustains a
coherent biography’’ (Giddens 1991: 65). Therefore shame at the level of
states translates into state anxiety over the ability to reconcile past (or pro-
spective) actions with the biographical narrative states use to justify their
behavior. Shame represents insecurity regarding issues of self-identity.
What constitutes evidence of shame? Since it proves difficult to measure
emotions on the collective level of states, we can only measure the posited
effects generated by those emotions. Shame is indicated by two forms of
discursive expression. One is expressed remorse for past wrongs and could
develop, in its most extreme form, into formal apologies made by state lea-
ders. These are references to a self-disconnect in the context of a policy action.
Since states change policies for a variety of reasons, this means in methodo-
logical terms that we must identify whether remorse played an important role
in states choosing a particular course of action or whether other factors,
such as a strategic or economic incentive, were more important.
Shame is also evidenced when state agents conduct counterfactual exer-
cises by indicating how a policy action would be inconsistent with and
harmful toward a state’s sense of self-identity. Not only may shame exist to
compel action, but its absence may also prevent certain courses of action as
well. In this sense, states perform counterfactual exercises (‘‘if . . . then’’) to
determine whether certain decisions would produce problematic outcomes,
and we should expect that certain choices were eventually eliminated as
‘‘illegitimate’’ because they would have resulted in either externally or
internally originated shame. As the case studies demonstrate, such ‘‘at the
time’’ counterfactuals were exercised by the British in 1863 and the Belgians
in 1914. These empirical referents of shame are indexed by the theoretical
forms that shame can take, what I refer to as ‘‘retrospective’’ and ‘‘pro-
spective’’ shame.

Defense of cases
There are three general reasons for why I chose to explore (1) British neu-
trality in the American Civil War, (2) Belgium and World War I, and (3)
NATO’s Kosovo intervention.
14 Introduction
First, the British and NATO cases help me demonstrate the position I
advance in Chapter 3 – that the material capabilities of actors are a factor
in ‘‘shame’’ production. That is, because they possess the greatest cap-
abilities, hegemonic units (like nineteenth-century Britain and 1999’s
NATO) are confronted with a greater set of choices for action in any situation.
Whether they are bound by ‘‘objective’’ material forces or not is of little
consequence because I am positing that powerful states perceive that they
have leverage over situations and thus they have choices for action. I thus
chose two cases where we can observe this fluid possibility of agency. The
cases illustrate how material forces influence self-identity commitments.
Second, these cases represent situations where states pursued materially
costly policies that influenced their relative capabilities in a negative way.
The Belgian case is the most radical of the three – where in 1914 Bel-
gium sacrificed the physical legitimacy of its state to satisfy its ontological
security (in an effort to secure its ‘‘honor’’). All three of these cases, fur-
thermore, provide important puzzles for the traditional security literature,
which assumes ‘‘survival’’ as the primary (perhaps only) drive states seek to
satisfy. They also demonstrate the intensity with which and the context in
which states are committed to collective v. self-identity. The Belgian case provides
an additional window onto the evolving concept of ‘‘honor’’ in IR theory.
Honor is often assumed to operate only at the level of great powers, as a type
of ‘‘prestige’’ (see Gilpin 1981) that allows states to control others without
the use of force. Honor, in this respect, is simply a currency of economic and
military power. Smaller countries like Belgium in 1914, according to this view,
are not driven by honor because they have none – being without a history of
economic or military superiority. And, furthermore, if honor is simply a cur-
rency of economic and military power, then honor is a finite resource, as
stated by Richard Ned Lebow (quoting John Finley): ‘‘it is the nature of
honor that it must be exclusive, or at least hierarchic. When everyone attains
equal honor, then there is no honor for everyone’’ (Finley 1954: 126; Lebow
2003: 272). As such, we would expect the Belgians not to be driven by honor
because their lack of capabilities translated into a lack of agency.
Yet the Belgian case demonstrates that small states have a strong obliga-
tion to their sense of Self and that with such an obligation they can exercise
an enormous amount of agency. With the Belgians backs against the wall,
the knowledge that the Belgian state would actually cease to exist hardly
constrained Belgian action. If anything, such knowledge emancipated the
Belgians to realize their sense of Self (who they were and what they stood for).
What the Belgian case also demonstrates is that small states also have an
obligation to international society (what I term their ‘‘external honor’’). While
this latter observation echoes that made by the English School perspective,
the fact that the international principle of sovereign independence was upheld
by a small state is not often explicated in international society approaches, where
the emphasis is upon great power agreements (like the ‘‘Balance of Power’’
system constructed during the nineteenth-century ‘‘Concert of Europe’’).
 Introduction 15
Finally, all three cases represent historically important points in time. The
outcome of the American Civil War might have been different had Britain
involved itself in the conflict in some fashion. An altered outcome would
have been even more likely had Britain supported the ultimately vanquished
Confederate forces. This could have led to a permanently separated Amer-
ican nation-state.11 While Belgium’s decision in 1914 to fight Germany did
not necessarily contribute to the ultimate German defeat in 1918, it did slow
the German advance down enough to provide Britain and France with fur-
ther time to mobilize and respond. And the Kosovo operation, as well, has
been called the first ‘‘humanitarian war,’’ by supporters and critics alike.
Whether one agrees with this statement or not, the operation represents one
of the first cases where a collective security organization was used to ‘‘save
strangers’’ from ethnic-cleansing policies.

State agents as a ‘‘level of analysis’’

This book is centered upon a concept that has been used in the field of
social psychology to understand individuals. Political science has not been
opposed to using such research to supplement existing theory, but, as one
scholar notes, most political scientists use social psychology to ‘‘refine
and amend rationality assumptions that pervade the discipline . . . [thus]
the interest has been in cognition and its failings’’ (Finnemore 2003:
154).12 Using an individual-level need to interpret the behavior of col-
lectives brings up the problem of ‘‘levels of analysis.’’ In many ways this
issue is part of the agent–structure ‘‘problem’’ writ large.13 The many IR
scholars who have applied any individual need to states have had to deal
with this albatross and we might even argue that this is in many ways a
trap that all IR (and even political science) theorists must attempt to
elude prior to employing an empirical ‘‘test.’’ That almost all theorists have
failed at this task seems to suggest an inherent futility in dealing with this
issue – the multitude of strategies that have been used to address the issue
suggests a pervasively unsatisfied discipline regarding the levels-of-analysis
problem.
One strategy has been simply to point out the ubiquity in IR theory of
individual-to-state ascription, what we might term the ‘‘everyone does it, so
I can do it’’ answer to the level-of-analysis (L.o.A.) quandary. Alexander
Wendt noted in a recent forum on the ‘‘State as Person in IR’’ in Review of
International Studies that

such attributions pervade social science and IR scholarship in

particular . . . all this discussion assumes that the idea of state person-
hood is meaningful and at some fundamental level makes sense. In a
field in which almost everything is contested, this seems to be one thing
on which almost all of us agree.
(Wendt 2004: 289)
16 Introduction
In my earlier work, I have also used a similar escape hatch for this problem:
‘most models of International Relations base the needs of states on some
type of individual and human need’ (Steele 2005: 529, original). I now
recognize that there exist several further (and more productive) ways to
understand the issue of state personification. The strongest evidence for the
pervasiveness (but not necessarily, as noted on p. 15, persuasiveness) of
individual-to-collective ascription has been demonstrated by research on the
use of emotion as an ontological basis for state behavior. All mainstream
approaches to IR – neorealist, neoliberal, and conventional constructivist
alike – assume some type of human emotion operating at the level of
states.14 There is no such thing as the ‘‘cold, calculating’’ nation-state – it
does not exist in reality or, indeed, in even the most ‘‘rationalist’’ approa-
ches to international politics. Neta Crawford ably demonstrated in her
seminal article (Crawford 2000) and her likewise seminal book (Crawford
2002), that neorealist and neoliberal approaches to international politics
accept two important emotions – fear and hate – as the ‘‘engines’’ which
drive state behavior (Crawford 2000: 120–123). That these approaches have
ascribed only those two emotions says more about the agenda of mainstream
IR than it does about the ‘‘irrationality’’ of emotion as a social reality of
world politics.
Emotion is also the primary resource for neoconservative philosophy,
playing a vital role in sustaining the Bush administration’s foreign policy
agenda. Despite the tough talk often associated with neoconservatism, the
purpose behind neoconservative visions of the national interest is to imbue
such foreign policy actions with emotional content and meaning. In fact,
while neoconservatism shares much with democratic peace perspectives and
while neoconservatives in the Bush administration has used the latter as a
resource to counter criticism of its Iraq policy, this appeal to emotion is
what primarily distinguishes neoconservative philosophy from the radical
self-interest celebrated by liberal philosophy, as eloquently noted by Michael
Williams in the context of neoconservatism’s critique of the ‘‘liberal individual’’:

the reduction of action to nothing more than the pursuit of self-interest

gives rise to a destructive combination of hedonism and despair. Lack-
ing any broader vision within which to locate their lives, liberal indivi-
duals are driven by (often base) impulses and ephemeral self-
gratification that ultimately renders life empty and ‘‘meaningless.’’
(Williams 2005b: 312)

In short, individuals are emotionally connected to the nation-state. The

state agent creates an emotional connection that fetishizes the authority of a
nation-state to promote the ‘‘national interest’’ – thus in neoconservative
philosophy the citizen’s existential experience can only be completed
through the State itself. Furthermore, and as noted by Oded Lowenheim
and Gadi Heimann (2006), several authors such as Rose McDermott (2004)
and Jonathan Mercer (2005) demonstrate how emotions are necessary for
 Introduction 17
rational action.15 Lowenheim and Heimann additionally assert that another
motive, revenge, is driven by emotional and social factors.
Indeed, the need for ontological security is uniformly driven by emotion
even though the behavior that serves the social construction of self-identity
(of course) varies. As I discuss in more detail in Chapter 3, ontological
security is intricately related to the processes of memory, narrative, and
action:

What is needed by any theory that posits the self as a collection of

memories is a mechanism by which the system sets priorities . . . the
primary role of emotion in humans is to alert the individual experien-
cing the emotion that action in some situation is necessary and to
motivate or energize that action.
(Singer and Salovey 1993: 121–122)

Emotions prioritize the information that swamps agents and help in the
coordination of action.
Jennifer Mitzen, one of the few scholars working on ontological security
in IR theory, while noting the above ‘‘everyone does it’’ strategy as one of
her three ‘‘defenses’’ for, in her terms, ‘‘scaling up’’ ontological security from
individuals to states, also posits that ‘‘the fact that everyone else treats states
as people, however, does not justify my doing so’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 352).
Mitzen then offers two more important defenses for ontological security at
the state level: (1) the ontological security of states satisfies the ontological
security of its members (individuals); (2) assumptions about individuals help
explain macro-level patterns. The first defense, that ‘‘inter-societal routines
help maintain identity coherence for each group, which in turn provides
individuals with a measure of ontological security’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 352) is
persuasive, but not without its problems. This position is probably necessary
for Mitzen’s view of ontological security (more on this in Chapter 3), where
the individuals of a state are homogenized so as to lend the state a coherent
identity, thus making the rather, in her account, more permanent (and
socially dependent) nature of self-identity through time seem inevitable. But
it fundamentally obscures the political and normative nature of the ontolo-
gical security process. Each opinion leader of a state must independently
interpret the self-identity that shapes his or her policy choices and then
bring that interpretation to the bargaining table when discussing a course of
action. Because of the nature of human beings, individuals within states
disagree as to, first, what the interests of their states are and, second, how
one course of action over another fulfills those interests. By reifying onto-
logical security to all members of a society, we miss out on the very inter-
esting political process of self-identity contestation. This relates to my view
of ‘‘reflexivity’’ in states as contrasted by reflexivity in typical social agents.
Reflexive monitoring of the actions of states involves much more than rou-
tinized action, and Mitzen’s ‘‘scaling’’ de-emphasizes the narrative-based
disagreements that occur in national debates over self-identity and policy. In
18 Introduction
other words, state interests and identity are always up for grabs; each is
formed and reformed by the individuals who constitute those states. Mitzen,
by contrast, like neoliberal and neorealist theories before her, black-boxes
the state, lending theoretical elegance to the ontological security story of
states by short-siding the possibilities of state agency. The second problem
with Mitzen’s defense is that it also provides no real guidance to the metho-
dological quandary – where are we to look for ‘‘evidence’’ of ontological
security in Mitzen’s account? This is probably a result of her ontology as
well – where there is little mention of the importance of narrative in the
ontological security process (as there is, by contrast, in Giddens’s account).16
We have a third defense, related to Mitzen’s – what we might call the
‘‘raise the white flag approach’’ – and an example is provided by one of the
other few IR scholars besides Mitzen who has done work on ontological
security. Bill McSweeney’s answer to this quandary is simple:

It follows from the analysis of social action as purposive, reflexive,

monitored, routinized, that collective actors, including states, cannot
strictly be agents. It makes sense, however, and for some purposes is
essential, to treat the state and other collectivities as unit actors, as if
they were agents. Their action is subject to the same logical and socio-
logical analysis as that of individuals or other collectivities. It makes
sense to speak of states as if they were agents when the agency of indi-
viduals in a representative capacity carries the allocative and author-
itative resources of the state with it.
(McSweeney 1999: 151, emphasis added)

In other words, McSweeney concedes the argument that states are not
people, but considers it necessary for both ontological (because individuals
are in charge of state resources) and methodological reasons to consider
states ‘‘as if’’ they are people. Although ‘‘states’’ may be the functional units
of traditional security models, state leaders are the ones who decide on
certain policies. As such, ‘‘agentic action’’ is implemented by leaders:
‘‘[b]eing an agent is to be able to deploy a range of causal powers . . . action
depends upon the capability of the individual to ‘make a difference’ to a
pre-existing state of affairs or course of events’’ (Giddens 1984: 14).
McSweeney’s is a more narrow version of, in my view, the most sophisti-
cated answer to the L.o.A. ‘‘problem.’’ It is the position taken by Anthony
Lang (2002) and various English School scholars, and it is this primary
strategy on individuals v. collectives I also use as a basis for my position in
this book: because they represent their state, state agents ‘‘are the state’’
because they have the moral burden of making policy choices and the
capacity to implement those decisions. This fourth defense does more than
what McSweeney proposes in that it views ‘‘states [as] structures that con-
strain and enable those individuals who hold positions of responsibility in
the state’’ (Wheeler 2000: 22). While on an individual basis these leaders will
differ in terms of their own ontological security, they all share the same
 Introduction 19
collective commitment to state self-identity. Thus, this position does not
deem the personal insecurities of leaders irrelevant, but what is more rele-
vant is how leaders recognize the position of their state’s ‘‘Self’’ in interna-
tional society. Anxiety over their respective state’s place in the world will
still be evident no matter how each individual feels about his or her own
sense of integrity.17
The focus here, then, is upon how narrative provides both an ontological
and methodological referent for ontological security. For Lang, who
impressively synthesizes the work of Hans Morgenthau and Hannah Arendt
to form a theory of agency and state behavior, the answer to the L.o.A.
question is ‘‘to look to the formal representatives of the community.’’ Lang’s
ontology squares with this methodological decision, in that

These representatives not only represent the interests of the citizens of a

state, they also represent the state to the representatives, and thus citi-
zens, of other states. . . . The representative or diplomat embodies the
state in moments of agency. Even more importantly, Morgenthau’s
conception of state agency implies that only in those moments of dip-
lomatic (or military) action does the state really come into existence.
Otherwise it only exists in potential; the representative must actualize
the power of the state.
(Lang 2002: 16–17, emphasis added)

Lang justifies the agent-as-state position as necessary because of the

‘‘essentially normative character’’ of state agency as it relates to the national
purpose. Most importantly, it is in those moments when the state is chal-
lenged ontologically that a state leader must ‘‘actualize’’ the presentation of
the state. Lang’s position on this view is the one I take, and thus use, to
defend the position that ontological security obtains for states because state
agents seek to satisfy the self-identity needs of the states which they lead.
‘‘State agents,’’ of course, can be construed in many ways, but methodolo-
gically this will become clearer in the case study chapters, where I define, a
priori, the ‘‘agents’’ for each of the policy decisions (what I term my ‘‘spatial
parameter’’).
But the ontological distinction of ‘‘agents as states’’ can be further
developed using this compelling approach to narrative. As psychologist
Mark Freeman asserts, the person doing the narrating limits the number of
relevant events in a particular history by ‘‘decid[ing], out of the possibilities
that exist, what sort of story will be told’’ (Freeman 1993: 198). History
exists, memory organizes history, and narrative expresses that organization
to ourselves and others.
This does not presuppose that ontological security – by ‘‘individualizing
states’’ – neglects the influence that the social environment has upon what
the narrator says. As Freeman also states, ‘‘the way we understand the
world, and talk and write about it, is socially constructed’’ (Freeman 1993:
198). The social construction of self-identity is just that – yet, as the three
20 Introduction
cases explored in this book demonstrate, the conundrum that state agents
confronted dealt with who they were as embodiments of the state. The
concern in each of these cases is not what international society would think
of the respective states, but how, upon reflection and in the future, the state
itself would be able to organize those actions in a future narrative that
maintained a sense of self-integrity.
A sense of Self presupposes a distinction from the surrounding environ-
ment – the mere act of recognizing ourselves is the first of many in a process
meant to extract who we are from what surrounds us. Narrative provides a
coherence to the Self. It creates the ‘‘person’’ of the state. Without narrative,
without a state agent collecting the history of a nation-state into a story that
informs current actions, the Self of a state does not exist. Freeman, writing
about Augustine’s narrative in Confessions, posits that

had he [Augustine] merely written a chronicle of past experiences rather

than a history, these experiences themselves would need to have been
‘‘re-presented’’ in all of the openness and uncertainty that had initially
surrounded them; all that would have been said is ‘‘and then,’’ ‘‘and
then,’’ ‘‘and then’’ (and so on), as if he had no idea at all of the whole
of which these episodes were a part.
(Freeman 1993: 29–30)

There is no idea of the ‘‘whole’’ that is the state without a story about that
state. And state agents are the ones who construct the Selves of states
through narrative. Without narrative, we only know ‘‘that state’’ spatially
(although even here one could argue that a satellite photograph will not
reveal the borders virtually ascribed there through centuries of give and
take). But conceptually, the ‘‘idea’’ of the state cannot exist without this
narration to develop a sense of continuity. The reason states have an onto-
logical security is because they have a historical account of themselves that
has been ‘‘built up’’ through the narrative of agents of the past, present, and
the future.18

Cultivating the ‘‘new (security) research agenda’’

Rodney Bruce Hall proposes a new ‘‘research agenda’’ that proceeds from
his established proposition that ‘‘the notion of state interests varies with
variations in societal self-identification’’ (Hall 1999: 294). If, as in Hall’s
study, institutional form (i.e. Westphalian state) solidifies identity, then
identities and interests should remain wholly fixed over long periods of
time. Or, put another way, identities generate new institutional forms which
then, in turn, institutionalize these identities. But state interests change all
the time, and if this is the case, then identity changes are possible within
similar institutional forms. Ontological security helps connect interests to
these sudden engagements with identity.
 Introduction 21
Hall also notes that this research agenda should

focus in part upon the economic component of the notion of societal

security and state security. . . . In the heyday of popular nationalism no
form of government that did not diligently seek to provide for the eco-
nomic well-being of its people was capable of surviving the social
upheaval attending the spectacle of the ‘‘world in depression.’’
( Hall 1999: 295)

We should understand, however, that individuals look toward their states to

provide ‘‘societal needs’’ defined outside of economic and other materialist
criteria. Hall states that there exist empirical anomalies arising since the
Cold War, such as

Secessionist and irredentist movements [that] have created conditions

under which members of multilateral security institutions such as
NATO have been forced to reconceptualize their own security identities
and interests . . . these events portend significant changes in the struc-
ture of civil–military relations, as the armed forces of national-states are
deployed for purposes that fail to conform to traditional notions of the
security interests of national-states.
(Hall 1999: 296–297, emphasis added)

This is important, for it begs the question of why these movements, or crises,
generate a need to ‘‘reconceptualize’’ security identities and interests. We can
surmise where Hall is going in this passage, since it is placed toward the end
of his seminal book. We might look to a new institutional form, say a
supranational organization, that can better capture this new conception of
security (and thus collective identity) than the national-state could. I agree
that these post-Cold War transformations leave us with a puzzle, but one
can look back into history, as I do in this study, for other similar puzzles.
Identity change has always had implications for forceful responses, and the
relationship between a society and its military thus has an impact upon
foreign policy structures. The cases in this book demonstrate how con-
templation of the use of force rarely conforms to these traditional notions
of security interests. As the flurry of studies challenging traditional notions
of security suggests, IR scholars might wish to rethink the ‘‘default’’ posi-
tion strategic arguments hold in our field.
While Hall focused on how changes in social collective identity render
institutional forms obsolete, I intend to show how changes in self-identity
render certain security interests inoperable. And, like Hall, I see social
agency as fully responsible for these changes because I share the assumption
that ‘‘we possess social agency that may enable us to organize [our] future
quite differently’’ (Hall 1999: 299). As such:
22 Introduction
Our social agency levies upon us the burden of responsibility for that
future . . . if we own up to the system-transforming capacity of our
social agency, we must also own the consequences of the decisions we
make in executing that agency.
(Hall 1999: 299, emphasis added)

Knowing this means that these consequences in themselves are generative, or,
more specifically, they may produce a need for leaders to change policy
decisions to avoid similar consequences in the future. These consequences
need not be in physical terms – equally costly are those situations that change
the embedded context in which states can plausibly see and talk about them-
selves. Indeed, ‘‘what we call ourselves says a lot about us’’ (Hall 1999: 299).
We must therefore understand that human construction is hardly a linear
process:

[H]istory is neither cyclical nor progressive, and practitioners of inter-

national relations are neither necessarily rushing toward catastrophe
nor toward global cooperation and passivity. History will go where the
changes that we effect in global social orders lead it.
(Hall 1999: 300, emphasis added).

But understanding social structures as the social constructs of people,

arranged to fulfill the social purpose of a state, is a step in the right direc-
tion. With that goal in mind, I shall conclude this chapter by outlining the
focus of the remaining chapters of the book.

Chapter summaries and conclusion

The inquiry proceeds through six additional chapters. Chapter 2 critically
reviews two binaries that permeate IR theory: (1) self v. collective identity;
and (2) moral v. selfish action. Reviewing several bodies of social theory,
from the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and Max Weber to the critical theory of
IR post-structuralists, I argue that these dichotomies, taken separately or
together, have shielded IR theory from the possibility that states, as internal
reflective actors, act ‘‘morally’’ to serve their self-visions. Regarding state
identity, I first demonstrate how the predominant assumptions about the
‘‘rational, ego-driven’’ state of neorealist and neoliberal theories are a mis-
guided set of assumptions about the identities of nation-states. Additionally,
social constructivists and English School solidarists have placed too great
an emphasis on how ‘‘collective identity’’ or ‘‘collective principles’’ have
influenced, in turn, the individual interests of states. I then propose that
humanitarian or moral actions can be a form of rational social action when
they serve the self-identity needs of individuals and/or states.
After deconstructing these dichotomies in Chapter 2, in Chapter 3 I apply
the concept of ontological security to IR theory. Ontological security-seeking
 Introduction 23
behavior is fulfilled through the reproduction of action that takes the form
of routines. I argue that it is possible to explicate the internal mechanisms
which provide ontological security and also address some of the limits states
face to realizing their ontological security, factors that impede or enable
states to experience shame or serious disconnects with self-identity: (1)
material and reflexive capabilities; (2) crisis assessment; (3) state bio-
graphical narratives (illocutionary discourse); and (4) co-actor discourse
strategies (perlocutionary discourse). I then refer back to these factors in
each case study.
Chapter 4 reviews Britain’s pursuit of security in the nineteenth century. I
demonstrate how the Emancipation Proclamation (EP) prevented British
involvement in the American Civil War, arguing that the EP changed the
meaning of the American Civil War for the British, thus clarifying why
nineteenth-century Britain remained neutral in a conflict whose increased
duration had dire economic consequences for its citizens and whose out-
come would have important consequences for its future relative power tra-
jectory. By focusing on British opinion leader debates occurring both before
and after the issuance of the Proclamation, I assess the EP’s impact upon
Britain’s decision not to recognize the Confederacy. I argue that the British
engaged in ontological security-seeking behavior in order to affirm their
sense of self-identity. Because the EP changed the meaning of the American
Civil War for the British, neutrality following the EP fulfilled British onto-
logical security.
Chapter 5 addresses how ontological security informs a nation-state’s
conception of honor, and how self-identity needs can completely jeopardize
the physical existence of a state. Germany issued an ultimatum in July 1914
that demanded unfettered access through Belgian territory. Yet even though
the Belgians knew that if they chose to fight the Germans they would face
disastrous consequences, they fought anyway and suffered a catastrophic
defeat and lost control of their country until the end of the war. The Belgian
decision to fight the Germans provides the starkest contradiction of IR’s
mainstream ‘‘survival’’ assumption regarding the behavior of states, and it
challenges the prevailing (but underdeveloped) understanding of a ‘‘just war’’
in light of the reasonable chance for success condition. Because of this, the
case provides an opportunity to interpret why the Belgians chose to
fight thereby explicitly ignoring their own physical security. In this case, an
ontological security approach serves two important purposes. First, it the-
oretically provides a deeper understanding of honor as a concept in IR
theory. Second, ontological security is used to demonstrate how Belgian
honor was based on the internal need to confront threats to self-identity
and the external need to reinforce a social (or collective) identity to the
greater European community. By fulfilling these identity commitments,
Belgium received widespread recognition and admiration from fellow Eur-
opean states. I use historical evidence and the discourse of Belgian and
European leaders to demonstrate how an ontological security approach
24 Introduction
helps make intelligible the seemingly irrational Belgian decision to fight the
German army at the beginning of World War I.
In Chapter 6, I use an ontological security argument to interpret NATO’s
1999 Kosovo operation, to understand how state agents in a collective
security organization confronted what they perceived to be a threat to their
individual states’ self-identities. While Chapters 4 and 5 are, to some degree,
ontological security ‘‘success stories’’ in the sense that both 1860s Britain
and Belgium in 1914 made a reflexively engaged decision to avoid ontolo-
gical insecurity (or ‘‘shame’’), I argue in Chapter 6 that each NATO
member state’s past policy failures generated ontological insecurity and that
this disconnect changed the set of policy choices for Kosovo. While NATO
member states secured self-identity by intervening in Kosovo, they did so
only after reflexively considering past failed opportunities to address the
identity threat of humanitarian crisis. This chapter uses the concept of
shame as a metaphor to understand how identity disconnects can compel
states to pursue social actions which sacrifice physical security interests
but strengthen ontological security. Using the concept of the biographical
narrative, I identify the (re)sources of shame that each individual state’s
agents used to create meanings for the NATO action. These narratives
linked state actions to self-identity commitments. Like other cases in the
book, this case problematizes traditional security interpretations of state
behavior, but in addition this case implicates the common assumption of
(certain) constructivists and English School solidarists that ‘‘humanitarian’’
actions need result from collective identity interests. While this was a
collective security action, each participating NATO state had to create
individual meanings for its own self-interest to intervene in Kosovo. Thus,
this case demonstrates the importance that self-identity plays in the social
actions of states and shows how ‘‘humanitarian’’ actions, because they serve
self-identity, are rational.
I conclude in Chapter 7 by discussing the importance of what I term
‘‘self-interrogative reflexivity’’ in the ontological security process. The ability
to reflexively monitor action is rather consistent across individuals, while the
British, Belgian, and NATO cases demonstrate that states vary in their self-
interrogative reflexive capabilities. While ontological security is something
all states seek to achieve, they all face barriers to doing so. I thus propose
four ‘‘sites’’ which might better stimulate nation-states into self-interrogative
reflexivity: social movements, non-governmental organization (NGO) and
transnational actor counter-narratives, international organizations, and
autonomous domestic and international media. I also propose two strategies
international actors can use to incite targeted states to reflexively engage
their sense of Self. Self-interrogative reflexivity applies not only to states,
however, and in this concluding chapter I also discuss how IR scholars must
better recognize their own role in producing the meta-narratives which shape
political action. With this in mind, I conclude with some implications for
the future of the ontological security research program.
 Introduction 25
In sum, the book explores how ‘‘humanitarian’’ or ‘‘moral’’ action is a
‘‘security interest’’ of certain states when it helps secure self-identity (espe-
cially when it compromises a state’s physical existence). The book demon-
strates that self-identity, reflexivity, and shame (all part of the ontological
security process) are important aspects which are always at play in foreign
policy decision-making processes; and it establishes, even in the limited
contexts of the case studies, that states are more concerned with satisfying
their drive for ontological security. Thus, an ontological security approach, I
assert, explains more phenomena than materialist or strategic interpreta-
tions of state behavior. And finally, the book reveals that the words which
states use to describe actions (of themselves and others) matter and, related
to this, that non-forceful events (events where no force is used or where such
force poses no physical material threat to an examined state) have implica-
tions for foreign policy decisions.
2 Identity, morality, and social action

At one time international politics was thought to be a realm devoid of

morality. Anarchy begot the need to survive, the need to survive begot self-
help, and the fear of a sucker’s payoff marginalized inter-state cooperation
and ethical behavior. This view has changed only slightly, with a ‘‘normative
turn’’ in IR recognizing the limited importance of values, norms, ideas, and
ethics.1 Thus IR theorists amended the theoretical sequence by under-
standing the international realm as a community or society of states that
observed principles and rules within anarchy. States responded, in turn, to
international signals, regimes, institutions, rules, and principles that pulled
them in a direction that allowed for a limited, but significant, place for
moral action. Thus, the nation-state that acted morally did so because of its
membership in a society that was constituted by an intersubjective web of
meanings. States mutually agreed upon rules that, when reciprocally
observed, allowed them to pursue certain self-interested goals. The possibi-
lity that states possessed normative concerns that were internally generated,
that they had a selfish interest in ‘‘acting morally,’’ was a possibility largely
ignored by IR theory.
This chapter confronts two related sets of issues regarding the social
actions of agents (and, specifically, nation-states). The first section examines
how theorists have viewed social actions as driven by either collective soci-
etal factors or self-regarding internal phenomena and how the origins for
these actions influence an agent’s identity. There are largely two bases to
theorize about identity – the collective (which engulfs or shapes the Self) or
an oppositional Other against which an agent identifies (the so-called Self v.
Other ‘‘nexus’’). The second section expresses how social action has been
largely dichotomized between ‘‘selfish’’ v. ‘‘moral’’ actions. Accounts pro-
vided by Max Weber and Reinhold Niebuhr demonstrate how this dichot-
omization preceded, and then enveloped, IR theory. Niebuhr’s theory also
engages selfish v. moral interests as a level of analysis issue – the individual
can be moral, but nations cannot.
As implied above, the two sets of issues are linked – collectively driven
actions are often assumed to be moral because they serve to reinforce the
ideals of a society, as they require agents to transcend their sense of Self.
 Identity, morality, and social action 27
Those ideals, whether they are intersubjectively constructed (i.e. positive
law) or universalist-absolute (i.e. natural law), represent mutual agreements.
Conversely, self-interested actions are amoral, if not also immoral. In this
vein, ‘‘honor’’ as a concept in IR theory is uniquely positioned, considered
to be either ‘‘selfish’’ (resulting from prideful motives) or ‘‘moral’’ (as its
bestowment depends upon community-sanctioned principles).
Where can we find a third position regarding the collective (moral) v.
individual (selfish) dichotomy? Ironically, it exists within Niebuhr’s social
theory, where the basis for moral action can be found in, perhaps even
depends upon, the self-interest of individual agents in realizing their own
self-identity. This is the primary position that I defend in subsequent chap-
ters regarding nation-states. While individual states may engage in behaviors
that reinforce or distinguish them as part of a larger community of states,
they only commit to foreign policy actions through time which they perceive
as securing their self-identity or their sense of ontological security. What
have appeared to us (scholars) as the ‘‘humanitarian’’ or ‘‘moral’’ actions of
states actually represent a form of rational action because they serve to
reinforce the state drive of ontological security as such actions confront
threats to self-identity. Thus, it is problematic for IR theorists, or any social
theorists for that matter, to separate ‘‘rational’’ acts from ‘‘moral’’ acts,
implying that moral action cannot be rational.

Environment, structure, and identity (collective and self) in

International Relations theory
IR theorists who are concerned with collectively driven actions in interna-
tional politics make, to varying degrees, an assumption about the basis of
international environment and how that environment constrains and shapes
the interests of nation-states. What theorists call this environment varies;
certain scholars equate the international environment to an international
‘‘structure,’’ which could be material (as it is in many systemic approaches),2
but might also be constituted by ‘‘shared knowledge and intersubjective
understandings [that] may also shape and motivate actors’’ (Finnemore
1996, 15).3 Certain constructivist and English School approaches to IR have
focused upon the degree to which international structures shape the interests
of nation-states, and it is not surprising then that both schools have made
international law a focus of their acumen (see Kratochwil 1989; Onuf 1989;
Bull 1977; Wheeler 2000). When Hedley Bull speaks of International Politics
as an ‘‘anarchical society’’ he asserts that states are constrained by social
norms (Bull 1977). Bull’s thesis demonstrates that states do have a self-inter-
est in upholding the order of the sovereign state system. Even when they
transgress the rule of sovereignty, states are compelled, at minimum, to
plausibly legitimate these transgressions. Furthermore, when great power
states become consumed by international security at the point when domestic
security is no longer such a concern, international politics can be
28 Identity, morality, and social action
considered a ‘‘mature anarchy’’ (Buzan 1991). The order of the system is
its functional logic, although, as Mervyn Frost points out, order is
constitutive – that is, it is not so much that ‘‘order is a primary goal of basic
social arrangements, but [that it is] a constitutive characteristic of all of
them’’ (Frost 1996: 118). In other words, states might value order but without
order we would have no states. Nevertheless, the emphasis upon order in
English School approaches demonstrates how environment is essential to
state behavior.
By positing that ‘‘actors do not have a self prior to interaction with an
other,’’ and that, furthermore, a ‘‘principle of constructivism [is] that the
meanings in terms of which action is organized arise out of interaction’’
(Wendt 1992: 402, 403), what Michael Williams (2005b) and others have
termed ‘‘conventional constructivism’’ emphasizes the environment and,
directly, the interaction which happens within that environment.4 It is an
ontological position that provides fertile ground for causal analysis. Such a
strategy was identified by Giddens in his remarks about structural sociolo-
gists, such as Peter M. Blau, who separated the psychology of individuals
from social structures for the express purpose of ‘‘causal explication’’ (Gid-
dens 1984: 213). By holding the ‘‘person’’-ality of individuals constant one
can demonstrate how structures constrain their behavior. To do this we
must de-emphasize the possibility that the ‘‘structure’’ itself was in part
patterned by the persons who reproduced it to begin with. Like the struc-
tural sociology criticized by Giddens, conventional constructivism separates
structure from agent for the express purpose of observing a causal
mechanism,5 largely ignoring a huge piece of the theoretical puzzle.6
For the conventional constructivists, giving ontological primacy to the
environment creates a systemic ‘‘logic of cultural selection’’ regarding states.
The primary purpose for such environmental emphasis is purely methodo-
logical, not so much an approximation of social reality as an analytical
overture to be taken seriously in positivist IR. Make no mistake; this
environmental logic paves the way for causal analyses which ‘‘integrate’’
constructivist insights regarding intersubjective understandings (see Harri-
son 2004; Mitchell 2002). This is because scholars can ascribe and aggregate
a measure of ‘‘culture,’’ like dyads of rival states for a Lockean logic of
anarchy, or simply the pure total of democratic states, and see how those
levels correlate with state behavior or political development (defined by
‘‘democraticness’’).7
The practice of focusing upon cultural structure has been attacked from a
variety of angles. Wendt himself admits that making state properties
dependent upon systemic cultural structures is the ‘‘more contentious’’ of
the two relationship sets. It makes state identities ‘‘given’’ prior to the for-
mation of structure, or what is at least given is the fact that states have a
desire to interact before they meet any other units. Indeed, this is precisely
the line of criticism Naem Inayatullah and David Blaney make of Wendt,
because he ‘‘says nothing about the actors ‘prior’ to their interaction.
 Identity, morality, and social action 29
Haven’t actors already constructed some sense of self and some under-
standing of others prior to contact’’ (Inayatullah and Blaney 1996: 73)? This
is the issue which permeates, for me, the collective v. self debate regarding
identity. My main criticism of a purely outside-in approach for explaining
the formation of norms or identities or the actions of states is simple: How
can states be so willingly influenced by global cultural structures if they
disagree with their ‘‘nature?’’ Surely, all international actors can have their
arm twisted or be cajoled with material incentives or barriers by other
international actors, but when speaking on the level of pure identity for-
mation isn’t the push of world culture upon state identities mediated by the
perception of which main actors were behind its origin in the first place?
An alternative is provided by the Giddensian concept of the ‘‘duality of
structure,’’ where such structures both constrain and enable behavior (Gid-
dens 1984: 169).8 Mlada Bukovansky’s account of legitimacy demonstrates
that culture need not be separated from the agents it shapes. States use
international culture as a discursive resource: ‘‘what is distinctive about
constructivist and international society views of international relations –
their focus on how shared rules and norms shape international politics –
necessitates a more explicit focus on rules and norms as patterned com-
plexes, or as a culture’’ (Bukovansky 2002: 17, emphasis added). The envir-
onmental emphasis noted above is a limited view; if structures only
constrain agents, then there really is no agency.9
Conversely, by taking the duality of structure position we not only
accommodate agency into our structural models, but see agency as driving
that structure in the first place. The word ‘‘enable’’ means ‘‘to supply with
the means, knowledge or opportunity.’’10 Thus, agents are provided with an
opportunity, but they are the ones who decide what to do in any given
situation. And their actions in one situation increase the knowledge that
constitutes structures which can be used for future decisions, that is, what is
meant by seeing humans, in general, as knowledgeable agents. As such,
agents are both shaped by and (re)generate, structures.
We can say structures exist, but this is only because agents put them there
to affirm individual preferences. Giddens argues that seeing social structures
(or any structures) as ‘‘social objects’’ ‘‘masks the fact that the normative of
social systems are contingent claims which have to be sustained and ‘made
to count’ through the effective mobilization of sanctions in the contexts of
actual encounters’’ (Giddens 1984: 30, emphases added). Agents encounter
social structures through the sustained activity of self-identity fulfillment
through foreign policy. States consciously reproduce actions that then in
turn form a structure through what can be called agency because ‘‘human
societies, or social systems, would plainly not exist without human agency’’
(Giddens 1984: 171).
The issue of structure mirrors, to some degree, the conceptual distinction
between collective and self-identity. In social psychology, individuals take
on different sets of identities; identity theory in social psychological literature
30 Identity, morality, and social action
‘‘conceives of the self as a collection of identities which reflect the roles a
person may enact in a social situation, thus linking the self to the wider
social structure.’’ This research: ‘‘considers self-identities (or role-identities)
as self-definitions deriving from peoples’ knowledge of the roles they
occupy . . . thus people might be motivated to make behavioral decisions
which are consistent with their self-concepts’’ (Astrom and Rise 2001: 225).
Self-categorization theory, on the other hand, views the self as constituted
by group membership:

[T]he process of psychologically belonging to a group involves categor-

ization of oneself as a group member, which in turn causes people to
think, behave and define themselves in terms of the group norm rather
than unique properties of the self.
(Astrom and Rise 2001: 226)

Another set of scholars distinguishes between self and social identity:

‘‘[s]elf-identity as an individual-level identity composed of information on
self-understanding of ‘ME’s’ . . . social identity as the reflections on the
identifications of the self with a social group or category, that is, the self as
an interchangeable group member (‘WE’s’)’’ (Fekadu and Kraft 2001: 672).
Yet in International Relations theory, when applying the concept of identity
to states, the distinctions between self and collective identity remain some-
what unpacked.

Self v. other
To the extent that the issue of self-identity has been a focus of IR theory, it
is through the ‘‘self v. other’’ nexus that theorists have addressed such self-
based identity formation. A well-established group of IR scholars has used
this analytical referent to explicate how a state’s ‘‘sense of self’’ is a (at times
dubious) political project to include certain individuals or collectivities at
the expense of foreign or threatening ‘‘others.’’ Identity construction is a
political project, where states distinguish the ‘‘we’’ as a basis for social
action. Peter Katzenstein asserted in 1996 that

definitions of identity that distinguish between self and other imply

definitions of threat and interest and have strong effects on national
security policies. . . . For most of the major states, identity has become a
subject of considerable political controversy. How these controversies are
resolved . . . will be of great consequence for international security in the
years ahead.
(Katzenstein 1996a: 18–19)

David Campbell’s book is a study which used the self/other formation of

identity to interpret American security policies during and after the Cold
 Identity, morality, and social action 31
War by noting that ‘‘what we have been discussing here, then, is ‘foreign
policy’: all those practices of differentiation implicated in the confrontation
between self and other, and their modes of figuration’’ (Campbell 1992: 88).
Campbell delineates how state agents locate ‘‘threats’’ to construct the
‘‘sovereign’’ state, asserting that the development of the state Self is part and
parcel of the need for state agents to establish control and order within their
borders. Because identity in Campbell’s account is fluid, so is the state
which has been reified in mainstream IR scholarship: ‘‘the fact [is] that the
sovereign domain, for all its identification as a well-ordered and rational
entity, is as much a site of ambiguity and indeterminancy as the anarchic
realm it is distinguished from.’’ This means that a state’s self-identity is
linked to what it perceives as a ‘‘threat’’:

[T]here are, in principle at least, a multitude of ways in which society

can be constituted: the possibilities are limited only by the practices that
focus on certain dangers . . . but such dangers are not objective condi-
tions and they do not simply reside in the external realm.
(Campbell 1992: 63, emphasis added)

To sum up, the ‘‘ambiguity’’ of state identity is linked to the ‘‘ambiguity’’

of what ‘‘threatens’’ the state; thus, each ‘‘reality’’ – identity and threats
to the state – becomes a negotiated political project with winners and
losers:

Although it has been argued that the representation of difference does

not functionally necessitate a negative figuration, it has historically
more often than not been the case . . . that danger has been made
available for understanding in terms of defilement.
(Campbell 1992: 88)

Campbell’s is the prime (although not sole) example of the postmodern

critique of identity ‘‘making.’’11 Reality is constituted by discontinuity – it is
humans who create continuity (or order) for purposes of control and dis-
cipline. A researcher’s job is thus to uncover, like an archaeologist during a
‘‘dig,’’ the layers of discontinuity which exist in social life, using, among
other methods, discourse analysis.
The self v. other nexus is also the basis for Iver Neumann’s (1999) study
on European identity formation.12 The problematic noted in Chapter 1
regarding the issue of ‘‘levels of analysis’’ or ‘‘the state as person’’ is also
relevant regarding the fact that states have ‘‘multiple selves.’’ For Neumann
(as I also posited in Chapter 1), it is through narrative that the Self gains
(semi)-coherence:

[T]he making of selves is a narrative process of identification whereby a

number of identities that have been negotiated in specific contexts are
32 Identity, morality, and social action
strung together into one overarching story . . . the forging of selves,
then, is a path-dependent process, since it has to cram in a number of
previously negotiated identities in order to be credible.
(Neumann 1999: 218–219)

Yet again, the answer to how Selves become essentialized is that there exists
an Other against which the Self might identify although this process never
ends, it means that who ‘‘We’’ are depends intricately on what we think of
‘‘Them.’’ The analytical focus in self/other scholarship is on the social
(rather than material or solely temporal) ‘‘boundaries between human col-
lectives’’ and how those boundaries are maintained or transformed
(Neumann 1999: 36).
I do not disagree with the substance of the work which uses the self/other
nexus as its basis for theorizing about state identity. The Self of states and
individuals is indeed socially bounded, however, it is also more intrinsically
dynamic. The anxiety which engulfs the Self does not necessarily have to
originate from the Other. Transformative possibilities arise not just in the
dialectic between the self and other, but within the internal dialectic that
arises from the ontological security-seeking process, as I discuss in the
second section.

Collective and moral action

The issue of environmental constraints importantly develops into an under-
standing of moral v. selfish action. For instance, Alexander Wendt’s under-
standing of altruism provides one example of how IR theorists treat ‘‘other-
help’’ behavior solely as a function of the collective interests of the indivi-
dual (Wendt 1994, 1996, 1999). Wendt separates the ‘‘corporate’’ individual
identity of a state from the social identity of a state. Corporate identities are
‘‘the intrinsic, self-organizing qualities that constitute actor individuality.’’
Corporate identities generate four basic interests: physical security, recogni-
tion as an actor by others beyond pure survival issues, the development of a
state’s role in meeting the human aspiration for a better life, and, most
notably for the current discussion, ontological security (Wendt 1994: 385).
While I more fully assess Wendt’s use of the concept of ontological security
in Chapter 3, it is important to note here how he distinguishes corporate
identities and self-interest from social identities and collective interests.
Wendt states:

[both] self and collective interest [are] the effects of the extent to and
manner in which social identities involve an identification with the fate
of the other (whether singular or plural). Identification is a continuum
from negative to positive, from conceiving the other as anathema to the
self to seeing it as an extension of the self.
(Wendt 1996: 52, original)
 Identity, morality, and social action 33
Notice here how what determines a social identity is a collective interest (as
Wendt emphasizes), an identification with others. Wendt also states that:

in the absence of positive identification interests will be defined without

regard to the other, who will instead be viewed as an object to be
manipulated for the gratification of the self. Such an instrumental atti-
tude toward the other I take to be the core of ‘‘self-interest’’ (note this
does not preclude action that benefits others, as long as it is done for
instrumental reasons).
(Wendt 1996: 52)

The statement in parenthesis is rather puzzling, since Wendt one paragraph

earlier stated that ‘‘‘self-interest’ is sometimes defined so as to subsume
altruism, which makes explanations of behavior in such terms tautological’’
(Wendt 1996: 52). Wendt’s rather ambiguous treatment of self-interest and
corporate identity still implies that the ‘‘tautology’’ of altruism subsumed in
self-interest means that IR scholars must only look to collective interests to
explain ‘‘other-help’’ behavior, yet he is by no means the only scholar to
view identity and its attendant social actions in such community-determined
terms. For Lebow, ‘‘our inner selves and associated desires may be almost as
socially determined as those of Achilles. . . . Identities and interests at the
state level depend heavily on international society’’ (Lebow 2003: 336,
emphasis added). Regardless of the reflective capabilities of individuals
(states or otherwise), agents thus acquire their social existence from the
signals given to them by their environment or community:

Even inner-directed people need to define themselves in opposition or

in contrast to the identities and roles being foisted on them by society.
Inner selves and individual identities cannot exist apart from society
because membership and participation in society – or its rejection – is
essential to the constitution of the self.
(Lebow 2003: 341, emphasis added)

But is it? What Lebow, Wendt, certain constructivists, and English School
perspectives are tacitly proposing is that individual nation-states have very
little agency to exercise. This runs contrary to the structurationist maxim
that ‘‘the action of human agents involves the possibility of ‘doing other-
wise,’ of being able to make a difference in the world’’ (Kilminster 1991: 79).
If environment told us all we needed to know about ourselves, if indeed our
individual actions were so socially determined, why would individuals ever
feel anxious about the decisions that they make and institute which guide
their actions? The attraction (which could be positive or negative) of self-
identity is more pronounced than these environmental perspectives let on.
According to Kratochwil ‘‘it is easier to ‘forget’ one’s collective identity
than the personal one since in the former case life can go on and need not
34 Identity, morality, and social action
result in the same pathological problems that are frequently associated with
the loss of a personal identity’’ (Kratochwil 2006: 19, emphasis added).
Indeed, our inner Selves are an environment of their own – a dialectical
community – where the anxiety of agents is simultaneously confronted and
ignored. It can be what we make of it – a comforting cocoon or a dire
prison – which we cannot escape but which we can – and here is the silver
lining – transform in the face of environmental change. Further, we actively
interrogate our sense of Self regardless of our environment, thus making
this transformation at least a possibility.
It is not necessarily that there exist different ‘‘types’’ of states – like col-
lectivist, revisionist, or status quo (Wendt 1999; Schweller 1994). Rather,
there are a variety of ways that states seek to satisfy the drive for ontological
security. Identities are socially constructed, and as such they vary.13 This is
true about both self- and collective identity. While the drive for ontological
security remains constant, self-identities change in order to properly situate
the self by successfully confronting the environment which is in constant
transformation. If agents are dependent upon their environment, it is only in
how that environment impacts their ability to reflexively monitor the project
of the Self. It is my view that scholars, instead of ‘‘typologizing’’ state iden-
tities, might instead look at the actions and words of all states with the
assumption that those actions and words are meant to satisfy the drive for
ontological security. In essence, scholars should ask why states vary in their
ability to satisfy ontological security (and a ‘‘healthy’’ sense of self-identity),
as I assert that the self-identity(ies) of a state is implicated in its security
interests. Thus Katzenstein’s position that ‘‘the identities of states emerge
from their interactions with different social environments, both domestic and
international’’ (Katzenstein 1996b: 24), may be somewhat incorrect – the
identities of states emerge from their own project of the self. How this nego-
tiation project unfolds will influence which ‘‘interests’’ states will pursue with
their policies.
For example, the way I treat the ‘‘other’’ says something about me;14 how
I treat others influences how I identify myself. Before I can even treat an
Other, I must experience the self:

One person investigating the experience of another can be directly

aware only of his own experience of the other. He cannot have direct
awareness of the other’s experience of their ‘‘same’’ world. He cannot
see through the other’s ears. . . . All one ‘‘feels,’’ ‘‘senses,’’ ‘‘intuits’’ etc.
of the other entails inference from one’s own experience of the other to
the other’s experience of one’s self.
(Laing 1969: 14)

These statements are significant regarding moral or humanitarian action,

for they suggest that if such a process obtains at the level of states, identi-
fications with ‘‘others’’ may not signify a ‘‘structural change.’’ Indeed, I
 Identity, morality, and social action 35
think that those scholars who see the ‘‘other-regarding’’ behavior of certain
state foreign policies as not only evidence of a sense of collective identity,
but also an indication of a systemic transformation (to a post-sovereign or
post-materialist realm, for instance), may be waiting quite some time for
any transformations to unfold. The ‘‘rescue’’ of an Other depends largely
upon how such a rescue will resonate with the project of self-negotiation.
These identifications say more about how a state sees itself rather than how
it sees the ‘‘other’’ in relation to itself. ‘‘Other-regarding behavior,’’ from this
viewpoint, is really ‘‘self-help’’ behavior because it serves ontological secur-
ity needs.
By re-channeling the acumen of inquiry upon Self, we are not in the same
time ‘‘acontextualizing’’ the Self of states. It is obvious that we need Others,
and an environment, through which our Selves evolve. We need not portray
the Self as ‘‘excessively ‘internal’ and hermetic’’ (Wachtel 1996: 46),15 yet if
we consider the Self to be something more than unitary, one possibility for
transformation of the Self comes from within – hermetic or not.
Collectively determined social action by no means presupposes moral
action. The ‘‘tragedy’’ of neorealism, of course, is that the environment of
international politics forces states into actions where morality plays a very
limited role. What was gained by constructivist and English School
accounts which focused upon the ideational or social basis of this environ-
ment was the demonstration that states, because of peer pressure or the
need for moral prestige, ‘‘act’’ morally to gain recognition from the group.
Thus, to name just a few, the existence of human rights (Sikkink 1993;
Klotz 1995; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999; Burgerman 2001),
environmental regimes (Haas 1993), and security communities (Adler and
Barnett 1998) make possible ‘‘moral’’ action in International Relations. This
is the primary issue to which I now turn.

‘‘Moral’’ social action and International Relations theory

To understand how and why traditional IR theory has sought to dis-
aggregate ‘‘rational’’ action from other types of action, one must recognize
how the issue of social action has been treated by social theory writ large,
for the practice of disaggregating ‘‘types’’ of action is almost ubiquitous in
social theory. This is itself a function of the separation of internal v. exter-
nal ‘‘spheres’’ in social theory. As R.D. Laing suggests, we have an inner
world of the mind that is often judged to be subjective or imaginary, and an
external world that is objective, physical and real (Laing 1969: 11–12). In
various forms, a similar binary has been identified by feminist theory – the
public/private sphere distinction. The separation of women into the private
sphere is a product of ‘‘evolutionary history,’’ where

as soon as man distinguished himself from other objects in the natural

and physical world and began to see himself as the agent of his own
36 Identity, morality, and social action
destiny, a human imperative emerged to order social existence in more
conceptual and intentional ways.
(Elshtain 1981: 10)

The internal–private–imaginary–feminine v. external–public–real–masculine

binary sets demonstrate how even before agents interact there is already a
bias about which forms of social action truly represent rational and perhaps
appropriate behavior and which do not. This becomes important when we
move from an assumption about what drives human behavior to how
humans use those drives in their interactions with other humans.
Two of the most influential social theorists of the twentieth century –
Max Weber and Reinhold Niebuhr – separated moral from rational actions
in their work. Weberian social action was a generalization for all levels of
agents. For Niebuhr, individuals had the ability to act morally (in fact, most
did so), but when those moral individuals were aggregated into groups the
content of actions turned radically immoral.
In Economy and Society, social action is for Weber an ‘‘activity . . . which
takes into account the behavior of someone else’’ (Weber 1968: 22). Weber
taxonomizes social action into four types:

1 Instrumentally rational action is ‘‘determined by expectations of objects

and other human beings . . . expectations which are used as conditions
over the means for attainment of an actor’s own rationally pursued
and calculated ends.’’ Action is ‘‘instrumentally-rational when the
end, the means and the secondary results are all rationally taken into
account. This involves rational consideration of alternative means to
the end.’’
2 Value-rational action involves the ‘‘conscious belief in the value for its
own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, or religious form of behavior, inde-
pendently of its own prospects for success.’’
3 Affectual actions involve ‘‘actors’ specific affects and feeling states.’’
4 Traditional action is ‘‘determined by ingrained habituation’’ (Weber
1968: 24–25, emphasis added).

We might note that value-rational, affectual, and traditional actions all

seem to possess similar purposes and that instrumentally rational action can
be distinguished from these three other forms of action. Even though Weber
notes that value-rational, affectual, and traditional actions all ‘‘shade’’ into
one another,16 he also states that affectual and traditional actions are
‘‘incompatible’’ with instrumentally rational actions. And value-rational
actions are only vaguely similar to instrumentally rational ones because they
involve the ‘‘actions of persons who, regardless of possible cost to themselves,
act to put into practice their convictions regarding what seems to them to
be required of duty, honor (etc.).’’ Weber goes so far as to call value-
rational actions ‘‘irrational’’ in certain cases:
 Identity, morality, and social action 37
the more the value to which action is oriented is elevated to the status of
an absolute value, the more ‘‘irrational’’ in this sense the corresponding
action is. For, the more unconditionally the actor devotes himself to this
value for its own sake, to pure sentiment or beauty, to absolute good-
ness or devotion to duty.
(Weber 1968: 24–25, emphasis added)

I will return to how Weber disaggregates these ‘‘types’’ of action and discuss
how these types of action really are all actions which serve identity in the
same manner even if they appear to us to be based on dissimilar motives.
For now, it is important to note how ‘‘value’’-oriented or ‘‘affectual’’ or even
‘‘traditional’’ actions are held separate from those ‘‘instrumentally rational’’
actions of the individual, making one conclude that there exists no ‘‘value,
affect or tradition’’ in ‘‘instrumentally rational’’ actions.
According to Niebuhr there still exists in humans an ever-present tension
between moral and selfish action, what he termed the dialectic between
‘‘reason’’ and ‘‘impulse.’’ Yet individuals can, for a time, overcome the latter
because

[t]he force of reason makes for justice, not only by placing inner
restraints upon the desires of the self in the interest of social harmony,
but by judging the claims and assertions of individuals from the per-
spective of the intelligence of the total community.
(Niebuhr 1932: 30–31)

The key to constructing moral individuals, it is often thought, is to require

them to conform to the ideals ascribed by their constitutive groups. This
might work for a period of time for individuals (but it is unlikely to create
the basis for moral actions, as discussed on pp. 44–44), but this is even more
limited at the group level, for while reason creates a more moral (but never
an absolutely moral) individual

the limits of reason make it inevitable that pure moral action, particu-
larly in the intricate, complex and collective relationships, should be an
impossible goal. Men will never be wholly reasonable, and the propor-
tion of reason to impulse becomes increasingly negative when we pro-
ceed from the life of individuals to that of social groups, among whom
a common mind and purpose is always more or less inchoate and
transitory, and who depend therefore upon a common impulse to bind
them together.
(Niebuhr 1932: 35)

And even if individuals are shaped by community-determined ideals, what

guarantee is there that such ideals would be normally acceptable outside
that community? Would we always consider a community in harmony with
38 Identity, morality, and social action
itself to be a morally acceptable achievement? Niebuhr never missed an
opportunity to assert his skepticism of human relations, and on this ques-
tion he is unapologetic:

[W]hen it wants to make use of the police power of the state to subdue
rebellions and discontent in the ranks of its helots, it justifies the use of
political coercion and the resulting suppression of liberties by insisting
that peace is more precious than freedom and that its only desire is
social peace . . . the police power of the state is usually used prema-
turely; before an effort has been made to eliminate the causes of dis-
content, and . . . it therefore tends to perpetuate injustice and the
consequent social disaffections.
(Niebuhr 1932: 33–34)

The crowning achievement of the national community is that individuals

feel pressured, indeed pressure one another, to conform to national princi-
ples/rules/norms. This pressure is not only a constraint upon individual
freedom, but means that the police power of the state is needed only on rare
occasions. Individuals ‘‘internalize’’ the nation in their daily lives. Niebuhr’s
realism thus demonstrates how individual morality does not translate to
societal morality. In fact, such individual morality fuels the selfishness of
nations, which is ‘‘proverbial.’’ The entire fourth chapter of Moral Man
reveals this ironic connection. It is an individual’s ‘‘love and pious
attachment . . . to his countryside, to familiar scenes, sights and experiences’’
that create a ‘‘sentiment of patriotism . . . so unqualified, that the nation is
given carte blanche to use the power compounded of the devotion of indi-
viduals, for any purpose it desires’’ (Niebuhr 1932: 92).17 What is important
here, however, is that such cohesion does not preclude the possibility of
‘‘morality’’ – it just makes all nations selfish. Niebuhr does not state that
such selfishness, in individuals or nation-states, eliminates the possibilities
for moral action. The mere awareness by an agent of its limitation, the
admission of an agent that pure moral action is an impossibility, is the first
step, perhaps the most important and vital step, for an agent to realize the
possibilities of self-interest in a constructed sense of morality. This is the
position I take, for I think Niebuhr’s philosophy, if it sees morality in col-
lectives as at all possible, makes such morality dependent upon the indivi-
dual agent recognizing, through internal reflection and conflict, how moral
action is in such an agent’s self-interest.

Honor
An interesting way to view the tension in social theory between self- or
rational interest and collective or moral interest is by examining the posi-
tion of ‘‘honor’’-driven action. In short, honor-driven actions could be
either rational and self-regarding or collective and moral. For some, honor
 Identity, morality, and social action 39
has been viewed as an extension of individual pride. Honor might serve the
self-interest of an agent, in that by acting ‘‘honorably’’ that agent gains a
certain reputation or credibility which it can then use, as a currency, to
ensure its survival-based interests. Yet honor might also be dangerous, as
honor-driven states can compromise their survival by pursuing unnecessary
and ill-defined actions.18 Avner Offer (1995) provides some insight here,
explaining why honor-driven action might both compromise and ensure
survival. First, preserving honor in the short term may deter future would-
be attackers, thus honor ensures long-term survival. Second, honor is a
short-term motive, survival a long-term one, so states with a lack of firm
self-control may not recognize the long-term survival implications of their
short-term honor-driven needs.
The most detailed examination in IR theory of the concept of national
honor comes from Barry O’Neill’s (2001) seminal game-theoretic book
Honor, Symbols and War. O’Neill’s purpose is to demonstrate how state
agents use symbols to promote and protect national honor. Additionally,
O’Neill concludes that honor motivates even modern states in strategic
decisions.
While O’Neill links the use of symbols with honor, he does not isolate
honor as a concept in and of itself. But he does develop honor in a manner
that aids our understanding of it in the decisions of nation-states. First, he
asserts that when states stake their national honor on a policy their com-
mitments become more credible, which (for the game theorist) creates a
different approach for modeling deterrence, ‘‘by looking at how deterrence
is set up before a crisis, rather than during one’’ (O’Neill 2001: 245).
Second, O’Neill extracts three requirements of national honor: trueness to
one’s word, defense of home (or ally), and social grace. Additionally,
O’Neill posits that honor accrues to groups as well as individuals and that
preserving honor may require physical risk (O’Neill 2001: 87–88). Finally,
O’Neill implicitly proposes an internal and external component to honor –
that it actually structures state behavior in a community because ‘‘honor
obliges its possessor to show others that he possesses honor . . . the way
to show concern for others’ perceptions is to make a sacrifice’’ (O’Neill
2001: 245).
As it has been conceptualized, and as O’Neill’s comments above sug-
gest, honor produces competition and consensus: ‘‘Honor-driven worlds
are thus highly competitive, but they also require a high degree of con-
sensus and cooperation. Honor is only meaningful if recognized and
praised by others’’ (Lebow 2004: 347). For this position, honor is a
material – states competing for recognition through a ‘‘zero-sum game’’
(Donnelly 2000: 67).
This conceptualization of honor can hardly be so determined. States
seeking honor may be in competition with one another, and there is indeed
some ‘‘ranking’’ that may ensue to asses the honor of certain states over
others, but to assume that honor-driven worlds are highly competitive is to
40 Identity, morality, and social action
assume, ultimately, that states seek honor the same way they seek material
resources, in that there is a finite amount to be captured and/or that the
honor of one state can only be ascertained in relation to the honor of
others. Yet a state’s view of honor is also shaped by how other members of
its community – mainly (although not solely) other states – recognize it.
There is no reason to assume, a priori, that a world of states all pursuing
honorable actions will inevitably be a world consumed by conflict, unless
one only views honor as finite.19 Precisely because honor is highly subjective
(inter or intra) this suggests that there is no ‘‘finite’’ amount of honor to be
procured by states. Furthermore, if honor is connected to identity, and if
identity takes on a social component (as many IR scholars have asserted
already), then honor is a collective good, meaning that it can be shared and
acknowledged.20
A proper treatment of honor should also recognize how it is developed
through internal reflection and how it relates to an agent’s sense of Self.
In other words, contra Lebow, honor is not ‘‘only meaningful if recog-
nized and praised by others’’ (Lebow 2004: 347). In ancient Greece, honor
was the inverse of shame, yet neither shame nor honor depended solely
upon public judgment. Shame, as it is developed in an ontological security
account (as in Chapter 3), is a decidedly internal sense of lapse (as opposed
to guilt, which is a transgression over a recognized principle/law/norm of a
community). A state’s sense of both self- and collective identity is integral to
understanding its sense of honor. I assert in Chapter 5, additionally, how
honor-driven action not only is evident in antiquity, as commonly assumed
by today’s IR theorists, but colors the behavior of modern nation-states, like
Belgium in 1914.21 This more holistic conception of honor is developed in
Chapter 3, where it is explicated as fulfilling the ontological security drive of
states.

The danger of morality

The tension between of moral v. selfish interests envelops traditional IR
scholarship. This practice quickly developed into a desire by ‘‘realist’’
authors to separate ‘‘rationality-informed’’ from ‘‘morality-informed’’ for-
eign policies. The nation had no interest in pursuing policies which could
be considered ‘‘moral,’’ thus there were no moral national interests, just
interests. And these interests are derived from considerations of power, not
morality or ‘‘humanitarian’’ considerations. In general, the post-World
War II realists made several claims about ‘‘morality’’ in international poli-
tics. The first two include:

1 Because states are solely concerned with their own interests, morality is
not in a state’s interests.
2 States should not pursue policies driven by a sense of ‘‘morality.’’
Morality is dangerous!
 Identity, morality, and social action 41
George F. Kennan is but one realist who has pursued both of the above
arguments in his work. Kennan argued in 1985 that ‘‘[g]overnment is an
agent, not a principal. Its primary obligation is to the interests of the
national society it represents, not to the moral impulses that individual ele-
ments of that society may experience’’ (Kennan 1985/86: 206). And what are
these ‘‘interests’’ all states pursue? ‘‘The interests of the national society for
which government has to concern itself are basically those of its military
security, the integrity of its political life and the well-being of its people.
These needs have no moral quality’’ (Kennan 1985/86: 206). Set aside for
the moment how Kennan uses the term ‘‘integrity’’ to refer to one state
‘‘interest’’ and then in the next sentence claims that these state interests have
‘‘no moral quality.’’ Notice here how Kennan separates moral action (or
‘‘morality’’ in general) from the genuine ‘‘interests’’ of states; there is no
place for ‘‘morality’’ in international politics, only the pursuit of state
interests. Kennan also makes the same claims about ‘‘the situations that
arouse our discontent[, which] are ones existing, as a rule, far from our own
shores,’’ and states that actions meant to fix these situations, interventions,
‘‘can be formally defensible only if the practices against which they are
directed are seriously injurious to our interests, rather than just our sensi-
bilities’’ (Kennan 1985/86: 209).22
It becomes confusing how situations which ‘‘injure our interests’’ don’t
also ‘‘injure our sensibilities,’’ but there is, additionally, a larger incon-
sistency in this realist skepticism of ‘‘morality.’’ Recall the two claims that
the above realists make – that states never pursue moral policies and that
states should never pursue moral policies because such policies are ‘‘danger-
ous.’’ If the first proposition is true, the second would never have to be
stated. This inconsistency means that realism is less a set of assumptions
about state behavior and more a normative theory about the prudence of
states:

A common thread running through all the realist literature is the

rejection of traditional morality (in two ways) . . . first, it repudiates
traditional morality as an adequate guide to political action. Second,
realism appeals to ‘‘reason of state’’ rather than to the authority of an
inherited body of laws or moral precepts.
(Nardin 1992: 15)

Indeed, as David Campbell writes, Kennan’s, ‘‘problematization of the issue

thus requires one to overlook the way in which the ‘the national’ is itself a
‘moral’ construction’’ (Campbell 2001: 106).
How have IR theorists explained ‘‘humanitarian’’ actions which cannot be
explained by referring to some power-based national interest? Critics of the
realist view of state ‘‘interests’’ maintain that moral or humanitarian action
can be explained by definition as those which are in direct conflict with
self-interest. These critics, while seeking to make intelligible such action,
42 Identity, morality, and social action
actually reinforce to varying degrees the separation of such actions into
moral v. selfish spheres.
As I also discuss further in the context of the British case in Chapter 5,
Chaim Kaufmann and Robert Pape (1999) attempt to explain Britain’s
decision to enforce the banning of the Atlantic slave trade as a type of
‘‘costly moral action.’’ The authors’ domestic-liberal argument is that Brit-
ish parochial religious organizations advanced the anti-slave trade principle,
making it politically prudent for the prime minister to pursue an anti-slave
trade policy even though it was economically costly. Most importantly, they
define a moral action as one ‘‘that advances a moral principle rather than a
selfish interest’’ (as if advancing a moral principle cannot be in a state’s
‘‘self-interest’’) (Kaufmann and Pape 1999: 633). Robert Jackson (1995)
identifies three types of ‘‘responsibility’’ in international relations: national,
international, and humanitarian. Noteworthy are his definitions of national
and humanitarian forms of responsibility. The former states that the ‘‘stan-
dard of conduct [that] statesmen must adhere to in their foreign policies is
that of national self-interest and specifically national security’’ and the latter
that

statesmen [being] first and foremost human beings . . . they have a fun-
damental obligation not only to respect but also to defend human
rights around the world . . . characteristic of a world society in which
responsibility is defined by one’s membership in the human race and
thus by common morality.
(Jackson 1995: 115, 117, emphasis added)

Again, national interests in this case are defined by ‘‘self-interest,’’ whereas

humanitarian interests are those which reach some affective connection with
human beings, regardless of national origin. Jackson uses this typology of
responsibility to interpret three cases (Iraq–Kuwait, Somalia, and Bosnia)
of intervention and concludes that ‘‘in all these cases the ‘bottom line’ is
national responsibility’’ (Jackson 1995: 123).
Another example comes from Nicholas Wheeler, who distinguishes his
‘‘solidarist’’ English School theory of humanitarian intervention from the
more predominant Bullian ‘‘pluralist’’ argument. Wheeler sees such inter-
vention and the enforcement of human rights as in a state’s interest:

[T]here is good reason to endorse the solidarist claim that a foreign

policy that places the defense of human rights at the centre of its ethical
code will make an important contribution both to protecting national
interests and to strengthening the pillars of international order.
(Wheeler 2000: 302)

Finally, Martha Finnemore defines ‘‘humanitarian’’ intervention as ‘‘deploy-

ing military force across borders for the purpose of protecting foreign
 Identity, morality, and social action 43
nationals from man-made violence’’ (Finnemore 2003: 53).23 This is pre-
cisely what happened in the Kosovo operation, so according to Finnemore’s
definition we should consider Kosovo a humanitarian war. Again, Finne-
more’s definition sets up ‘‘humanitarian action’’ as in conflict with a state’s
self-interest, although her further explanation does get closer to my assertion
that ‘‘moral’’ or ‘‘humanitarian’’ actions are really actions meant to confront
what (certain states) consider identity threats. Finnemore states that
‘‘humanitarianism – its influence and definition – is bound up in other nor-
mative changes, particularly sovereignty norms and human rights norms.’’
Yet Finnemore goes on to posit: ‘‘the importance of viewing norms not as
individual ‘things’ floating atomistically in some international social space
but rather as part of a highly structured social context . . . without attending
to these relationships, we will miss the larger picture’’ (Finnemore 2003: 57).
Finnemore’s is in some ways a classic conventional, constructivist response
to realism (and liberalism), that states pursue ‘‘moral’’ or ‘‘humanitarian’’
interests as a result of changes in some international social context, such as a
system of collective identities that they share with other states (Wendt 1994).
The problem with these responses is that they are forced, by the nature of
realism’s place in IR theory, to justify when states are pursuing ‘‘normal’’
self-interest and when they are pursuing ‘‘other’’-regarding behavior. Indeed,
Wendt’s development of ‘‘collectivist’’ states is presented as just one of many
‘‘types’’ of state identities. For Wendt (1999), what defines a collectivist state
is its other-regarding behavior.24 These states are pulled in a direction of
other-help because of intersubjectively held understandings with other states.
So while I share many ontological assumptions with these examples of realist
critics, I do not agree that ‘‘moral’’ or ‘‘humanitarian’’ action needs to be
defined as that which compromises the self-interest of states.
In order to clarify this assertion, I’ll return to both Weber’s design for
disaggregating ‘‘types’’ of social actions and also Niebuhr’s social theory.25
Weber defines ‘‘instrumentally rational’’ forms of action when ‘‘the end, the
means, and the secondary results are all rationally taken into account and
weighed’’ (Weber 1968: 26). It is my argument that individuals do precisely
this prior to performing any of the four types of actions. As I argue in
Chapter 3, ‘‘affectual’’ or ‘‘traditional’’ or ‘‘value-rational’’ actions serve
self-identity interests, so it is likely that even those ‘‘types’’ of actions involve
cost/benefit analysis.
For instance, a ‘‘traditional’’ form of action will be difficult to break
because it serves some of our basic interests, as many ‘‘habits’’ do. Yet in a
condition of modernity (as Giddens argues), traditions, routines, or habits
(all forms of traditional action) are under constant attack from forces out-
side of our control (Giddens 1994), and these external situations challenge
the rationality behind our habits. Smoking is a habitual action, and for long
periods of time it may serve our interests (relieving stress etc.), yet we are
told that smoking is bad for our health. Over time, the costs and benefits of
smoking may change as we re-evaluate what it is doing to us and those
44 Identity, morality, and social action
around us (financially and physically), and so people change these habits for
perfectly ‘‘rational’’ reasons which may, or may not, have something to do
with how ‘‘socially’’ acceptable these habits are.
All actions involve analysis, so it is more proper to say that actors ‘‘ratio-
nalize’’ actions before, during, and after (through reinterpretations of his-
tory, for example) they are committed. Weber even states this about the
‘‘irrational’’ affectual form of action: ‘‘it is a case of sublimation when
affectually determined action occurs in the form of conscious release of
emotional tension. When this happens it is usually well on the road to
rationalization’’ (Weber 1968: 25). A logical conclusion is that since all
actors can ‘‘rationalize’’ any action, any one form of rationality is itself a
normative construct. When IR scholars refer to an actor who acted
‘‘rationally’’ they are really making a normative judgment about the pru-
dence behind his or her actions according to reified criteria. When scholars
talk about ‘‘rational action’’ they are really, in a sense, making a moral claim
about what actions states should pursue.

The moral possibilities of the Self

Michael Williams (and others) has noted that post-World War II realists
were really normative theorists who constructed a form of rational state
behavior in order to steer American policy makers away from what they
(Morgenthau, Wolfers, Kennan, and others) recognized as a dangerous
form of idealism driving foreign policy decisions. This was the true purpose
behind the realists’ scientific pursuits: ‘‘for Morgenthau, conceptual clarity
is essential since it makes possible the political judgment that (an opposi-
tional logic of identity) is not necessary’’ (Williams 2005a: 155).
Williams clarifies why realists since Morgenthau have so opposed ‘‘ideal-
ist’’ assumptions about states – their reading of what drives states is a nor-
mative position – and he generalizes about the fact there is an inconsistency
in ‘‘neorealist’’ theory on this point:

[O]ne simply cannot say that it is dangerous to believe in the practical

power of theory (‘idealism’) on the one hand, and then say that a par-
ticular theory (neorealism) guides practice and that it is practically
dangerous to change it, on the other. If neorealism is a (positivist)
theory of the objective dynamics of international security, then changing
the theory will make no difference to the reality.
(Williams 2005a: 151)

To sum up, while Morgenthau, Kennan, and Rice (see note 22), insist that
they are referring to an ‘‘objective reality’’ about state interests when they
argue against ‘‘moralism’’ or ‘‘humanitarianism’’ as being ‘‘dangerous,’’ they
are really referring to their own moral vision of (1) what drives state beha-
vior and (2) what should constitute the ‘‘national interests’’ of states to satisfy
those drives.
 Identity, morality, and social action 45
Furthermore, Morgenthau, like Niebuhr, noted how the assumption
made by citizens that the ideals for which they were fighting were not
only national, but international and absolute, led to a decrease in moral
action:

[T]he citizen of the modern warring nation . . . ’’crusades’’ for an

‘‘ideal,’’ a set of ‘‘principles,’’ a ‘‘way of life’’ for which he claims a
monopoly of truth and virtue . . . since it is this ‘‘ideal’’ and ‘‘way of
life’’ that he fights in whatever persons they manifest themselves, the
distinctions between fighting and disabled soldiers, combatants and
civilians – if they are not eliminated altogether – are subordinated to
the one distinction that really matters: the distinction between the
representatives of the right and the wrong philosophy and way of life.
(Morgenthau 2006: 249)

It was not, for Morgenthau, that states could not act morally, but that the
danger lay in the idea that national moral interest paralleled international
morality. Like the realists, I propose that states create their own morality for
self-interested purposes, but that, on the other hand, this ‘‘morality’’ is not
fixed or connected to objective ‘‘laws’’ of international politics. It is because
states create their own morality that such morality is so effective in devel-
oping state interests; because state actions are constituted by self-identity
needs, ‘‘morally created interests’’ are self-interests, and policies which serve
these interests are thus ‘‘self-help’’ policies. And if these are ‘‘self-help’’ policies,
states are pursuing a form of ‘‘rational’’ interest.
Of course, states might share similar senses of ‘‘moral obligation’’ (which
may look to us like a form of collective interest) and they may use argument
to form such a coalescence of interests. But because states themselves are the
primary (although not sole) source of authority regarding the deployment
of military forces, they must create their own individual interests, even in
situations where their forces are part of a coalition or collective security
contingent. State agents are forced to articulate a particular set of self-
interests, if for no other reason than to justify to their citizens that such
policy actions serve their needs as citizens of that state.
In sum, my ontological security argument and the IR realist views of
states share similar outlooks on state behavior: (1) states are self-interested;
(2) self-interest supersedes international morality or international law;26 (3)
states form security interests on the basis of their own self-interest. States
are ‘‘rational egoists,’’ but they base their ‘‘egoism’’ not upon (independent
and exogenous) material structures but upon self-identity needs, which
themselves vary from state to state and within the same state over time. Thus
what appears to scholars as the ‘‘other-regarding’’ behavior of ‘‘collectivist’’
states should really be referred to as self-help behavior for ontological security-
seeking states.
Additionally, this ontological security interpretation assumes, in contrast
to mainstream IR realists, that states are driven by needs other than survival.
46 Identity, morality, and social action
The pursuit of these self-identity needs includes a menu of choices for
action, from the deployment of military forces to the articulation of a nar-
rative of the self in the face of identity threats. Identity is a negotiation.
Thus states do not simply react (as they do in realist accounts) to external
events, but position their interests according to which version of state iden-
tity prevails in the face of these threats.
The primary intersection between political realism, writ large, and my
ontological security account can be captured by returning to Reinhold
Niebuhr. I think that, while Niebuhr remains a skeptic regarding issues of
societal morality, there is enough room in his social theory to accommodate
the reflexive possibilities of identity making (what appears to normative
theorists to be) ‘‘moral’’ action possible. Indeed, it is this deeper reading of
Niebuhr which unlocks the possibility of conflating moral with self-interest,
regardless of the level at which such social action operates.
We might begin with Niebuhr’s Nature and Destiny of Man, which
acknowledges the fact of human freedom:

Man’s freedom to transcend the natural flux gives him the possibility of
grasping a span of time in his consciousness and thereby of knowing
history. It also enables him to change, reorder and transmute the causal
sequences of nature and thereby to make history.
(Niebuhr 1943: 1)

Because we have agency, we have no guarantee that what we do will be the

right thing. But the fact that we have freedom to do the right thing means
that social actions are not predetermined: ‘‘[w]e know that we cannot purge
ourselves of the sin and guilt in which we are involved by the moral ambi-
guities of politics without also disavowing responsibility for the creative
possibilities of justice’’ (Niebuhr 1943: 284). This relates to Niebuhr’s
theology; if moral choice were absent, humans would never experience ‘‘sin
and guilt.’’ Indeed, the experience of sin or guilt is a celebration of our humanity
and our freedom.
Niebuhr’s assertion is that we have a ‘‘Self of our Making’’27 and the
possibility for moral action rests upon the individual reflecting upon his or
her position as a moral agent.28 Thus there may be occasions when this
individual disregards the principles of the community, yet such defiance
should not always be interpreted as a form of disloyalty, as evidenced by his
criticism of idealists and ‘‘sociological naturalists,’’ who

maintain that the voice of conscience which supports the more inclusive
objectives of reason is really the fear of the groups, and that the sense of
moral obligation is either the overt or covert pressure of society upon
the individual. Such a theory does not do justice to those types of
human behavior in which the individual defies his group. It is sometimes
maintained that such defiance must be interpreted as resulting from a
 Identity, morality, and social action 47
sense of loyalty to some community other than the one to which the
non-conformist individual belongs most immediately and most obviously.
(Niebuhr 1943: 36)

In this passage, we see that Niebuhr recognizes how social disapproval of

the non-conformist in a society results from a suspicion that such an indi-
vidual must be attracted to another community. Thus that individual is not
only a heretic but a threat to the social cohesion of his community, if not
necessarily a threat to the physical integrity of that community:

For defiance of a community, which is in control not only of the police

power but of the potent force of public approval and disapproval, in the
name of a community, which exists only in the moral imagination of the
individual . . . and has no means of exerting pressure upon him,
obviously points to a force of conscience, more individual than
social. . . . The social character of most moral judgments and the pres-
sure of society upon an individual are both facts to be reckoned with;
but neither explains the peculiar phenomenon of the moral life, usually
called conscience.
(Niebuhr 1943: 36–37, emphasis added)

This conscience exists in the individual 29, and Niebuhr goes to great pains to
state that the obligation toward the good for an individual is an obligation
as that individual’s ‘‘mind conceives it’’; such an obligation cannot ‘‘be
equated’’ with the Kantian sense of moral imperative. This is important, for
it suggests two things about Niebuhr’s social theory: (1) that humans are
capable of feeling a moral obligation; (2) that this morality is constructed
by the individual as a basis for his or her actions and thus should not be
equated with a universalist sense of the good. That does not mean that
humans do not attempt to universalize their sense of good to a higher
societal order. When Niebuhr states that ‘‘the root of imperialism is there-
fore in all self-consciousness’’ he means that agents (individuals or nation-
states) are attempting to construct a society that reflects their sense of
selves. The reverse – that individual agents conform to the principles of the
community for the same reason – is less likely to ‘‘give life a significance’’
(Niebuhr 1943: 42) beyond that of the individual.
Yet therein lies the quandary: if agents are only self-regarding, if we take
Augustinian ‘‘self-love’’ as a given, then how will agents ever transcend their
Selves to impact those around them for the express purpose of recreating
themSelves through those actions? Niebuhr recognizes this tension: ‘‘For the
kind of self-giving which has self-realization as its result must not have self-
realization as its conscious end; otherwise the self by calculating its
enlargement will not escape from itself completely enough to be enlarged’’
(Niebuhr 1953: 141). The answer, therefore, is that self-giving for the
purpose of self-realization is a process, not an end, toward re-making a Self
48 Identity, morality, and social action
that is never, will never be, fully formed. This does not mean that an agent’s
Self cannot be rigid and resistant to change. Agents seek out continuity, but
eventually in seeking out that continuity they constantly undermine it. Anxi-
ety surrounds our sense of Self; agents are never ontologically secure. But
they try and they constantly attempt to get to a more anchored position from
which their decisive actions have meaning. Man’s ‘‘mystery of his transcen-
dence over every process . . . points to another mystery beyond himself with-
out which man is not only a mystery to himself but a misunderstood being’’
(Niebuhr 1953: 143). Niebuhr’s words provide an appropriate transition to
Chapter 3, where the anxiety of the Self is engaged by focusing upon the
ontological security need of agents:

We refuse to admit the more general problem arising from the fact that
all human life is insecure and that the power of modern man has
aggravated and not mitigated this general insecurity. Faith does not of
itself solve any particular political issue. But a genuine faith which
transcends all vicissitudes of nature and history enables men to live
with the kind of courage which must enter into all particular solutions.
(Niebuhr, in Brown 1992: 45)

This process is multiplied, exponentially, at the level of states, where policy

decisions become actions, and where the outcomes of actions not only
become part of the national history books but also live within the memories
and discourses of their citizens.
Transformation does not mean transcendence – the ontological security-
seeking process of the Self must not necessarily depend upon the relation-
ship we have with others. As social psychologists assert, the Self is many-
sided, whether it is divided, as R.D. Laing (1969) posited, or ‘‘protean,’’ as
it was termed by Robert Jay Lifton. The latter

emerges from confusion, from the widespread feeling that we are losing
our psychological moorings. We feel ourselves buffeted about by
unmanageable historical forces and social uncertainties . . . but rather
than collapse under these threats and pulls, the self turns out to be
surprisingly resilient. It makes use of bits and pieces here and there and
somehow keeps going.
(Lifton 1993: 1)

Niebuhr and Weber’s theories suggest that it is possible to reconcile moral,

humanitarian, or even honor-driven actions with a self-regarding, self-
interest perspective, an account that unleashes the internal contradictions
nation-states (like Lifton’s protean Selves) possess as not only beneficial but
vital toward a transformation of action that might benefit the welfare of
large populations of people. It is precisely the fact that such a transforma-
tion is never guaranteed that makes this benefit possible in the first place.
3 The possibilities of the Self

It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but

worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity of
man! . . . See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not
being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of
himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant com-
pared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is
which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)

That’s easy for Thoreau to say, writing the above passage as he did during
his peaceful time living in solitude on the shores of Walden Pond. And we
know that Thoreau’s method for handling his own private tyranny set him
on a collision course with the laws of New England’s society – landing him
in jail for not paying his taxes. But assuming that the problematic Thoreau
speaks of here exists – that we are imprisoned by our own insecurities –
what insights can we draw from such a possible interpretation of the human
Self ? Can the individual transcend this ‘‘tyranny’’? If states possess self-
identities, and those identities carry with them similar forms of internal
emotional baggage, how does this influence the constructions of security
interests? Can such insecurities in states be transcended?
I concluded the last chapter by suggesting (via Weber and Niebuhr) that the
complex Selves of agents contain transformational processes. The process of
the construction of the Self for any individual is so complex that it might defy
understanding, yet by investigating particular components of that construction –
namely, how history, narrative, and memory relate to this realization of the
Self – this chapter argues that agents, including states, are challenged by
certain situations in their environment because those situations threaten
their self-identities. While these situations materially exist ‘‘outside’’ of
nation-states they must be experienced through those states’ sense of Self in
order to be confronted. Further, while state agents have the ability to
transform their actions so that they can confront self-identity threats, they
also can construct self-delusional narratives that become quite harmful to
their ontological security, and their ability to act, in the long term.
50 The possibilities of the Self
This chapter includes five sections. I first develop my ontological security
argument vis-à-vis what I term the ‘‘traditional security’’ account found in
much International Relations scholarship (see pp. 50–57). In the brief
second section (pp. 57–60) I review some other IR treatments of ontological
security in order to further clarify and distinguish my approach. Then, in
section 3 (pp. 60–63) I draw upon the insights of various social theories to
investigate the transformational possibilities that exist within agents, what I
term ‘‘the dialectics of the self.’’ Section 4 (pp. 63–68) discusses how ontologi-
cal security relates to the insights provided by certain bodies of critical IR
theory. In section 5 (pp. 68–75) I present four ‘‘components’’ of the ontolo-
gical security process at the level of nation-states:

1 material and reflexive capabilities (i.e. that a state’s material capabilities

influences its conception of its own self-identity);
2 crisis assessment (when confronted with ‘‘threats to identity’’);
3 the biographical narrative a state employs to justify and describe its
actions, where we can see how state agents ‘‘work out’’ their under-
standings of their state’s self-identity;
4 co-actor discourse strategies (used to generate ontological insecurity in a
state or states to ‘‘compel’’ a state to act according to its articulated
sense of ‘‘self-identity’’).

These components are illustrated in the case studies which are presented in
Chapters 4, 5, and 6.

Ontological security v. traditional security

Anthony Giddens defines ontological security as ‘‘a sense of continuity and
order in events’’ (Giddens 1991: 243). In most International Relations the-
ories, the concept of security has a basic meaning – that which ensures the
survival of states so that they can pursue rational ends: ‘‘survival is a pre-
requisite to achieving any goals that states may have . . . the survival motive
is taken as the ground of action in a world where the security of states is not
assured’’ (Waltz 1979: 92).1 We know that survival is important for ensuring
traditional security, because ‘‘in anarchy, security is the highest end. Only if
survival is assured can states safely seek such other goals . . . the goal the
system encourages them to seek is security’’ (Waltz 1979: 126). This culmi-
nates in a translation of the ‘‘national interest’’:

To say that a country acts according to its national interest means that,
having examined its security requirements, it tries to meet them. That is
simple, it is also important. Entailed in the concept of national interest
is the notion that diplomatic and military moves must at times be
carefully planned lest the survival of the state be in jeopardy.
( Waltz 1979: 134)2
 The possibilities of the Self 51
While Kenneth Waltz’s defensive realist statement is perhaps the most
famous on the ‘‘survival motive’’ of states, many IR scholars share his
emphasis on the survival motive. John Mearsheimer’s fourth assumption of
‘‘offensive realism’’ is ‘‘that survival is the primary goal of great powers . . .
states can and do pursue other goals, of course, but security is their most
important objective’’ (Mearsheimer 2001: 31). Mainstream constructivist
scholar Alexander Wendt (1999), following Alexander George and Robert
Keohane (1980), places ‘‘physical survival’’ as one of four national interests.
Hedley Bull (1977) acknowledges that principles and rules govern an
‘‘anarchical society,’’ but it should also be noted that he too shares this
‘‘survival’’ notion of security. For Bull, ‘‘unless men enjoy some measure of
security against the threat of death or injury at the hands of others, they are
not able to devote energy or attention enough to other objects to be able to
accomplish them’’ (Bull 1977: 5). Order defines international security, even
if that order is constituted by a perceived respect by states of the principle
of sovereignty.
When we say that an individual is ‘‘insecure,’’ however, we do not mean
that his or her survival is at stake, unless that individual is so unsure of him-
or herself that he or she is suicidal. Rather, ‘‘insecurity’’ in this sense means
individuals are uncomfortable with who they are. Ontological security, as
opposed to security as survival, is security as being.3 For Giddens, ‘‘to be
ontologically secure is to possess . . . answers to fundamental existential
questions which all human life in some way addresses’’ (Giddens 1991: 47).
Individual agents ‘‘reflexively monitor’’ their actions on a regular basis.
Secure agents reproduce these actions in the form of routines which con-
tribute to the sense of ‘‘continuity and order’’ that is so important to their
sense of self.
Critical situations threaten this continuity; such situations are ‘‘circum-
stances of a radical disjuncture of an unpredictable kind which affect sub-
stantial numbers of individuals, situations that threaten or destroy the
certitudes of institutionalized routines.’’ Thus these situations, by their mere
presence, represent identity threats. They produce anxiety, which is ‘‘a gen-
eralized state of the emotions of the given individual.’’ Fear is different,
since it is ‘‘a response to a specific threat and therefore has a definite object’’
(Giddens 1984: 61). Thus anxiety comes about when someone’s identity is
challenged; fear arises when someone’s survival is threatened.4
Certain IR scholars also address how routines contribute to a nation-
state’s primary goals. According to Bull, states value order (even more than
survival) because it leads to ‘‘predictability,’’ in the same way that indivi-
duals, as noted above, establish routines to cope with everyday life. This
sense of order establishes trust in the individual agent. Furthermore, ‘‘sur-
vival’’-based security structures represent reproduced action that is meant to
engender trust; ‘‘fear of loss generates effort’’ (Giddens 1991: 41). According
to Bill McSweeney, a state’s sense of security is highly contingent upon its
environment:
52 The possibilities of the Self
Table 3.1 Two conceptions of security
Traditional security Ontological security
Security as. . . Survival Being
Agent ‘‘structured’’ by. . . Distribution of power Routines and self-identity
Challenge/source of Fear (in the face of Anxiety (uncomfortable
insecurity threat) disconnect with Self)
Outcome of incorrect Physical harm Shame
decision in the face of
challenge
Measurement of outcome Change in material Difference between biographical
capabilities; deaths; narrative and actual behavior;
damage discursive remorse
Structural change. . . Change in distribution Routinized critical situations;
of power change in self-identity;
change in agent routine

If we allow that physical survival has a logical priority over other needs,
this makes it ‘‘primary’’ only in the uninteresting sense: it is a logical
pre-condition of doing anything that we remain physically alive and
capable of doing it . . . if we assume, with Robert Gilpin, that wherever
we live we live in a jungle, then it is reasonable to conclude that it is
complacency rather than rational assessment not to elevate physical
survival to the highest rank in the hierarchy of human needs. Con-
versely, it is paranoia to organize our lives on that assumption without
compelling evidence to support it.
(McSweeney 1999: 153)

Agents are driven by other forms of trust beyond the ability to survive are
motivated by this sense of being. Actions which serve these multivariate
motives must be produced (and reproduced) in order to maintain this sense
of trust. Ontological security comes about when agents continue to choose
actions which they feel reflect their sense of self-identity.
In a similar fashion, Huysmans titles physical security daily security,
which ‘‘consists of trying to postpone death by countering objectified
threats,’’ and defines ontological security as ‘‘a strategy of managing the
limits of reflexivity – death as undetermined’’ (Huysmans 1998: 242). Thus
ontological security, because it rests upon the fear of chaos and an uni-
dentifiable sense of threat, represents anxiety in the face of strangers. Armed
in part with the insights of Huysmans, I have detailed the differences
between traditional and ontological security in Table 3.1.

Shame
We can observe struggles with ‘‘self’’-identity through the biographical nar-
rative set up by agents (or at least a portion of that process). What is
 The possibilities of the Self 53
considered ‘‘shameful’’ varies not only between actors, but also amongst the
same actors during different periods: ‘‘much of what is considered shameful
in the contemporary world is the result of an historical process’’ (Tucker
1998: 75). Thus, individuals are ‘‘disciplined’’ into recognizing certain cri-
tical situations which threaten their sense of self-identity, although this
ability will be, as self-identity is, updated as the world around an agent
changes.
For Giddens, shame ‘‘bites at the roots of self-esteem’’ (Giddens 1984:
55).5 Guilt is ‘‘produced by the fear of transgression . . . in respect of pro-
blems of self-identity, shame is more important’’ (Giddens 1991: 64–65).
Individuals who break laws feel ‘‘guilty,’’ whereas no formalized rule needs
to be compromised for shame to be produced. Thus, shame is a much more
private sense of transgression and produces a deeper feeling of insecurity
because it means that someone behaved in a way he or she felt was incon-
gruent with their sense of self-identity.
Shame is a concept widely analyzed in the literature of social psychology.
Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason distinguish shame from guilt in the fol-
lowing manner:

Shame is an inner sense of being completely diminished or insufficient

as a person. It is the self judging the self. . . . Guilt is a painful feeling of
regret and responsibility for one’s actions, shame is a painful feeling
about oneself as a person.
(Fossum and Mason 1986: 5)6

Allan Young, in his work on traumatic memory, posits that individual

shame includes three components:

an act performed (or not performed) by the person who feels the shame;
a self-directed adverse judgment, tied to the idea that this individual now
feels he is not the kind of person he assumed himself to be, hoped to be,
or ought to be; and an audience before which he now feels degraded.
(Young 1995: 220)

The audience is a ‘‘moral community’’ through which shame is experienced.

While this component seems to imply that shame requires an audience in
order for it to be present in the Self of individuals, such a community need
not play that vital of a role in this process. The first two components –
performing an act and a self-directed adverse judgment – remain primary in
the process of shame.7
One can, albeit briefly, distinguish these metaphors of ‘‘shame’’ and
‘‘guilt’’ at the level of international politics using humanitarian intervention
for the purposes of illustration. Leaders from an external agency (states or
otherwise) do nothing illegal if they fail to rescue individuals suffering in a
state of genocide at the hands of their government, but they may feel shame.
54 The possibilities of the Self
A ‘‘humanitarian intervention,’’ on the other hand, may break the interna-
tional ‘‘norm’’ of sovereignty, thus making the intervening entity ‘‘guilty,’’
but such action may also be necessary to avoid shame because allowing an
event to unfold challenges the self-identity of the mediating party.8 Thus acts
which appear ‘‘humanitarian’’ are entirely rational for certain actors because
they fulfill a sense of self-identity and ensure a state’s ontological security.
‘‘Humanitarian’’ action reflects ‘‘self-help’’ impulses as much as it does some
affect or ‘‘other-help’’ emotion.
I have used the term ‘‘shame’’ as a metaphor for the radical disconnect
produced when national ontological security is disrupted. It is observed in
international politics when agents of states express discursive remorse for
something in their nation’s past. Such historical occasions are most relevant
when they are used to create meanings for the present actions of states. Yet
the recent and brief work on ‘‘vicarious shame’’ has demonstrated that there
exist occasions where individuals feel ashamed of the actions of their in-
group even when they personally were not responsible for those actions. This
suggests that individuals take both the good and the bad with ‘‘being part
of a group’’ – a nation-state being one form of group identity – and that the
emotional processes of individuals exist at the level of groups.
Work on vicarious shame provides two insights relevant to the process of
shame in groups. First, it further distinguishes shame from guilt (or a
transgression of a publicly constructed principle), in that ‘‘people tend to
feel ashamed when they attribute the cause of a negative event to something
about who they are, rather than just something that they did’’ (Johns et al.
2005: 332). Individuals feel ashamed about both their actions and how
those actions relate to their sense of Selves. Second, vicarious shame
demonstrates that ‘‘distanciation’’ (discussed on pp. 61–62) is a natural, and
necessary, reaction to a self-identity threat, and ‘‘shame is the emotion that
most commonly motivates a desire to distance oneself from a shame-indu-
cing event.’’ As vicarious shame is produced by the actions of a deviant in-
group member, individuals can choose to ‘‘distance themselves from the
wrongdoer’’ (Johns et al. 2005: 335). In the ontological security process, this
distancing can be a productive step as well, in that only by an agent’s dis-
tancing him- or herself either temporally or spatially (from the deviant act)
does the agent make the divided Self an object and thus enable him- or
herself more ‘‘objectively’’ to assess that Self.
This work on vicarious shame cannot yet tell us whether higher levels of
in-group identification (more salient group identities) stimulate or inhibit
shame and also which actions might follow an event of vicarious shame.
Additionally, whereas the work in social psychology differentiates shame
from other emotions (such as anxiety), putting them into discrete categories,
ontological security sees shame, anxiety, memory, and narrative as con-
nected components of the process for securing self-identity through time.
In reflexively monitoring their behavior, state agents produce a (dis-
cursive) biographical narrative to explain their actions. Shame occurs when
 The possibilities of the Self 55
actors feel anxiety about the ability of their narrative to reflect how they see
themselves; or, put another way, when there exists too much distance
between this biographical narrative and self-identity. We recognize shame as
a discursive expression of remorse or regret, and it is not something ‘‘real’’
so much as a shared ‘‘experience.’’9 Shame strips away the ontological
security that agents develop in their attachments to routines. It is therefore a
radical disruption of the Self.
Shame exists in two (non-exclusive) forms – retrospective shame (those
moments when we look back upon our history with horror at what our
behavior represents in relation to how we see ourselves) and prospective
shame (an ‘‘at the time’’ counterfactual that agents perform to address
which outcomes might follow, in self-identity terms, if a certain action is
chosen over others). Both processes can be observed in the discourse of
agents. In the case of nation-states, this does not mean that a state agent
issuing such regret is taking personal blame for such an identity disconnect,
but it does imply that the speaker, as a member of the nation-state, experi-
ences that disconnect and in turn seeks to see such self-identity ‘‘disrup-
tions’’ repaired in current and future foreign policy actions.
This is what constructivists mean when they say that identities and interests
are ‘‘co-constituted.’’ In this case, the biographical narrative is a constitutive
device of comparison that can be utilized by external actors to identify the
discrepancies which arise from a narrative that cannot adequately link, in a
plausible way, an agent’s actions with the content and meaning of that jus-
tificatory self-narrative.

Memory, history, and shame

Because history both is used in and consumes a biographical narrative, the
struggle for ontological security is intertwined with the ability of agents to
fixate on collective memories: ‘‘The self is not some kind of mini-agency
within the agent. It is the sum of those forms of recall whereby the agent
reflexively characterizes ‘what’ is at the origin of his or her action’’ (Giddens
1984: 51). This view of history can be distinguished first from a structural
(including Marxist or Hegelian) or liberal-progressive view, on the one hand,
which takes continuity through time for granted, or explains such continuity
through a linear connection with the Classical world.10 In other words,
ontological security is not an account of history as ‘‘progress.’’ While the
state Self can be manipulated, changed, reflexively reformed, there is no
linearity to the development of a state’s self-identity. It is also to a lesser
degree set apart from post-structural views of history, which seek to reveal
discontinuity and social ruptures. For the post-structuralist, any structural
logic or consistency that we recognize is imposed by those in power (includ-
ing those ‘‘doing history’’) to discipline the social order in their favor,
thus reproducing the conditions that perpetuate their dominance. As I
mention on p. 65, ontological security still acknowledges the important role
56 The possibilities of the Self
‘‘deconstructive’’ practices can play in the self-identity process – such prac-
tices are necessary for ‘‘healthy’’ states to secure ontological security through
time. Nevertheless, for ontological security scholars, the project of self-identity
is neither progressive nor continuously ruptured, but reflexively, inter-
subjectively constructed over time.11
In recalling past events, and in organizing those self-relevant events into a
narrative, social agents not only provide particular interpretations of his-
tory, but are enlivening history by using it to create the basis for action.
Having a history is what makes us recognize our agency, as Kratochwil
recently reminded us:

The problem is even more serious since those who cannot recall the past
from the ever-changing problems of the present and connect it mean-
ingfully to a future are impaired in their agency and therefore prone to
misunderstand the issues and choices that have to be made. While his-
tory cannot be the ‘‘teacher’’ of all things practical, the critical reflec-
tion on our historicity is an indispensable precondition for grasping our
predicament as agents.
(Kratochwil 2006: 20–21, emphasis added)

Note that there is nothing ‘‘natural’’ about history; history, as Collingwood

(1946) informed us more than half a century ago, is an idea. It is awakened
in our memory as a collection of experiences.12 Freeman eloquently sum-
marizes this process:

Most of us, therefore, have faith in the existence of our selves, and we
carry this faith along with us wherever we go. Concomitant with this
abiding faith in our selves, moreover, is the faith we also place in our
own histories, seeing them, once more, as perhaps the most suitable
means of accounting for these selves: when asked who and what we are
and how we might have gotten that way, we ordinarily turn to our
personal past for possible answers. Far from being a merely arbitrary
choice, this is precisely how it must be, at least for now. The idea of the
self, as we have come to know it, and the idea of history are in fact
mutually constitutive.
(Freeman 1993: 28)

The construction of our self-relevant history is a double-edged sword, however.

Because it organizes the past for the context of the present, this construction
gives a priori meaning to our actions – it motivates and stimulates agents.13
Yet such constructions also shackle our future actions if these narratives
become so dominant that they inhibit counter-interpretations from forming.
History is a collection of experiences and memory is the conduit through
which we recall those experiences, but traumatic experiences disrupt the
ability to channel certain events into a coherent narrative. Jenny Edkins
 The possibilities of the Self 57
(2003) notes how traumatic experiences ‘‘destabilize’’ linear time, thus
requiring the latter to be ‘‘reinstalled’’ through narration – which is itself a
political act. These traumatic experiences are also ‘‘openings’’ where poli-
tical contestations ensue over the meaning of the linear narrative itself.14 A
historical narrative ‘‘provid[es] comforting stories in times of increased
ontological insecurity and existential anxiety.’’ Traumas are useful here as
well, while they disrupt this linear narrative, they can also be ‘‘chosen’’
resources used by agents to synthesize that narrative, providing ‘‘the linking
objects for later generations to be rediscovered, reinterpreted, and reused’’
(Kinnvall 2004: 755; see also Volkan 1997). One locus for the ‘‘social’’ in
ontological security processes exists here, in an agent’s sense of history. Our
connection to our past and the past of our fellow group members, our
ancestors, our national treasures, etc. provides us with the kinship that is
important for our state of being as social agents.15 At the level of groups
and nation-states, this is even more comforting because it organizes group
behavior, a narrative anthropomorphizing ‘‘the group’’ into a coherent
whole (as mentioned in Chapter 1).16

Ontological security in International Relations theory

Several theorists have explored, to differing degrees, the concept of ontolo-
gical security at the level of nation-states. Alexander Wendt lists ontological
security as one of his ‘‘five material needs’’ that all individuals seek, in his
formulation ‘‘toward a rump materialism (II).’’ Yet while material factors
are important to the construction of self-identity, I am not clear how ‘‘stable
expectations about the natural and especially the social world’’ combine into
a material need (Wendt 1999: 131, emphasis added). Nevertheless, Wendt’s
Social Theory suggests one way in which ontological security ‘‘matters’’ to
nation-state identity.
As mentioned previously in the second section of the chapter (see p. 52),
Jeffrey Huysmans’ (1998) seminal article was the first to introduce
ontological security. Huysmans posited at the time that ‘‘much of IR has
neglected the question of ontological security.’’ Several insights could be
developed from Huysmans’ perspective – one of which was noted above,
namely that his distinction between ‘‘daily’’ security and ‘‘ontological’’
security was not only analytically useful but theoretically provocative in that
the problem of security, as it were, had to be considered from both per-
spectives. A second important insight that will be noted in more detail in
section four of this chapter (see pp. 63–68) is that Huysmans demonstrates
the will of states to ‘‘homogenize’’ national identity, thus marginalizing cer-
tain ‘‘strangers’’ requires a concerted effort because strangers do not so
much challenge the physical security of nation-states as they threaten their
order and legitimacy. Thus Huysmans’ brief but compelling introduction of
ontological security begins to resolve some inherent tensions that exist
between it and critical theory.
58 The possibilities of the Self
Jennifer Mitzen (2006a, 2006b) has most directly confronted ontological
security in International Relations. Her recent article has a similar pur-
pose to that of this book – to demonstrate that ontological security
motivates state behavior. Like Huysmans (1998), McSweeney (1999), and
Manners (2001) before her, Mitzen posits that states are motivated by
more than just physical security. Like myself (see also Steele 2005), she
sees ontological security as a constant need of states. The variance in
security-seeking behavior of states arises from the different levels of attach-
ment states have to routinized relationships with ‘‘significant others.’’ Most
impressively, Mitzen demonstrates how states can be ‘‘routinized’’ into
harmful, self-defeating relationships, namely security dilemmas, because of
rigid routines.
Mitzen’s is an important comprehensive development of ontological
security in IR theory, but it differs in several respects from the ontological
security view laid out in this book. As I mentioned briefly in Chapter 1,
Mitzen’s omission of narrative is a critical one considering the importance
narrative has for self-identity. Other scholars working on ontological secur-
ity centralize the role of narrative in the self-identity process, suggesting that
by organizing history in a particular fashion narrative constructs a salient
group self-identity (Kinnvall 2004). Thus, it begins to disentangle the
‘‘aggregation problem,’’ discussed in Chapter 1, of ascribing human qualities
to nation-states (or any group, for that matter). Emphasizing narrative in an
ontological security account, furthermore, allows theorists to utilize the
well-established body of scholarship that already exists in IR theory
regarding narrative and discourse. In my view, the ability of the narrative to
organize the Self is integral to any understanding of ontological security. In
short, it is both an ontological and methodological referent that Mitzen
seems to overlook.
A second difference between Mitzen’s account and mine is that hers is
somewhat dependent upon the social context. An ontological security
approach that sees self-identity as socially dependent upon others is not
without its merits, of course, and Mitzen defends this emphasis throughout
her article – focusing at one point on the difference between ‘‘intrinsic’’ and
‘‘role’’ identities: ‘‘socializing type [or state identities] is important for my
argument because if types did not depend on social relationships, then states
could not become attached to those relationships and ontological security
would not give purchase on the security dilemma’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 354,
emphasis added). According to Mitzen, ‘‘realists assume that type is self-
organized . . . rather than constituted by relationships. This means that type
does not depend on other states but is internally generated and upheld’’
(Mitzen 2006b: 355). Indeed, as she elaborates, the ‘‘realist’’ view of type
sounds much like the view of ontological security that I develop in this book:
‘‘For realists type is an aspiration, a cognitive conception of what the state
would like to be if conditions were right, in short, a ‘possible self.’’’ The
problem with this view, according to Mitzen, is that ‘‘conditions might not be
 The possibilities of the Self 59
right, and then the state might have to act as if it is aggressive, even though it
really wants nothing more than security’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 355).
This is, indeed, a rather compelling position in that Mitzen demonstrates
how even the most atomistic versions of realism are still consumed by a
social component, thus rendering the self-interest of ‘‘survival’’ dependent
upon ‘‘defining the need as a goal in terms of the meanings and practices of
that system’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 356). This may partially assist us in under-
standing why agents engage in self-negating or hypocritical actions.17 Yet
in emphasizing this level of social dependence, Mitzen seems to overstate
the role of others in the ontological security process: ‘‘a state cannot ‘be’
or sustain its type without its strategic partner acting in a certain way
(recognizing it)’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 358).
This is not to deny the importance that the intersubjective web of mean-
ings which constitute international society has upon nation-state behavior
and ostensibly state identities. Neither does it deny how important a role is
to a state’s sense of Self. Indeed, that is the conclusion drawn in the Belgian
case, where Belgium’s sense of external honor was secured by its decision to
reinforce its sovereign identity as an ‘‘independent’’ member of Europe. I
would agree with Mitzen that an agent must make sense of the social world
to ensure ontological security. But this does not mean that this agent is
‘‘dependent’’ upon the social world, in that (1) the screening of ‘‘relevant’’
elements of that social world is in part constituted by an agent’s sense of
Self and (2) what those elements are, what produces them, what ‘‘causes’’
them – in short, how an agent ‘‘makes sense’’ of those elements – is in part
also dependent upon an agent’s updating of information. Regarding
‘‘others,’’ how do states develop a ‘‘strategic partner’’ in the first place?
When and why do they become ‘‘attached’’ to the other? What else can
develop that understanding of the Them or They if it is not the Us or We?
Second, Mitzen’s account profoundly obscures the varying actions which
follow in turn from the different possible Selves of agents and it thus
ignores the transformational possibilities that exist within the Self of states,
and the fact that when agents are swamped by social dependencies they are
actually sacrificing their agency. To the extent that there is ‘‘causality’’ in the
ontological security process (a position I do not take in this book), Mitzen
has the direction of such causality backwards.
Furthermore, depending upon which version of ‘‘realism’’ one uses, it is
hardly the case that realists view the Self as an intrinsic identity. As
demonstrated in Chapter 2, realists like Niebuhr acknowledge the multi-
faceted possibilities of the agents’ Selves. Additionally – and this is important
for my ontological security argument – if agents are ‘‘self-interested’’ and
value their freedom they are radically sacrificing both by becoming ‘‘depen-
dent’’ upon social relationships. Wendt acknowledges this problem as well:

Notwithstanding its potential benefits, identifying with other actors

poses a threat to this effort, since it means giving others’ needs standing
60 The possibilities of the Self
alongside one’s own, and the two will often be at least partly in conflict.
What is best for the group is not always best for the individual. In order
to get past this threat, which is the source of egoism and ‘‘Realism,’’
actors must trust that their needs will be respected, that their indivi-
duality will not be wholly submerged by or sacrificed to the group.
Creating this trust is the fundamental problem of collective identity
formation, and is particularly difficult in anarchy, where being engulfed
can be fatal.
(Wendt 1999: 357–358)

It is my view that the desire for independence, the salience of the nation-
state form of organization, and the power of memory and organizing that
memory through a historical narrative all serve to motivate nation-states to
organize their Selves first and foremost, getting that Self in order in order to
interact with the ‘‘others’’ of international politics. Nation-states recognize
how much agency they sacrifice by becoming attached to ‘‘significant
others,’’ and if that was to be the case the anxiety which consumes them as
social agents would be radically reduced. Indeed, nation-states attempt to
shift the ‘‘moral’’ blame upon interconnected others in order to absolve
themselves of responsibilities for past (and future) actions. Yet that is a
political strategy to cover the deeper dramas of the anxiety of the self. The
need for self-identity is largely consumed by these internal dramas and so in
this respect I suppose I am a realist. Other scholars working on ontological
security also recognize that ‘‘too strong an emphasis on social context tends
to ignore the emotional dimension of subjectivity’’ (Kinnvall 2004: 752). As
I have mentioned previously, ontological security does require sociation,
whereby agents can realize their self-identities through the interaction of
others. But self-identity is not always consumed by that interaction, at least
at the level of nation-states.

Dialectics of the Self: the benefits of the anxious agent

I agree with Mitzen that rigid routines constrain states in their ability to
‘‘learn’’ (Mitzen 2006b: 364). And I agree that there exists the need for what
she terms ‘‘flexible’’ routines that ‘‘permit reflection’’ and increase ‘‘learn-
ing.’’ I do not think, however, that these routines must only be constructed
intersubjectively. I would conjecture that the production of ‘‘flexible rou-
tines’’ depends upon the varying success agents have in the process of
transforming their Selves. Furthermore, I do not think that the over-
whelming ‘‘fear of chaos’’ that drives agents in their social construction of
routines necessarily needs to be overcome. Admittedly, an individual’s
capacity for agency is somewhat dependent upon routines that shield him or
her from the constant barrage of ‘‘dangers’’ which constitute his or her
environment (Mitzen 2006b: 346). Yet what keeps these routines going, what
motivates agents, what reminds them that they are human, is the anxiety of
 The possibilities of the Self 61
daily life.18 While agents seek to overcome this anxiety through reflexive rou-
tines, it is never completely resolved. The anxiety is precisely what motivates
the agent to perform those actions. Without reflection an agent has less
motivation to act. The anxiety, the angst which consumes individuals, is
necessary for them to ‘‘go forward’’ – it is a ‘‘question of being’’ that refers to
‘‘not just what should be done for human beings to survive in nature, but how
existence itself should be grasped and ‘lived’’’ (Giddens 1991: 224).
We feel anxiety not about those things that are outside of our control, but
about those we perceive to be in the realm of our possible agency. One
could look at this condition of freedom in two respects, as Kierkegaard
does. On the one hand, ‘‘dread’’ or anxiety results from the ‘‘dizziness’’ of
freedom (Kierkegaard 1966: 55). We thus construct routines to protect
ourselves from this dizziness – routines establish order and predictability.
Thus a deeper issue to consider with ‘‘rigid’’ routines is that they not only
prevent us from reforming our actions, they inhibit our humanity. They
turn us from subjects to objects. It is precisely because routines reduce our
freedom that we find them comforting. They reduce the number of things
about which we can feel anxious. Here, anxiety (or dread) can be dis-
tinguished from fear we experience the former because we are human, and
thus its presence is a celebration of our humanity:

Dread . . . is quite different from fear and similar concepts which refer
to something definite, whereas dread is freedom’s reality as possibility
for possibility. One does not therefore find dread in the beast, precisely
for the reason that by nature the beast is not qualified by spirit.
(Kierkegaard 1966: 38, emphasis added)19

According to Heidegger, the urgency behind our creation of being comes

from the recognition of death. But can this be the case with nation-states? If
nation-states are indeed consumed by survival, as the traditional security
literature assumes, then the urgency is not for being but for simply existing.
That is the beginning and the end of what motivates states – physical
security. There is no acceptance of mortality in nation-states, as opposed to
individuals. So does this mean that for nation-states because mortality is
not accepted ‘‘authentic life’’ is never possible? Perhaps, but there exists an
urgency for the agents of states – all of which are mortal and recognize this.
The urgency is the ‘‘mark on history’’ they wish to make as agents of states.
Routines maintain the semblance of order, yet when such routines are
mere performances agents have two avenues they can pursue. They can
recognize a disconnect (between the performance and their ‘‘true’’ sense of
Self), thus repairing their ontological security system. This can be accom-
plished through distanciation, a term Freeman borrows from Ricoeur and
defines as ‘‘the need for divesting oneself of those modes of experience that,
by virtue of their inadequacy, have prevented one from moving forward as
readily as one might’’ (Freeman 1993: 38, emphasis added).20 In order to
62 The possibilities of the Self
jettison the damaging aspects of the Self, actors must evaluate those aspects
from a distanciated place. As actions produce shame,21 so they constitute
the distanciation that helps repair ontological security.
Thus, we are left trying to understand, to ‘‘corral’’ those actions and
their consequences back into our narrative and how that fits into the
story of our Self. There is a tension here, of course, regarding this space
that is created through distanciation. Actors cannot become too distanced
from their Selves for the simple reason that they would be unable to gen-
erate the necessary affective attachment. In its most extreme form, these
actors would face a lacerated, decapitated, sense of being – what Laing
refers to as the ‘‘disembodied self.’’22 Even if they preserve that affective
connection, they also cannot become so reflective that they endanger the
‘‘body’’ through ‘‘paralysis by analysis,’’23 or an over-excavation of and thus
dwelling upon the self-negating action.24 This form of subjective flexibility
(as opposed to ‘‘flexible routines’’) refers to the ability of agents to resolve
this tension.25
A second possibility is that agents could continue to pathologically ignore
such a disconnect. These are ontological security ‘‘problem agents’’ that are
ignorant of their sense of Selves by trying to perform for others. It is
appropriate here to note sociologist Erving Goffman’s position that agents
separate their sense of Selves into ‘‘front’’ and ‘‘back’’ regions, much like a
theatrical performance gathers its resources from a backstage that the
audience never sees and thus never knows (Goffman 1973: esp. ch. 3). This
‘‘performance of an individual in a front region may be seen as an effort to
give the appearance that his activity in the region maintains and embodies
certain standards’’ (Goffman 1973: 107).

A back region or backstage may be defined as a place, relative to a

given performance, where the impression fostered by the performance is
knowingly contradicted as a matter of course. . . . In general, of course,
the back region will be the place where the performer can reliably
expect that no member of the audience will intrude.
( Goffman 1973: 112–113)

The backstage, in other words, is a ‘‘part’’ of the individual that is not

public. Giddens (1987: 162) agrees with some of this – backstage areas are
places where agents can repair their self-conceptions. Yet Giddens asserts
(contra Goffman) that the carefully crafted ‘‘performance’’ is itself impor-
tant to an agent’s self-identity:

[W]hy, in fact, should they bother to devote the attention they do to

such performances at all? . . . The sustaining of ontological security
could not be achieved if front regions were no more than facades. . . . It
is precisely because there is generally a deep, although generalized,
affective involvement in the routines of daily life that actors (agents)
 The possibilities of the Self 63
do not ordinarily feel themselves to be actors (players), whatever
the terminological similarity between these terms.
(Giddens 1984: 125, emphasis added)

What social theorists have named this second condition varies. As Giddens
notes, Laing calls the ‘‘radical . . . discrepancy between accepted routines
and the individual’s biographical narrative’’ a false self (Giddens 1991: 59).
Betty Jean Lifton prefers the term ‘‘artificial self,’’ one that is not ‘‘com-
pletely true or completely false,’’ but sounds much like the same delusional
version of Laing’s false self:

The Artificial Self becomes almost selfless in its desire to please.

Wanting to fit in at any cost, it will not deny its own needs for the
sake of others. It is afraid to express its real feelings of sadness or
anger, for fear of losing the only family it has. . . . The Artificial Self
may behave like the perfect child but knows itself to be an imposter.
Having cut off a vital part of the self, it may experience an inner dead-
ness.
(Lifton 1996: 21)

This is the more pronounced, and depressing, possibility in the ontological

security process – that agents become so consumed with social dependence
that they lose their self-identity. This does not mean that all agents, by
socializing with others, will inevitably become ‘‘artificial,’’ since there are
several intersubjective media through which agents seek ontological
security – such as language and a ‘‘thin’’ lifeworld from which to commu-
nicate to others ways in which the agent’s interactive responses might fulfill
their self-identity needs. The promising (and daunting) possibility here is
that the dialectic of the Self provides agents with the ability to abandon
those intrinsic elements which contaminate the realization of a healthy sense
of ontological security. The fact that ‘‘healthy’’ ontological security can
never be realized, the constant angst which agents carry with them all of
their days, is the precise condition which makes this cathartic abandonment
possible.26 As I discussed in depth in Chapter 2, such an individualistic
ethos does not preclude moral action. It may even be the necessary condi-
tion for it.

Ontological ‘‘critical security’’ theory

Several bodies of critical IR theory assist the ontological security perspec-
tive. These insights derive from the tension which exists from the possibility
that ontological security drives in nation-states can imprison and/or mar-
ginalize internal and ‘‘external’’ others. The post-structuralist takes Charles
Tilly’s observation that ‘‘war made the state and the state made war’’27 a
step further, arguing that this use of violence was more than just an exercise
64 The possibilities of the Self
in the securing of an area, but was, and still is, an exercise of power through
exclusion, a ‘‘civilizing process’’ whereby the State establishes order
(Campbell 1998; Weber 1995; Rae 2002: esp. 32–38).28 The nation-state
wields this violence apparently to ensure the physical security of its mem-
bers, although which members’ security is ensured is itself extremely selec-
tive. Zygmunt Bauman notes how the nation-state, as the artifact of
modernity, has used this violence to homogenize populations (as during the
Third Reich), thus making ‘‘othered’’ groups more imperiled than they had
been at any other time in history. One dark side of a nation-state’s ‘‘self-
identity’’ realization is that its agents can use such violence as a ‘‘vehicle of
social integration,’’ in order to ‘‘defuse the danger that a ‘foreigner inside’
cannot but present to the self-identity and self-production of the host
group’’ (Bauman 1990: 34).
Ontological security, as an approach, because it ascribes self-identity to
nation-states, an individual ‘‘social reality’’ of the nation-state as a person,
might be said to reify the state itself, thereby cementing (if not endorsing)
all of its inadequacies to address, in varying ways, the suffering of
humans. I do indeed acknowledge that nation-states, in seeking to homo-
genize a ‘‘corporate’’ self-identity, might satisfy the drive for ontological
security in marginalizing and internally violent ways. It is thus for this
reason that we cannot ‘‘solve’’ the aggregation problem (in the manner that
Mitzen attempts) by assuming that ‘‘states seek ontological security’’
because doing so ensures the ontological security of individual citizens or
subjects (Mitzen 2006b: 352). Huysmans’s (1998) position is quite useful
here, in that states view internal others as threats to self-identity precisely
because they are strangers, disturbing the ‘‘predictability and continuity’’ of
a state’s self-identity through time, and thus a form of ‘‘chaos’’ that pre-
cludes their realization of ontological security. Thus, instead of reifying
nation-states, ontological security can be used to understand how ontologi-
cal, rather than or in addition to physical, insecurity drives states to pursue
such ‘‘civilizing’’ projects that endanger swaths of their own populations.
This can be clarified by returning to the distinction between identifiable
‘‘objects’’ that threaten the physical security of the state (external enemies)
and internal strangers who cause anxiety rather than fear, but threaten the
legitimacy of that nation-state’s internal order. Since ontological security,
according to Huysmans, is concerned with ‘‘how to order social relations
while simultaneously guaranteeing the very activity of ordering itself,’’ states
concerned with ontological security will ‘‘identify’’ ‘‘potentially disturbing
strangers who, by being both inside and outside, can render problematic the
viability of clear boundary drawing, [and] of providing order’’ as enemies.
Thus, we recognize how the need for ontological security is satisfied by
‘‘securitizing’’ the unknown into an identifiable threat (Huysmans 1998:
242) by turning anxiety into fear. Such a possibility modifies the notion
that ‘‘state security and survival are the ultimate proof of state sovereignty’’
(Jackson 2000: 207).
 The possibilities of the Self 65
Additionally, the status of the nation-state in providing elements of
‘‘human security’’ varies. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
other non-state actors, including ‘‘terrorist’’ organizations, to the extent that
one assumes they are separate from state structures, at times take over some
of these welfare functions of states.29 And some ‘‘states’’ aren’t even states,
at least enough to develop a sense of self-identity that can be manipulated
into assisting those in need. In essence, certain states are fractured or exist
in ‘‘quasi’’-form (see Jackson 1990).
What ontological security does propose is that transnational actors like
NGOs and terrorist organizations can increase the reflexive capabilities of
states by constructing a critical ‘‘counter-narrative’’ to the vision a state has
of itSelf. This counter-narrative can stimulate a more reflective distanciation
by revealing the manner in which a targeted state’s practices exclude or
subjugate certain populations. What is reified in ontological security research
is not the ‘‘state’’ per se but the idea of the state or, more importantly, the
self-identity of the state that takes on a ‘‘reality’’ for its citizens. It is the
placement of the ‘‘self’’ of the state in international society that matters for
the security interests of states, and this Self can be problematized.
A critical ontological security account might focus on both the social
construction of self-identity and also how that self-identity can be pro-
blematized, and even deconstructed, as it ‘‘is the very deconstructability of
the state that provides some possible avenues for alternative action’’ (Lang
2002: 28). As agents we wish to avoid that which might produce shame; we
cover it up, we obfuscate, we rewrite texts, we discipline with talking points.
But adept actors can uncover those processes as if they are artifacts.30 This
is the benefit of a post-structural archaeology for ontological security. We
need to uncover the processes to experience shame – we need to know who
ordered which policy and why, who willfully ignored what and why, for
whom and for what purposes. This will not always be possible, again,
because that which makes routines so vital – their ability to defend us from
external identity threats – also makes them the key obstacle to recognizing
the dire consequences our past and current actions have had for our even-
tual Selves.31 In short, routines discipline and punish the self, obscuring
alternative paths for action.
By drawing a connection between the practices of a targeted state and its
professed self-identity, by focusing on the inconsistencies between the
actions of a state and the ‘‘biographical narrative’’ that state uses to justify
those actions, critical actors can ‘‘lay bare’’ the Self of a state. This decon-
structive element of ontological security is the chief affinity with post-
structural approaches through which the particularly negative view taken by
critical theory of the nation-state might be ameliorated.32
Another distinction between post-structuralism and ontological security
originates from the earlier discussion of anxiety, freedom, and agency. Most
post-structuralists would posit that individuals are consumed by relations of
power:
66 The possibilities of the Self
Ironically, post-modern analyses which have primarily directed their
efforts at criticizing the realist approach to international relations may,
themselves, justifiably be called super realist. Although they reject the
realist commitment to the state, they remain firmly committed to the
realist canon that the primary focus in all social relations must be on
power . . . the aim is on bringing to light structures of power which were
previously hidden.
(Frost: 1996: 69)

If and when these power relations were exposed, they would probably be
met with more resistance. Yet precisely the fact that such resistance is so
rare implies that individuals/groups lack a sense of agency, or, even worse,
had a sense of agency that for whatever reasons was surrendered. If this is
so, then whatever actors we speak of – individuals, groups, or states – will
never face the anxiety (‘‘dread’’) or, ostensibly, the shame that comes as a
part of the package of self-identity. Even if we could do more through our
actions than we realize, because we perceive that we have no ability to
influence our world we would then never face a disruption in ontological
security. Our self-identity would be imprisoned by social forces that we
would never be able to control. But this observation should not obscure the
more important associations that can be drawn between critical and onto-
logical security perspectives.
Most notably, ontological security shares some promising connections
with feminist perspectives on IR. The latter have also ‘‘questioned realism’s
claim to universality and objectivity; they suggest that its epistemology is
gendered masculine and is constructed out of experiences more typical of
men than women’’ (Tickner 1996: 151).33 Feminist IR suggests that our
conception of what states desire (or admire) is simply a reflection of the
dominant role men have played in international politics and the field of
international relations theory. While Tickner’s claim that ‘‘favorable attri-
butes of states, such as independence, strength, autonomy, and self-help
resemble the characteristics of sovereign man’’ is not totally free from criti-
cism,34 she is correct to note that (inscribed) feminine attributes have been
associated with idealism and ‘‘branded as naı̈ve, unrealistic and even irra-
tional by realist critics’’ (Tickner 1996: 151). Most traditional security
assumptions (as noted in Table 3.1) and the issue areas they have engen-
dered (foreign policy, security, and structural analysis) are informed by a
masculine ethos. Thus the practice of unpacking security by employing an
ontological security alternative mutually shares some of the challenge fem-
inist perspectives have faced for a decade or longer of being branded ‘‘naı̈ve
and subjective,’’ but confronts those challenges from within the site of the
nation-state.
Therefore ontological security might provide some theoretical insight for
the ‘‘public man–private woman’’ binary that feminist social theory has
revealed in dominant approaches to ‘‘rationality.’’ Spike Peterson elaborates
 The possibilities of the Self 67
how feminists have uncovered this public v. private separation as manifested
in politics:

showing that the ‘‘givenness’’ of male–female biological difference was

used simultaneously to explain and to justify the figurative and literal
separation of men and women, masculine and feminine, into separate
and unequal spheres. The binary association of masculinity with public
power, agency, culture, reason, freedom, etc., and the association of
femininity with privacy, passivity, nature, irrationality, necessity, justi-
fied multiple expressions of gender inequality.
( Peterson 1992: 193)

The public–private and man–woman binaries have also influenced the con-
struction of the IR state and its attendant security interests, dominated by
androcentric properties of power, culture, and rationality. Furthermore,
expressions of caring, emotion, rescue, empathy are private interests –
important but better left out of diplomacy and security dialogue.35
This irrationalizes moral action, as noted by Tickner:

[For traditional security theorists:] Moral behavior has no place in

international politics. Just as moral sentiments have been contained in
women’s space, the private sphere of the household, so too the possibi-
lity of moral behavior has been banished from the international sphere.
Realists counsel that statesmen who act morally are behaving ‘‘irra-
tionally’’ given the ‘‘realities’’ of an anarchic and dangerous world.
(Tickner 1996: 152)

But international politics is a more diverse public sphere than the portrait
painted by mainstream assumptions suggests. There is nothing more private
than how we see ourselves, and therefore if self-identity obtains in nation-
states the ‘‘private’’ is constantly in our purview. That is, states ‘‘talk’’ about
who they are. And because the construction of self-identity is an incredibly
inward, reflective process, ‘‘successful’’ ontological security-seeking necessi-
tates the publicization of the private.
When discussing how we distinguish the public from the private (and how
this is manifested in gendered terms) we can return to the issue of shame
previously introduced in this chapter (see pp. 65–66). That of which we are
ashamed remains private, and yet if we can recognize what ‘‘shames’’ indivi-
duals, or nation-states, then we are witnessing a process of making the private
public. When we state that shame is a private sense of transgression, again, it
means that an agent has a radically disrupted sense of Self.36 Furthermore,
shame is of high importance for individuals, even more important than ‘‘getting
caught’’ breaking a rule. Rules are established by society, by a community;
shame, on the other hand, contradicts our sense of who we are – of who we
thought we were becoming. For Elshtain, we try to hide this sense of shame:
68 The possibilities of the Self
Shame or its felt experience as it surrounds our body, its functions,
passions, and desires requires appearances and symbolic forms, veils of
civility that conceal some activities and aspects of ourselves even as we
boldly or routinely display and reveal other sides of ourselves as we take
part in public activities in the light of day for all to see.
(Elshtain 1981: 9)

Elshtain refers to individuals, who can hide (to a certain extent) their inse-
curities from their community and even their families. In this sense, shame
might be more observable in states – for the Self of a state is shared by a
group of individuals through narrative and experience. As such, discursive
remorse, while rare in world politics, is evident. In this sense, that which is
private for individuals, or what those individuals find shameful which
remains hidden, is revealed in the ontological security-seeking process in
states.
Admittedly, nation-states are abstractions – yet they are also important
pieces of convenient fiction. Since there exist ‘‘appropriate’’ and ‘‘inap-
propriate’’ expressions of security interests – for instance ‘‘national interest’’
in terms of power versus ‘‘caring talk’’ – it is quite obvious that such a pri-
vate–public discipline obtains at the state level, and that shame, as a meta-
phor (or more) provides us with a window onto how the rational drive for
healthy self-concepts makes public an otherwise private sense of remorse.
The normative corollary to this is that shame is perhaps a good thing; it is,
like anxiety, a necessary condition for the realizations of a new self, it is
‘‘central to safeguarding the freedom of the body, hence, to keeping alive
our freedom to act responsibly’’ (Elshtain 1996: 285).

Ontological security components and the struggle for a

state identity
All actors seek ontological security, but not all actors are equally capable of
experiencing shame (or insecurity) because not all have the same ability to
revise their routines through self-interrogative reflexivity. We might assume
that certain states, like democracies, are most adept at such self-reflection,
yet even democracies face challenges to re-forming their routines in ways
which can accommodate the critical situations that so disrupt their ontolo-
gical security. And at times democracies may even be less reflective than
other states because of a ‘‘Tyrannical’’ majority37 or a despotic form of
Rousseau’s General Will.38 No states are immune to all the barriers which
exist toward realizing their ontological security.
I therefore posit four sets of interrelated factors important in ontological
security-seeking behavior: (1) reflexive and material capabilities; (2) crisis
assessment; (3) biographical narrative; and (4) discursive framing by co-
actors. While the context of these factors will vary across states, all states
face these issues in ontological security-seeking.
 The possibilities of the Self 69
Material and reflexive capabilities
Because of their physical capabilities, ‘‘great power’’ states are the most
likely candidates in an international system to determine outcomes. They
can therefore be selective with their action. One would then expect these
actors to select deployment situations where their material interests are at
stake and then judge whether the costs of the intervention outweigh the
benefits entailed by a successful outcome. This would explain why the
United States allows Russia to commit human rights abuses in Chechnya,
or China in Tibet, and thus why the behavior of hegemonic units resembles
‘‘organized hypocrisy.’’
When we say that capabilities constitute identity, we are making an
important assertion. In general, more capably ‘‘powerful’’ states are some-
what imprisoned by their ability to influence more outcomes in interna-
tional politics, and in this sense these capabilities, rather than allowing these
states more freedom to act (as their acquisition is intended to accomplish),
compromise their sense of ‘‘freedom.’’ At the level of individuals, according
to Sartre, ‘‘anguish’’ derives from our realization of our freedom, which
comes directly from the idea that at any moment we can take our life (for
example by throwing ourselves off a cliff).39 Even in the most imprisoned
form of existence, individuals could, with some effort, realize this freedom.
This might mean that prison suicides, while the result of complex processes,
in some cases are the result of prisoners actuating their only avenue of
freedom.40 Therefore the realization of freedom comes in many forms, even
physically costly forms. But it might also imply that actors who have fewer
physical capabilities – freedom of movement, strength of resources, etc. –
feel even more empowered by the fact that this limited physical capacity
radically reduces the possible sets of circumstances where they could have
‘‘chosen differently.’’ As Weldes’s study suggests, powerful states, as in the
case of the assertion of American ‘‘leadership’’ during the Cold War, by
constituting the Self as ‘‘strong,’’ ironically produce

a pervasive and inescapable credibility problem . . . . To be of any use

these commitments had to be believed. But their very nature and
extensiveness rendered suspect the claims that the United States could
and would live up to them. Each of these aspects of the U.S. identity,
then, simultaneously generated both a need for the United States to be
credible and grave doubts about its credibility.
(Weldes 1999: 46–47)

Conversely, ‘‘smaller powers’’ would have in this meaning a more emanci-

pated existence, in the sense that their levels of anxiety are reduced due to,
ironically, their state of constrained agency. As the Belgian case demon-
strates, the European admiration the Belgians acquired (ensuring their
‘‘external honor’’) was partially a function of their lack of material capabilities
70 The possibilities of the Self
and the overwhelming odds that they ignored (to a certain degree) in fight-
ing the Germans.
As evidenced in Chapter 6, ontological insecurity is heightened for more
powerful states when not intervening in humanitarian crises, especially because
those crises are so preventable. We feel less anxiety for situations we think we
cannot change. This makes intelligible the remorse observed in the discourse
of powerful states – certain genocides (like Rwanda) produce ‘‘shame’’ pre-
cisely because they could have been more easily averted and powerful states
were the ones most capable of confronting those situations. Both the powerful
state and, somewhat less importantly, the international community share this
obvious interpretation. An ontological security interpretation sees the act of
ignoring such crises, when they are easily preventable, as seriously imperiling a
sense of self-identity formulated by (certain) powerful states’ biographical
narratives. There are higher costs with non-intervention because such inac-
tion produces shame and ‘‘strips away an agent’s sense of continuity in the
world.’’ Humanitarian crises are critical situations that shock agents’ sense
of ontological security because such crises challenge their understanding of
what they should tolerate in international politics.
Some agents are more capable than others, and those who are most cap-
able, we could surmise, have the greatest freedom in choosing one course of
action over others. But more powerful states also have a greater share of
responsibility for their actions precisely because of this freedom of choice.
This implies that when speaking of self-identity, while material capabilities
are important, they are contingent upon the additional reflexive capabilities
nation-states possess which make them aware of their own abilities to pro-
duce outcomes that other less capable actors cannot.
In short, more powerful states are faced with the knowledge that even
unintended consequences may have been altered had they acted differently.
And because they can act differently without imperiling their existence they
are more greatly exposed to different emotional processes (like shame). The
politics of international relations then becomes about either shifting this
responsibility to other international actors, or reconstituting the actions of
the self.41

Crisis assessment
When speaking of self-identity ‘‘crises,’’ I take here Jutta Weldes’s con-
ceptualization that crises are not ‘‘objective facts’’ but

social constructions that are forged by state officials in the course of

producing and reproducing state identity. If crises are constructed in
relation to particular state identities, events that are ostensibly the same
will in fact be constituted as different crises, or not as a crisis at all, by
and for states with different identities.
(Weldes 1999: 37)
 The possibilities of the Self 71
This also relates to material capabilities. Yet here again we must recognize
how the mutually constitutive process of crisis and self-identity construction
makes a nation-state dependent upon three related abilities: (1) discursive
abilities, in the sense of constructing a situation as a crisis; (2) plausibly
linking that crisis to the national Self; and (3) identifying which policy
might effectively terminate the crisis. Actors must also successfully calculate
the identity costs of pursuing or abstaining from a certain policy. Many sub-
factors then determine a state’s ability to successfully assess a crisis.42 In
modern times, nation-states are dependent upon the information provided
by agents outside of their control – such as the media or NGOs which
provide ‘‘on the ground’’ transparency and information. This allows global
media outlets or NGOs to ‘‘shape’’ information to compel states to inter-
vene.43 For instance, Susan Woodward posits that humanitarian NGOs
witnessed first hand the problems of a purely non-military approach in
Kosovo, eventually supporting the use of force and succeeding in persuad-
ing nation-state policy makers to intervene militarily (Woodward 2001).
Information is power in this case because states depend upon this informa-
tion to approximate the ‘‘social reality’’ of international politics that is
important for ontological security-seeking.
From within, nation-states are also dependent upon military intelligence
to assess the material costs of any intervention considered. Because these
material costs can translate into political costs, such estimates can constrain
the ability of state leaders to implement a policy. In some cases, military
leaders may be reluctant to intervene because of their philosophical dis-
agreement with the motives behind and the benefits of an intervention, or,
put another way, they might disagree with what a proposed action would
mean for their perceived sense of national Self. Thus they may frame an
intervention according to a disastrous scenario, one requiring an enormous
deployment of troops and needing copious financial resources. Such agen-
cies are the ones responsible for transmogrifying these ‘‘crises’’ from sub-
jective sources of anxiety to objective sources of threat.44 Other analysts
have noted the effects military ‘‘doctrines’’ may have upon the propensity to
use force.45 This possibility is well established by theorists uncovering how
these doctrines make the use of force more (or less) likely. Jack Snyder
argues that a ‘‘cult of the offensive’’ prior to World War I motivated the
military leaders of European states to advocate a war in which their coun-
tries ultimately incurred enormous human and financial losses.46 Noam
Chomsky identified the influence a ‘‘mandarin class’’ had upon American
involvement in Vietnam (Chomsky 1969).

Biographical narrative (illocutionary discourse)

The biographical narrative is important to self-identity because it is the
locus through which agents ‘‘work out’’ their understandings of social
settings and the placement of their Selves in those settings. Actors, with
72 The possibilities of the Self
varying degrees of success, are using narrative as the form of ‘‘discursive
consciousness’’ through which agents create meanings for their actions
(Giddens 1984: 374). That is the ontological importance of narrative, and
for our purposes a narrative used by state agents ‘‘breathes life’’ into the
nation-state (a position I defended in Chapter 1). Indeed, narration is the
most political of acts a state agent can execute, in that it organizes what is
‘‘the state.’’ While it by no means homogenizes a state’s self-identity –
indeed, the securing of self-identity is complex – the biographical narrative
scales down the relevant roles a state occupies for particular sets of situa-
tions and creates the context through which action can take place. Again,
the above-noted assessment of ‘‘crisis’’ unfolds in relation to this narrative.
In Jutta Weldes’s words, ‘‘in order for the state to act, state officials must
produce representations’’ of a crisis, a crisis which itself ‘‘depends on the
discursively constituted identity of the state’’ (Weldes 1999: 57–58, emphasis
added).
A state’s biographical narrative is a form of ‘‘performative language.’’47
Albert Yee notes that ‘‘language operates to define the range of possible
utterances and hence the range of possible actions.’’ A biographical narra-
tive is an ‘‘illocutionary’’ speech act where the ‘‘the speaker performs an
action in saying something’’ (Habermas 1984: 288; see also Yee 1996: 95). It
is thus a ‘‘commitment’’ to self-identity. As Onuf notes (when developing his
argument from speech act theory), making promises public transforms
intentions into commitments:

Is [a] private commitment a rule unless it is followed by a public state-

ment, the latter being the proximate source of normativity[?] . . . Wish-
ing to keep the commitment private suggests insincerity about being
committed and withholds normative consequences. If one accepts pro-
mises to one’s self, then it is indeed [indeed] a rule for that person
because it is constitutive and regulative at one and the same time.
(Onuf 1989: 88)48

A biographical narrative implicates the self within the understandings of

those events. One should notice four interconnected processes within a bio-
graphical narrative: actor’s understanding of (1) what ‘‘causes’’ or ‘‘drives’’
events; (2) what that event means about an actor’s self-identity; (3) how
those events are important to an actor’s interests, or how interests are
derived from the self-identity of an actor in relation to the event; and (4)
what policies (if any, although even ‘‘no policy’’ is a policy in relation to an
event) a state should use to pursue those interests.
The methodological relevance of the narrative is that we as observers
recognize a ‘‘stable sense of self-identity’’ in an agent when there exists ‘‘a
feeling of biographical continuity which [an agent] is able to grasp reflexively . . .
The existential question of self-identity is bound up with the fragile nature
of the biography which the individual ‘supplies’ about herself’’ (Giddens
 The possibilities of the Self 73
1991: 54). The ability of agents to transcend this anxiety is thus largely
dependent upon their abilities to coherently organize this narrative. This is
the key to understanding how we can interpret the self-identity of agents –
individuals, groups, or states.
In short, since narratives can change, this means we can observe how a
state’s understandings of what ‘‘drives’’ critical situations can change
(through new incoming information or education about an ‘‘event’’). Return
to the definition of ‘‘critical situations’’ which disrupt an agent’s sense of
self – they are ‘‘unpredictable.’’ If agents could plan for these events which
threaten their self-identity, they would no longer be ‘‘critical situations.’’
Once confronted, nation-states must explicate some causal understanding
of what produces those situations in order to predict their recurrence and
then reformulate actions to eliminate them. If, on the other hand, they
then determine that as nation-states they are incapable of preventing
these from happening, such situations are no longer ‘‘critical,’’ in the sense
that nation-states do not perceive them to be within the purview of the
agency. This process demonstrates how security interests change (see
Figure 3.1).
This does not imply that all agents are equally capable of articulating
accurate and successful narratives to describe their actions or the events
which challenge self-identity. Some actors are more capable than others and
some actions can more easily be articulated or justified than others. As I
discuss within the context of the case study chapters (Chapters 4, 5, and 6),
and then in my concluding chapter (Chapter 7), a biographical narrative is
but one parameter of the larger issue of ‘‘reflexive capabilities’’ that states
use to demonstrate their own sense of ontological security. This does show
that a biographical narrative reflects the need of all states in pursuing con-
sistent actions as a way of defining the national ‘‘self.’’
Just like all other narratives in International Relations, the biographical
narrative constructs a reality as perceived by an actor. State agents relate
their identity to their actions and place the self in the context of a(n)
(international) community. Narratives create meanings of an event and
make sense of how events are connected: ‘‘narratives bind temporal events
together such that meaning can be ascribed to a pattern. The organization
of time itself endows meaning to events’’ (Bach 1999: 46). The language a
state uses to describe its actions influences future decisions: ‘‘to invoke some
property of language called illocutionary force is indeed to leave behind the
longstanding view, on which positivism depends, that the (only) function of
language is to represent reality’’ (Onuf 1989: 82).

Figure 3.1
74 The possibilities of the Self
Co-actor discourse strategies (perlocutionary discourse)
Ontological security can be increasingly disrupted when members of the
international community construct language meant to recall another mem-
ber’s past failure. The success of such strategies to ‘‘insecuritize’’ targeted
agents is dependent upon the previously discussed components of ontologi-
cal security. The assumption states make is that other states will ‘‘learn’’
from their past mistakes and will adjust their future decisions to avoid these
same outcomes and the corresponding levels of anxiety produced by those
outcomes.49 Like illocutionary force, perlocutionary language is a ‘‘perfor-
mative’’ act through which ‘‘the speaker produces an effect upon the hear-
ing. By carrying out a speech he [the speaker] brings about something in the
world’’ (Habermas 1984: 289).
Neta Crawford argues that one of the conditions necessary for actors to
change their beliefs relates to their ‘‘receptivity’’ to an ethical argument, and
this receptivity ‘‘depends on the fit between the self-conceptualization of
actors’ identity and the proposed normative belief’’ (Crawford 2002: 114).
Crawford posits that there are ‘‘at least’’ three components to political
identity: (1) a sense of self in relation to or distinct from others, or ‘‘social
identity’’; (2) a historical narrative about the self (which can be mythical or
religious); and (3) an ideology (Crawford 2002: 114). The process of actor
‘‘receptivity’’ to certain arguments over others is an almost identical one to
that which produces ‘‘shame.’’ Both are based upon the same assumptions
and thus we can see discursive opportunities both to ‘‘lobby’’ an actor to
endorse a policy (Crawford’s thesis) or to ‘‘shame’’ an actor towards a cer-
tain action. While an actor’s political identity will determine which argu-
ments they are receptive to, I posit that, in a similar fashion, there are
certain arguments which can be framed in an inverse manner that cause
actors to develop anxiety over an existing crisis because of their sense of self
and the historical narrative they base their actions upon. In other words,
actors – states or otherwise – can frame an event in a way that may compel
others to change their policies in order to manipulate their sense of ontolo-
gical security. This process is evident in the Kosovo case, where interna-
tional actors like NGOs or the leaders of fellow states used language to play
upon the varying sources of shame of other Western states.
I say these are ‘‘co-actors’’ rather than ‘‘fellow states’’ because there are a
variety of international entities capable of ‘‘shaming’’ states into action.
Thomas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp note that ‘‘[t]he moral arguing here is
mainly about identity politics, that is, Western governments and their
societies are reminded of their own values as liberal democracies and of the
need to act upon them in their foreign policies’’ (Risse et al. 1999: 251).
Discourse constitutes the situation, ‘‘framing’’ it in a strategic way to
threaten the identity (through the production of anxiety) of a fellow state in
order to compel it to act.50 In my other work (Steele 2005, 2007b) I
have termed this ‘‘reflexive discourse,’’ in that
 The possibilities of the Self 75
discursive representations can be just as powerful as physical presenta-
tions of force – because they can compel other international actors to
‘‘do what they otherwise would not do.’’ The possibility is that states
not only know what actions will make other states physically insecure,
but also ontologically insecure as well.
(Steele 2005: 539)

This is in no way inconsistent with the traditional security literature of

‘‘queuing’’ or ‘‘signaling’’ between two actors in a game-theoretic model,
although the ‘‘credible’’ threat posed by framing is to a state’s identity, not
to its physical existence.51
Much of this chapter has focused upon a specific account of the Self. The
concluding section begins to provide the reader with an idea of how the
ontological security process obtains in nation-states and and to introduce
which impending potholes are likely to prevent states effectively imple-
menting policies to assure their ontological security. In essence, the fluid
nature of the domestic and international factors that play a role in forming
state identities means that states constantly struggle to ‘‘structure’’ their
foreign policies in a consistent manner. But to acquire a more comprehen-
sive understanding it is necessary to explore how ontological security oper-
ates in specific cases. Using the theoretical account provided in these first
three chapters, we can uncover processes that we never before recognized, thus
packaging a new story about the social actions of nation-states. I therefore
turn to these empirical cases to demonstrate how the drama of the Self develops
in nation-states, beginning with the British decision to remain neutral
during the American Civil War.
4 The power of self-identity
British neutrality and the American Civil
War

This chapter assesses whether the Emancipation Proclamation (EP) pre-

vented British involvement in the American Civil War. I show how the EP
changed the meaning of the American Civil War for the British, thus clar-
ifying why nineteenth-century Britain remained neutral in a conflict whose
increased duration had dire economic consequences for its citizens and
whose outcome would have important consequences for its future relative
power trajectory. By focusing on British opinion leader debates occurring
both before and after the issuance of the Proclamation, I assess the EP’s
impact upon Britain’s decision to not recognize the Confederacy. The EP
increased British anxiety over the meaning of the American Civil War –
eventually altering British perceptions of what was ‘‘driving’’ it as a critical
situation relevant to British self-identity. This anxiety stemmed a strong
interventionist tide that had been building since the beginning of the
American conflict and thus resulted in Britain remaining neutral until the
war ended in 1865.
This case study is used to understand two important issues about social
action in general and self-identity in particular. First, British contempla-
tion of the meaning of the American Civil War, and an intervention to
stop it, represents reflexive behavior. It is in some ways an ontological
security ‘‘success story’’ in that British opinion leaders artfully avoided
adopting a policy which would have seriously threatened British self-iden-
tity. Second, by using an ontological security interpretation this case is an
example of how what we might interpret as a ‘‘moral’’ action (neutrality)
actually represents self-help behavior because it is a form of identity rein-
forcement.
I begin the chapter by providing an introduction to the case along with a
summary of contending explanations (see pp. 77–83). The second section
(see pp. 83–91) uses an ontological security account to interpret the British
decision regarding involvement in the American Civil War. I reconstruct the
context of the crisis, focusing on the crucial period leading up to the issu-
ance of the EP and the months that followed. Reviewing historical accounts,
British parliamentary debates, and diplomatic and private dispatches, I then
assess the impact the EP had on the British decision-making process.
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 77
Rival explanations for British neutrality
Great Britain’s history with slavery is too extensive to outline in detail in
this chapter, but British experiences with the slave trade in the century prior
to the American Civil War fostered an antislavery ‘‘culture’’ in Britain. It
was not always this way – Britain had generally been favorable to the slave
trade on economic and, ironically, humanitarian grounds. Since several
other countries engaged in the trade, the British reasoned that slaves would
be best treated under British control. By the late eighteenth century, how-
ever, various abolitionist groups had succeeded in challenging the legitimacy
of the Atlantic slave trade. While the British abolitionist movement was
riddled with internal tensions (see Turley 1991), it was powerful enough that
by 1807 Britain had formally banned the Atlantic slave trade, and in similar
fashion in 1833 passed the Slavery Abolition Act, which abolished slavery
throughout imperial Britain. Over the course of the next sixty years Britain
would engage in ‘‘costly moral action’’ by making the enforcement of this
ban a component of its foreign policy (Kaufman and Pape 1999). Precisely
because the abolition movement included such disparate groups which cut
across many of Britain’s classes, the banning of the slave trade and Britain’s
1833 abolition of slavery became a powerful and resilient source of British
pride.1
The commencement of hostilities in the United States between the Union
North and the Confederate South ‘‘took most British people by surprise.’’
While Britain was largely aware of the increasing tensions between the two
warring parties, such tensions had been ‘‘going on so long that the notion
that something out of the ordinary might now be happening was hard to
accept’’ (Temperley 1972: 248). Britain immediately declared her neutrality
in the contest, although the British foreign secretary, Lord John Russell,
stated that the British would ‘‘if possible stay out of it’’ (Adams 1925: 90,
emphasis added). Due to the fact that the British had not predicted the
timing of the war, following initial neutrality the British engaged in ‘‘a pro-
longed debate as to what the struggle was, or might conceivably be, about
and what attitudes it was appropriate for them [Brits] to adopt towards it’’
(Adams 1925: 90).
This ambiguity meant that during several junctures of the War of Amer-
ican States Great Britain contemplated some form of involvement to end
the hostilities. The most notable reasons for British intervention were: (1)
the shortage of Southern cotton caused by the Union blockade hurt the
British economy, most notably the textile and manufacturing sectors; (2) a
divided America was advantageous to hegemonic Britain;2 and (3) the
British wanted to see an end to what they called a ‘‘fratricidal war.’’ By 1862
it was thought that intervention by an outside power would be the only way
to end the bloodshed. The scale of possible actions which could service
these three motives ranged from recognition of the Confederacy, through
British-led meditation between the two warring parties, to outright military
78 British neutrality and the American Civil War
intervention.3 Nineteenth-century Britain was the most likely country which
could succeed in such an undertaking, as it would be Britain’s lead which
other countries, such as France, Russia and Austria, would follow.
For the British, the diplomatic move to recognize the Confederacy meant
just that: recognizing a sovereign state and establishing formal ties. That is
not what it would have meant to the American North. Such a move would
have led, at the least, to diplomatic severance between the two countries and
at the most to war: ‘‘Recognition of the Confederacy would provide a tre-
mendous boost to its morale by opening military and commercial avenues
throughout Europe. Southern secession would achieve legitimacy, necessarily
meaning that the Union had lost its permanency’’ (Jones 1999: 137).
A second form of action – mediation – would have been tantamount to
an intervention using force because the intention to separate the two war-
ring parties rested upon some peace agreement that would have given the
South formal status as a sovereign country. By 1862 the British did not see
spontaneous reconciliation between the two parties as possible. Although
various interventionist actions were proposed by British policy makers, in
the end the outcome of them all would be the same: formal recognition of
the South and a semi-permanent division of antebellum America.
According to a traditional security account, the British should have
intervened in the American Civil War. Strategically, a divided America
would have been less of an immediate danger because of the preoccupation
of the warring sides, and in the future a divided America undoubtedly
would have been less powerful than a united one. British opinion leaders
knew that the United States was a rising power and these power considera-
tions weighed heavily upon them. In addition to his prolific career as a
novelist, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a member of the British Parlia-
ment, and on September 25, 1861, he observed:

If it could have been possible that, as population and wealth increased,

all the vast continent of America, with her mighty seaboard and fleets
which her increasing ambition as well as her extending commerce would
have formed and armed, could have remained under one form of gov-
ernment why, then, America would have hung over Europe like a gath-
ering and destructive cloud. No single kingdom in Europe could have
been strong enough to maintain itself against a nation that had once
consolidated the gigantic resources of a quarter of the globe.
(Bulwer-Lytton, quoted in Sideman 1962: 84–85)

It was also likely that the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, would
have supported such an intervention, considering that he has (by many
accounts) been identified as a champion of realist ideology. The man who
once stated that ‘‘nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only
have permanent interests,’’ has been represented as a nineteenth-century
Kissinger who made geopolitical calculations during foreign policy decisions
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 79
as both foreign secretary and prime minister.4 One would assume he would
also see intervention as ensuring competitor division, British hegemony, and
British survival.
There were also economic motives for intervention, or what Frank
Owsley identified as ‘‘King Cotton’’ diplomacy, meaning:

Europe must have southern cotton or perish. This King Cotton philo-
sophy, as we have seen, was a fairly reasonable one, for about a fourth
or fifth of England’s population gained its bread from the cotton
industry [based principally on the southern supply] and one-tenth of
England’s wealth was invested in this industry and nearly half of her
export trade was made up of manufactured cotton goods.
(Owsley 1959: 542)

The British incurred economic costs that resulted from the Union blockade
of Southern ports, constricting the supply of cotton that fueled Britain’s
textile industry. Keeping in mind the quotation from Owsley, we can see
that there existed a strong British motivation to end the war.
So why didn’t the British intervene? Owsley identifies the ‘‘principle laid
down by the economic interpretation group of historians, namely, that in
order to counteract one economic impulse another stronger economic
motive is necessary’’ (Owsley 1959: 542). One counter-argument is that
Union wheat kept the British at bay. Suffering a short grain crop from 1860
through 1862, the British were vulnerable to a wheat famine and thus more
dependent upon the wheat and grain of the American North than they were
upon the cotton of the South. Owsley dismisses this argument quickly,
noting that there is little correspondence within the Palmerston Cabinet or
amongst Members of Parliament that indicates this was a factor in the
British decision. American Secretary of State William Seward did try to
exploit the wheat connection in order to prevent the British from interven-
ing, but Owsley dismisses this as ‘‘federal propaganda.’’ In my review of the
discourse and historical records of the decision I could not find much dis-
cussion about wheat shortages influencing the Palmerston Cabinet; I concur
with Owsley (1959: 549) on this point.
Yet another economic counter-argument is that Britain actually profited
from the American Civil War because the war drove up world cotton prices
making existing British stockpiles quite valuable. In addition, the British
were developing India as a colony largely for its (rival) cotton potential. In
this account, by the time intervention would have been most prudent the
British no longer needed to intervene. In fact, intervention would have jeo-
pardized their growing profits from the war.
This is Owsley’s position, that the revitalization of the woolen and linen
industries in England further fueled this process. He adds that industries
linked to war, like those producing munitions or ships, also profited. Finally,
Owsley makes the compelling point that Confederate attacks on Union
80 British neutrality and the American Civil War
ships ostensibly destroyed the American merchant marine ‘‘without Eng-
land’s lifting her hand.’’ The war would effectively eliminate the main sea-
faring rival to British hegemony, increasing Britain’s economic leverage. This
leads Owsley to conclude that ‘‘England, far from being hag-ridden by pov-
erty during the American Civil War, made enormous material profits’’
(Owsley 1959: 556).
While there were traditional security reasons for intervening, a separate
traditional security explanation could be put forward for neutrality as well.
Intervention would have been too costly even if it had been successful: ‘‘no
one could argue convincingly that foreign intervention – whether mediation
or an armistice – offered a harmless means for ending the war . . . further,
history demonstrates that once an intervention process begins, it takes on a
life of its own’’ (Jones 1999: 121). Stephen Rock accepts this line of rea-
soning: ‘‘as a matter of principle, most [Palmerston] cabinet members
favored intervention; they refrained from it only because of doubts regard-
ing its feasibility’’ (Rock 1997: 123).
It is evident then that these strategic and economic arguments are both
theoretically and temporally indeterminate in explaining this case. For rea-
lists, intervention would have been prudent because it would have split a
rising competitor into two, ensuring British hegemony for years to come.
On the other hand, and using the same assumptions, the British avoided
such an action because it would have been too costly and would have jeo-
pardized British hegemony and, perhaps, survival.
Besides theoretical indeterminacy, these traditional security accounts are
also temporally indeterminate. We can assume that at some time during the
four and a half years of conflict BritishBritain began to profit from the
American Civil War. The British knew that the conflict would not come to a
quick close. Not intervening therefore meant Britain needed to find alter-
native sources of textiles such as linen and wool, as well as its precious
cotton. Most historians agree with what I note in the case study section on
pp. 89–90 – that by early 1863 Britain no longer seriously contemplated
intervening in the American Civil War. Even though Britain benefited in the
long term from a long American Civil War, in 1862 and early 1863 it could
not yet foresee the golden rewards it would reap if it reoriented its economy
through all the means outlined above. Yet during this period of time there
was still much doubt about the events surrounding the American Civil War.
There were many crucial battles, and devastating Union defeats in those
battles, yet to transpire. Additionally, by the end of 1862 and through much
of 1863 the large surpluses of cotton were depleted, with no immediate
alternative source available, so interventionist incentives should have
increased during that period.
At the time Britain also experienced a large number of domestic pro-
blems: ‘‘nearly 300,000 persons were receiving poor relief. Twelve months
later [by the end of 1863] 40 percent of workers who had been employed in
the mills at the beginning of the war were still out of work’’ (Rock 1997:
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 81
120). Britain recognized this problem and by 1864 had recovered on many
fronts. But by mid-1863 intervention had already been discarded as a viable
option even though economic recovery was still in doubt. The British deci-
sion to remain neutral occurred first, followed by an economic reorientation
and recovery, and not the other way around.
The challenge in this case is to demonstrate why something did not
happen. How are we to know what conditions needed to be present for
Britain to complete an intervention? The problem with the above approa-
ches is that they make a ‘‘positivist fallacy’’ of only studying overt behavior
in the form of outcomes.5 Since the above approaches are indeterminate,
and would ‘‘predict’’ contradictory outcomes, process tracing is a better
approach for studying the impact of normative changes upon the continuity
of British action. We can address the impact of the Emancipation Pro-
clamation by looking at the arguments British policy makers used for or
against intervention prior to the issuance of the EP (t1) and then after
(t2). If there is a distinct shift in the justifications made by British policy
makers for remaining neutral, and there is a difference in the power of
interventionist arguments prior to the EP and after, then an explanation is
needed.
There also exists what we might term a liberal-idealist approach to this
case, exemplified by John Owen’s (1994) study. He argues that the British
action rested upon domestic factors such as the constraining effects of lib-
eralism, and in order to measure this he (briefly) looks at the debates sur-
rounding intervention following the issuance of the Proclamation. He
concludes that liberalism affected the British decision in two respects: (1)
British Liberals trusted the Union; and (2) Liberals agitated against intervention
after the Proclamation.6
While I agree with, and in some ways replicate here, the approach taken
by Owen, I disagree with his interpretation of the evidence. Owen argues
that the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation shifted liberal sym-
pathies to the Union cause. This is true, but Liberals did not carry the day
when it came to foreign policy decisions.7 It was not just British Liberals
and Radicals like John Bright, Richard Cobden, and Peter Taylor who
Abraham Lincoln had to please when he issued the Proclamation. It was
the majority of the Palmerston Cabinet. Owen rightfully points out that the
interventionist debate shifted in Britain sometime after the Emancipation
Proclamation was issued in late September of 1862; even conservatives like
Foreign Secretary Russell and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William
Gladstone, all proponents of intervention during the early fall of 1862,
became opposed to it a few months into 1863.8 But these individuals were
quite skeptical of the American ‘‘experiment’’ with democracy, so it was not
an affinity with liberalism that the EP engendered in Britain but rather a
more basic anxiety with slavery, a more congruent stance taken by a coun-
try that had banned the slave trade (and enforced the ban throughout the
nineteenth century). Cobden, Bright, and other Radicals became fervently
82 British neutrality and the American Civil War
pro-Union following the EP because it assured them that the struggle was
now largely about slavery; other members of the British Parliament,
regardless of their differences with the Radicals, became uneasy with the
idea of an intervention for the same reason.
Therefore Owen’s case for the constraining effects of liberalism draws the
wrong conclusion from an overall correct observation. The EP did influence
British policy makers’ decisions. There was never a more crucial period for
the Lincoln administration in its attempts to dissuade Britain from inter-
vening than during the summer and fall of 1862. All historical accounts
generally confirm this.
Recognition seemed to be a natural next step for Britain that fall. On
October 7, 1862, Gladstone made a speech in front of a large crowd in the
Newcastle Town Hall insinuating that the Palmerston government would
extend recognition. In the speech, Gladstone identifies British anxiety over
slavery while at the same time acknowledging the Confederacy as a nation
worthy of notice:

We know quite well that the people of the Northern States have not yet
drunk of the cup and they are still trying to hold it far from their lips –
which all the rest of the world see they nevertheless must drink of. We
may have our own opinions about slavery; but there is no doubt that
Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army . . .
we may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so
far as regards their separation from the North.
(Jenkins 1995: 237, emphasis added)9

The British public received this speech in a manner that was ‘‘uniformly
conclusive and favorable’’ (Jones 1999: 122).10
Lincoln was fully aware of this situation when he decided to issue the EP.
But the EP projected a different purpose for the war that appealed to a
majority of British citizens whether they agreed with ‘‘mob rule democracy’’
or not. In essence, an aristocracy like that in nineteenth-century Britain
could still have been influenced by ‘‘liberal’’ ideals – freedom or antislavery –
without embracing an ethos of democratic reform. I return to Owen’s
argument in the following section of this chapter (pp. 83–91), where histor-
ical evidence shows that the fragile alliance between Liberals and Radicals
in Britain was maintained only with reference to antislavery sentiments.
This case, and the British decision-making process, represents something
more basic to state interests than a ‘‘liberal affinity’’ with a common prin-
ciple. For that matter, we can attribute Britain’s decision not to ‘‘moral
action,’’ but to identity reinforcement. In ontological security terms, British
neutrality was maintained as a policy in the face of mounting interventionist
pressure specifically because of Britain’s anxiety over slavery. The fact that it
was the most materially powerful country in the world at that time fueled
British angst over this issue because Britain’s policy was not determined by
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 83
external or systemic forces but by its own internal struggles to attain onto-
logical security. I show in the rest of this chapter (using the concepts of
ontological security and self-identity) that actions like this can be better
understood as something which attends to identity threats, that the British
debates represent ‘‘reflexive monitoring,’’ and, most importantly, that this
process served British self-interest.

An ontological security interpretation of British neutrality

I argue in the rest of this chapter that the changed meaning of the American
Civil War following the issuing of the EP changed the relevant costs an
intervention would entail to British self-identity. The crux of my argument
is that a British intervention prior to the EP could still have been consistent
with British self-identity, but (after a bit of debate) an intervention following
the EP would most certainly not have been. Thus the changed meaning of the
Civil War from ‘‘Northern Aggression’’ to ‘‘liberation’’ meant that any
intervention would threaten British identity and ostensibly Britain’s ontolo-
gical security. What drove Britain’s considerations was not a liberal affinity
with abolition, or changing coalitions which engendered ‘‘moral’’ action,
but a reflexively oriented policy that would serve Britain’s ontological
security needs.
How did the Emancipation Proclamation help bring about British neu-
trality in the American Civil War? I reviewed the debates in Britain to
ascertain whether the timing of the Emancipation Proclamation influenced
the timing of the British decision. My temporal parameter (the timeframe in
which the discourse was created) included the summer of 1862 (around July
1) through the summer of 1863. My spatial parameter (the persons who
created the discourse) included members of Palmerston’s Cabinet, the
debates among Parliament representatives, and correspondence among the
members of Palmerston’s Cabinet. In addition, I also reviewed historical
accounts for interpretive agreement.
British contemplations of intervention gradually increased following the
commencement of hostilities in America through late 1862, when such
contemplations seem to have leveled off and then decreased. By the fall of
1862 the American North had suffered a series of embarrassing defeats,
defeats which signaled to foreign states that a long struggle was inevitable.
Prior to the Proclamation, American President Abraham Lincoln con-
sistently maintained that his purpose in fighting the war was to save the
Union. Slavery was peripheral. In a published letter to writer Horace
Greeley on August 22, 1862, Lincoln argued:

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if
I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save
it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I
do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to
84 British neutrality and the American Civil War
save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it
would help to save the Union.11

By projecting these goals, Lincoln reinforced the idea in Britain that the
American conflict was not about slavery, lending the appearance that
ending slavery, for the North, only offered military benefit.12 But by the
following month Lincoln realized that emancipation had strategic benefits
that extended across the Atlantic.
The Proclamation would, in Lincoln’s view, change ‘‘the character of
the war. . . . The old South is to be destroyed and replaced by new proposi-
tions and ideas’’ (McPherson 1988: 558). It is incorrect to assume that
Lincoln’s sole or even primary purpose in issuing the Proclamation was a
strategic move to stem British intervention, for he was also influenced by
the opinions of his military leaders, for example Ulysses S. Grant, who
stated around this time (late 1862) that ‘‘[t]he policy is to be terrible on the
enemy. I am using Negroes all the time for my work as teamsters’’
(McPherson 1988: 502). The ‘‘military necessity’’ of emancipation allowed
Lincoln to use the constitutionally sanctioned war powers of the Executive
to ‘‘override’’ the ‘‘constitutional protection of slavery,’’ but only in those
areas that were at war with the Union, thus the reason the Proclamation
did not apply to the border states that still practiced slavery but remained in
the Union (Goodwin 2005: 463). That said, it is noteworthy that when
his administration considered the Proclamation’s potential, Lincoln found
persuasive those arguments which noted its potential effect in thwarting
‘‘foreign intervention’’ (Jones 1999: 86), although such opinions were by no
means uniform in his Cabinet. Secretary of State Seward was one of
the most apprehensive regarding foreign reaction to the Proclamation. In a
July 22, 1862, meeting where Lincoln announced to his Cabinet his
intention to issue the EP, Seward ‘‘expressed his worry that the proclama-
tion might provoke a racial war in the South so disruptive to cotton that
the ruling classes in England and France would intervene to protect their
economic interests’’ (Goodwin 2005: 467). To thwart the foreign perception
that Lincoln’s issuing of the EP was a solely political act, or even a des-
perate act, Seward suggested ‘‘that you [Lincoln] postpone its issue until
you can give it to the country supported by military success’’ (Case and
Spencer 1970: 324).13 Thus Lincoln waited to go public with the Proclama-
tion until after the Union victory at Antietam in late September of that
same year.
As Seward had feared, the Proclamation almost backfired because it was
perceived by many Brits as having the cruel intention of starting a slave
revolt. Immediately following the EP, largely because there was confusion
over its true meaning and impact, some British policy makers called for
intervention against the North on humanitarian principles and through a
brotherly sense of duty. Such an action would end the bloody, ‘‘fratricidal’’
conflict once and for all, saving fellow Anglos from further destruction.
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 85
Because of its limited nature, many British citizens saw it as a strategic
weapon rather than a form of liberation and some worried that it would
start a slave revolt, or ‘‘servile insurrection.’’ But by the time Parliament
reconvened the following spring, no such events had materialized.
The EP therefore produced two outcomes integral to British neutrality.
First, it unified Liberals with Radicals in Britain’s domestic political land-
scape. In this sense, the EP synthesized two political blocs that agreed about
the immorality of slavery but disagreed about most everything else. As one
historian notes, ‘‘the standard of emancipation . . . was one to which most
Radicals and many Liberals were prepared to rally. Their earlier divisions
on the American war were put aside’’ Jenkins (1980: 214). Chief among
these divisions was the proper place of ‘‘freedom’’ within British political
reform. When separated from democratization, emancipation maintained a
fragile, but formidable, alliance in Britain that was hard for Palmerston’s
Cabinet to ignore. Demonstrations throughout Britain, while referencing
political reform, focused on the liberation of slaves as morally justifying
support for the American North: ‘‘the demonstrations in support of the
Union continued to take place under the umbrella of antislavery. It alone
protected the Liberals’ fragile unity on the American War’’ (Jenkins 1980:
214–215).
This observation makes John Owen’s claim that democratic liberalism
produced the peace between the Union and Britain tenuous. Certain British
leaders, and even many British Liberals, distrusted democracy for its ‘‘mob
rule’’ mentality. The British attraction to the EP was not about democracy.
An aristocracy can still be influenced by liberal ideals such as universal
freedom without in turn reforming its own political system. Therefore the
EP influenced British identity, not British political structures.
Second, it shifted British perceptions of the American Civil War. In this
case, the EP reframed the Civil War, creating an ontological distinction
between the two warring parties. The Union went from an army of pre-
servation to an army of liberation. The Confederacy went from an oppres-
sed society to one constituted by the enslavement of four million people. A
Union victory meant a return to an antebellum South was no longer possi-
ble. In short, once the American Civil War became, in British eyes, about
slavery, policy makers’ justifications for policy shifted.14
For instance, there was much debate during the late summer of 1862 in
Parliament about the American Civil War. Most of the debate centered on
first determining the nature of the war itself: for example why it was being
fought and what ‘‘causes’’ motivated the warring parties. Before the EP, the
British discussed what role slavery truly had played in the Union’s fight
against the South. An exchange took place in Parliament on July 18, 1862,
between William Lindsay and Lord Vane Tempest, Southern sympathizers,
on the one hand, and Peter Taylor, a British Radical, on the other. Lindsay
put forward a motion to recognize the Confederate government and defen-
ded it by claiming that antislavery sentiment was a political tool:
86 British neutrality and the American Civil War
Though there had been an outcry on the part of a small section of the
people in the North against slavery in the in the South, the suppression
of slavery had very little, if anything, to do with the civil war. If it had,
the North would have received more sympathy from the people of
England . . . [and, therefore antislavery sentiment] had no reality.15

Taylor responded that slavery had made the ‘‘war in itself inevitable.’’
Tempest rebutted in turn that the South was the true side of independence
and thus worthy of British support:

The cause of the South was that of six or seven million people strug-
gling manfully for their independence . . . was it surprising that under
those circumstances they should think they had a claim to the sym-
pathy and good offices of the nations of Europe?16

The entire debate is evidence that the British were trying to sort out the true
meaning of the war, experiencing it through the lens of British self-iden-
tity.17 Initially, and bolstered by Lincoln’s statements like the August 22
letter to Horace Greeley, many Brits decided that it was not about slavery:

One notable feature of this debate [regarding the American Civil War]
was that virtually no one was prepared to defend slavery. Everyone – at
least everyone who mattered – agreed that slavery was wrong. But even
a deeply felt abhorrence of slavery did not necessarily predispose people to
side with the Union. For the first seventeen months of the war it was a
demonstrable fact that abolition was not one of the North’s war aims.
(Temperley 1972: 249)

Two of the strongest proponents of British intervention prior to the issuing

of the EP were Lord John Russell, the British foreign secretary, and William
Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose Newcastle speech
(mentioned on p. 000) in October of 1862 came dangerously close to
recognizing the Confederacy for the first time since the war began. Russell
had always favored intervention on the premise that intervening was the
quickest way to end the bloodbath.18 While it was poor form for a Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer to make independent statements regarding Britain’s
foreign policy and while it was itself an ‘‘incursion’’ into Russell’s ‘‘own
province,’’ Gladstone’s speech had inspired Russell ‘‘to go on with the pro-
posal of an armistice’’ (Adams 1925: 49) that could be pursued in conjunc-
tion with other foreign powers, most notably France. In short, Russell, like
Gladstone, saw America’s permanent separation as inevitable, and saw it as
Britain’s responsibility to bring about a peaceful end to the hostilities.
Almost all British policy makers, Liberal and Conservative, were skep-
tical of the Proclamation: ‘‘the first British response was widespread indig-
nation, though admittedly tempered by the grudging realization that the
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 87
president had finally drawn the line between opponents and supporters of
slavery’’ (Jones 1999: 110). They detested its limited nature, even if it was
unconstitutional for Lincoln to emancipate slaves within existing Union
border states. But it did briefly give a jolt to British policy makers who were
contemplating an intervention. The prime minister himself asked whether
Britain could ‘‘without offence to many People here recommend to the
North to sanction Slavery and to undertake to give back Runaways,’’ and
asked ‘‘would not the South insist upon some Conditions after Lincoln’s
Emancipation Decree’’ (Jenkins 1980: 176).19
Even after the EP was issued, Russell was nervous about the effects it
would have upon America. In correspondence with Earl Cowley dated
November 13, 1862, he argued that Englishmen should be nervous: ‘‘to
these accompaniments is to be added the apprehension of a servile war.’’20
In an exchange with Lord Lyons dated January 17, 1863, Russell also
expressed bewilderment over the limited nature of the Proclamation:

The Proclamation makes slavery at once legal [in border states] and
illegal [everywhere else]. . . . There seems to be no declaration of prin-
ciple adverse to slavery in this Proclamation. It is a measure of war, and
a measure of war of a very questionable kind.
(Jones 1999: 111)

But once the Proclamation became law on January 1, 1863, and the months
followed with no ‘‘servile’’ war, British opinion moved away from interven-
tion. Why was this so? While we cannot entirely conclude that the EP was
solely responsible for this shift, we can see a distinct change in the justifi-
cations Gladstone, Russell, and others made for not intervening during
1863. Because these two men were so adamant about intervention in the fall
of 1862, and because they had the ability to affect policy within the Pal-
merston Cabinet, their justifications are perhaps the most noteworthy in the
context of this study.
On June 30, 1863, Gladstone conceded in a Parliament debate that ‘‘a
war with the United States ought to be unpopular on far higher grounds . . .
because it would be a war with our own kinsmen for slavery.’’ Gladstone,
who had once debated the true meaning of the war, knew by 1863 that it
was more concretely about slavery: ‘‘I do not think there is any real or ser-
ious ground for doubt as to the true issue of this contest.’’21
Russell reversed his views, both in public and in private, on the issue of
British intervention when slave revolts failed to materialize. We can see this
best in two separate exchanges with Lord Campbell, one in August 1862
and the other in March 1863. In the first, Campbell made what amounts to
a strategic argument for intervention, because failing to intervene jeo-
pardized Britain’s possession of Canada: ‘‘if Canada was unable to support
a numerous militia, if Britain was unable to send large armies to her suc-
cessor, what defense could they rely on except a firm ally on that continent?’’
88 British neutrality and the American Civil War
Russell’s response was tempered, but still kept open the option of interven-
tion in conjunction with other European ‘‘maritime Powers.’’22
By March 1863 both the tone of Russell’s response and the Palmerston
Cabinet’s policy had changed. Campbell again proposed intervention in
Parliament, but this time he was well aware that the slavery issue clouded
British judgment:

These grand considerations would lead the people of the country to

require an acknowledgement of Southern independence were it not for
the delusions as to slavery [which] . . . have deceived the working classes
of the country by confounding questions about slavery.23

Russell responded by first citing past occasions of British intervention in

civil conflicts in foreign states. He then argued the reason for each inter-
vention. In Holland the British had rescued the people from religious and
political tyranny in the face of Phillip II. In Portugal they had relieved the
people of Spanish tyranny and helped establish an independent state. They
had also helped Greece establish independence and helped found a free and
independent monarchy. Finally, they had helped ensure Belgian freedom
from Holland. He used these cases to generalize about British foreign policy
in general:

In all of these instances, whether the intervention was carried on by our

ancestors or in our own times, there is nothing of which an Englishmen
need be ashamed. If we have taken part in interventions, it has been in
behalf of the independence, freedom and welfare of a great portion of
mankind. I should be sorry indeed if there should be any intervention
on the part of this country which could bear another character.24

Here we see the ability of a state agent to ‘‘breathe life’’ into history, orga-
nizing it into a coherent whole so that it becomes the basis for policy. Rus-
sell engaged in what Giddens calls ‘‘historicity,’’ or ‘‘the use of history to
make history’’ (Giddens 1991: 243). But what did this mean for British
interests within the United States? Russell stated:

No interests, deeply as they may affect us – interests which may imply

the well-being of a great portion of our people, but interests which may
affect also the freedom and happiness of other parts of the globe – will
induce us to set an example different from that of our ancestors. But [if]
we feel ourselves bound to interfere, it will be an interference in the
cause of liberty, and to promote the freedom of mankind, as we have
hitherto done in these cases.25

Russell failed to use any of this language during his response to Campbell
nine months prior. It is also noteworthy that Russell feels justified in pursuing
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 89
a policy that compromises the ‘‘well-being’’ of British citizens if it means
securing freedom and happiness around the globe and keeping in tune with
the ‘‘examples of our ancestors.’’ While we cannot link this language speci-
fically to the Emancipation Proclamation, we can assume that Russell’s, as
well as Gladstone’s and many others’, opinions on the Civil War shifted
because the meaning of the war, in the minds of most British people, had
also shifted (see Table 4.1 for a summary).
It is also important to note the context of both Russell’s and Gladstone’s
post-EP justifications – they came before the crucial Union victories at
Gettysburg and Vicksburg during the first week of July 1863 and after the
Union defeat at Fredericksburg (in late December 1862). The British were
close to intervention prior to the EP because (1) they did not recognize the
American Civil War as being fought over the issue of slavery and (2)
Abraham Lincoln reinforced this view with his own words. The focus for
the Palmerston Cabinet became the battlefield itself – where Palmerston
wanted to see sustained Confederate victories to demonstrate that the
Confederacy was a nation worth recognizing.26 Gladstone’s Newcastle
comments, in fact, came close to proposing just such a recognition in
October 1862. However, after the EP (and, importantly, the Union victory
at Antietam, which prevented its issuance from being seen as a ‘‘desperate’’
act), while Confederate victories continued, the tone of the interventionist
debate changed.27 While the outcome of the war remained uncertain, the
meaning of it did not.
As mentioned in Chapter 3, in seeking ontological security social agents
engage in at-the-time counterfactuals, a calculation of ‘‘prospective shame’’
which speaks to whether a proposed policy might contradict a healthy sense

Table 4.1 The Emancipation Proclamation and discursive change

Palmerston Cabinet t1 (summer Emancipation t2 (mid-1863)
official and fall, 1862) Proclamation
(September 22,
1862)
William Gladstone, Newcastle speech: June 30, 1863: ‘‘A war
Chancellor of the ‘‘Certainty of with the United States. . .
Exchequer Separation’’ ought to be unpopular on
far higher grounds, because
it would be a war with our
own kinsmen for slavery’’
Lord John Russell, ‘‘I think unless Worries of March 23, 1863: ‘‘no
Foreign Secretary some miracle ‘‘servile interests, deeply as they may
takes place, this insurrection’’ affect us. . . which may
will be the very (November affect also the freedom and
time for offering 1862) happiness of other parts of
mediation’’ the globe will induce us to
set an example different
from that of our ancestors’’
90 British neutrality and the American Civil War
of ontological security. Only a few members of Palmerston’s Cabinet, such
as Secretary of War George Cornewall Lewis, had seen the American Civil
War largely through the primary lens of slavery from the beginning, and all
along they had engaged in similar ‘‘prospective shame’’ accounting prior to
the Proclamation. Lewis, in a memorandum circulated on October 17, 1862,
stated that, regarding any British action, ‘‘looking at the probable
consequences . . . we may doubt whether the chances of evil do not pre-
ponderate over the chances of good, and whether it is not ‘Better to endure
the ills we have, than fly to others which we know not of.’’’ In short, Lewis
was concerned that an armistice at that time would lead to, in one histor-
ian’s paraphrase, ‘‘an independent slave-holding South for the establishment
of which Great Britain would have become intermediary and sponsor’’
(Adams 1925: 52–53). Furthermore, Russell’s pre-EP proposal of mediation
in conjunction with other ‘‘maritime powers’’ was also viewed skeptically by
members of the Cabinet, as it would ‘‘practically place our honor in the
hands of our copartners in the intervention. We might find ourselves placed
in a position in which it would be equally difficult to advance with credit or
retire with safety.’’28 The EP brought Russell around to these views, as his
March 1863 statements reveal not only the shifting effects of the Emancipa-
tion Proclamation, but also the determination to maintain a ‘‘routine’’ which
had provided answers for a British identity. This self-identity thus affected
Britain’s decision to abstain from intervening in America.
This does not mean that British identity ‘‘clicked in’’ and prevented
intervention. In many ways during the months that followed the Proclama-
tion, identity was contested during street debates, town hall meetings, and
demonstrations throughout Britain between Confederate agents and
Southern supporters, on the one hand, and freed slaves, Northern aboli-
tionists, and British abolitionists, on the other, all swaying public opinion in
favor of the Union.29 In short, the EP mobilized British pro-Union groups.
E.P. Adams observes that:

beginning with the last week of December1862 and increasing in

volume in each succeeding month, there took place meeting after
meeting at which strong resolutions were passed enthusiastically
endorsing the issue of the emancipation proclamation and pledging
sympathy to the cause of the North.
(Adams 1925: 107)

It had not always been this way, as Britain’s antislavery groups were largely
docile for the first ‘‘eighteen months of the war’’ (Temperley 1972: 251). The
Proclamation changed this landscape:

What finally provoked [the pro-Northern movement] to action was the

preliminary emancipation and, more important, the growing realization
of Union sympathizers in Britain that they needed an organization to
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 91
oppose the pro-Confederate groups which by 1862 were beginning to
spring up around the country.
(Temperley 1972: 254)

Thus, British self-identity had to be enacted by opinion leaders and British

citizens, who debated which course of action was most proper in light of the
British sense of national Self. Identity is not, nor was it really ever in most
constructivist theories, ‘‘culturally determined.’’30 Giddens notes: ‘‘self-
identity is not something that is just given, as a result of the continuities of
the individual’s action-system, but something that has to be routinely created
and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual’’ (Giddens 1991: 52).
Therefore Britain was provided with an opportunity during this time to
affirm a ‘‘healthy’’ sense of self-identity, but it first had to argue over how
best to accomplish this. Part of this contestation rested on the meaning of
the American Civil War. Once that was determined, the British had to
decide upon a policy that reflected their sense of self-identity. That is what
makes ‘‘critical situations’’ for states so intriguing, as they are disruptions
which open spaces and provide reformational opportunities. It is then that
state agents contest and interrogate what their state is, and also address
whether their proposed course of action fits that self-vision.
While historians of the topic have disparate views on what truly pre-
vented British intervention in the American Civil War, most agree on the
‘‘mood’’ evident in Britain in mid-1863. Calls for intervention based on the
fear of servile insurrection ‘‘no longer carried quite the same conviction or
excited the same public response. Months had passed since Lincoln’s pre-
liminary proclamation and there had been no hint of a slave uprising’’
(Jenkins 1980: 218). A second historian concludes: ‘‘had the Whig adminis-
tration shown any inclination to recognize the Confederacy at any time during
the latter part of the war such a cry would have gone up that it would have
been lucky to remain in office’’ (Temperley 1972: 255). Another writes:

once the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1,

1863, the momentum began to build for supporting black freedom as
an essential part of the struggle for a more perfect Union, making it
extremely difficult for either England or France to consider any form of
intervention that might prolong the life of slavery. . . . [and as such] by
early 1863 the British government finally realized that the Lincoln
administration had taken a move against slavery, and it dropped all
official talk of intervention.
(Jones 1999: 146–147)

The result? ‘‘Its [EP] enactment led to a change in British attitude toward
the Proclamation which suggested that the Lincoln administration had
finally achieved its central objective in foreign affairs of keeping England
out of war’’ (Jones 1999: 154).31
92 British neutrality and the American Civil War
Conclusion: the power of self-identity
Political scientists oftentimes fail to give credit where credit is due – to
humans themselves. While it was not wholly responsible for preventing for-
eign intervention, and while the primary motives for its being issued lay
elsewhere, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did shift foreign percep-
tion of the conflict, making it much more difficult for Britain to intervene
(ostensibly) on behalf of the Confederacy without subjecting itself to ridi-
cule over the issue of slavery.
Let me be clear – the need for ontological security did not ‘‘cause’’ the
British to remain neutral in this conflict. Given Britain’s hegemonic status
in 1863, it very well could have chosen to intervene in the American conflict
and probably, although by no means determinedly, succeeded in terminating
that conflict. It is specifically because Britain had this freedom of choice
that the American Civil War generated such anxiety in British policy circles.
This anxiety fueled debates and sharpened Palmerston’s Cabinet members’
acumen regarding the Cabinet’s American Civil War policy. British policy
makers performed an at-the-time counterfactual when they asked what the
result would have been had they merely recognized the South (which would
have been tantamount to a hostile act against the North).32 They may have
been more physically secure had separation occurred, but they surely would
have been less ontologically secure because the result would have been sha-
me(ful). Russell’s shifting references to the American Civil War, for instance,
and his final justifications for not intervening, suggest that shame would
have resulted from recognizing the Confederacy. At the heart of this would-
be shame was British anxiety with slavery, whereby supporting a slavery
state was inconsistent with the integrity of the British ‘‘Self.’’ British recog-
nition of that state would have markedly increased the Confederacy’s
legitimacy. Instead, the shift created by the EP was largely uniform in the
Palmerston Cabinet. Even Palmerston himself, a champion of Realpolitik
and realists alike, was apprehensive about a post-EP intervention.
Two implications follow from the British case. First, it shows that non-
forceful actions have consequences. Events such as the issuing of the
Emancipation Proclamation reconstituted the meaning of the American
Civil War not only for the Union and Confederate armies and American
citizens and leaders, but also for an international audience. The larger issue
here is that discursive representations can be just as powerful as physical
presentations of force – because they can compel other international actors
to ‘‘do what they otherwise would not do.’’ The possibility is that states
know not only which actions will make other states physically insecure, but
also which will make them ontologically insecure as well. Thus, just as arms
buildups are a ‘‘strategic signal’’ to adversaries in order to produce an
intended outcome, discursive representations can ‘‘shame’’ states into cer-
tain processes which benefit the signaler, and, perhaps, the international
community. Second, the more promising possibilities which could follow
 British neutrality and the American Civil War 93
will be rare if states are impaired in reflexively monitoring their actions,
since this is the only way ontological insecurity can be consistently avoided.
Since some actors may be less capable of doing this, the drive for ontologi-
cal security may lead states to ‘‘structure’’ their behavior in problematically
violent ways. While no actors can adequately predict when and where ‘‘cri-
tical situations’’ will occur,33 it becomes important to develop an under-
standing of reflexive processes to know how actors can increase their
‘‘reflexive capabilities.’’ I return to these issues in Chapter 7.
As discussed in Chapter 3, material capabilities play a role in how much
freedom, and thus anxiety, a nation-state is exposed to in the ontological
security process. It was thus not solely Britain’s history of slavery but also
its self-identity as a great power which ensured that the American Civil War
would be a ‘‘critical situation’’ needing to be confronted by British policy
makers. This was the ‘‘paradox’’ of Britain’s power – its material power
begot freedom, which, in turn, stimulated anxiety. Belgium in 1914, on the
other hand, felt somewhat emancipated exactly because its status as a small
power provided it with an opportunity to perform an honorable and even
‘‘heroic’’ act in choosing to fight Germany. In Chapter 5, I discuss how
Belgium’s inception as an independent state manifested two self-identity
drives, or two senses of ‘‘honor’’ and obligation, which made this seemingly
suicidal decision to fight Germany in August of 1914 a rational, if physically
costly, decision.
5 ‘‘Death before dishonor’’
Belgian self-identity, honor, and World
War I

In an oft-quoted section of the Melian Dialogue, the envoys of powerful

Athens attempt to persuade the commissioners of the tiny island of Melos
that an alliance is in the latter’s best interest. Facing inevitable Athenian
subjugation, the Melians state:

Then surely, if such hazards are taken by you to keep your empire and
by your subjects to escape from it, we who are still free would show
ourselves great cowards and weaklings if we failed to face everything
that comes rather than submit to slavery.

The Athenians reply:

No, not if you are sensible. This is no fair fight, with honour on one
side and shame on the other. It is rather a question of saving your lives
and not resisting those who are far too strong for you.

The rest of the story is familiar, the Melians refusing to join the Athenians
and instead choosing neutrality. Neutrality quickly became tantamount to a
hostile position against Athens. Thucydides tells us how this part of the
Peloponnesian War ended, shortly after the hostilities between the two
parties began:

Another force came out afterwards from Athens under the command of
Philocrates, the son of Demeas. Siege operations were now carried on
vigorously and, as there was also some treachery from inside, the
Melians surrendered unconditionally to the Athenians, who put to
death all the men of military age whom they took, and sold the women
and children as slaves. Melos itself they took over for themselves, send-
ing out later a colony of 500 men.

This chapter is not another IR interpretation of the Melian Dialogue, or of

Thucydides, or of ancient Greece.1 But it’s important to note that historically
the dialogue has been used to demonstrate the ‘‘danger’’ of (the Melian)
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 95
pursuit of honor and justice at the expense of prudence and survival, and
thus that International Politics is an arena removed from ethics. The Melian
Dialogue, we are told, demonstrates that in a condition of anarchy fear of
extinction is perpetual, and therefore the need to survive drives agent
behavior.2
Even Just War theory, a moral philosophy that realists would hardly
endorse, prescribes a condition of ‘‘reasonable chance for success.’’ Yet the
Melian decision, to fight the Athenians in the face of overwhelming odds
and almost certain destruction,3 contradicts both the survival assumption
of mainstream IR theory and the Just War tradition’s reasonable chance for
success condition. How can we explain such instances of ‘‘irrational’’ beha-
vior? If states are motivated by survival, or if they do seek to fight ‘‘just
wars’’ but do not heed one condition of that ethos, how are we to explain
the actions of the Melians?
Somewhat obscured in the dialogue is the role of honor and shame in
motivating the Melians to fight: ‘‘When we look carefully we even find honor
and shame at least as prominent as justice in the Melian Dialogue’’ (Donnelly
2000: 179). The Melians may well have been imprudent in fighting the Athe-
nians, but that does not adequately understand what drove their response:

Honor . . . demands that one die fighting rather than submit. . . . The
Athenians forcefully and effectively lay out the Melian interest in capi-
tulations. The Melians, however, are willing to die rather than live with
the shame of submission. . . . The Melians begin with an appeal to jus-
tice. They understand their interest and come to grips with their fear.
But in the end, the Melians die for their honor.
(Donnelly 2000: 180)

This chapter addresses how ontological security informs a nation-state’s

conception of honor and how in pursuing self-identity needs a state can
completely jeopardize its own physical existence. Germany issued an ulti-
matum in July 1914 that requested unfettered access through Belgian terri-
tory.4 Yet even though the Belgians, like the Melians against Athens, knew
that if they chose to fight the Germans they would face disastrous con-
sequences, they fought anyway – and would suffer a catastrophic defeat and
control of their country until the end of the war. The ‘‘Rape of Belgium,’’ as
it has been termed, included an estimated 30,000 civilian deaths throughout
the war, 5,500 in the month of 1914 August alone.5 Over a million Belgians
were displaced to the Netherlands, France, and Britain, and 115,000 Bel-
gians were deported to German or occupied French labor camps.6 Of the
mobilized Belgian army 13,716 were listed dead, 44,686 wounded, and
34,659 were prisoners of war or declared missing in action.7 An estimated
20,000 Belgian structures were destroyed, along with such Belgian treasures
as the historic library at the University of Louvain.8 Thus, one important
insight for IR theory provided by the Belgian decision is that it is the starkest
96 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
contradiction of IR’s mainstream ‘‘survival’’ assumption regarding the
behavior of states, and it challenges the prevailing (but underdeveloped) under-
standing of a ‘‘just war’’ in light of the reasonable chance for success condition.
Because of this, the case provides an opportunity to interpret the Belgians’
decision to fight, thereby explicitly ignoring their own physical security.
A second important insight of this case is that it provides a modern
example of honor-driven behavior. Most, but not all, treatments of honor
derive their empirical illustrations from antiquity.9 A more nuanced and
pluralist view of honor arises from the seminal Peristiany (1966) volume,
where honor is assessed in contexts both cultural (Cypriot village, Kabyle
society, Egyptian Bedouins) and analytical (individuals and social groups).
The Belgian case demonstrates how honor operates in nation-states.
Furthermore, the Belgian case demonstrates that small powers possess
the ability to influence the social structures of their community, or that, in
short, the actions of such small states also have important societal con-
sequences. This runs somewhat counter to the prevailing view in Bull’s
seminal book that it is great powers to which all other states must look for
‘‘a degree of central direction to the affairs of international society as a
whole’’ (Bull 1977: 200).10 This view still largely obtains in recent scholar-
ship; for example, it prevails in the innovative work of Oded Lowenheim,
who writes that ‘‘Great Powers in international politics function as the
authoritative gatekeepers in a cartel of sovereign states’’ (Lowenheim 2007:
22). The Belgian case, and especially the European recognition of Belgium’s
actions in 1914, thus contains important insights for this position.
In this case, an ontological security approach serves two important pur-
poses. First, it provides another theoretical understanding of honor as a
concept in IR theory. Second, ontological security is used to demonstrate
how Belgian honor was based on the internal need to confront threats to
self-identity and the external need to reinforce a social (or collective) iden-
tity to the greater European community. By fulfilling these identity com-
mitments, Belgium received widespread recognition and admiration from
fellow European states. I use historical evidence and the discourse of Bel-
gian and European leaders to demonstrate how an ontological security
approach helps make intelligible the seemingly irrational Belgian decision to
fight the German army at the beginning of World War I. I conclude the
chapter by addressing the normative judgment of whether the Belgian deci-
sion to fight the Germans can be considered ‘‘just’’ considering that no
‘‘reasonable chance for success’’ existed for a Belgian victory.

The duality of honor

As noted by Richard Ned Lebow, honor has two components, although
what these are termed varies according to which conceptualization one
consults.11 Lebow argues that ‘‘it may be more useful to think of external
and internal honor, and to recognize that they are related’’ (Lebow 2003:
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 97
272). Douglas Cairns similarly identifies what he titles the relationship
between ‘‘honour of self and honour of others’’ (Cairns 1993: 14). I assert
that internal honor as applied to states or individuals exists in a constitutive
relationship with self-identity. That is, what we find to be ‘‘honorable’’ at the
individual level is shaped and promoted by our sense of who we are, and the
honorable is enacted when we perform an action which fulfills a commit-
ment about what ‘‘we’’ have been, who we are now, and who or what we
wish to be in the future. Lebow observes that internal honor ‘‘appears to be
a near-universal attribute of warrior classes’’ and that it was ‘‘critically
import[ant]’’ in the twentieth century for European nation-states (Lebow
2003: 273). Such honor exists in the conscience of a social agent, in the form
of ‘‘internal sanctions against inappropriate conduct’’ (Cairns 1993: 143). If
its self-identity shapes what it honors, the converse is also true: performing
‘‘honorable’’ actions helps reinforce (or adjust) an agent’s sense of who he
or she is and what he or she stands for.
At the level of external commitments, likewise, we get a sense of what will
be deemed ‘‘honorable’’ by our community based upon common principles,
what I term the relationship between external honor and collective or social
identity. Identity and honor are thus somewhat mutually constitutive – both
self-identity and collective identity are reinforced by, and in turn shape, our
sense of ‘‘honor.’’
Two qualifications are appropriate about my use of honor as it relates to
ontological security. First, as should be evident from the brief discussion on
pp. 96–97, internal and external honor as they relate to ontological security
are in contrast with the view that honor is a material or strategic acquisition
where agents pursue it as ‘‘an entitlement to a certain treatment in return’’
whereby ‘‘honor felt becomes honor claimed and honor claimed becomes
honor paid’’ (Pitt-Rivers 1966: 22). Honor as it motivated Belgium in 1914
did not have this material meaning – Belgian agents in fact acknowledged
that the physical existence of Belgium might end and therefore it cannot be
concluded that they were intending to fight Germany in the hope that one
day they might ‘‘cash in’’ on the admiration their actions might engender
from the powerful countries of Europe. Second, when I distinguish external
honor, and while that sense of external honor is influenced by social mem-
bership in a society, I am not at the same time asserting that social agents
are dependent upon context, upon their societal standards, for their con-
ceptualization of honor. Both internal and external honor must be chan-
neled through the Self. The case may to some degree be the reverse, where
external standards, or that which envelops external honor, are in turn
dependent upon being reproduced through the actions of individual agents
(including states). Such actions ‘‘objectify’’ the principles of a community
because they illustrate what those principles look like when they are ‘‘in
use’’ through the actions of states.
My purpose here in using honor is more limited, as I am largely in
agreement with more nuanced, sophisticated, and comprehensive analyses
98 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
noted previously. Honor is used in this chapter to show that the concerns of
ontological security that drive nation-states echo to a large degree the con-
cerns social agents face when servicing their honor drives.

Independence, neutrality, and Belgian honor

According to Hedley Bull, a ‘‘European International Society’’ existed
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and theorists of the time
could recognize several features of that society (Bull 1977: 31–36). Two of
these features, sovereignty and the expression of European society in the
form of institutions, were paramount to the establishment of Belgium as
both a sovereign and neutral state throughout the nineteenth century. Con-
sequently, European recognition and enforcement of Belgian sovereignty
and Belgian faith in the legality of its sovereignty represented constitutive
factors that would prove integral to the Belgian decision to fight against a
superior German force in August 1914.
Following the Napoleonic Wars, the great powers of Europe (mainly
Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria) established the Concert of Europe to
enforce the conditions set at the 1815 Vienna conference. The powers agreed
to maintain, within Europe, a balance among members by reinforcing a ter-
ritorial status quo, establishing the United Kingdom of Netherlands as a
buffer state to France in 1814.12 Yet following the 1830 Belgian revolution,
the Dutch invasion, and the French ‘‘counter’’-intervention of the following
year, English pressure on the French led to the London conference in 1831.13
It was here that the great powers agreed to de facto recognition of Belgium
as an independent state. Belgium declared itself ‘‘perpetually neutral’’ on
June 26, 1831. England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia recognized the
‘‘inviolability of her territory’’ through the Treaty of Twenty-Four Articles,
which, once signed on April 19, 1839, made the enforcement of Belgian
neutrality the responsibility of the signatories.14 And throughout the nine-
teenth century Belgium’s neutrality was, however tenuous at times, upheld by
these powers.
Combined with this general faith in European respect for its sovereignty
was a specific Belgian conviction about Germany. Following the wars of
German unification, one historian writes:

The defeat and decline of France, the creation and growing power of
the German Empire, had, after 1870, created among the Belgians a
mood of distrust and disparagement of France and trust and liking for
Germany. Especially was this the case with the Catholic Conservative
party which from 1884 governed the country.
(Albertini 1957: 416)

This is perhaps why, even when told of the Schlieffen Plan in 1904 by Kaiser
Wilhelm, Belgium’s King Leopold II (and the Belgian Parliament when
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 99
exposed to the information) reached no dire conclusion about Germany’s
intentions.15
Belgium gained further reassurances at the 1907 Hague Peace Con-
ferences when European states upheld by a unanimous vote the inviolability
of neutral state territories. Because of this and previous developments, and
despite the fact that Belgians recognized the inevitability of war amongst
the European states, Belgium was woefully unprepared for conflict on the
eve of World War I. One wonders, then, how it was possible for a nation
not even a century old, and one bedeviled by ethno-linguistic and political
divisions,16 to quickly unify behind such a strong sense of national pride in
August 1914. Three conditions give an insight here: (1) Belgium’s impressive
economic development in the second half of the century, which to a great
extent improved the working class’s standard of living and ‘‘reconciled them
with the wealthier classes’’;17 (2) the ‘‘cross-cutting cleavages’’ of Belgian
society, which served to ameliorate the individual differences which pre-
vailed at the local level;18 (3) King Albert’s ascension to the throne in
December of 1909, which led to a reorganization of the military. The
reforms instituted at this time made the prime minister the war minister.
The garrisons at Antwerp, Liege, and Namur were also to be reinforced.
While the Belgians instituted these military reforms much too late for them
to be of consequence by August 1914, they did signal to France and Britain
that Belgium at least intended to defend its territory against an invading
force, thereby reassuring these two powers that upon being invaded Belgium
would not be required to side with the ‘‘invading force’’ out of necessity.
This signal, even though it had no support in material reality and would do
nothing to save the Belgians from being destroyed in 1914, would prove
important to both the Belgian decision to fight Germany and to French and
British fidelity to the Belgian cause.

Prelude to war: the German ultimatum

The weeks of mobilizations and war declarations that followed the assassina-
tion of the Austrian prince on June 28, 1914, had little influence on the Belgian
government.19 And for the Germans the assumption was still that upon
invasion the Belgians would bandwagon with the invading force. Thus Germany
took advantage of what it rightly perceived to be Belgian passivity, and it was
in this setting that Germany issued an ultimatum to Belgium for free passage
through its territory. To summarize, the ultimatum stated the following:

1 Germany had received ‘‘reliable information that French forces had been
intended to be deployed,’’ leaving no doubt of the ‘‘French intention to
advance against Germany across Belgian territory.’’
2 Belgium would be unable to repel the French ‘‘invasion’’; Germany was
thus compelled out of her own ‘‘self-preservation’’ to forestall the hostile
French attack.
100 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
3 Germany ‘‘purpos[ed] no acts of hostility against Belgium’’ and would
maintain Belgium’s independence, evacuate territory until hostilities were
concluded, and even provide just compensation for any damages that
Belgium incurred from German forces.
4 Belgian opposition would require Germany to regard the Belgian
‘‘Kingdom as an enemy,’’ leaving ‘‘the latter settlement of the relations
between the two States to the arbitrament of the sword.’’20

The Germans, of course, knew that the basis for the ultimatum (and sub-
sequent actions) – ‘‘the French intention of deployment’’ – was baldly false.21
But did the Belgians know this as well?

Belgian deliberations and the response to the ultimatum

Belgium’s cautious approach to what seems to any observer to be a most
hostile ultimatum can be attributed both to the Belgian agents’ hard-dying
trust of the Germans and (perhaps just as importantly) to Belgium’s iden-
tity as a neutral state.22 The Belgians who would decide their country’s fate
had two meetings, a Cabinet meeting and a Crown Council shortly there-
after. In the first they uniformly decided to reject the German demands and
in the second individual Cabinet members expressed their opinions on what
course of action would be appropriate and how to legitimate that action
accordingly.23
The Belgian reply, dated August 3, 1914 (7 a.m.), concluded by declaring
that they

refuse to believe that the independence of Belgium can only be pre-

served at the price of the violation of her neutrality. If this hope is dis-
appointed the Belgian Government are firmly resolved to repel, by all
means in their power, every attack upon their rights.
(Gibson 1917: 19)

King Albert addressed the Belgian Parliament the following day, at 9 a.m.
One hour prior, the German army had entered Belgian proper. The Ger-
mans had initiated the Western Front of World War I.
Discussion and statements, both public and private, made August 2–4
provide a window onto how the Belgians rationalized the decision to resist
the Germans. These deliberations and the public pronouncements which
followed them demonstrate the purpose behind Belgium’s decision to fight;
they are evidence of how Belgian state agents created meanings for Belgium
action, and how the duality of honor created the conditions which made
this seemingly suicidal decision to fight the only rational choice. Two gen-
eralizations can be made about Belgian motives in fighting Germany fol-
lowing the German ultimatum. I will now outline these.
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 101
Belgian honor was implicated in Belgian self-identity
The Belgians perceived the German ultimatum not only as threatening Bel-
gian territory, but as a threat to Belgium’s identity as a neutral state. Bel-
gium felt compelled to protect not only what it was but who it was as a state
within European society.
Again, in seeking ontological security, routinized action ties the self to the
reflexively monitored character of social life; habits are integral to self-
identity. While survival-based security logic might interpret the faith of 1914
Belgium in its independence as naı̈ve, such faith becomes intelligible when
we interpret how that independence, cultivated since her recognition as a
sovereign and neutral state in 1839, defined Belgian self-identity as a state
and its conception of internal honor. Belgian independence is more intelli-
gible when we recognize how that neutrality, throughout the nineteenth
century and including the Franco-Prussian conflict, was granted, respected,
and discursively recognized by European powers.
This case illustrates the duality of self-identity, where agents’ sense of Self
constrains and enables action. Being a ‘‘perpetually neutral state’’ con-
strained Belgium’s set of responses, but Belgian agents also used neutrality
as a channel for self-defense actions, implicating Belgium’s self-identity and
honor in these actions (see Table 5.1). The German ultimatum engendered
a critical situation because it was largely unforeseen by Belgian agents
and because it challenged the essence of Belgium self-identity – its
neutrality and independence as a nation-state. But while this critical situa-
tion threatened the Belgian sense of Self, it also provided Belgian agents
with an opportunity to reflexively engage and re-enact that Self. During the
Crown Council deliberation, several participants noted that resistance
would not violate Belgium’s legal status as a neutral state. General Antonin
de Selliers de Moranville, the chief of the General Staff, noted that ‘‘a neu-
tral that defended itself did not put itself in a state of war’’ (Zuckerman
2004: 17).24 Others went a step further, asserting that neutrality required
Belgium to resist the Germans. Jules van den Heuvel, Belgium’s ‘‘most
respected international lawyer,’’ noted that ‘‘we cannot content ourselves
with protest . . . to retreat would violate our neutrality’’ (Zuckerman 2004:
17). De Moranville and van den Heuvel were probably referencing at that
time the recent (1907) Articles of the Hague convention. Article 10 recog-
nizes that ‘‘the fact of a neutral Power resisting, even by force, attempts to
violate its neutrality [is not] a hostile act,’’ and Article 5 requires a neutral
country, in the case that its territory has been violated, to resist such a
violation with force.
Belgian agents even courted (at least the possibility of) ‘‘death’’ as the
only option. The prime minster, Baron Charles de Broqueville, added:

[I]f die we must, better death with honor. We have no other choice. Our
submission would serve no end. . . . Let us make no mistake about it, if
102 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
Table 5.1 Belgian references to honor
State agent Position Statement Setting
Belgian reply ‘‘Were it to accept the proposals Response to
to German laid before it, the Belgian ultimatum
ultimatum Government would sacrifice the
nation’s honor while being false
to its duties towards Europe’’
Broqueville Prime minister ‘‘If die we must, better death Crown Council
with honor. We have no other
choice’’ (Albertini 1957: 458)
Charles Woeste Catholic Party ‘‘We can fight for the honor of Crown Council
leader the flag. . .doing nothing is not
possible’’ (Zuckerman 2004: 16)
Schollaert Minister of Paying Germans ‘‘violence for Crown Council
state; former violence’’ to ‘‘avenge Belgian
prime minister honor’’ (Zuckerman 2004: 17)
King Albert I Monarchical ‘‘the cordial relations of our two Note to Kaiser
head of state governments. . .did not allow Wilhelm
me for one moment to suppose (August 4, 1914)
that Your Majesty would place
us before the cruel alternative of
choosing, in the face of the whole
of Europe, between war and the
loss of honor, between the respect
of treaties and the denial of our
international obligations’’
(Cammaerts 1935: 31)

Germany is victorious, Belgium, whatever her attitude will be annexed

to the Reich.
(Albertini 1957: 458)

Yet while Broqueville saw ‘‘no other choice,’’ at least one member of the
Council disagreed. Jules Griendl, the former minister to Germany, argued
that he trusted Wilhelm and that, furthermore, the chief concern for him
was France: ‘‘The emperor always told me we must have confidence in
him . . . if we are allied with France, we risk annexation. Victorious, they
will annex us’’ (Zuckerman 2004: 16). Here was the other option for Belgium –
allying with Germany. This option would, presumably, still ensure Belgian
independence. During his term as Belgian minister to Germany, Griendl
had in a dispatch of December 23, 1911, made the ‘‘survival-based’’ argu-
ment for Belgian foreign policy, a sense of prudence over ideals, stating that
Belgium should not

[s]acrifice itself for abstract principles. . . . The 1839 treaty is a contract

binding on us only so long as it is honored by all parties. Contrary to an
idea too widespread in Belgium, we should not be obliged to fight on
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 103
the side of the foreign army whose entry into Belgium was anterior by a
few hours to that of the adversary. . . . The preservation of the country’s
existence, our primordial duty, cannot be at the mercy of a fortuitous case.
(Albertini 1957: 426)

Nevertheless, Griendl’s was the minority view, as the meeting generally demon-
strates. For instance, Catholic Party leader and Minister of State Charles Woeste
stated: ‘‘we can fight for the honor of the flag . . . doing nothing is not possible’’
(Zuckerman 2004: 16).
As discussed in more detail in Chapter 3, a nation-state’s history influ-
ences its sense of self-identity.25 State agents use that history to construct
identity commitments, and this strategy was used by Belgian agents like
King Albert. In his address to Parliament Albert stated:

One single vision fills all minds: that of our independence endangered . . .
all the hearts beat in this moment in unison, my memories refer to the
Congress of 1830, and I ask you, Messrs: Are you determined at any
cost to maintain the sacred heritage of our ancestors?
(Gibson 1917: 15)

Hugh Gibson, the secretary of the American legation in Belgium at the time,
observed the scene and wrote that ‘‘the whole Chamber burst into a roar, and
from the Socialists’ side came cries of: ‘At any cost, by death if need be!’’’26

Belgian external honor was implicated in Belgium’s place as a sovereign

member of Europe
In every instance – at the Crown Council meeting (August 2–3), their reply
to Germany (August 3), and during the Parliamentary session on August 4 –
the Belgians affirmed not only their commitment to internal honor, but also
their duty towards their position as a member of a European society which
was responsible for its independence. During the Crown Council meeting,
Liberal Party leader Paul Hymans argued that to ally with the advancing
Germans, instead of fighting, ‘‘[would mean] tearing up with our hands the
treaty and would be a betrayal of our duty to Europe.’’ And in a tone of
martyrdom that echoed the position of the prime minister (see p. 000),
Hymans declared: ‘‘Small nations may be mutilated but live. The army may
be beaten, but we must resist an action that will revolt the world. We must
say no and do our duty.’’27
The Belgian reply asserted that resistance would fulfill its ‘‘international
obligations.’’ Further, in one important passage Belgium referenced its
responsibilities to both itself and Europe:

Were it to accept the proposals laid before it, the Belgian Government
would sacrifice the nation’s honor while being false to its duties towards
104 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
Europe. Conscious of the part which has been played by Belgium in the
civilization of the world for more than eighty years, the Government
refuses to believe that Belgian independence can only be preserved at
the price of the violation of her neutrality.
(Albertini 1957: 465, added)

In his speech to Parliament, King Albert first summarized the Belgian place
in Europe: along with ‘‘the sympathy’’ that Belgium ‘‘always received from
other nations,’’ there existed a ‘‘necessity of [Belgium’s] autonomous exis-
tence in respect of the equilibrium of Europe.’’ That necessity made Albert
‘‘hopeful that the dreaded emergency will not be realized.’’ But the threat
was clear, and the purpose of the action, besides keeping in the faith of the
‘‘Belgian ancestors’’ (noted on p. 000), would also gain the respect of fellow
states. Albert concluded his speech thus: ‘‘I have faith in our destinies; a
country which is defending itself conquers the respect of all; such a country
does not perish!’’28
Albert’s speech, as a primary example of the Belgian narrative, is espe-
cially noteworthy because it appears from this account that in resisting
Germany Belgians were not fighting for a material acquisition but rather to
‘‘maintain’’ the ‘‘sacred heritage’’ of their ‘‘ancestors.’’ Such ‘‘heritage’’
nevertheless was something which uniformly resonated with all elements of
a pluralist country. What is furthermore fascinating about these Belgian
deliberations and then declarations, in the context of the ‘‘state-as-person’’
issue discussed in Chapter 1 of this book, is that Belgian agents anthro-
pomorphized the Belgian nation-state in their reaction to the German ulti-
matum. De Broqueville and Griendl (while advocating different policy
tactics), for instance, were concerned first and foremost not necessarily with
the physical well-being of Belgian people but with avoiding annexation. De
Broqueville and Hymans in the Crown Council meeting referenced ‘‘death’’
and ‘‘life’’ when referring to the Belgian state. In short, the Belgian agents
saw the state as more than their individual selves, or the ‘‘whole’’ of a series
of individual parts,29 and, furthermore, they created Belgium as a person,
one whose honor needed to be protected for future generations, even if this
meant jeopardizing Belgium’s physical existence.30
In light of, and perhaps because of, the fact that Germany did not
expect the Belgians to fight,31 it is important to note how the Belgians
secured European recognition not only for these actions, but for the
words they used to legitimate their decision to fight. Albertini, an Italian,
states:

[the] reply which it [Belgium] returned to the German ultimatum is the

noblest document produced by the whole crisis and redounds to the
honor both of those responsible for its substance and those who gave it
its form.
(Albertini 1957: 465)
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 105
Cammaerts discusses a cartoon appearing in the British periodical Punch

a few months [after the German invasion] in which the Kaiser was
shown, confronting the Belgian King among the ruins of his devastated
country. The insult and the reply are still familiar: ‘‘You see, you have
lost everything!’’ – [Albert’s reply] ‘‘Not my soul!’’
(Cammaerts 1935: 31)

Cammaerts adds: ‘‘this cartoon expressed adequately the admiration of the

British public for the Belgian national hero, and for the splendid fight he
was making against tremendous odds’’ (Cammaerts 1935: 31).
Selected excerpts of European recognition for the Belgians are listed in
Table 5.2.
A few inductive comments can be made regarding what in particular it
was about the Belgian actions that provoked European admiration. As the
Ferrero and Christenssen quotations suggest, some Europeans admired the
‘‘David and Goliath’’ nature of the Belgian situation.32 The Amette passage
references a related admiration for the Belgian willingness to endure pain
and suffering (an aspect which, I posit on pp. 109–112, provides grounds for
modifying the ‘‘success condition’’ of Just War which the Belgian action
otherwise compromised). Finally, the stated positions of the two British
statesmen Churchill and Balfour indicate that the Belgian actions secured
something more long term – that its willingness to fight the Germans pro-
cured for Belgium a special place in the future European community.
According to the then British prime minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, ‘‘the
Belgian people had won the immortal glory which belongs to a people who
prefer freedom to ease, to security, even to life itself.’’33
Let me end this section by stating that I am not arguing that the Belgians
fought the Germans solely, or even partially, to secure this European
recognition. It may well have been the case that the Belgians were driven by
a Hegelian ‘‘need for recognition,’’ and that such a need was satisfied here.34
But in reviewing the discussion in the Crown Council and the public state-
ments of Belgian state agents, a clear picture emerges that the Belgians were
more concerned with upholding European principles (independence and
sovereignty) as they were relevant to Belgium’s self-identity, experienced
through the Belgian Self, than with acquiring recognition from European
countries. The duty Belgian agents felt toward Europe was additionally
motivated by a need to be recognized by that European society, yet such
recognition was also based on the fact that Belgium’s independence, its
sense of Self, as a nation was a product of that European society. Further-
more, as I mentioned briefly earlier in the chapter (p. 000), the principles of
a community depend upon their re-enactment by individual members –
lending these principles a visual or perceptual frame in the form of an act
that fellow members could observe. The fact that Belgium was so over-
matched by the Germans, the fact that it was so materially incapable of
106 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
Table 5.2 European recognition for Belgian actions
European Statement
agent/position
Winston S. Churchill, ‘‘At this moment when their cities are captive, their country
British statesman under yoke, their government and army forced into exile,
the Belgian nation is exerting an influence upon the destinies
of Europe and of mankind beyond that of great States in
fullness of prosperity and power; and from the abyss of
present grief and suffering Belgium looks out with certainty
to a future more brilliant than any which she could ever have
planned’’ (Caine 1914: 15)
Arthur J. Balfour, ‘‘Wrongs have indeed been done which nothing can
British statesman right. . .yet the time will surely come, and come soon, when
and former prime Belgium’s wounds will heal, when morally and materially
minister greater than before, she will pursue in peace her high
destiny, strong in the memories of an heroic past, and in
the affectionate esteem of all who love liberty’’
(Caine 1914: 15)
Gulielmo Ferrero, ‘‘Belgium, an intrepid martyr, offering herself to the fury
Italian historian of the Teuton, has awakened the moral conscience of the
world. . .When the world saw a Great Power drunk with
pride, thus torturing a small, inoffensive nation, it
understood that work and wealth and knowledge and
courage and power are not all-sufficient; peoples as well
as individuals need to know the worth of honor’’
(Caine 1914: 131)
Leon Amette, ‘‘Faced with the alternative of spurning their pledged word
the Cardinal or submitting to a bloody and ruinous invasion, the King
Archbishop of of the Belgians and his people replied: ‘Death before
Paris dishonor!’. . .They endure the worst calamities without
flinching. All honor to them!’’ (Caine 1914: 29)
J.C. Christenssen, ‘‘The fate of Belgium awakes in our nation the greatest
former Danish sympathy.. . .Our feelings are roused so much more as we
prime minister ourselves are a small nation, who must always appeal to
the righteousness and highmindedness of others’’
(Caine 1914: 102)

defending territory but its agents chose to do so anyway, strengthened the

principles of sovereignty and independence even more than if such principles
had been ensured by one of Europe’s ‘‘great power’’ states.35

Misperception, survival, and Belgian honor

My interpretation is that Belgium enacted the decision based upon its need
to satisfy internal and external honor, and that this interpretation can
account for what seems to us to be a rather irrational action. Yet there
exists one plausible alternative interpretation – that Belgium decided to
fight because she misperceived German intentions and/or her own ability to
repel the Germans.36 It is the main assertion posited by cognitive IR scholars
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 107
that in the state agent ‘‘discongruities between the perceived and the real
operational environments can occur, leading to less than satisfactory choices
in foreign policy’’ (Hudson 2005: 7). The seminal works by both Robert
Jervis (1968, 1976) and Richard Cottam (1977) demonstrated how mis-
perceptions could lead to disastrous outcomes no different than what the
Belgians faced in 1914.
This alternative interpretation has some merit in this case. Two of Jervis’s
hypotheses of misperception – (1) ‘‘that decision-makers tend to fit incom-
ing information into their existing theories’’ and (2) that ‘‘decision-makers
are apt to err by being too wedded to the established view and too closed to
new information’’ – are evidenced by the Belgian faith in the respect for
their neutrality and in their historically constructed trust of the Germans.
Using this interpretation allows us to understand the Belgians’ friendly
view of Germany as an ‘‘image’’ which prevented them from concluding
that Germany intended to breech Belgian territory on its way to attacking
France. Albertini notes that this epistemic barrier was probably cross-
national:

[F]rom 1870 onwards admiration for Germany and belief in her invin-
cibility had become ingrained in the educated classes everywhere on the
continent. We Italians also, in the months preceding our entry into the
war, were to find out how widespread and deeply rooted the feeling was.
(Albertini 1957: 457)

Yet Albertini continues:

These considerations do not detract from the high credit due to Bel-
gium. Given such a mentality it was all the more admirable that her
leaders rid themselves of it at one stroke and resolved on stubborn
resistance to an invasion which many observers had credited them with
a willingness to tolerate, if not even to turn to profitable account.
(Albertini 1957: 457)

So the misperception thesis can explain why the Belgians waited so long to
respond to the gathering German threat, but it cannot account for the Bel-
gian decision to fight, as the Belgians were fully aware of German intentions
and capabilities following the ultimatum. If the ‘‘friendly German’’ frame
was so salient that it prevented Belgium from recognizing the German
threat, there is no reason to believe that it would have been eliminated so
easily, in Albertini’s terms, ‘‘at one stroke.’’
Additionally, the same identity of neutrality that prevented the Belgians
from seeing the German threat for what it was also prevented them from
approaching France or Britain for assistance until after German forces had
breeched Belgian territory. On August 3, for instance, the King would only
‘‘appeal to the diplomatic intervention of Your Majesty’s Government
108 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
[Britain’s King George V] to safeguard the integrity of Belgium’’ (Belgium
Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1915: 25). Furthermore, as Albertini notes,

the Belgian Government also sought to guard against possible French

advances into its territory even after the German ultimatum gave the
guaranteeing Powers the right to intervene in defense of Belgian neu-
trality as being a direct interest of their own.
(Albertini 1957: 467)

The Belgian government learned at 11 a.m. on August 4 that the Germans

had entered Belgium at Gemmenich some three hours prior, and it was only
after acquiring this information that they issued the following statement to
the British, French, and Russian ministers:

Belgium appeals to England, France and Russia to co-operate as guar-

anteeing Powers in the defense of her territory. There should be con-
certed and joint action to oppose the forcible measures employed by
Germany against Belgium, and, at the same time, to guarantee the
future maintenance of the independence and integrity of Belgium.
(Belgium Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1915: 40)

Thus, the ontological security interpretation understands the Belgian

actions more comprehensively than a misperception thesis, as it explains
Belgium’s posture toward what would become its allies (France and Britain)
and its enemy (Germany).
Finally, the ‘‘survival’’ assumption of traditional security is wholly dis-
confirmed in accounting for the motives behind the Belgian actions. While
the ‘‘survival’’ position, represented by Griendl, was offered during the
Crown Council, it was an overwhelmingly minority view. Of course, Waltz
and other neorealists could perhaps explain the outcome of the Belgian
decision, since states that do not observe ‘‘structures’’ are eliminated: ‘‘to
say that ‘the structure selects’ means simply that those who conform to
accepted and successful practices more often rise to the top and are likelier
to stay there’’ (Waltz 1979: 92). Both defensive and offensive realists could
argue that the Belgians placed a naı̈ve faith in the inviolability of their
territory – that the assurances they received throughout the nineteenth
century culminating in the 1907 Hague Conference were utterly mean-
ingless. Waiting until the Germans had crossed their border further
demonstrates the Belgian naı̈veté. According to the survival-based inter-
pretation, Belgium in 1914 was an ‘‘unsuccessful’’ state eliminated from an
evolutionary world.
While not technically wrong, this ‘‘prediction’’ by mainstream IR is hardly
insightful or enlightening. While it predicts that certain states will either not
see or not choose to see systemic ‘‘structures,’’ there is no discursive evi-
dence that the Belgians were motivated by the survival motive. A traditional
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 109
realist may argue that Belgian imprudence was unjust (a normative position
relating to the Just War discussion in the section on pp. 109–110), but it was
hardly naı̈ve, as Belgian military advisers and decision makers were fully
aware of which consequences would likely follow their decision.
Furthermore, the security-as-survival account denies that states must
create meanings for their actions, no matter what the potential outcome of
such actions will be. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Belgian dis-
course is how agents felt compelled to create meaning for an action that
they ultimately knew would fail. Even though it would probably require us
to jettison the search for one ‘‘universal rationality’’ of nation-states, this
case exemplifies how the more interesting research questions explored in IR
are those which posit not what ‘‘rational action’’ looks like, but rather how
states can ‘‘rationalize’’ their decisions so that the social actions which
follow are possible. In this case, at least, it appears that the desire for Bel-
gium to secure both internal and external honor did just that.

The normative judgment: circumventing ‘‘success’’

The Belgian case also illustrates how an ontological security interpretation
can be used to modify a condition of Just War theory, or jus ad bellum. As
some observers might find this act of national suicide to be normatively
problematic, I would like to conclude this chapter by defending the asser-
tion that Belgium’s satisfaction of ontological security can be defended on
the grounds of just war theory, because in doing so we might recognize how
small powers like Belgium have the ability to transform the ideational
landscape of international society.
There have generally been five conditions of this ‘‘law to war’’: (1) The
would-be actor must have a just cause; (2) the action must be declared by a
proper authority (usually this has meant the modern sovereign state,
although dynastical sovereigns and international organizations may qua-
lify); (3) the action must possess the right intention, addressing some wrong
suffered, and the actions must solely reflect that intention; (4) there must be
proportionality of means for the ends (the destruction of the action must be
outweighed by the expected utility or ‘‘goodness’’ of that action); and (5)
the action must have a reasonable chance of success.
Using the literal reading of this last condition, the Belgian actions fail to
meet the reasonable success condition, as they knowingly engaged in an act
of self-defense that they knew had no reasonable chance for success. The
Belgian Chief of Staff Selliers, during the second Crown Council meeting of
August 2, was asked the following questions and gave the following replies:

Can our army fight a defensive battle alone with a chance of halting the
enemy? Is our army completely ready to meet the attack of the enemy?
Reply – No, the war has caught us in the very act of reorganizing the army;
our officer cadres, especially those in the reserve, are still inadequate;
110 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
our field artillery is still below establishment; we have absolutely no
heavy guns.37

Yet how would we ever fault the Belgians in this case? One Just War theorist
cites the Belgian action in 1914 with reference to the success condition, but
comes to no real conclusion other than to say:

Though Belgian resistance was gallant and surprisingly stiff at Liege,

the German armies were delayed just two days by Belgian military
opposition, and the losses to Belgium were immense. Though the Bel-
gian cause was just, considerations of proportionality indicate that a
decision not to fight would not have been immoral.
(Lackey 1989: 41, emphasis added)

I posit two corollaries which allow us to recognize Belgian actions, in this

case, as ‘‘just.’’ But while I am using these to qualify the Belgian case, I
would suggest that these corollaries may prove useful for other situations
where a literal reading of the success condition fails.
First, we must recognize that sacrifice is hardly unjust if it serves to
strengthen certain community-based principles. Suffering can be a useful
method for demonstrating adherence to principles, especially when it
acquires moral significance in the eyes of a community of observers. An apt
(but limited) parallel is derived from the pacifist and nonviolent-resistance
traditions of Christianity.38 According to this tradition, power ‘‘resides in
example and persuasion’’ (Miller 1996: 278), or in the process of the
demonstration rather than the outcomes of such an action. Furthermore,
suffering may engender sympathy both for the pacifist individuals/groups
and, perhaps more importantly, for the cause, grievance, and/or principle
that justifies the suffering.39
Of course, in a case where Belgium chose to fight, qualifications are
needed when applying the sacrifice principle from the pacifist tradition.
Pacifists, of course, do not fight, and the suffering they are willing to endure
extends even to situations where nonviolence courts extinction (or ‘‘martyr-
dom’’) in the face of aggression. So how can we apply a pacifist principle
(sacrifice) to a non-pacifist act? In each case, an obvious aggressor is evi-
dent. And while the principle (pacifism v. sovereign independence) behind
each (in)action differs, both provoke sympathy for those who suffer and
admiration for such endurance. In sum, ‘‘success’’ can be understood here
not as whether the fight ensures the physical existence of the state, but
rather as whether it strengthens community support for the principle that is
the basis for the resistance. While it is hard to ascertain what long-term
impact the Belgian actions had, if any, upon collective European recogni-
tion for the sovereignty of neutral countries, it should be noted that at least
one member of the Crown Council argued for resistance in just these terms:
‘‘the army must defend not only our rights but those of the guarantor
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 111
states.’’40 It is additionally significant that an Italian journalist expressed
admiration for Belgium in such terms:

Defending her liberty to the death, Belgium has defended the sacred
patrimony of all civilized peoples; she has fought for a principle which
is the basis of life in every modern nation; she has given her blood, not
for her individual interests, but for an ideal which is also ours. Defeat
ennobles and glorifies her, as martyrdom sanctifies and exalts the victim
and his faith. Belgium has set Independence above Existence.41

Such sacrifice, again, while ensuring a community principle of sovereignty,

also ensured, in one historian’s view, Belgium’s future sovereignty (and the
core of the Belgian Self) as well. Discussing the atrocities that Belgium’s
population endured, Adrian Meeus writes:

[T]he victims of these atrocities did not die in vain, and their sacrifice
was more important for their country. . . . They helped to make the
violation of Belgian neutrality a symbol of outraged justice, forcing
every country in the world to treat the conflict as a moral problem.
There can be no doubt that this saved Belgian independence, which
would have disappeared if the country had given free passage to the
German armies.
(Meeus 1962: 351)

As the quotations in Table 5.2 suggest, the Belgians thus acquired broad
recognition and appreciation for their decision to fight. The former British
prime minister Arthur Balfour stated in 1914:

The weakness of the victim, the justice of her cause, the greatness of her
sufferings, and her unconquerable soul, have moved the wonder and
pity of the world. And when we turn from the victim to the oppressor,
the tragic horror deepens. We see wrong heaped on wrong, and treach-
ery on treachery.
(Balfour, quoted in Caine 1914: 15)42

Balfour’s comments bring us to a second modification of the success

condition – that resistance may be justified if the target, or aggressor,
‘‘represents a certain evil or malevolence . . . such that life under them would
be nightmarish, a fate worse than death.’’43 Yet how are we to judge the
‘‘evilness’’ of such a target? There are, in my view, two parameters on which
scholars might make such judgment. First, we might look to what a priori
knowledge of a target regime the resisting parties possessed. That is, did the
defending state’s agents, as it were, provide a proper counterfactual to what
‘‘life under’’ the aggressor state would be like? We could term this the
subjective a priori measure of ‘‘evil,’’ as it would allow us to find out whether
112 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I
those who decided to embark on a ‘‘futile’’ course of action and subject their
citizenry to inevitable destruction, at least made an effort in good faith to
predict what a ‘‘no resistance’’ decision would mean to their fellow citizens. In
the case of the Belgians, though, it proves hard to ascertain such information.
While many Belgians feared the Germans once the invasion began, other
Belgians viewed Wilhelmite Germany as the home of the Enlightenment and
quasi-democracy. What’s more, there is no evidence of such value-judgments
during the Crown Council discussion.
An intersubjective ad hoc parameter for evaluating the ‘‘evilness’’ of a
target, on the other hand, is able to measure the conduct of the targeted
state or non-state entity after resistance has commenced, even using such a
state’s actions as a whole to generalize about what life would have been like
under such a regime. Using this measurement, it is quite easy to absolve the
Belgians, since from the point of invasion German atrocities against the
civilian population of Belgium were rather pervasive. Additionally, the ad
hoc parameter allows us to acknowledge whether the target for the resis-
tance was naturally evil, or morally evil.44 More generally, in today’s age of
‘‘collateral damage’’ and interrogation techniques that break established
international codes, this parameter allows one to consider whether immoral
outcomes committed by agents were intentional or unintentional. And this
would allow the just war theorist to utilize established jus en bello concepts such
as double effect and supreme emergency for this jus ad bellum evaluation.45

Conclusions: honor and International Relations

Three important lessons follow from this particular chapter. First, we
should note how, through time, the two ‘‘conventional wisdom’’ foci targeted
here, survival and a reasonable chance for success, are linked. Prudence is the
normative by-product of the ‘‘survival’’ assumption. This link, rein-
forced through scholarship and state practice, has not only narrowed our
normative judgments about prudent foreign policy; it has limited scholarly
interpretive frames for what constitutes ‘‘rational’’ behavior. The obvious
conclusion is that future research should reinvestigate ‘‘irrational’’ cases like
that of the Belgians where states or unit-like entities (sub-state organizations,
city-states, etc.) decided to fight when success was elusive or knowingly
impossible. At minimum, it would allow us to better define ‘‘success’’ – since
success in battle would not always require a clear victory.
Second, even though honor, because it ensured Belgian ontological
security, required Belgium to fight and die at the hands of the Germans,
judging by the reaction of most European states Belgian justifications and
actions adequately demonstrate how much consensus existed on what a
collectively ‘‘honorable’’ action looked like in 1914 Europe. So when Lebow
writes about the morally complex nature of ‘‘honor-driven worlds,’’ a reply
recognizes how the degree to which such worlds are either competitive or
consensual depends upon how often states keep in mind their collective
 Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I 113
identity commitments, and/or whether they judge their prospective actions
by their external honor considerations. While one might quickly endorse the
case of Belgium in 1914 satisfying internal honor (because it related to a
self-identification with neutrality), we can think of many more troubling
situations of a state using a different form of self-identity to structure its
policies (i.e. a ‘‘nuclear state’’).
Third, and perhaps most provocatively, the observation that the Belgian
decision to fight Germany proved to be enormously costly for the Belgian
state means that nation-states driven to satisfy their ontological security
might realize their self-identity drives in metaphorically ‘‘suicidal tenden-
cies.’’ As morally problematic as that phrase sounds, the brief concluding
section justified the Belgian decision on the basis of its transformational
possibilities – in that, to paraphrase Abou A.M. Zeid, ‘‘the highest grade of
honour’’ is ‘‘attained when the ideal can only be realized at the expense of
the performer himself . . . in such cases’’ a state like Belgium ‘‘gives practical
proof’’ that in its consideration self-identity was ‘‘larger than life’’ (Zeid
1966: 258). The existential angst which befalls all social agents is therefore
solved through a painful, costly, and tragic, but also emancipatory, action,
such as that taken by the Belgians in 1914.
The Belgian and British cases are ontological security ‘‘success stories’’ in
the sense that both of these states pursued policies that confronted and
eliminated threats to self-identity. Yet a fluid view of agency, inherent in the
ontological security story, means that the ‘‘identity success rates’’ for such
actions vary. What about those actors who pursued policies costly in self-
identity terms? The following chapter assesses how past self-identity dis-
ruptions not only haunt the memories of nation-states, but motivate them in
their future policies as well.
6 Haunted by the past
Shame and NATO’s Kosovo operation

The American chattering classes that helped frame the debate over Kosovo
during its beginning military stages stated that it was unimportant both to
America’s strategic interests and to the domestic interests of its opinion
leaders: ‘‘But you need only ask your Congressman to find Kosovo on a map –
and watch the blank stare that comes back at you – to appreciate how
unimportant Kosovo is to any vital American interests.’’1 Another remarked:
‘‘Empire as social work? It has come to that. It is empire without swagger,
and with a heavy heart.’’2 A third stated:

Despite its bizarre claim that the fate of Europe hangs in the balance,
the Clinton administration recognizes that this is mainly a humanitarian
mission. Its goal – to stop the atrocities in Kosovo – is a noble effort
but a naive one.3

A final important example comes from the pages of the National Review:

In their eyes, if the war enhanced US security, its purpose would be less
high and its character less admirable. For them, Kosovo is another
Somalia, another Haiti, another chance to do what we failed to do in
Rwanda: foreign policy as social work. There is not much reasoning at
work here. [American Senator from Minnesota] Paul Wellstone talks of
‘‘a knot in my stomach,’’ and [Democratic Senator David] Bonior says
that the refugee situation ‘‘grabs me in a very visceral way.’’
(Abrams 1999: 52, emphasis added)4

When armed with an ontological security interpretation, Abrams’s comments

especially evoke several observations. First, while the ‘‘social work’’ quip is not
new, the positioning of Kosovo as repentance for ‘‘Rwanda’’ is intriguing.
Abrams seems to find such reasoning inappropriate. Also inappropriate for
Abrams is the cited Senators’ ‘‘visceral’’ reaction to the refugee situation, in that
Wellstone and Bonior are making private statements imbued with emotion.
Besides the derision of the emotional, irrational, private, and incomplete
nature of Bonior and Wellstone’s comments, the above quotation sees foreign
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 115
policy in either/or terms; that is, a foreign policy action must serve the
rational self-interest of a nation-state (defined by traditional security terms)
or the ‘‘moral’’ interest of saving those in need. It cannot be both. This is
unsurprising considering what was discussed in Chapter 2, namely that for
over a century now even the most astute social theorists have separated any
social interests and actions into ‘‘rational or self’’ v. ‘‘moral’’ categories.
Abrams’s implication is that because Wellstone and Bonior could not spe-
cifically articulate their ‘‘visceral’’ interests in the Kosovo intervention, other
than in emotional terms, the United States had no traditional security
interest in saving ethnic Albanians.
The delegitimation of the Kosovo operation as ‘‘motherly’’ social work is
nothing short of what Peterson terms a ‘‘mapping strategy,’’ that is a
‘‘practice of power which disciplines meaning, enable[s] and disable[s] resis-
tance’’ (Peterson 1992: 190). As such, these critiques were used to portray
the purpose of Kosovo as a form of emotional irrationality. The United
States, and other NATO powers, did indeed have a self-interest to pursue
through the Kosovo intervention.5 If we consider past foreign policy
opportunities where the United States massively failed to live up to its
vision of Self as identity threats, then there were ontological security interests,
in addition to ‘‘traditional security’’ interests, in the US ameliorating the
plight of the ethnic Albanians. Rational action in ontological security research
is understood as the sum of acts that agents perform which ‘‘make sense’’
(to them). When tied to and implicated in identity, actions which appear to
us as having some moral (or, as Tickner observes, ‘‘feminine’’)6 qualities are
in fact hardly irrational if they serve a state’s sense of self-identity.
There is no indication that a more forceful discursive assertion of Amer-
ican ontological security interests would have worked to stem the criticisms
noted above. Yet such justifications, albeit in a limited fashion and thus not
nearly at the forefront of Clinton’s foreign policy goals, were still used in
important contexts. These represent evidence that American foreign policy
makers recognized American self-identity as implicated in the Kosovo crisis,
and an ontological security interpretation sheds light upon the rational
purpose behind American actions – a purpose to experience its shameful past
in the context of an opportunity to ‘‘go the other way’’ in Kosovo.
This chapter uses an ontological security framework to interpret how the
outcomes of past policy decisions motivated the NATO member states to
intervene in Kosovo in the spring of 1999. Regarding Kosovo, the argument
defended in this chapter is that the plight of the ethnic Albanians threatened
each NATO member state’s self-identity, what I term their ‘‘ontological
security,’’ because the main contributing NATO members encountered a
metaphorical sense of ‘‘shame’’ over past historical memories and experiences.
While each source of ontological insecurity was somewhat unique, these
individual insecurities mobilized into a collective security action.
As I stated in Chapter 3, since interventionist cases like Kosovo are on
the face of it difficult to explain using prevailing, materialist-informed
116 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
approaches, IR scholars are left trying to develop their own explanatory
frameworks by using a ‘‘definitions first’’ approach.7 Such an approach has
its advantages, but there are also drawbacks with operationalization and
normative judgments about what constitutes ‘‘humanitarian’’ action. This
will oftentimes leave scholars into the ‘‘either/or’’ trap discussed in Chapter
2 – in that any material or strategic gain which a state accrues in an inter-
vention taints it as un-humanitarian. Most importantly, by defining what
‘‘is’’ or ‘‘is not’’ humanitarian, scholars tend to develop it as action separate
in International Relations from the internally driven motives of states.
What interests are served for the intervening states during a humanitarian
intervention? How do such interventions fulfill the ‘‘security-seeking’’
drive behind foreign policy? If states are rational actors, how are such
interventions ‘‘rational?’’ Finally, why do states intervene to stop abuses
at one time (1999 in Kosovo) and not others (Rwanda and Bosnia in the
early 1990s)?
This chapter proceeds through three sections. In the first section, I pro-
vide a background to the case, and then review some existing interpretations
of Kosovo (see pp. 116–124). As I mention in Chapter 1, I am not
attempting to ‘‘falsify’’ these alternative interpretations, but rather present
them to better sharpen my ontological security reconstruction of the case.
The latter is then presented in the second section, where I identify the
sources of shame evident in NATO member state discourses, sources which
culminated in a collective security effort, Operation Allied Force, to end the
ethnic cleansing policies of Serbia (see pp. 124–143). In the third section, I
discuss why and how particular sources of ‘‘shame’’ might remain a salient
source of anxiety for states and why at the same time intervention might not
necessarily follow in the manner that it did for NATO member states in
Kosovo in 1999 (see pp. 143–147).

Background to Kosovo and existing interpretations

Background
Following World War II, Rump Yugoslavia became a communist state con-
sisting of six republics: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia,
Macedonia, and Montenegro; and two provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Kosovo formally became a semi-autonomous region in 1974 under the
Yugoslav Federal Constitution (informal autonomy had fifty years pre-
cedence). But in 1989 this autonomy was rescinded by Serbian President Slobo-
dan Milosevic, who imposed full Serbian control over the region. Led by a
semi-underground (and nonviolent) political party, the Democratic League
of Kosovo (LDK), ethnic Albanians in Kosovo demanded independence
throughout the early 1990s. The Serbian leadership at the same time
encouraged Serbian migration into the region and continuously repressed the
Albanian majority in the area.
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 117
The 1995 Dayton Accords, which brought peace between Bosnia, Croa-
tia, and Serbia, provided a technical definition of Serbian territory that
included the province of Kosovo. In short, the Accords legitimized Serbian
rule of Kosovo, and the nonviolent strategies of the LDK were no longer
uniformly supported by Kosovo Albanians. From 1996 onward, the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking Serb police stations and other
institutions of the Serbian government. Serbian troops were sent into areas
controlled by the KLA in February of 1998, ratcheting the conflict to a
more intense level. This fighting created hundreds of thousands of ethnic
Albanian refugees and drew the active attention of the international com-
munity. Under the threat of NATO air strikes, in October 1998 Serbia
agreed to withdraw troops and allowed for the peaceful return of refugees,
and the Serbs accepted international (Organization for Security and Coop-
eration in Europe, OSCE) monitors into the region. These measures were
backed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1203.8 But the ces-
sation proved fragile, and on January 15, 1999, forty-five ethnic Albanians
were executed by Serb forces outside of the village of Racak. This massacre
received intense global media coverage and confirmed for leaders of NATO
states that the Serbs would not honor any agreements.9 In mid-February of
that same year talks led by NATO member states and in conjunction with
the United Nations (UN) began in Rambouillet, France, between Serbs and
the Kosovo Albanians. While the Kosovo Albanians agreed to sign an
accord – after being assured of a protective NATO peacekeeping force – the
Serbs, perhaps because of this guarantee of NATO peacekeepers, refused.
While fighting continued, talks resumed in mid-March, culminating in a
failed last-ditch effort on March 22, 1998, by chief American negotiator
Richard Holbrooke. NATO forces began air strikes on March 24. They
ended on June 10 after a week and a half of negotiations. In between, Serb
forces accelerated their ethnic cleansing campaign.10 Serb forces agreed to
pull back and allow peacekeeping forces into Kosovo. These forces con-
stitute a KFOR (Kosovo Force) protection force which remains in Kosovo
today.

The mainstream perspective on NATO’s Kosovo intervention

As it has become one of the most researched cases in International Rela-
tions, a multitude of explanations exist which examine why NATO states
intervened in the Kosovo crisis.11 While there are various, and at times
contradictory, liberal accounts available to interpret NATO states’ motives,
in general liberal IR theory posits that state agents have rational incentives
to satisfy the interests of domestic groups in their foreign policies.12 NATO
state agents were pressured by domestic groups (interest group coalitions,
public outcry, or both), and were thus forced to intervene to satisfy these
societal demands. Yet the level of domestic outcry did not itself compel
NATO states to intervene in Kosovo, and in fact there is plenty of evidence
118 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
to suggest that domestic populaces restricted NATO state agents from a
more comprehensive bombing strategy, whereby, in Wheeler’s words, the
‘‘concern with maintaining domestic legitimacy exerted a powerful con-
straint on NATO strategy and forced the Alliance to invest great faith in air
power in achieving its humanitarian and security objectives’’ (Wheeler 2000:
268). Thus the best that liberal theory can offer us in this case is to explain
the limited form of NATO’s action, rather than its motivating rationale.
Liberal theory in general is haunted, in my (and others’) view, by the fact
that ‘‘liberal’’ democratic structures are not intended to promote foreign
policies which ‘‘rescue’’ foreign nationals (see also the discussion in Chapter
3). Samantha Power states in her seminal book about genocide and Amer-
ican foreign policy:

It is in the realm of domestic politics that the battle to stop genocide is

lost. American political leaders . . . reason that they will incur no costs
if the United States remains involved but will face steep risks if they
engage. Potential sources of influence – lawmakers on Capital Hill, edi-
torial boards, non-governmental groups, and ordinary constituents – do
not generate political pressure sufficient to change the calculus of
America’s leaders.
(Power 2002: xviii, emphasis added)13

A plausible argument could say that the above was also true in all NATO
states throughout the 1990s, and may make intelligible, to paraphrase Wheeler,
the ‘‘fact . . . that no Western government . . . intervened to defend human
rights in the 1990s unless it [had] been very confident that the risk of casualties
were almost zero’’ (Wheeler 2000: 300). Instead, in self-identity terms the
Kosovo crisis hampered the ability of ‘‘liberal’’ states to plausibly articulate
and narrate their sense of Self, as I discuss in the following section (see pp.
121–131). It would have damaged the ability of such states to, in Giddens’s
(1991) words, ‘‘keep a particular narrative going.’’
Traditional security accounts such as neorealism posit that changes in the
distribution of power largely precede a change in policy, yet such frame-
works, while they are supposed to ‘‘predict’’ state behavior, are somewhat
meaningless in this case. Karen Ruth Adams presents the quandary for
structural realism’s ability to interpret the Kosovo case in stark terms:
‘‘Great power indifference to weak states is also most likely in a unipolar
system, because the dominant state has no reason to worry that other great
powers will manipulate situations to their advantage’’ (Adams 2006: 24,
emphasis added). If international politics in 1999 can be considered a
‘‘unipolar’’ form of distribution of power, a consideration with which most
reasonable scholars and analysts would agree, and Yugoslavia a ‘‘weak’’
state, then the United States should not have had an interest in the NATO
operation. Yet the United States was the predominant contributor to the
NATO mission.
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 119
There is also a slightly more nuanced structural argument to be made
which would posit how Kosovo was more about NATO ‘‘demonstrating’’ its
power and influence to its Russian and Chinese detractors than it was about
intervening to prevent genocide. While Russia and China did oppose the
intervention by threatening to veto any proposals for such action in the
United Nations Security Council, we are still left wondering why NATO
would choose Kosovo as its platform for ‘‘demonstration?’’ The claim that
states intervene simply to demonstrate their power to deter rivals seems
reasonable, but it is a claim that is wholly indeterminate and unspecified.
We have no idea when, where, or in what form this ‘‘demonstration’’ will
take, only that any show of force is a demonstration of power to someone
in the international community of states. ‘‘Predicting’’ that states will
‘‘demonstrate’’ their power somewhere and at some time is an imprecise
prediction indeed.
A further argument made by various contributors to the Sterling–Folker
volume who present ‘‘neoliberal’’ (Kay 2006, esp. p. 64) or ‘‘neoclassical
realist’’ (Taliaferro 2006), is that NATO member states acted to ensure their
credibility as nation-states and that of their collective security organization.
In essence, the ‘‘prestige’’ (‘‘moral’’ or otherwise)14 of NATO was on the
line, since member states had been warning Milosevic as far back as 1997
that they would take action if he would not stop policies meant to ‘‘cleanse’’
Kosovo of ethnic Albanians. Some realist authors, like Hans Morgenthau,
see credibility as an important aspect constituting the ‘‘power’’ of states to
attain their national interest goals. This is also similar to the argument that
moral authority is a ‘‘power resource’’ (Hall 1997). The ‘‘credibility’’ argu-
ment means that states see it as in their interest to promote policies which
‘‘back up’’ words with actions, and in this case NATO powers weighed ‘‘the
prospective loss of relative prestige and status’’ in the Kosovo intervention
(Taliaferro 2006: 41, emphasis added).
The historical materialist position on Kosovo also recognizes the issue of
‘‘credibility’’ at work,15 albeit from a slightly more critical position.
According to Noam Chomsky, ‘‘humanitarian’’ language was deployed as a
cloak to disguise the profit-driven interests of various groups:

The technical meaning of humanitarian crisis is a problem somewhere

that threatens the interest of rich and powerful people. That is the
essence of what makes it a crisis. Now, any disturbance in the Balkans
does threaten the interest of rich and powerful people, namely, the elites
of Europe and the US. So when there are humanitarian issues in the
Balkans, they become a humanitarian crisis. On the other hand, if
people slaughter each other in Sierra Leone or the Congo, it’s not a
humanitarian crisis.16

Alan Cafruny provides a precise understanding of which ‘‘interests’’ the

‘‘rich and powerful’’ had in forcing key NATO participants, like the United
120 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
States, to intervene in Kosovo. Besides being an arena to ‘‘demonstrate’’ the
‘‘overwhelming dominance of the US military to Europe,’’ Kosovo is
‘‘adjacent’’ to an area that would have provided an alternate and convenient
route for a pipeline, allowing US multinationals to avoid having to support
the construction of a pipeline through Iran (Cafruny 2006: 217–218).
According to Cafruny, the use of force by the United States served social
and economic forces that were products of the global economy more than
mainstream approaches (like realist or constructivist) are willing to
acknowledge.
There is indeed evidence that member states saw NATO ‘‘credibility’’ on
the line, especially when that credibility included putting a stop to a
regionally destabilizing conflict like Kosovo. Most NATO policy makers
would have agreed with Britain’s then foreign secretary Robin Cook’s posi-
tion on April 14, 1999, one which linked NATO credibility with each state’s
traditional sense of ‘‘security’’ interests:

Our national security depends upon NATO. NATO now has a common
border with Serbia. . . . Our borders cannot remain stable while such
violence is conducted on the other side of the fence. NATO was the
guarantor of the October agreement. What credibility would NATO be
left with if we allowed the agreement to be trampled on comprehen-
sively by President Milosevic and did not stir to stop him?17

Member states packaged the ‘‘credibility’’ argument with their concern over
European ‘‘order,’’ which sounds similar to the international society argu-
ments English School scholars have made for years.18 In America, President
Clinton went in front of the American people during the first night of air
strikes to justify the operation with a map as a visual aid:

We act to prevent a wider war, to defuse a powder keg at the heart of

Europe. . . . Take a look at this map. Kosovo is a small place, but it sits
on a major fault line between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, at the
meeting place of Islam and both the Western and Orthodox branches of
Christianity.19

Later in the speech Clinton pointed out that Greece and Turkey, both
important allies, would face a refugee crisis if the problem was not addres-
sed. Clinton used a ‘‘fire analogy’’ in his explanation:

Let a fire burn here in this area, and the flames will spread. Eventually
key US allies could be drawn into a wider conflict, or we would be forced
to confront later only at far greater risk and greater cost.20

So it would be incorrect to say that credibility and stability were not con-
sidered by NATO member states in the Kosovo operation. More likely, at
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 121
least for the Americans, traditional security considerations coincided with
ontological security interests – both credibility and stability coupled with
identity commitments motivated American intervention. But it is perhaps
even more accurate to say that Clinton justified American involvement by
linking action to some kind of strategic traditional security interest so that
the American people (and key members of the foreign policy community),
bathed in a realist, zero-sum mentality of foreign policy following fifty years
of Cold War ‘‘interest’’ pursuits, could see some tangible benefits coming
out of the intervention.21
Yet the ‘‘stability’’ interpretation is also incomplete and logically inconsistent.
First, while Cook’s Britain and a few other European leaders referenced the
destabilizing effects of Milosevic’s policies to justify NATO’s intervention, I
note on pp. 124–125 how European leaders seemed more concerned with
stopping a humanitarian disaster rather than the possibility of the conflict
spilling outside of the Balkans. A second related note is that the NATO
member state which had the most to gain in stability terms was Italy, while
the United States was geographically situated the furthest from the conflict.
Yet the Italians were most reluctant to join the NATO operation and seemed
relatively unconcerned about the spillover of refugees or even the conflict
threatening Italy by widening in scope.22 Umberto Morelli notes that of the
five members of the negotiating ‘‘Contact Group’’ at the talks at Rambouil-
let the Americans and the British were the most determined on military
intervention: ‘‘the Germans, the French and, most of all, the Italians were
the least convinced – the desire for war seemed, indeed, to be in inverse pro-
portion to the distance from Kosovo’’ (Morelli 2001: 60, emphasis added).
I am in large agreement with elements of, for instance, Taliaferro’s neo-
classical, ‘‘credibility’’-based interpretation of this case. NATO as a collec-
tive security organization magnified the perceived capabilities that each state
had at its disposal, which in turn constituted their view of their own agency.
Yet the ‘‘credibility’’ account only observes how states make promises and
then find incentives to fulfill those promises; it does not, however, explicate
why those nation-states made those promises in this particular case and at
this particular time. A ‘‘gap’’ thus did indeed exist for NATO states, yet the
subject of the gap, in my view, was not represented by NATO putting its
‘‘prestige at the hands of Milosevic’’ (Taliaferro 2006: 47), but rather, from
an ontological security perspective, the self-regarding promises NATO
states had made about themselves – the biographical narratives which bind
states’ sense of Self established, again to paraphrase Onuf (1989: 88), a
‘‘deed’’ which enabled NATO states to act to protect their ontological
security.23

Critical readings of Kosovo

Several variants of critical approaches provide related, but also unique,
interpretations of the Kosovo intervention. Rosemary Shinko’s post-modernist
122 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
interpretation understands NATO’s action as the accumulation of sovereign
states’ interest in disciplining the ‘‘internal ‘souls’ of their own citizens’’
(Shinko 2006: 179) through the use of violence against Serbia. Sovereignty
itself is a form of politics, thus being one ‘‘technique of discipline that relies
upon a series of permanent coercions in order to train individuals to be
docile’’ (Shinko 2006: 176). Thus:

[NATO states] were not concerned with ethnic diversity in Kosovo . . .

nor were they interested in self-determination for Kosovo. They were
interested in reiterating and validating their own legitimacy and power
in order to discipline politics within their own states. . . . They recog-
nized the specter of dissolution that haunts all civilizations.
( Shinko 2006: 179)

This critique of the Kosovo intervention – and, make no mistake, that is

what Shinko’s study represents – is quite compelling and I’m in agreement
with the general thrust of it. Specifically, I agree that the NATO operation
was for participant states’ internal consumption (national rather than
international), that Operation Allied Force was conducted to confront cer-
tain ‘‘specters’’ which haunted NATO states. I also agree that violence was
used in order to attain a sense of ontological security, which, in an abstract
sense, is a form of discipline if we think of ‘‘docility’’ as a sanitized sense of
order. But I disagree as to the ‘‘specters’’ which haunted NATO states: it
was not the concern for their own physical dissolution into disorder, but
rather a disordered sense of national self-identity that drove NATO states to
act. Furthermore, when one views the cases where force has been deployed
for the stated purpose of rescuing individuals or groups, the list is quite
small, as noted by David Campbell:

Rather than rushing in to put in place [as many Western and Serbian
critics claimed] its supposed desire for imperial hegemony . . . the inter-
national community has at all times taken its time, looked the other
way, pursued all and every non-military option despite their projected
failure, and then finally, reluctantly acted when the evidence of atro-
cities could no longer be resisted.
(Campbell 2001: 118)

Francine D’Amico’s critical feminist perspective reveals the normatively pro-

blematic and gendered consequences of the NATO operation, which included
an increase in sex trafficking to ‘‘provide sexual services for 45,000 NATO
KFOR troops as well as UNMIK and NGO personnel’’ (D’Amico 2006:
278–280), some of which were forced against their will. The war also rein-
forced gender roles, which further deprived the women of post-conflict Kosovo.
Indeed, since military force was used in Kosovo, and I am using it as an
example where an ontological security account interprets such use of force
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 123
as ‘‘rational,’’ this chapter may be seen as a tacit endorsement of the use of
warfare as a form of rescue. Such endorsement runs counter to the history
of feminist IR scholarship that has revealed the ways in which nonviolent
approaches to conflict successfully combat violence and subjugation (see,
for example, Ruddick 1990; Bayard de Volo 2001). As such, the Kosovo
War might instead be interpreted not as a form of ‘‘care ethic,’’ but rather
as yet another example of just male warriors rescuing ‘‘women in need of
protection’’ (Tickner 1996: 155).
Yet I think three issues should be noted here. First, a gendered perspec-
tive might also reveal how humanitarian intervention itself has been delegi-
timized as a ‘‘feminine’’ manifestation of foreign policy, because it largely
runs counter to traditional security definitions of ‘‘the national interest.’’
Instead, humanitarian intervention is supposedly a form of ‘‘social work,’’
whereby, according to Michael Mandelbaum: ‘‘While Mother Teresa is an
admirable person and social work a noble profession, conducting American
foreign policy by her example is an expensive proposition’’ (Mandelbaum
1996: 19).24 This was indeed the tactic, noted on p. 115, used by American
critics of the Kosovo intervention to delegitimize on the grounds of ‘‘inap-
propriateness’’ the stated reasons for the Kosovo intervention, which had
the ability to resonate because they use gendered categories or phrases (i.e.
Ajami, ‘‘social work’’; Zakaria, ‘‘naı̈ve’’; and Abrams, ‘‘social work’’ and
‘‘not much reasoning at work here’’). Second, as Campbell (2001) further
notes, ethnic Albanian women were subject to these atrocities in Kosovo, in
the form of rape and forced migration.25 One does not have to, in Camp-
bell’s words, provide a ‘‘blanket endorsement of NATO’s actions’’ to still
recognize the emancipatory benefits to NATO’s operation (Campbell 2001:
120). While the intervention was admittedly limited, imperfect, and may
have accelerated the atrocities it was meant to combat and stop, I am
inclined to agree with Samantha Power’s assessment that the atrocities
would have been worse in Kosovo ‘‘if NATO had not acted at all’’ (Power
2002: 472).26 Third and finally, feminist IR scholars, even those who would
disagree with all violent forms of resistance, might consider the Kosovo case
as an opportunity to use ontological security tactics to problematize the
self-identity of states, with the goal being a reformulation, if not a broad-
ening, of nation-state security interests. Such tactics position human suffer-
ing, oppression, and the rape of women in war as a form of self-identity
threat, as in ‘‘what does the continued toleration of these practices say about
who we are as a nation-state?’’ Thus, by using discursive strategies, a feminist
critique helps shape, in ontological security terms, a biographical narrative
that becomes more conscious of such forms of gendered violence.
Two final critical perspectives are noted in this section. Maja Zehfuss
(2002b) and Iver Neumann (2002) provide discursive interpretations of the
NATO case. Zehfuss’s Derridean deconstruction of Kosovo examines how
the language used by NATO state agents created the ‘‘reality’’ of Kosovo,
fixing the boundaries of what was an ‘‘acceptable’’ action, and thereby
124 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
conversely rendering a nonviolent solution to the situation ‘‘unacceptable.’’
In a related vein, for Neumann NATO states represented themselves as the
form of ‘‘humanity’’ through speech acts, thus casting Serbs as outside
humanity, thereby neutralizing any legitimate counter-narratives. According
to Neumann, ‘‘globalization constitutes a major precondition for how, in
the Kosovo war, NATO could so easily represent itself as the guardian of
human rights’’ (Neumann 2002: 73).
There is some overlap between these accounts and my ontological security
perspective. I generally agree that the NATO operation was, in Neumann’s
words, an act ‘‘about who’’ NATO states were and ‘‘how’’ they were ‘‘sup-
posed to continue to exist’’ (Neumann 2002: 73). There was also indeed a
‘‘totalizing’’ discourse evident in especially Clinton’s, Blair’s, and Chirac’s
speeches on the subject. Nevertheless, Neumann’s account obscures the
internal narratives which inscribed and reinscribed national meanings so
that NATO states to act in Kosovo. Likewise, Zehfuss and I part company
on one important point. She posits:

The problem is that if we understand the boundary, which we believe we

experience . . . we consider our choices limited by a mysterious outside
power that we cannot ever directly experience. As a result, because we have
no choice, and because this is the way things are, we limit our responsibility.
(Zehfuss 2002b: 118)

On the other hand, an ontological security perspective which embraces

contingency, namely, how that contingency generates anxiety in social agents,
asserts that the reason the plight of the Kosovo Albanians generated such
anxiety was because NATO member states recognized their agency. Reality
was not fixed here; as evidenced in the NATO states’ discourse, each source
of shame was produced precisely because in their past actions NATO states
had ‘‘acted differently.’’ The fact that they could go either way – act or not –
was the precise condition which made Operation Allied Force possible.

An ontological security reconstruction of the Kosovo case

One further interpretation was omitted above, and that is because it is such
a prevailing view of humanitarian intervention in general it deserves to be
considered in its own right throughout the remainder of this chapter.
Regarding this specific case, it is represented by Patrick Jackson’s ‘‘rela-
tional’’ constructivist interpretation, where

[the] NATO bombing campaign itself was at least in part a product of a

legitimation struggle, as the United States and its European allies pres-
sed for a negotiated resolution to the conflict in Kosovo and the
Yugoslavian regime refused to submit to their demands.
(Jackson 2006: 139–140)
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 125
Actors must legitimate their actions because ‘‘the basic requirement [is] that
rule must be justified in principle because it rests not just on force but on
acquiescence . . . legitimacy is a necessary component of authority and thus
of power’’ (Bukovansky 2002: 70). This is also a key position of Nicholas
Wheeler’s seminal solidarist English School work on humanitarian inter-
vention – that the set of actions a nation-state might pursue are constrained
by state agents’ ability to find a ‘‘plausible legitimating reason’’ for such an
action (Wheeler 2000: 4). The agents of Operation Allied Force’s participant
states used ‘‘nested community arguments’’ which linked national interests to
‘‘broader interests’’ such as the notion of ‘‘Western values.’’ Jackson’s inter-
pretation of NATO’s Kosovo operation is the basic position of the larger
‘‘environmental’’ approach to collective identity noted in Chapter 2, whereby
NATO became a community that member states were committed to uphold:
‘‘failing to go along with these demands can call a state’s commitment to the
larger community into question’’ (Jackson 2006: 149).
Jackson, Wheeler, and others who have reviewed the Kosovo case provide
much discursive evidence to defend the community-based assertion that the
ability of NATO state agents to legitimate the crisis influenced the context of
the bombing campaign. But I think the fact that the Kosovo campaign was a
multilateral operation somewhat obscures the more internally driven mechan-
ism which was at work with every NATO state – that such states were driven
by ontological security needs to cast out demons from disjunctured histor-
ical pasts. Whether it was the United States, Britain, France, Germany, or
Italy, each major contributing member to Operation Allied Force created
individual meanings for acting in a multilateral operation. NATO was the
vehicle, not the environmental cause, for realizing these identity commitments.
Nevertheless, NATO itself played a role in that, as I mentioned on p. 119
in the context of the ‘‘neoclassical realist’’ interpretation, it magnified the
capabilities of participant states, capabilities which became intrinsically
constitutive of the identity of each state. The fact that the main contributors
to the intervention – the United States, Britain, France, and Germany –
were all democracies provides an opportunity to detail how the ontological
security drives of individual democracies operate in a collective security
arrangement. Two aspects of the NATO intervention are relevant regarding
ontological security: (1) whether the increased material capabilities of a
collective security organization increased the anxiety of nation-states with
the prospect of doing nothing in Kosovo; and (2) whether there were dif-
ferent sources for ontological insecurity for each state in which Kosovo was
a locus for recall.
To remind the reader, in attempting to secure their states’ self-identity
through time state agents must take into account both their sense of integ-
rity about a situation and how materially capable they are to produce an
intended outcome. Those situations that can be materially attended to repre-
sent ‘‘critical situations.’’ In a case like Kosovo, the material capabilities of
each state were magnified through a collective security organization. These
126 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
increased material capabilities, combined with the recall of particular (to
each state) sources of shame resulting from past self-identity disruptions,
created a heightened sense of anxiety in the major NATO participant
countries. In the Kosovo case, the increased level of material capabilities led
to an increase in the perceived self-identity costs each NATO member faced
in ‘‘doing nothing.’’ At several points leading up to and during the Kosovo
war the British prime minister, Tony Blair, justified British involvement
through the capabilities NATO possessed, and these capabilities made
‘‘looking away’’ from the Kosovo situation an untenable position: ‘‘Only
NATO has the necessary experience and capabilities to set up and lead such
a force, as it has shown so successfully in Bosnia for more than three
years.’’27 American President Bill Clinton posed a counterfactual to the
American people which put American and NATO capabilities front and
center, in a speech on March 23, 1999:

[N]ot ‘‘we’’ the United States [but] ‘‘we’’ 19 countries in NATO. . . .

You’ve got to decide, my fellow Americans, if you agree with me that in
the 21st Century, that America, as the world’s superpower, ought to be
standing up against ethnic cleansing if we have the means to do it and we
have allies who will help us do it in their neighborhood.
(Auerswald and Auerswald 2000: 699, emphasis added)

Yet while the actions meant to alleviate the Kosovo crisis came from a col-
lective security organization, the sources for ontological security varied from
state to state. This demonstrates that individual states recall their own indi-
vidual pasts to create meanings for actions meant to alleviate (at least what
appear to observers to be) collective identity threats. In this section I pro-
vide some examples of the different sources of shame that each NATO
member faced, why each state felt anxiety over those past failures, and how
this created different conceptions in each state of what would be the proper
action to alleviate the suffering of ethnic Albanians. Each NATO member
state had a unique domestic situation which influenced its decisions. It is my
position that, because of both the context of the Kosovo crisis and their
respective national histories, ‘‘shame’’ was most relevant for three of the
main contributing members – Britain, Germany, and the United States – yet
all member states (including France and Italy) were motivated by self-identity
commitments in contributing to the operation.
As I stated in Chapter 3, for shame to be relevant it must be discursively
referenced by policy makers in the context of creating meanings for their
actions. In structuration theory, agents use recall ‘‘as the means of recapi-
tulating past experiences in such a way as to focus them upon the continuity
of action’’ (Giddens 1984: 49, emphasis added). In the Kosovo case, Britain,
Germany, and the United States used their past failed policies and the
ontological insecurity which those policies generated to justify most directly
to their domestic audiences their involvement in the Kosovo war. Media
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 127
images indeed played a role in this recall; however, in an ontological secur-
ity interpretation, the images, for instance, of ethnic Albanians fleeing
Kosovo that were broadcast leading up to and during the early stages of the
war, the ‘‘apocalyptic scenes of hundreds of thousands of refugees’’ (Judah
2000: 251), were not necessarily important because of any sympathy they
engendered when transmitted back to NATO member states’ audiences.28
They were important in ontological security terms because they evoked
specter images which disrupted each country’s intersubjectively constructed
sense of history. Because of shared histories and sense of self-identity, when
they are presented in a context or locus of ‘‘reflexivity’’ this audience should
relate to the purpose of the actions meant to address ontological insecurity.
That said, because references to the past must be recalled and articulated at
all, let alone in the context of military action, the chances are good that
support for these policies will not be uniform across each domestic popu-
lace. In what follows I provide (1) the sources for each state’s shame; (2)
why these generated insecurity in each state (i.e. why each source was
important for each state); and (3) discursive evidence for each source of
shame. (For a summary of the British, American, and German discursive
references, see Table 6.1).

Britain: appeasement, World War II, and Bosnia

The discourse used by both the core foreign policy leaders of Britain and
the debates by opinion leaders in the House of Commons reveals two sali-
ent sources of shame. It is obvious, first, that British leaders felt insecure
over the then prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s
Germany coming out of the Munich Agreement prior to World War II.29
Most leaders analogized Milosevic to Hitler, at least in the sense that both
were dictators and that ‘‘appeasement’’ never worked with any dictator. The
difference between the two cases, of course, was that while Hitler executed
the worst genocide in human history, it was his compromising of sover-
eignty through invasion, a crime against states (not individuals), for which
British appeasement was most directly culpable. The Holocaust was more a
by-product, rather than a direct outcome, of Britain’s 1938 mistaken trust in
Hitler. Milosevic’s policies in 1999 Kosovo, on the other hand, threatened
individuals within the sovereign territory of Serbia proper, and to suggest
that his ethnic cleansing policies would have developed into a land grab
policy through war with neighboring countries is a stretch. Nevertheless, in
1998–1999 British discourse often conflated the two crimes (external and
internal aggression) and linked them both to appeasement.
For example, Tony Blair likened the conflict to the evils of World War II
on several occasions, using phrases such as: ‘‘It is time for my generation to
reflect on the fight of our parents’ generation against Hitler’s regime.’’30 The
prime minister continually presented the then-current operation in Kosovo
as one which would avoid these past mistakes:
Table 6.1 Discursive shame and NATO’s Kosovo operation
NATO Source of shame and State agent, context, Discursive reference
member identity disconnect date of statement
state
U.K. Appeasement Defense Secretary ‘‘More than most, the
(World War II) and G. Robertson, News British people understand that appeasement did not work in the 1930s. Nor
the Holocaust of the World, 03.28.1999 will it in the 1990s. And so we had to bring Milosevic to heel’’
U.K. Bosnia Foreign Secretary ‘‘The reports. . .are chillingly familiar from the behavior of the same Serb
R. Cook, House of forces during the civil war in Bosnia. At that time, it took the international
Commons, 05.25.1999 community three years to muster the resolve to launch an air campaign.. . .If
we do not want to see another installment of the same brutality. . .we must
demonstrate that aggression does not pay by forcing Milosevic to reverse the
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo’’
America Rwanda (Bosnia) President Bill Clinton, ‘‘I think the only thing we have seen that really rivals that rooted in ethnic or
remarks to Veterans’ religious destruction in this decade is what happened in Rwanda, and I regret
groups, 05.14.1999 very much that the world community was not organized and able to act quickly
there as well’’
Germany Holocaust (but Schroeder, address to ‘‘Especially we Germans. . .we must never again allow murder, expulsions, and
constrained by Social Democrat Party deportations to be tolerated by politicians’’
German war ‘‘guilt’’) Congress, 04.11.99
Germany Schroeder, Der Spiegel ‘‘Regarding Hitler’s fascism children [have] asked their parents: Why did you
interview, 04.12.1999 not do anything at the time? Why did you do nothing to prevent it? I would
not like to be in a situation in which I must answer similar questions with
regard to the brutality in Kosovo. I would like to be able to say in such a
situation that I did what was possible and rational’’
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 129
The conflict we now face in Kosovo is a test of our commitment and
our resolve to ensure that the 21st century does not begin with a con-
tinuing reminder in Europe of the worst aspects of the century now
drawing to a close.31

The British defense secretary, Geoffrey Robertson, also used the specter of
appeasement to justify British involvement in NATO. On March 28,
Robertson justified British involvement:

We [can]not simply stand idly by. We must learn the lesson of the early
days of Hitler. Had we stood up to his tyranny earlier, the course of
history might have been very different. More than most, the British
people understand that appeasement did not work in the 1930s. Nor will it
in the 1990s. And so we had to bring Milosevic to heel, before the spark of
violence erupt[s] throughout the Balkans.32

It is more accurate to specify this first source of shame as Britain’s anxiety

over its World War II appeasement policy and to link that to confronting
‘‘aggression,’’ rather than Britain’s anxiety over allowing the Holocaust to
unfold per se. Nonetheless, British opinion leaders all shared a sense of
remorse over the Holocaust and Britain’s culpability, if not direct responsi-
bility, for appeasing a tyrant who slaughtered six million Jews. Most likely
this anxiety was reinforced by the powerful images being projected out of
Kosovo onto British television sets showing the mass deportation and eva-
cuation of the Kosovar Albanians. These images ‘‘recalled’’ a disastrous
British policy and they served to motivate and legitimate the narratives, like
the following, issued by Robertson on May 18 to the House of Commons,
that British leaders used to justify the Kosovo War:

During the question session that followed my speech, a small old man
rose at the back of the hall to put a point to me. In the silence of the
meeting, he told me that he had been in Auschwitz concentration
camp in Nazi Germany in his youth. That small old man told me and
the people at the meeting that, as a holocaust survivor, he could
recognize genocide when he saw it and that he was seeing it again
today in Kosovo. Mr. Michael Sanki reminded us that, after the
Second World War, we all said ‘‘Never again.’’ . . . For my generation
and so many others in this country – who are very lucky to be alive in
a democracy today – this is our moment to say and to mean ‘‘Never
again.’’
(Robertson, in Hansard’s, 18 May 1999, col. 966)

Righting past wrongs also recalled the British failure to act quickly enough
in Bosnia in the early 1990s. As with the insecurity over appeasement, Brit-
ish policy makers uniformly acknowledged this failure as a motivating
130 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
factor for their actions in Kosovo. In his March 23 speech before the House
of Commons, Prime Minister Blair stated:

We act also because we know from bitter experience throughout this century,
most recently in Bosnia, that instability and civil war in one part of the
Balkans inevitably spills over into the whole of it, and affects the rest of
Europe, too.
(Blair, in Hansard’s, 23 March 1999, col. 161)

Robin Cook also reiterated this position well into the war in late May in a
debate in the House of Commons, when the Blair government was on the
defensive about the progress of the war. Cook said:

The reports of ethnic cleansing, rape of young women and massacre of

young men are chillingly familiar from the behavior of the same Serb forces
during the civil war in Bosnia. At that time, it took the international
community three years to muster the resolve to launch an air campaign.
This time, the Governments of NATO are agreed that Milosevic must
be faced down now. If we do not want to see another installment of the
same brutality visited on Montenegro, Sandjak or Vojvodina, we must
demonstrate that aggression does not pay by forcing Milosevic to
reverse the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
(Cook, in Hansard’s, 25 May 1999, col. 180)

During the debates throughout the conflict, there is even evidence of the
‘‘shame blame game’’ which I mentioned briefly in Chapter 3. To refresh the
reader, I argued that ‘‘passing the buck’’ for responsibility over past iden-
tity-based security failures occurs between states in the same way states
‘‘pass the buck’’ for handling traditional security threats. Shame buck-
passing will thus include a debate over interpreting who is to blame for the
past failures. What is evident in the British debates is that such ‘‘blaming’’
occurs within states as well, in this case between representatives of the
Labour and Conservative Parties. On October 19, 1998, in a debate in the
House of Commons, Labour’s Robin Cook responded to a charge by the
Conservative Michael Howard that the Blair government was moving far
too slowly to prevent the tragedy in Kosovo:

[Howard:] Does he not acknowledge that, if action had been taken

along these lines in March or April, as I then urged, hundreds of lives
would have been saved, hundreds of thousands of people would still be
living in their homes and enormous suffering and anguish would have
been prevented.
[Cook:] . . . Finally, let me pick up the right hon. and learned Gen-
tleman’s comment about delay in reaching this point. I dare say that, if
the topic were not so tragic, his criticism would be comic in its hypocrisy.
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 131
Many of us remember exactly how the last Conservative Government
dithered for three years while Bosnia burned. The right hon. and
learned Gentleman sat in the Cabinet for those three years, and the
only reference to Bosnia that we have been able to find for that period is
a statement that Britain should not take any more refugees from
Bosnia. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman really wants a remedy
for those three years of shameful delay, the best thing that he can do is
support, not oppose, the Government’s efforts to bring security and
self-government to Kosovo.
(Hansard’s, 19 October 1998, cols. 955 and 956)

What is obvious throughout this discourse is the continuity for the reasons
for action – British anxiety resulted from Britain’s mistakes in appeasing
Hitler in World War II and in delaying action in Bosnia until many had
already been murdered.33

United States: a haunted hegemon

‘‘We started helping them when I was President. President Bush con-
tinued that policy and broadened the uses of which our aid can be put
and we need to do more of that kind of work. It’s a good thing we’re
helping the Philippines. It’s a good thing we’re helping other countries
that are trying to increase their own capacity to deal with the threat of
terror.’’
[PERSON IN AUDIENCE YELLS OUT:] ‘‘What did you do for
Rwanda?’’34 – Former US President Bill Clinton, March 23, 2003

As noted above, the United States provided other reasons besides ‘‘pre-
venting’’ a human tragedy to justify its involvement in the NATO opera-
tion. Yet if we take a closer look at the American discourse in the months
leading up to the Kosovo war, we can find other purposes behind America’s
involvement. Because it possessed the greatest material capabilities of any
NATO member, the United States faced a special sense of responsibility and
purpose regarding the plight of the ethnic Albanians. Combined with its
material capability, then, two sources of shame motivated American action.
Prior to and during the Kosovo war the British, including members of the
Labour Party, expressed remorse over Britain’s slow response to the Bos-
nian slaughter. But because Bosnia occurred on the Conservative prime
minister John Major’s watch, the Blair government’s sense of ‘‘shame’’ was
tempered a bit by the knowledge that at the time they had forcefully pro-
posed British involvement in Bosnia despite Conservative foot-dragging.
By contrast, America’s main source of ‘‘shame’’ during the 1990s (which I
would say continues today) had been its inaction during the Rwandan gen-
ocide, and the same administration that was in office during the Kosovo
crisis had also held office in 1994 when America stood idly by as Hutu
132 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
extremists systematically slaughtered from 800,000 to one million Tutsis
between April and June of that year. Many accounts have detailed the
Clinton administration’s stumbling response to the reports of genocide, and
its general inaction during the crisis.35 There is ample evidence that the lack
of an American response to the Rwandan genocide weighed on the con-
sciences of those who served in the Clinton administration at the time.
While their post-1994 admissions of remorse are little solace to the mas-
sacred Rwandans, these proclamations demonstrate the depth to which
some American leaders felt repentant for American inaction during that
genocide.
Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State in the second Clinton admin-
istration (during the Kosovo crisis), was the American ambassador to the
UN during the Rwandan genocide. Albright was a first-hand observer of,
and participant in, the Security Council’s idle standing by in April and
May of 1994. In a Frontline program aired during the tenth anniversary of
the Rwandan genocide, Albright partially absolved herself from responsi-
bility (playing, again, what I have termed the ‘‘shame blame game’’) by
saying:

In retrospect, it all looks very clear. But at the time, what was happen-
ing in Rwanda, the situation was unclear. But when you were at the
time, when it was unclear about what was happening in Rwanda, it was
very clear that Congress was not supportive of additional peacekeepers,
very clear that the Pentagon was not interested in getting deeply
involved.36

The Clinton administration and all members of the UN Security Council

were fully aware, even a month ahead of the massacre that Hutu inter-
ahamwe militias were gathering to systematically kill Tutsis and moderate
Hutus. And it seems that Albright herself does not fully believe that the
Clinton administration knew ‘‘too little’’ to do anything, as evidenced by
the following statement in the same program: ‘‘I wish that I had pushed for
a large humanitarian intervention. People would have thought I was crazy.
It would never have happened. But I would have felt better about my own
role in this.’’37
Clinton’s remorse has become even more focused, at least in public, since
the Rwandan genocide. Almost exactly a year to the day before intervening
in Kosovo, Clinton issued what has become known as ‘‘an apology’’ in a
speech during his visit to Rwanda. He noted that the United States, and the
international community as a whole, shared the burden for failing to act:

We did not act quickly enough after the killing began . . . all over the
world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after
day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which
you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.38
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 133
At the University of Arkansas during one of his ‘‘speaking tours’’ on
American college campuses during the spring of 2003, Clinton was asked by
an Arkansas student: ‘‘Mr. President, the lack of intervention in Rwanda –
can you tell us why the U.S. didn’t intervene?’’ Like Albright, Clinton tried
to put American inaction in context:

I think that the people that were bringing these decisions to me felt that
the Congress was still reeling from what had happened in Somalia, and
by the time they finally – you know, I sort of started focusing on this
and seeing the news reports coming out of it, it was too late to do
anything about it.39

Yet, again, like Albright, Clinton must know that the United States,
through his leadership, could have done something during that time, as he
also stated in his answer:

And I feel terrible about it because I think we could have sent 5,000,
10,000 troops there and saved a couple hundred thousand lives. I think
we could have saved about half of them. But I’ll always regret that
Rwandan thing. I will always feel terrible about it.40

Clinton has repeated this regret elsewhere, most recently in his memoirs:

With a few thousand troops and help from our allies, even making
allowances for the time it would have taken to deploy them, we could
have saved lives. The failure to try to stop Rwanda’s tragedies became one
of the greatest regrets of my presidency.
(Clinton 2004: 593)

Besides the emphasized portions of both quotations, which demonstrate

American shame over the Rwandan genocide, one should also note that
Clinton recognizes (or believes) in both of these quotations that 5,000–
10,000 (or ‘‘a few thousand’’) troops could have ‘‘saved a couple hundred
thousand lives. I think we could have saved about half of them.’’ If the latter
estimation is to be believed (‘‘half of them’’), Clinton believes that the
United States, with allied assistance, could have saved 400,000 Rwandans
with a small intervention force. Again, this is an important estimation in
light of what I proposed in Chapter 3: ‘‘not intervening in certain crises can
produce ontological insecurity because those crises were so preventable and
because the state recognizes its own capabilities to influence outcomes.’’41
While Clinton’s proclamations, beginning with the 1998 ‘‘apology’’ to the
Rwandans, are not free from criticism considering the role the United States
could have played in preventing the genocide, they are not ‘‘meaningless’’ from
an ontological security point of view,42 but rather can be interpreted as an
(albeit shallow) engagement with a painful disruption in the American Self.
134 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
Yet while these passages are tangible evidence that Rwanda generated
ontological insecurity, how are we to know that the memory of Rwanda
played any role in the American actions in Kosovo? Early in the crisis, one
‘‘anonymous’’ administration official stated: ‘‘In Rwanda we failed to
respond the way we should have, and the president apologized. . . . Kosovo
is our first opportunity to act on what we learned in Rwanda, and you see
our response has been to take action.’’43 And further into the crisis it was
evident in Clinton’s own words that the shadows of Rwanda played a role in
the Kosovo intervention:

I think the only thing we have seen that really rivals that rooted in
ethnic or religious destruction in this decade is what happened in
Rwanda, and I regret very much that the world community was not
organized and able to act quickly there as well.44

Notice again, however, that this remorse for the failures of the American
Self is distributed to ‘‘the world community.’’
While the main source of American shame in the Kosovo crisis was
Rwanda, the Bosnia situation was also referenced.45 In a White House
speech leading up to the crisis Clinton laid out the intended goals for the
Kosovo war against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic: ‘‘My intention
would be to do whatever is possible . . . to weaken his ability to massacre
them, [not] to have another Bosnia.’’46 A few days later, Clinton mentioned
Bosnia as a shameful tragedy that could have been prevented earlier, and as
a model for humanitarian problem solving: ‘‘[w]e learned that in the Bal-
kans inaction in the face of brutality simply invites more brutality, but
firmness can stop armies and save lives. We must apply that lesson in
Kosovo, before what happened in Bosnia happens there too.’’47
What was it that underpinned the ‘‘learning’’ process of the Clinton
administration? Returning to the discussion in Chapter 3 regarding the
process of a biographical narrative – specifically, that how actors’ under-
standings of what ‘‘causes’’ or ‘‘drives’’ events influence their perception of
their own agency – the most central aspect America needed to address in
order to find a ‘‘routine’’ to alleviate these perceived ‘‘humanitarian’’ crises
was the perception of what was fueling the ethnic conflict in Kosovo. The
idea that Serb and ethnic Albanian identities were permanent fixtures of a
common descent, that they could not just be ‘‘wished away,’’ was a view that
had been a nice policy crutch which absolved Western policy elites from
taking any responsibility to stop genocide.48 In essence, Western, and espe-
cially American, policy makers needed to alter this view – doing so would
then allow them to perceive their own ability to effect change; and indeed
they did so by shifting to a more ‘‘instrumentalist’’ or ‘‘circumstantialist’’
view of ethnic conflict. More directly responsible for the variation in ethnic
identification, according to instrumentalism, are the manipulation and
mobilization by elites of the groups they lead for political purposes.49
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 135
Clinton expressed his revised understanding of ethnic conflict during the
Rwanda ‘‘apology’’ speech already referenced:

It is important the world know that these killings were not spontaneous
or accidental. It is important that the world hear what your President
just said – they were most certainly not the result of ancient tribal
struggles. Indeed, these people had lived together for centuries before
the events the President described began to unfold.50

Thus when Clinton responded to critics of his Kosovo policy,51 who no

doubt had pointed out the inconsistencies during his administration, he was
most repentant for past inaction and placed the blame for this inconsistency
on a previously warped interpretation of history:

There are those who say Europe and its North American allies have no
business intervening in the ethnic conflicts of the Balkans. . . . I myself
have been guilty of saying that on occasion or two and I regret it now,
more than I can say. For I have spent a great deal of time in these last
six years reading the real history of the Balkans and the truth is that a
lot of what passes for common wisdom in this area is a gross over-
simplification and misreading of history.52

Therefore, because the conflict in the Balkans was driven by elites (such as
Milosevic), and not the masses, it was no longer intractable, it could be
‘‘solved,’’ and so American state agents could no longer ‘‘comfort’’ them-
selves with a primordial view of this crisis, and thus absolve their own
inaction in the case of another ethnic conflict.53

German shame v. German guilt

Two countervailing, and well-documented, forces were at work in Germany
regarding policy preferences for the Kosovo war. Pacifist elements guilty
about German militarism clashed with those promoting social justice and
ashamed of a Holocaust past. The first ‘‘stems from the two World Wars’’
(Savarese 2000: 373). Maja Zehfuss interprets German military involvement
in Kosovo as both ‘‘problematic’’ and ‘‘necessary’’ ‘‘because of the history of
the Third Reich.’’ Involvement was problematic because of Germany’s
attempted World War II conquests; necessary because deployment would
right the past wrongs of the Holocaust (Zehfuss 2002a: 85–86).54
The ontological security interpretation helps us understand what was
driving these forces, if we return to the distinction, noted in Chapter 3,
between ‘‘shame’’ and ‘‘guilt.’’ Actions which contradict self-identity pro-
duce shame, whereas guilt is ‘‘produced by the fear of transgression.’’
Individuals who break laws are ‘‘guilty,’’ whereas no formalized rule needs
to be compromised for shame to be produced. The reason I find German
136 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
involvement in the Kosovo war most interesting is because I interpret the
‘‘problematic’’ (Zehfuss’s word) aspect as relating more to German ‘‘guilt’’
at compromising state sovereignty (breaking international law), and the
‘‘necessary’’ (again, Zehfuss’s word) aspect as relating to German ‘‘shame’’
over the Holocaust. Thus ‘‘shame’’ became a more encompassing force in
the German decision, although, just as in 1860s Britain, and America and
Britain in 1999, the ‘‘decision’’ by Germany to deploy forces in Kosovo
looked more like a process rather than a simple ‘‘event,’’ as Gerhard
Schroeder, the German Chancellor, and fellow Cabinet members had to
make the case that Germany had a responsibility to act.
Jonathan Bach also identified this ‘‘tension’’ in German society by ana-
lyzing debates which have pervaded German discussions since unification
over the deployment of military forces. What I refer to as ‘‘German shame’’
is reflected in what Bach terms ‘‘the prevailing discourse’’:

[which] begins by acknowledging that in the Second World War

German soldiers committed atrocities under the leadership of the
criminal Hitler dictatorship. . . . [Thus] as a moral imperative, learning
from history means atoning for past crimes.
(Bach 1999: 150–151)

And what I have termed ‘‘German guilt’’ culminating in Germany’s pacifist

traditions has been reflected in what Bach terms the ‘‘counter-discourse’’:

As with the prevailing discourse, the counter-narrative is the Second

World War. . . . Germany’s contribution [to the international commu-
nity] must consist of non-violent means for two reasons. . . . First,
Germany’s responsibility to itself and its past . . . [and] Second, non-
violent means are ultimately the only viable approach for changing the
world.
(Bach 1999: 155–156)

This tension unfolded in Germany’s domestic political landscape and illus-

trates the importance of domestic political coalitions in the making of for-
eign policy (Kaarbo and Lantis 2003; see also Kaarbo 1996). Schroeder’s
Social Democratic Party (SPD) had one year prior won an election which
returned the party to power for the first time since 1982. Both the SPD and
the Green Party with which it had allied were constituted by traditional
pacifist elements which stemmed from German guilt over World War II.
Several events illustrate the ‘‘problematic’’ struggle Schroeder faced from
these elements. During the early stages of the Kosovo conflict, Schroeder
was confronted by a pacifist finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, who man-
ifested his opposition to the Kosovo policy by refusing to release funding that
had been requested by the German defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, for
the Kosovo operation. Lafontaine eventually resigned from the Cabinet, yet
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 137
Schroeder still faced opposition at his party congress in early April during the
opening weeks of the Kosovo war.
It was in such an atmosphere that Schroeder recalled Germany’s check-
ered past to justify military deployment in Kosovo. Recalling a ‘‘historic
responsibility,’’ Schroeder stated:

Especially we Germans, who have brought guilt onto ourselves in our

history and suffered under murderous dictatorial regimes, we must
never again allow murder, expulsions, and deportations to be tolerated
by politicians.55

To deploy forces, however, Schroeder had to overcome what Sabrina Ramet

and Phil Lyon called the two ‘‘taboos of the post- war German historical
experience.’’ One was the involvement of German soldiers outside the
NATO area, and the second (more directly) ‘‘concerned the fact that
German soldiers were being sent not just abroad, but abroad in combat to a
region where the Wehrmacht (military of the Third Reich) had perpetrated
some of its worst atrocities’’ (Ramet and Lyon 2001: 94).
In this vein the German press attempted to resolve this tension on behalf
of the pacifists by recalling the ‘‘second taboo’’:

[One] newspaper [Frankfurter Rundaschau] reminded people of 6 Sep-

tember 1941, the day on which Hitler’s pilots attacked Yugoslavia
dropping bombs on Belgrade. By doing so the newspaper makes people
relive the feelings of guilt for the original aggression and transfers it to
Belgrade in the 1990s under NATO’s missiles.
(Savarese 2000: 373, emphasis added)

As I stated in Chapter 3, there are certain arguments which can be framed

to force international actors to develop anxiety over an existing crisis
because of their sense of self and the historical narrative they base their
actions upon. Additionally, agents responsible for this narrative can be
NGOs, or, as in this case, the media. Schroeder was well aware of the
‘‘taboos’’ of Germany’s historical experience when he was asked in the
beginning weeks of April during an interview with the German weekly news
publication Der Spiegel whether ‘‘one can send German troops in regions, in
which Germans in the Second World War raged cruelly?’’

[Schroeder]: That we may not do it, is a thesis, which I take very ser-
iously. But for me the reverse argument applies: Because we were crim-
inally active indeed there, it is also a special responsibility of the
Germans, itself for human rights, against deportation, to begin against
brutalities. Our past, in which we intervened for the wrong political
goals, orders for me that we do not stand apart, if others occur for the
correct goals.56
138 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
Schroeder’s discursive remorse over past German generations was coupled
with a justification of German action, as evidenced by his words later in the
interview:

There was a very lively debate [in German society] regarding Hitler’s
fascism in which children asked their parents: Why did you not do any-
thing at the time? By which they meant, why did you do nothing to prevent
it? I would not like to be in a situation in which I must answer similar
questions with regard to the brutality in Kosovo. I would like to be able
to say in such a situation that I did what was possible and rational.57

The last words of this excerpt illustrate two noteworthy issues regarding my
ontological security argument. First, I again refer the reader to Chapters 1,
2, and 3, where I stated at several points that states seek ontological secur-
ity, and that actions meant to fulfill self-identity commitments are rational
because they avoid threats to identity. Even ‘‘humanitarian’’ actions are in a
state’s self-interest if they serve to avoid these threats. Schroeder sees
German action as rational because it ‘‘makes sense’’ for Germany to
become involved in a conflict which raises the specter of Germany’s shame-
ful past. In doing so, Schroeder uses what were termed in Chapter 3 both
‘‘retrospective’’ and ‘‘prospective’’ forms of shame. Second, another element
of my ontological security argument is the recognition by nation-states of
their own agency, and the anxiety which develops in turn from nation-states
realizing that they could have made a difference. Schroeder’s use of the term
‘‘possible’’ to justify German action illustrates that he viewed NATO (and
Germany as a member state) as an agent capable of bringing to an end the
ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbs:58

It is essential to remember that Schroeder, [Foreign Minister] Fischer,

and [Defense Minister] Scharping belonged to the activist core of a
protest generation which had challenged not only the Germany of the
1960s and 1970s, but also the previous generation for its moral and
political failures in the 1930s and 1940s.
(Ramet and Lyon 2001: 94)

Fischer, because of the Green Party’s almost uniform pacifism, was faced
with an even more daunting political responsibility than Schroeder. Zehfuss
writes:

[The Greens] had been overwhelmingly opposed to Bundeswehr parti-

cipation in the Gulf War. Yet Bosnia, and subsequently Kosovo, posed
a completely different problem. Because of the atrocities committed,
and the Holocaust imagery related to them, Bosnia came to be seen as
a fundamental challenge to a pacifistic position.
(Zehfuss 2002b: 113)
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 139
This is probably why, like Schroeder, when pressed to justify German mili-
tary involvement Fischer (in an interview given at NATO headquarters in
April 1999) also recalled Germany’s past in the same narrative Schroeder
used at the SPD conference, and in addition compared Milosevic to Hitler
and Stalin:

My generation asked our parents, ‘‘Why did it happen in Germany

during the war and why didn’t you resist?’’ This is the question we have
to ask ourselves now. . . . Milosevic is ready to act like Stalin and Hitler
did in the ‘40s: to fight a war against the existence of a whole people.59

Again, the visions of ethnic Albanians ‘‘were interpreted and related to

systems of meaning. They mattered greatly in their symbolism with respect
to the history of the Holocaust’’ (Zehfuss 2002b: 115).
How did German involvement further serve Germany’s ontological
security needs? We can see from what has been presented so far that Kosovo
was useful for Germany to transcend the disruptions of its history, but how
did it enable the production of a new German ‘‘self ?’’ Germany’s history
made most Germans yearn for a return to a ‘‘normal’’ nation-state – with a
‘‘normal’’ foreign policy. Jonathan Bach identifies Germany’s ‘‘prevailing
discourse’’ as including ‘‘morality, responsibility, and maturing linked to
normalcy and normalcy is synonymous with solidarity (a form of sameness)
with allies’’ (Bach 1999: 160).60 In October of 1998, the Economist com-
mented on a prospective Schroeder government by stating:

As yet, there is no reason for other countries to fear a Schroeder

administration, even if its assessment of Germany’s national interests
may be far more jarring to its neighbors than Mr. Kohl’s use to be.
That, after all, will be evidence of normality.
(Economist 1998: 56)

So it was the deployment of troops which assured Germany’s ‘‘normal’’

place as a member of the international community. When asked in the Der
Spiegel interview about what the implications were for German involve-
ment, Schroeder stated: ‘‘It is already a fundamental change of the German
foreign policy, but it has something to do with becoming a nation of
adults.’’61 Other German ministers, like State Secretary of the Foreign Office
Wolfgang Ischinger, coupled this ‘‘maturation’’ process to German realiza-
tion of its own capabilities and a place it could resume, ever gradually, in
the international community:

We are not a totally normal country, and will not become one in the
foreseeable future either. . . . What has been accomplished is that the
Federal Republic of Germany can now make contributions towards
answering the challenges, such as the search for a peace settlement in
140 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
Kosovo, that are commensurate with its weight, its role, its economic
standing and its military structure. This means that we are now able to
make ‘‘normal’’ contributions.62

So, in Germany at least, while German guilt remained at the fore in

German political debates, shame was a more compelling force for Germany
to involve itself in the NATO operation. Most significantly, this was the first
time Germany had dispatched combat troops and material outside its bor-
ders since World War II.63 While much of the German media (as noted on p.
000) attempted to recall German guilt over its external actions in World War
II, German public opinion remained, throughout the conflict, relatively
supportive of German involvement in the Kosovo war.64 Such support was
maintained by Germany’s leaders, who held a countervailing view (from the
press) that ‘‘the Kosovo crisis [was] an opportunity to partly exorcize the
demons of the past. They recognized in the Kosovo conflict an opportunity
to make atonement for the sins of the previous generation through the vigi-
lant defense of human rights’’ (Ramet and Lyon 2001: 94, emphasis
added).65 It was not enough for Germany to simply acknowledge the Holo-
caust (although that was an important step of ‘‘distanciation’’),66 but the
actual use of force repaired (temporarily at least) a ‘‘divided’’ German Self.

French and Italian self-identity

Besides the United States, Britain, and Germany, the French and Italians
constituted most of the remaining contribution to the NATO action. The
French used similar language, based in the defense of human rights, to jus-
tify their contribution to the NATO operation. And, like (most notably,
although not solely) the British, the French drew parallels with the Bosnia
conflict and said that as members of Europe they could not stand idly by
and watch the situation in Kosovo unfold as that in Bosnia had. The French
prime minister, Lionel Jospin, stated in an address to the French General
Assembly on March 26, 1999:

After the tragic events of Bosnia, the same confrontations, the same
mindless action, the same fanaticism, the same hatred were being
unleashed. . . . We could not just watch, resignedly, those terrible
pictures – the violence against civilians, the villages wiped off the map,
the floods of refugees. We could not consent to being stunned witnesses
of the preparation of fresh massacres. Vukovar, Srebrenica, Sarajevo
(Bosnian cities where Serbs had committed atrocities against Bosnian
Muslims): to that list of martyred cities, we could not stand idly by and
watch the addition of Pristina, Klina, Srbica [Kosovar cities].67

Some accounts have noted the conflict within French society over the
Kosovo crisis. Bernard Lamizet and Sylvie Debras note three historical
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 141
factors, three ‘‘aspects central to French identity,’’ which prompted the large
amount of media coverage of the Kosovo crisis and which influenced
French motives in the Kosovo war: (1) the comparison of the plight of
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to the French resistance during World War II;
(2) the ‘‘Algerian analogy’’ that the KLA was ‘‘the expression of national
feeling in a way similar to that of the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale,
the main group of anti – French resistance during the 1960’s Algerian civil
war)’’;68 and (3) France’s place in building a new Europe (Lamizet and
Debras 2001: 109).
The French leadership (President Jacques Chirac, Foreign Minister
Vedrine, and Prime Minister Jospin) mainly grounded French actions in
terms of France’s place in shouldering a European responsibility – both for
Europe’s past failures and for its promotion of human rights within Eur-
opean borders. The French felt responsible for leading European construc-
tion (which included articulating a European collective security interest)
and then defending a ‘‘civilized Europe,’’ thereby referencing what France
and Europe could tolerate in terms of ‘‘civilized’’ conduct.
In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche, Foreign Minister Vedrine
used human rights abuses as a pretext for French actions, but in the context
of a European responsibility:

France’s involvement, decided on by President Chirac and the Prime

Minister, is justified by the extreme seriousness of the tragedy in Kosovo –
it is intolerable to allow the recurrence in Europe of such scenes of
barbarity – and the risks of regional destabilization they entail.69

Prime Minister Jospin, when asked in a television interview with the France
2 network whether Kosovo was a ‘‘moral war,’’ stated that French actions
were based on

a conception of morality, I would also say on one of civilization, on a

vision of Europe. We are at the end of the twentieth century, Europe
has lived in peace for fifty years. This Europe is the Europe of the
European Union, which settles its economic, social and cultural pro-
blems in harmony, without national interests being forgotten, but dis-
putes are settled peacefully, through dialogue, through discussion in a
community.

And President Jacques Chirac, while conjuring up images from the past,
noted in a May 3, 1999 national broadcast:

To tolerate the horrors we are witnessing would mean losing our soul.
That would allow the canker of the unspeakable once again to take
hold on our continent. At the heart of the European project, at the
heart of our common future, which we have been building, stone by
142 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
stone, since we raised Europe from the ruins of the Second World War,
lies, it must never be forgotten, a certain idea of mankind.70

Self-identity needs compelled the French to contribute to the NATO

operation. Even though the French rarely made any references to discursive
self (French) remorse, French leaders like Chirac used self-identity phrases
to mobilize support. For instance, Chirac stated on March 26, 1999, that he
‘‘would like the whole nation to demonstrate its solidarity. These are uni-
versal values of our republican tradition that we are defending.’’71 French
leaders also acknowledged their role in a new Europe and what they could
plausibly tolerate as a predominant member of that community. The tradi-
tional security argument, on the other hand, posits that states (as agents)
will structure their actions through ‘‘alliance balancing’’ according to mate-
rial power calculations. In that vein, coupled with its historical ties to
Russia (and Serbia), France should have opposed the NATO operation for
prudential reasons. Yet France did the opposite.
Unlike the French, the Italians were a (if not the most) reluctant con-
tributing member of the NATO Kosovo intervention. As I stated on p. 121,
it is somewhat puzzling from a traditional security perspective that the Ita-
lians, being the closest geographically to the Balkans and thus having the
most to gain in terms of seeing the conflict and the displacement (some-
times into Italy) of Kosovo refugees come to an end, were somewhat against
participating in a NATO action.72
The Italian reluctance stemmed both from a strong pacifist presence in
the Italian public and government and also from Italy’s limited capabilities
as a military power. Italy’s contributions to the operation included allowing
NATO to use the Aviano airbase as a location for launching the many sor-
ties carried out against Serb targets during the war. While public support
for the military operation rarely reached a majority mark of 50 percent,
Italy found other ways to contribute which were more consistent with its
pacifist tendencies. The enormous Arcobaleno Mission, launched on March
29, 1999, set up refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania for Kosovar
Albanians escaping the carnage of their homeland. Morelli notes:

[The Mission] [s]ucceeded in winning over to the cause of military

intervention a tendentially pacifist public opinion, rendered the war
acceptable and to a certain extent caused a rallying to the government’s
side of Catholic and left-wing elements who were opposed to the war
but saw the humanitarian mission as a noble cause to serve. The insi-
dious pacifist distaste for the war was therefore turned to positive effect,
in the form of aid for the refugees.
(Morelli 2001: 71)

More than likely, the Italians felt pressure to become involved as a credible
NATO partner rather than be left out in the cold, and this pressure
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 143
provided an efficient counterweight to the pacifist resistance in the coun-
try.73 The Italian prime minister, Massimo D’Alema, found an effective way,
through the Arcobaleno Mission, to present the conflict in terms in which
the pacifist elements (as well as the Catholic Church, as noted on p. 000)
could find Italian involvement acceptable.

Self-identity and collective action

The creation of meanings for action differed for each NATO member state.
While there was a ‘‘prevailing narrative’’ for NATO action, the state ‘‘sub-
narratives’’ diverged somewhat from this. In the case of Britain and the
United States, this developed into a different urgency, and strategy, for
military action. From the beginning, Britain proposed sending ground
troops, whereas the United States resisted until late in the operation any
proposal for ground troops.
While it was not my purpose to develop a theory on collective action, I
think these illustrations suggest how the transfer of ontological security-
seeking behavior to collective security action (or, specifically, self-identity
commitments transferred to collective identity commitments) may be
imbued by separate forms of individual state recall, which may in turn
manifest in different policy preferences of member states.
The Kosovo case also illustrates how there are, generally, political costs to
attending to ontological security in democracies. Democracies must create
meanings not only to justify their actions to an international audience but
also to legitimate their actions to their electorate, and these two ‘‘levels’’ of
justification may not parallel one another.74 A democracy’s self-identity,
which (as I demonstrated in Chapter 5) is relevant to foreign policy options,
may come into conflict with its collective identity commitments and sub-
sequent willingness to participate in collective security actions. In the case
of the Belgians, of course, there was a dialectical but reinforcing mechanism
between the two (self and collective), but such alignment does not always
occur.

‘‘Humanitarian’’ intervention v. the salience of ‘‘shame’’

While the discourse of NATO member states during the Kosovo crisis
demonstrates how ontological security needs constituted their foreign policy
decisions, some of these sources of shame have remained rather salient for
NATO member states in separate contexts, although they have not always
prompted as comprehensive an action as Operation Allied Force.
For example, American anxiety over the Rwandan genocide has been
present in two recent crises – in Liberia and Darfur (in Western Sudan). In
the summer of 2003 several Bush administration officials justified American
interests in Liberia with reference to Rwanda. Since Liberia had historical
ties to the United States,75 there were abundant calls by Liberians (and
144 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
others, like the UN) for an American intervention to establish stability.76
As noted in Chapter 3, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was so influ-
ential in forming initial American foreign policy following the Cold War
that a ‘‘military doctrine’’ was named for him.77 The Powell Doctrine did
not identify humanitarian crises as important because such events were not
vital to national security and were difficult to define in black and white
‘‘enemy’’ terms. Yet of all the members of the Bush Cabinet, Powell was
most supportive in the summer of 2003 of the idea of an American-led
intervention in the Liberian crisis. Powell and many members of the State
Department expressed a desire for a larger American role in the area
because the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
peacekeepers that were on the ground at the time ‘‘just [did not] have the
capacity to deploy forces and keep them sustained in the field.’’ In an
interview with the Washington Times published on July 23, 200378 Powell
referenced how the United States: ‘‘looked away once before in Rwanda,
with tragic consequences.’’ He also acknowledged how the most capable
were responsible for preventing such tragedies from unfolding yet again:
‘‘we do have some obligation as the most important and powerful nation on
the face of the earth not to look away when a problem like this comes
before us.’’79
With less success, some American opinion leaders have used the Rwandan
genocide, and America’s role in allowing it to unfold, to justify American
interests in preventing a similar humanitarian disaster in the Darfur region
of Western Sudan. The American Democratic Party’s 2004 candidate for
president, John Kerry, in the first presidential debate of 2004, cited how
the Iraq War had ‘‘overextended’’ American forces as a reason for why
no American troops had yet been deployed to stop what even the United
States (through Colin Powell) had acknowledged as a genocide situation
in Darfur.80 Yet perhaps most illustrative of the American interest in self-
identity commitments was Kerry’s conclusion about America’s role in
Darfur:

But I’ll tell you this, as president, if it took American forces to some
degree to coalesce the African Union, I’d be prepared to do it because
we could never allow another Rwanda. It’s the moral responsibility for
us and the world.81

American Senator Jon Corzine, in promoting the ‘‘Darfur Accountability

Act,’’82 a bill he co-sponsored with Senator Sam Brownback, stated on the
US Senate floor on March 2, 2005: ‘‘‘Never again’ is a rallying cry for all
who believe that mankind must speak out against genocide. It rings from
the horrors of World War II and Rwanda.’’ And, as Clinton had during the
Kosovo crisis, Corzine linked potential actions in Darfur with America’s
role in preventing genocide, with specific reference to America’s failure to
act in Rwanda:
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 145
We also have the weight of history. We bear the responsibility that came
out of the Holocaust and remember the horrors that led to the Geno-
cide Convention. We recall our sacred promise to stop genocide, a
promise betrayed ten years ago in Rwanda.

Furthermore, Corzine literally linked ‘‘American interest’’ in Darfur with

American self-identity:

Ten thousand people are dying in Darfur every month. Will we have to
wake up one day and find that we allowed Rwanda to happen before we
act? It is time for serious accountability. Our humanity is being chal-
lenged. The essence of who we are is at stake.83

Yet if shame (such as American shame over Rwanda) is so salient, how are
we to explain the very limited approaches the Bush administration decided
to take in Liberia and Darfur? It would seem that the Liberian or Darfur
cases could have served to remind Americans of Rwanda in 1994. Yet an
ontological security approach can also explain this seeming inconsistency –
as there are three factors which may explain the limited American responses
to these crises, reflecting the idea that certain ‘‘components’’ of self-identity
will inhibit and/or benefit the ability of states to confront such situations.
First and foremost, the United States has been fully engaged in the Iraq
War, as of this writing, over the past four years. The costs to ontological
security are reduced by this perception of a state’s own material capabilities
and its ability to produce tangible outcomes. The fact that the United States
is so greatly involved in the Iraq war decreases the relevant costs to Amer-
ican ontological security inherent in pursuing such limited approaches to
Liberia or Darfur.
The two further factors which can explain the limited American approach
in Liberia and Darfur correspond to the vulnerability of states to calculat-
ing ‘‘identity costs’’ through ‘‘crisis assessment’’ (again, see Chapter 3). In
one vein, limited American actions in Liberia and later Sudan were influ-
enced by the lack of media coverage of the events. Remember here that the
general conclusion I drew at the end of Chapter 4 was that states or other
non-state actors know what actions or presentations make a state not only
physically insecure, but also ontologically insecure as well. I posited in
Chapter 3 that discourse is the medium through which co-actors can gen-
erate anxiety in certain states, even materially ‘‘powerful’’ states, and thus
this discourse may compel these powerful states to pursue policies to avoid
ontological insecurity. While insecurity-generating discourse may originate
from any type and locus of actor – domestic, international, supranational,
or NGO – media (in the general sense of that term) are important for dis-
tributing ‘‘images’’ which reinforce these discourses in a systematic fashion.
Because information agencies like the American media have been so limited
in their coverage of these crises, the powerful visual images of war-torn
146 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’
Liberians or the people of Darfur which may have served as a ‘‘recall’’
device of the Rwandan genocide for American policy makers were and
continue to be too rare to exert any pressures upon self-identity.84
Also as noted in Chapter 3, state agents are dependent upon military
intelligence to assess the costs of any prospective foreign policy action. This
dependence constrains the ability of state leaders to pursue a set of security
interests. In some cases military leaders may be reluctant to intervene
because of their philosophical disagreement with the motives for and bene-
fits of an intervention. In the case of Liberia, American proponents of
intervention faced the obstacle of an American Defense Department and
military bureaucracy that intentionally shelved and avoided any suggestions
calling for action. Such opposition was never more clearly evident than on
July 7, 2003, when observers from within the Defense Department presented
a report advocating a quick intervention, and then the report was subse-
quently quashed by more elevated administrators in the department.85

Conclusion: ontological security and intervention

Anthony Lang’s impressive book on military intervention begins with the
observation that ‘‘humanitarian intervention is not working’’ (Lang 2002:
1). Lang’s explanation of such an empirical observation is that nation-states
which engage in such interventions don’t really intend to save strangers, so
to speak. They instead use the intervention as a performative platform, an
opportunity to parade the national purpose of their states. That national
purpose gets in the way of a successful outcome, because interventions are a
form of politics: ‘‘intervention, an action undertaken by a state becomes an
attempt to display publicly the moral and historical presence of a political
community . . . the conflict between the alternative moral visions embodied
by different agents usually undermines its success’’ (Lang 2002: 194).
Lang’s account is quite compelling, and it suggests that ‘‘humanitarian
interventions,’’ because they are internally motivated, are doomed to failure.
Much of what has been stated in this chapter agrees with the motivational
origin located by Lang – that humanitarian interventions are really more
about a nation’s purpose (or self-identity) than they are about stopping
human rights abuses. Yet an ontological security account provides us with
an alternative way to interpret how states also have self-interested incentives
in successfully completing interventions. If states engage in interventions in
order to realize their ‘‘national purpose,’’ could not the same national pur-
pose be constituted by the drive for states to protect their national self-
identity, which thus might compel a state to successfully implement such an
intervention? This is especially possible if those states’ national purpose is in
turn shaped by past failed attempts to live up to the national self, as was the
case with NATO powers in Kosovo. Thus, states might face huge self-identity
costs for not attempting to stop those ‘‘humanitarian’’ crises which they
perceive to be the most easily prevented. In short, a cathartic interest exists
 Shame and ‘‘Operation Allied Force’’ 147
for states to realize their national purpose not only in the process of an
intervention, but also in its successful completion as well.
But is this what happened in the Kosovo case? How can we say that
NATO states truly had an interest in successfully stopping the abuses if they
were only willing to use the safest form of (air) warfare? We should keep in
mind that in Kosovo certain military leaders in the NATO alliance, as well
as certain political leaders of the NATO states, advocated a different mili-
tary strategy which could have prevented the Serbs from accelerating their
ethnic cleansing policy. Wheeler argues that ‘‘[h]ad the political will existed
in the Alliance, a large expeditionary force could have been built up in
Macedonia and Albania, signaling [sic] to Milosevic that NATO was ser-
ious about defending human rights’’ (Wheeler 2001: 270). In fact, ‘‘will’’
existed, since British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Defense Secretary George
Robertson, and NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark all at one time
or another advocated a more sophisticated and multifaceted military
approach.86 What prevented the deployment of ground troops, or the heli-
copters advocated by Clark, were bureaucratic and domestic obstacles such
as the American Department of Defense, Military Chiefs and their chair-
man (Hugh Shelton), and an American public lukewarm about the inter-
vention from the start, all opposed to anything but air power as a solution
for resolving the crisis.87 One can only speculate on whether the ‘‘acceler-
ated’’ abuses produced by NATO’s air-only war would have been avoided
had these barriers not been in place.
While NATO state agents did not always place ontological security
interests in the forefront of their defense, they did employ ontological
security arguments to create meanings for their actions. Even combined
with the empirical evidence of Britain’s 1860s neutrality and Belgium’s 1914
decision to fight Germany, the role of ontological security in International
Relations remains a largely unexplored process. Thus, in my concluding
chapter (Chapter 7), I suggest some further venues where scholars might
develop an ontological security perspective, further sharpening our under-
standing of the ‘‘meta-narratives’’ which frame contemporary global politics.
7 The future of ontological security in
International Relations

I have argued in this book that the need for ontological security drives
states to structure their action in ways which attend to their self-identity
needs, sometimes in materially costly ways. I have also tried to demonstrate
how ‘‘humanitarian’’ or ‘‘moral’’ action is a security interest of certain states
when they help secure these self-identity needs. The crises examined in the
empirical chapters represented ‘‘critical situations’’ which disrupted the self-
identity of nation-states. Because threats to identity make states insecure,
states must take into account these identity threats through their foreign
policy decisions. Thus they are both constrained (as the British were fol-
lowing the Emancipation Proclamation) and enabled (as NATO countries
were during the Kosovo crisis) by their ontological security interests. In
essence, I have argued that self-identity, self-interrogative reflexivity,
memory, and (metaphorical) shame are aspects of the ontological security
process which obtain at the level of nation-states. This is possible because
state agents ‘‘narrate’’ the biography of the nation-state.
Yet I have also attempted to distinguish my argument from those which
commonly assume that ‘‘humanitarian’’ or ‘‘moral’’ action is a ‘‘type’’ of
action which must be explained by looking at the changes in the interna-
tional context. Admittedly, an element of ‘‘we-ness’’ was involved in all of
my empirical cases. During the American Civil War, after Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation the British identified with the American North,
although this identification was limited to the issue of slavery. The Belgians’
external honor was secured through recognition of their external commit-
ments to a collective European community. European nation-states, in turn,
admired the Belgians for upholding a common principle, especially for
doing so through great physical sacrifice. And NATO states all demon-
strated, through their words, a sense that the actions of the Serbs could not
be tolerated in their community of states.
What I have argued here is that states engage, for instance, in ‘‘other-
help’’ behavior because it fulfills the needs of self-identity, and there exist
occasions where these self-identity needs will coincide with those of a com-
munity. Yet even states in collective security organizations (as in the case of
each individual NATO country during the Kosovo crisis) are influenced by
 The future of ontological security in IR 149
individual security interests. Even cases of seeming ‘‘identity integration,’’
such as the European Union, are somewhat constituted by the self-identity
needs of states seeking out ontological security (as they were during the
Kosovo crisis, i.e. France’s need to fulfill its own sense of national identity
manifested in its full fledged support for a European project).
This book bears upon several existing areas of research. Security Studies
scholars might recognize that ontological security challenges some tradi-
tional assumptions about what ‘‘drives’’ state behavior, thus what ‘‘rational’’
security interests look like. Ontological security illuminates not only why
states pursue ‘‘non-material’’ incentives in their foreign policy actions, but
also how nation-states structure their militaries to serve identity needs
rather than simply ‘‘physical’’ security needs. Indeed, in competing for
policy choices military agencies are promoting their own vision of a
National Self. The cases also demonstrate how the more interesting research
questions explored in IR are those which posit how states can ‘‘rationalize’’
their decisions so that the actions which follow are possible. Self-identity,
rather than survival, becomes an operative analytical concept around which
future security research could be centered. International Ethics scholars
might also find interest in the argument and case studies developed in this
book. I have made an interpretive argument about how self-identity is
served through humanitarian, honor-driven, or moral action, yet the argu-
ment also develops important normative ‘‘if . . . then’’ propositions that follow
from that interpretation; that is, if humanitarian action is a rational interest
of states, and such actions serve the self-identity needs of those states, then is
humanitarian ‘‘action’’ really that ‘‘abnormal?’’ In light of the Belgian case,
scholars might also continue to amend the ‘‘reasonable chance for success’’
condition of jus ad bellum, a condition, as I discuss in Chapter 5, that is
intimately linked to the survival assumption paramount in traditional secur-
ity literature. Finally, practitioners might recognize the strategic possibilities
of ontological security in International Relations, although, in light of what I
discuss at the end of this chapter (pp. 160–164), this was not a central pur-
pose of the book. Such strategies might focus on challenging members of the
international community to act on the basis of their self-identity drives, thus
provoking nation-states to confront crises as a form of self-help that, in turn,
might benefit larger sectors of the international community.
How can nation-states protect themselves from that which threatens their
sense(s) of Self ? As I stated at the end of Chapter 4, because of contingency
we cannot adequately predict when and where critical situations will arise
which will serve as initial disruptions or identity threats. I have also asserted
in the preceding chapters that these self-identity disruptions are not always
a ‘‘bad’’ thing in that the routines which they disturb may themselves be
responsible for much of the suffering we see in global politics. It thus
becomes paramount to develop an understanding of self-interrogative reflex-
ive processes. Such processes are important both for those who represent
states and for those seeking to reform state actions – since it is only through
150 The future of ontological security in IR
self-interrogative reflexivity that states can effectively monitor and amend
their policies to confront identity threats. The remainder of the chapter is
dedicated to beginning to understand this process of self-interrogative reflex-
ivity, an understanding which hopefully will continue to be developed
through future IR research.

Self-interrogative reflexivity
In general, reflexivity has two related connotations. The first refers to the
self-awareness of states as states – involving how states ask what their past
and current actions imply about ‘‘who they are’’ as a state. This form of
reflexivity is linked, according to Guzzini (2000), to the ‘‘reflexive moder-
nity’’ perspective of Ulrich Beck. A reflexive world is an open world where
states monitor their actions. State agents reflect upon the content (and
form) of their country’s ‘‘national interest.’’ Reflexivity does not fully equate
with ‘‘self-reflection’’ – while all states are capable of reflexively monitoring
their actions, not all choose to be self-reflective. But reflexive monitoring
makes self-interrogation possible, and it is the latter form of reflexive mon-
itoring, to stimulate states to engage their senses of Self, that I discuss in
this section, focusing upon several ‘‘sites’’ which might serve to enhance
these interrogative capabilities of nation-states.1 Finally, while it is vital for
nation-states to engage their sense of Self, self-interrogative reflexivity does
not always lead to a progressively ‘‘better’’ subject, as Petr Drulak contends:
‘‘reflexivity, which is often viewed as a positive move that improves the
human condition, does not have to be treated in this way. Contingency
works either way and social innovations can be both good and bad’’
(Drulak 2006: 143).
Second, because reflexivity involves actors ‘‘maintain[ing] a continuing
‘theoretical understanding’ of the grounds of their activity’’ (Giddens 1984:
5), the production of knowledge itself is a factor in reflexive monitoring.
Giddens terms this the ‘‘double hermeneutic’’: ‘‘the meaningful social world
as constituted by lay actors and the metalanguages invented by social sci-
entists; there is constant ‘slippage’ from one to the other involved in the
practice of the social sciences’’ (Giddens 1989: 374, emphasis added; see
also Guzzini 2000: esp. 156–162). This means that in producing knowledge
about certain subjects scholars influence what they study, and thus reflexive
theorists recognize what this ‘‘slippage’’ implies regarding our pursuit of
knowledge about international politics. I discuss this issue in the next
section (see pp. 160–164).
How was the first understanding of reflexivity important in the cases
examined in this book? It was through self-interrogative reflexive
behavior that 1860s Britain, Belgium in 1914 (in the War Council Meeting
especially), and NATO members in 1999 were capable of determining a
policy to accommodate what they perceived to be identity threats. If states
were not capable of self-interrogative reflexivity, then the meanings states
 The future of ontological security in IR 151
give to crises could only change if the level of physical security threats
changed as well. For example, the Emancipation Proclamation would not
have changed the meaning the British made of the American Civil War.
British anxiety over slavery would not have mattered. Yet the British did
indeed engage in a self-interrogative reflexive discussion of who they were
(self-identity), what the American Civil War was (both before and after the
Emancipation Proclamation), and, most importantly, what their actions
regarding the latter (American Civil War) would mean to the former (their
own sense of self-identity).
Self-interrogative reflexivity will not be popular with everyone or at every
time. Under a state of (perceived) societal physical threat, state agents are
likely unwilling (but not unable) to engage in reflexive monitoring since such
monitoring may inhibit the ability to implement policies which target per-
ceived existential threats. Interrogative reflexivity involves the questioning of
issues of self-identity, on which there may be two (or more) opposing
viewpoints, and such questioning may be a signal of weakness to both
external and internal adversaries. Second-guessing may also serve to hinder
the efficacy of traditional ‘‘security’’ policies. In fact, there are some ideol-
ogies which would interpret the constant interrogation of a national Self to
not only be a challenge to authority, but a dangerous process which could,
in the extreme, imperil the existence of a nation-state.2 The practice of sus-
pending self-interrogation serves the status quo, specifically the interests of
those in power. Elites thus have a vested interest in consolidating one and
only one version of a state’s self-identity, preventing the ‘‘disorder’’ which
occurs during the contestation of the Self. Citizens of states might also have
an interest in resisting self-interrogation as they internalize one version of
their country’s self-identity and emotionalize it in the form of patriotism.
Thus both the elites and masses will conform to the prevailing view of self-
identity and, in the same vein, seek to quiet any discourses which serve to
challenge it. This is the case even in democracies, perhaps especially so
during times of physical insecurity, when, according to Niebuhr:

the reality of the nation’s existence becomes so sharply outlined as to arouse

the citizen to the most passionate and uncritical devotion toward it that
it is in these moments when the nation’s existence can be resolved only
by deception.
(Niebuhr 1932: 96)

This makes sense since societal reflexivity will include critical narratives
which may undermine the legitimacy of a nation-state’s controlling powers.
The irony of self-interrogative reflexivity is that it may disturb before it heals.
In other words, because it ‘‘disembeds’’ (state) agents from well-established
and emotionally satisfying routines, and because routines are linked to a
version of self-identity, self-interrogative reflexivity threatens sectors of a
nation-state, making reflexivity itself a ‘‘risky’’ proposition.
152 The future of ontological security in IR
This stated, there exist several ‘‘sites’’ that might stimulate nation-states
to reflexively engage their sense of Self (see also Table 7.1), and also two
processes/strategies which international actors might use to stimulate such
self-interrogation. Because the ‘‘reflexive project of the self’’ is ‘‘the process
whereby self-identity is constituted by the reflexive order of self-narratives’’
(Giddens 1991: 244), one of the bases for self-identity contestation will be
the self-narrative that state agents produce to justify policy actions, or the
‘‘referent’’ by which international actors can engage a targeted state’s sense
of Self. A consistent biographical narrative is transformed by being ‘‘altered
and reflexively sustained’’ through ‘‘debates’’ and ‘‘contestations’’ (Giddens
1991: 215). Thus, these sites might develop and foster the willingness of
targeted states to engage in self-confrontation.

Constitutive conditions of national self-interrogation

Social movements
Social movements can challenge and shape national narratives in order to
influence the security interests of states. While social movements challenge
national policies, they often voice their grievances by referencing national
identity, invoking moral claims by implicating one with the other. The
biographical (self-)narrative that a state uses to describe and justify its
actions serves also as a comparison device, a form of discourse that becomes
the basis for the contestation of self-identity by societal groups. Social
movements take into account this narrative when voicing their concerns over
an existing policy.

Table 7.1 Origins of the stimulation of self-interrogative reflexivity

Constitutive condition Influences state’s ability to reflexively monitor action. . .
of reflexivity
Autonomous global  Constitute a conduit for ‘‘identity threats.’’ Make
media states aware of external situations that they are capable
of confronting
 Must be autonomous, otherwise media simply
reinforce prevailing narrative
Social movements  Bring marginalized groups into society who challenge
definitions of a state’s self-identity.
 Influence state’s foreign policy by redefining identity
and ‘‘interests’’
Legitimacy of  Provide forums for debates about state’s place in
international international society
organizations  Create a forum for issues of collective and self-identity
NGO and transnational  Reveal how outcomes of a state’s foreign policy are
actor critical ‘‘inconsistent’’ with that state’s dominant self-narrative
counter-narratives  Force states to justify the disconnect (between actions
and justifications)
 The future of ontological security in IR 153
Sidney Tarrow’s seminal work on social movements gave the following
example of how a type of social movement (the American Civil Rights
movement of the twentieth century) used the American self-narrative as a
basis to legitimate its grievances over unequal treatment:

Equal opportunity rights were a useful bridge, based on traditional

American political rhetoric, between the movement’s main internal con-
stituency, the southern black middle class, and the ‘‘conscience con-
stituents’’ whose support was necessary to bolster it from the outside.
Liberals were most easily appealed to by the contradiction between the
value America placed on rights and the denial of equal opportunity to
African Americans.
(Tarrow 1994: 129–130, emphasis added)

It was more than just political rhetoric which legitimated civil rights’ claims.
Because it based its claims on calling out the disconnect between an Amer-
ican self-narrative and the American treatment of southern blacks, the Civil
Rights movement found successful mechanisms for changing American
policies.
While Tarrow’s example references how a domestic social movement
changed a state’s domestic policies, social movements themselves have
proved to be important mechanisms for change regarding foreign policy as
well, as documented by several IR studies.3 Because they represent margin-
alized groups or values, social movements can help bring about new visions
of self-identity which (in turn) allow states to better confront ‘‘external’’
identity threats.
These movements include activists and groups, both domestic and trans-
national, constituted around a variety of issues, including religious, feminist,
gay and civil rights, etc., who are able to challenge pre-existing assumptions
and policies. Cecilia Lynch notes that ‘‘[social movements’] primary sig-
nificance lies in their ability to contest, to loosen the boundaries of con-
ventional notions of interest by exposing their contradictions . . . and to use
discursive compromises to open the way toward further contestation’’
(Lynch 1999: 214, emphasis added). In sum, the most adept social move-
ments use the biographical (self-)narrative of states to legitimate their claims
in the hope that such legitimization will lead to policy reforms.4

International organizations
International organizations (IOs) have a limited ability to curb action, but
they can be an important external condition which may compel state agents
to discuss what a proposed action implies about their state’s own sense of self-
identity. This deliberation over self-identity may then lead to a contestation
over ontological security interests, manifested in the form of debates over
foreign policy choice(s).5 IOs, even those deemed ‘‘less legitimate,’’ may still
154 The future of ontological security in IR
force opinion leaders within states to ask self-reflective questions: Who are
we? Why are we doing this? What would this policy say about who we are?
How will history judge us? In this way, international organizations represent
‘‘important site[s] of struggle over the normative meaning and legitimacy of
state practice’’ (Lynch 1999: 215).
Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore have recently put forward an
important thesis on the current state of international organizations and the
issue of their ‘‘legitimacy.’’ The authors posit that many international orga-
nizations have been constituted by the liberal ideals which have spanned the
globe under the guise of ‘‘universalism’’:

Liberal political ideas about the sanctity and autonomy of the indivi-
dual and about democracy as the most desirable and just form of gov-
ernment have spread widely, as have liberal economic notions about the
virtues of markets and capitalism as the best (and perhaps the only)
means to ‘‘progress.’’
(Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 166)

Yet if these ideals are so ‘‘universal,’’ why is there strong resistance to

international organizations? Because IOs are expanding and because they
are becoming less accountable, the authors see IO legitimacy in peril. In
part, this is because ‘‘the liberal norms embodied and promoted by these
organizations are generally not matched by the accountability or participa-
tion procedures that liberalism favors’’ (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 15).
‘‘IO legitimacy’’ takes two forms – a procedural form (procedures of the
organization must be viewed as proper and correct) and a substantive form
(‘‘successful at pursuing goals that are consistent with the values of the
international community’’ (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 166). Barnett and
Finnemore propose that IOs compromise both of these forms of ‘‘legiti-
macy,’’ thereby undermining their mission to carry out liberal ideals. Most
important is the autonomous nature of IOs, which implies that IOs are a
bureaucracy and thus an autonomous social form which exerts authority
over states. Thus Barnett and Finnemore assert that because IOs are, in
fact, wholly autonomous they are less accountable to the states they are
supposed to serve.6
This thesis, if correct, leads to a troublesome and paradoxical conclusion:
although IOs are becoming more powerful, ‘‘the very source of their power
to do good might also be the source of their power to do harm, to run
roughshod over the interests of states and citizens that they are supposed to
further’’ (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 173). This means that (in lieu of IO
reform) states will continue to perceive IOs with less and less legitimacy.
This leads to stark implications for state reflexivity: because states might
choose to ignore and/or take a hostile stance toward the ‘‘prescriptions’’ of
IOs, they will choose to reinforce their own self-interests, thereby reinfor-
cing, over time, the same form of self-identity. In sum, one important
 The future of ontological security in IR 155
condition of self-interrogative reflexivity will disappear, and a world devoid
of ‘‘legitimate’’ IOs is a world where states become resistant to accom-
modating the externally changing world because they rigidly enforce their
existing forms of self-identity.

Autonomous global and domestic media

The repeated display of images, experiences, and situations can engender
reflexive debate when national societies view these images as self-identity
threats, particularly in those societies which are materially capable of con-
fronting such situations. This is not to suggest that these media representa-
tions could lead to a more ‘‘Imagined Community’’ of individuals who find
more in common the more they get to know (through the media) one
another.7 These images impact ontological security not because they
increase amounts of affect or empathy, but because contradictory images
can serve to overwhelm a nation-state’s biographical narrative.
The issue of media autonomy is important here, as the news media can and
do support certain policies over others and therefore selectively disseminate
information to control public opinion.8 Since their presentations can shape
public debate, if global and domestic news media outlets eschew an indepen-
dent mission to find/gather facts, and instead present only those facts which
reinforce a particular foreign policy action, state societies may never be
forced to ‘‘debate or contest’’ policies since certain situations may not be inter-
preted as a threat to self-identity. As I stated at the end of Chapter 6, this is
what has largely happened in the United States in the face of the Darfur
genocide. Generally, the decision by media outlets on how much attention should
be given to a situation will shape which issue(s) a state’s society will debate.
It is possible to understand what might follow, in ontological security-seeking
terms. If a state is constantly shielded from critical situations (which them-
selves would otherwise engender the need to engage in self-interrogation),
and if the media shape information so that dominant ‘‘policy narratives’’
are reinforced, citizens of states will never need to question the foreign
policy actions of their government (or all governmental actions, for that
matter). While opinion leaders and policy makers, because they are privy to
intelligence reports, will usually know better than society (writ large) what is
happening ‘‘out there,’’ if a state’s society is not presented with accurate
semi-objective information it may never hold policy makers accountable for
disconnects between self-identity and foreign policy actions (or inactions).
Or worse, these societies may never acknowledge alternative forms of Self,
being too sequestered to imagine those possible futures in the first place.

Transnational actors and counter-narratives

NGOs and other transnational actors such as, but not limited to, terrorist
organizations, may stimulate self-interrogative reflexivity by pointing out
156 The future of ontological security in IR
how the policies of a particular state are continuing to produce problematic
outcomes in specific parts of the world. Human rights NGOs in this respect
are ‘‘dual-purpose.’’ They seek to provide the international community with
‘‘on the ground’’ information to publicize atrocities so that blame can be
assessed and allocated to certain culpable intrastate parties. Yet this infor-
mation is also directed at parties capable of intervention to force them to
justify their inaction in the face of impending humanitarian catastrophes.
Thus NGOs oftentimes direct much of their ‘‘critique’’ at the most powerful
states, not for their actions, but for their inaction.
Rod Hall and Thomas Biersteker posit that ‘‘there are at least three dif-
ferent ways in which private authority is exercised by NGOs.’’ For two of
these NGOs also exert pressure on states to engage in critical reflection on
issues of self-identity. First, ‘‘by virtue of their authorship, or expertise,’’
NGOs ‘‘provide expert advice as part of their effort to influence policy
preferences’’ (Hall and Thomas Biersteker 2002: 14).9 In the context of
humanitarian disasters (which can be one form of an identity threat), this
expert advice often includes prescriptions for how states can ameliorate
and/or combat humanitarian crises. Sometimes implicit, oftentimes explicit,
in these NGO ‘‘reports’’ is a discourse critical of powerful states for their
inaction in the face of unfolding humanitarian crises.10 This critical dis-
course can lead states to engage in debate and contestation over both the
humanitarian crisis (by figuring out, with the aid of NGO reports, what can
be done) and what a continued policy of inaction implies about that state’s
own sense of self-identity.
Hall and Biersteker also note a second way that NGOs exert a private
authority – by exercising an ‘‘emancipatory or normatively progressive
social agenda.’’ This agenda implicates NGOs’ ‘‘ostensible objectivity or
neutrality as non-state actors.’’ Hall and Biersteker call this a form of
‘‘moral authority’’ (Hall and Thomas Biersteker 2002: 14). Many times,
what may seem an ‘‘emancipatory agenda’’ may simply be NGOs
‘‘pressur[ing] states to practice what they preach’’ (Ignatieff 2001: 8). The
latter equates to a discourse which asks states to engage their sense of
Self in light of their actions (or inactions, as the case may be). Thus, while
states may disagree with the conclusions of NGO reports, they feel com-
pelled to respond to at least most of them because they do find (some)
legitimacy in these reports and see the NGOs themselves as a form of moral
authority.
Yet the ‘‘emancipatory’’ agenda of NGOs does indeed call into question
their objectivity, and thus some scholars (and policy makers) see NGOs as
political organizations rather than agents of moral authority (Mutua 2001).
This can be problematic because NGOs, unlike states, may not as easily be
held accountable for their actions (see Ignatieff 2001: 9). Nevertheless, there
is much evidence that NGO reports can generate the need for states to cri-
tically evaluate their own foreign policy practices and what those practices
imply about a state’s self-identity.11
 The future of ontological security in IR 157
I also include other transnational actors, especially terrorist organizations,
as agents whose critical narratives may lead targeted states to debate issues
of their own self-identity (such as the oft-heard question posed by Amer-
icans following the September 11 attacks – ‘‘Why do they hate us?’’). Again,
however, there is no guarantee that terrorist discourse will lead targeted states
to engage in reflexivity. Because terrorist groups themselves are a form of
physical threat they may lead the society of states to ‘‘close up’’ discussion on
issues of self-identity. Further, terrorist discourse may lead states to reinforce
existing self-concepts, since messages from terrorist organizations oftentimes
precede or follow a terrorist attack. The attending sense of physical inse-
curity, as I mention on pp. 151–152, would lead to less reflexive behavior.
But the fact remains that some portion of a state’s society will remain
curious and ask not only what it is about ‘‘them’’ (a terrorist organization)
which makes ‘‘them’’ hate ‘‘us,’’ but, further, what it is about ‘‘us’’ which
might generate ‘‘their’’ hate. These latter forms of question reflect a concern
with a nation-state’s projection of self-identity; they are the types of ques-
tions which motivate a state’s society to reflect upon its own National Self.
NGOs themselves may be seen, and terrorist organizations may see
themselves, as forms of ‘‘moral authority,’’ but in this context there is no
guarantee that they are exerting ‘‘moral authority’’ over states, or, put
another way, that these critical discourses may lead states to even debate
issues of self-identity. Since authority, according to Hall and Biersteker
(2002), implies ‘‘legitimacy of power,’’ the claims by NGOs or terrorist
organizations, on the contrary, may not compel states to do anything even
after they have engaged in self-interrogation. The outcome could simply be
that states reinforce the same sense of self-identity, and this is likely since
self-identity, in states, is a contested project which has political implications for
whose ‘‘vision’’ of the nation-state ‘‘self’’ wins out. Therefore, we may observe
states, in the face of these critical counter-narratives, reinforcing the same
biographical narrative they used before the criticisms were voiced. And even
if states choose to revise their self-identity, and thus their ontological security
interests, the motivation for change itself reflects, in my view, less the legiti-
macy of the claims of NGOs and/or terrorist organizations, and more the
perceived illegitimacy a state sees in its own foreign policy actions.

Strategies for stimulating self-interrogation

In addition to these sites where self-interrogative reflexivity can be stimu-
lated one can identify the processes or strategies available to agents who
wish to motivate this self-interrogation.

Reflexive discourse
As introduced briefly at the end of Chapter 3, a first practice which can
motivate self-interrogation we might call ‘‘reflexive discourse’’ (see also
158 The future of ontological security in IR
Steele 2007b), whereby international actors call out the discrepancy between
a targeted state’s actions and its self-narrative. This discourse strategy chal-
lenges a targeted state’s self-identity and thus the interest such a state has in
confronting certain crises. Like communicative argumentation (see, for
example, Risse 1999, 2000), reflexive discourse is a form of ‘‘verbal persua-
sion’’; an ‘‘identity argument’’ which works ‘‘by producing or calling upon
previously existing identities and differences among groups and claiming
that specific behaviors are associated with certain identities’’ (Crawford
2002: 24–25). It is also quite similar to what Janice Bially-Mattern calls
‘‘representational force,’’ where language is constructed to trap ‘‘victims with
the credible threat emanating from potential violence to their subjectivity’’
(Bially-Mattern 2005: 96). However, reflexive discourse as it is based upon
the ontological security drive of states requires the ‘‘author’’ to reference a
targeted state’s self-identity, rather than the responsibilities such a targeted
state has to collective principles or international agreements. Furthermore,
the purpose of reflexive discourse is not to change a targeted state’s identity,
forcing it ‘‘in line’’ with the intersubjective structures of international
society. Rather, its intention is to incite a targeted state to reflect upon its
sense of Self in light of its actions. Finally, reflexive discourse does not
assume, a priori, the ‘‘common life world’’ important in communicative
approaches (see Risse 2000).
Reflexive discourse could manipulate targeted states’ ontological security
in a variety of ways. For instance, and as briefly discussed in Chapters 3 and 6
of this book, it could coax nation-states into attending to humanitarian
crises, implicating what inaction in the face of such a crisis says about the
targeted state’s ‘‘sense of self.’’ I have argued elsewhere (Steele forthcoming)
that this type of discourse was used, probably unintentionally, by UN
Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland during the
Asian Tsunami crisis of December 2004. Egeland’s remark that many of the
rich countries were being ‘‘stingy’’ with their general international aid was
interpreted by some in the Bush administration as a statement regarding
America’s initial offer of assistance in the unfolding crisis. The administration
within days increased its pledge of aid from $15 million to $350 million. In
ontological security terms, it was not America’s commitment to the interna-
tional community that mattered during the Tsunami, but its commitments
and responsibilities to its sense of Self. Being considered ‘‘stingy’’ challenged
the vision Americans had about their state’s self-identity.
There exists another possible form of reflexive discourse which is used, as
suggested on p. 157, by transnational terrorist groups. By engaging
powerful international actors not only with acts of terrorism, but also with
audio and visual broadcasts, terrorist groups serve to challenge the author-
ity that is the basis for the self-identity of those actors. To wit, it is not only
the physical threat by which such groups can alter targeted states – the
practice of broadcasting messages itself, as bin Laden and his associates
have continued to do following the September 11 attacks, serves as a
 The future of ontological security in IR 159
reminder that the United States has been unable to ‘‘exact the full costs
from the terrorists who claim a right to punish powerful states’’ (Lowenheim
2007: 310). Such extraction is one basis for a powerful state’s authority. Dis-
cursive ‘‘provocation of the hegemon’’ can serve to ‘‘undermine the sense of
community and shared values and interests among all states,’’ thus isolating
that hegemon even further from its allies (Mendelsohn 2005: 66).
Thus the practice of this version of reflexive discourse would serve to coerce
powerful countries to alter their self-identity, and thus their interests, in pro-
blematically violent ways.

Reflexive imaging
Reflexive discourse has its limits, however, in that because targeted states
are led with by adept political agents such discourse will eventually be met
tit-for-tat language meant to obfuscate, conceal, and divert. A policy to
extract information from terrorist suspects is thus not ‘‘torture’’ but ‘‘coer-
cive interrogation.’’ The powerful can therefore acrobatically avoid being
impacted by reflexive discourse. Thus a second practice which has the abil-
ity to stimulate self-interrogative reflexivity occurs through the distribution
of unfavorable images which represent (and re-present) the state being tar-
geted. This practice can go further than pure reflexive discourse; state
agents cannot as easily ‘‘talk their way out’’ of a particular identity dis-
connect if they are required to tackle a visual presentation of ‘‘the state’’
because it would require them to ask their citizens to ignore their ‘‘lying
eyes.’’
Such a practice is of course somewhat dependent upon the media, who
serve as the gatekeepers of information. But this gatekeeping function is
being challenged in an internet age. As such, we see reflexive imaging stra-
tegies employed, for example, by ‘‘bloggers’’ such as Andrew Sullivan, or
artists such as Clinton Fein, both opponents of the American legalization of
torture.12 Sullivan has on several occasions posted the Abu Ghraib prison
pictures, as well as a photo of a waterboard from Tuol Sleng Prison in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The latter is a museum dedicated to displaying the
institutionalized practices of the Khmer Rouge. Sullivan’s express purpose is
to implicate America’s ontological security with an image, writing on one
occasion: ‘‘This is America under this president. Look at it.’’13
Yet even with ‘‘imaging’’ we have no guarantees, as images are, like lan-
guage, ‘‘polyvalent’’ or open to multiple interpretations. As Rosemary Foot
discusses in a recent article, the same Abu Ghraib photos which shocked
many Americans and the world were released by the American military for
purposes of internal consumption (Foot 2006: 138). So the ‘‘particular
[American] reputation has been projected via demonstrations of military
and technological strength, [and with] images of the subjugation of the
enemy.’’ This was also a matter of American self-identity – images projected
by the state to ‘‘discipline’’ both American citizens and the world at large by
160 The future of ontological security in IR
‘‘demonstrat[ing] mastery over the enemy’’ (Foot 2006: 138, emphasis
added). Therefore, even if images ‘‘get out’’ that we might assume should,
knowing that particular state’s self-identity, ‘‘shame’’ a nation-state, there is
no way to predict exactly how such images will be interpreted – only that
they might serve (albeit temporarily) to disrupt a nation-state’s ability to
ignore or obfuscate.

Confronting meta-narratives: scholarly ‘‘self-interrogation’’

It is not enough, of course, to be aware of the challenges states face in
attempting to engage their senses of Self; nor even to be aware of the stra-
tegies various social actors might utilize to stimulate such self-interrogation.
As mentioned in the previous section (see p. 150), the issue of reflexivity is
also bound up with the scholarly production of knowledge, in that scholars
construct the knowledge which the practice of international politics makes
possible. In a much-discussed Presidential Address to the International
Studies Association meeting, Steve Smith confronted this issue directly,
asserting ‘‘that the discipline of International Relations is complicit in the
constitution of this world of international relations’’ (Smith 2004: 499). One
avenue where scholars can ‘‘sing our world into existence’’ is through the
production of meta-narratives. Cecilia Lynch discussed this issue at the end
of her seminal book on interwar peace movements: ‘‘Not only should we be
wary of the narratives constructed by participants in these cases, but we
should also be critical of the narratives we construct to analyze them’’
(Lynch 1999: 217, emphasis added). While several ‘‘meta-narratives’’
permeate international politics, and the ‘‘spillage’’ between analysis (Inter-
national Relations) and practice (international relations) will continue, it is
my position that IR scholars need to confront two particular meta-
narratives: namely that the spread of democracy will lead to perpetual
peace, and that nation-states are consumed first and foremost by their phy-
sical survival. Both of these have been generally important in the context of
the making of state self-identity, and especially responsible, in my view, for
the dark turn recently taken by the American Self.

‘‘The spread of democracy will save us’’

How could what has been termed an ‘‘empirical’’ of political science (Levy
1988: 662) by one scholar, and a ‘‘fact’’ by another (Russett 1993) – that
democracies do not fight one another – become a problematic meta-narra-
tive needing to be challenged? Because it was not a theory which remained
in the political science ‘‘laboratory,’’ but a discursive resource used by poli-
tical actors to justify their policies, most recently (although not exclusively)
by the Bush administration regarding its Iraq War policy. I (Steele 2007a)
and others (Kratochwil 2006 and Williams 2005a, for example) have
discussed what this implies about the relationship between subject and objects
 The future of ontological security in IR 161
in approaches to IR. But also important is how the belief in democracy as a
‘‘universal good’’ has served to justify the spread of democracy by the barrel
of a gun, also stimulated a disturbing democratic Self/non-democratic Other
nexus, a ‘‘version of Manicheanism . . . where evil is a ‘force’ to be defeated’’
(Rengger and Jeffrey 2005: 12). Such Manicheanism, named the ‘‘demonolo-
gical approach’’ to foreign policy by Hans Morgenthau, has normatively
problematic by-products (Morgenthau 2006: 9). Thus the belief in democracy
as a universal good has shielded certain democratic republics from being
able to recognize, before it is too late, these un-democratic actions which,
when uncovered sometime in the distant future, threaten their ontological
security.
The belief in the inevitable ‘‘march’’ toward perpetual, systemic peace
also implicates the ontological security process as well, in that it reduces the
need for agents to engage in the political process. As with all ‘‘evolutionary’’
or ‘‘progressive’’ philosophies, the idea of ‘‘perpetual peace’’ proposes an
‘‘end’’ point – a confederation of liberal republics constituted by the conflict
of those republics against illiberal regimes.14 Unfortunately, as Reinhold
Niebuhr famously observed regarding ‘‘historical religions,’’ the end point of
such eschatologies becomes difficult to obtain:

These Messianic expectations begin as expressions of national hope and

expectations of national triumph. Only gradually it is realized that
man’s effort to deny and to escape his finiteness in imperial ambitions
and power add an element of corruption to the fabric of history and
that this corruption becomes a basic characteristic of history and a
perennial problem from the standpoint of the fulfillment of human
history and destiny.
(Niebuhr 1943: 4)

What Niebuhr proposes is that the belief in the eschaton reduces the human
capacity to engage politics – such uniformity inhibits the ability of humans
to recognize the possibility for corruption, and thus to engage in a political
manner the basis for corrupt power. It appears that this is the case with the
inability of democratic nation-states, and some scholars doing work on the
‘‘democratic peace,’’ to recognize the dire consequences of a foreign policy
based on the ‘‘progressive’’ expansion of this ‘‘zone of peace.’’

‘‘Nation-state survival is paramount’’

The emphasis upon the survival motive of nation-states has been discussed
in this book and is the subject for many existing critical accounts on security
(see Chapter 3). Additionally, each empirical case challenged the notion that
nation-states are first and foremost concerned with their survival (Belgium
being the most radical contradiction of the three). Yet what it has wrought
upon the practice of international politics is relevant to issues of ontological
162 The future of ontological security in IR
security in many ways, two of which are worthy of immediate mention here.
First, the larger analytical emphasis upon nation-state survival has focused
upon one form of violence (war) to the exclusion of the many other ‘‘marked
forms’’ which exist in world politics (Smith 2004: 510). It has also obscured
forms of suffering which are the result of the pronounced unequal distribu-
tion of resources throughout the world (Smith 2004: 508). Thus the physical
survival of nation-states that has been the focus of mainstream International
Relations overwhelms and exacerbates the ‘‘human security’’ problems which
plague a majority of the world’s population. The former, rather than the
latter, constitute self-identity interests for ‘‘rational’’ states, thus enhancing
this marginalization even further.
Second, as I also mentioned in Chapter 1, the focus on national survival
has been used to legitimize almost any policy as a ‘‘trump card’’ for state
agents to play. The debate in America over ‘‘torture’’ is one where we see
this tension most pronounced.15 Make no mistake, however, the recent
American practices of torture and the treatment of detainees (including the
rendition of ‘‘terror’’ suspects to ‘‘black site’’ countries where explicit torture
can be carried out more fully) are all about self-identity. As also discussed
in Chapter 3, the American biographical narrative has emphasized
‘‘strength’’ for some time (Weldes 1999). Yet besides the emphasis upon
strength and ‘‘will,’’ the additional prominence in neoconservative ideology
upon ‘‘authority’’ requires American policy makers to ‘‘create obedience
through a combination of fear, coercion, and the propagation of belief’’
(Williams 2005a: 30).16 This is all of course linked to the issue of nation-
state survival – in order to serve the ‘‘survival’’ drive countries need strong
leaders.
Yet we might recognize how the same emphasis upon ‘‘strength’’ in a
state’s self-identity also makes that state inherently vulnerable, subject to
manipulation by other international actors the state deems to be threats to
its physical security. Furthermore, the same policies which are meant to
ensure a state’s survival can also paradoxically be a hazard to that state, as
the current Iraq War is demonstrating in spades. Yet scholars who
acknowledge this, who moreover argue that they ‘‘were in the vanguard of
the opposition to war with Iraq in 2003’’ and explicate the costs of such a
war – ‘‘thousands of Americans and Iraqis killed and wounded, a price tag
that will eventually exceed $1 trillion[!], and no end in sight’’ (Walt 2006:
4) – might also need to address how their very scholarship may be some-
what responsible for narrowing the meaning of the ‘‘security’’ of nation-
states, thereby serving to reinforce the epistemic context which allows
the powerful to implement costly policies in the first place, rather than
continuing to be ‘‘exempt from the personal and professional responsibility
of question[ing] the limits of . . . theory’’ (Kolodziej 1992: 429). Unfortu-
nately, such assumed exemption seems to be rather commonplace, cloaked in
the veil of ‘‘scientific inquiry’’ which still somewhat pervades International
Relations.
 The future of ontological security in IR 163
Ontological security in International Relations
As I mentioned at the beginning of the book (see pp. 1–2), the United States,
and the world to some degree, has suffered from the inability of an effective
‘‘counter-narrative’’ to emerge which could provide a measured resistance to
these two meta-narratives. While this book is not an attempt to develop a
larger counter-narrative with the hopes that it will begin to appear in the
discourse of international politics, I generally agree with Foucault that such
counter-narratives can ‘‘spring’’ from the very disciplinary mechanisms
which the powerful use to dominate (Foucault 1977: 219). Also imperative
is for IR scholars to become even more cognizant of our role in construct-
ing these meta-narratives. Reflecting upon our own role in reconstructing
accounts, we need to, as one scholar reminds us, ‘‘be aware of the politics of
constructing,’’ that the ‘‘value in telling a different story is in the telling, in
illustrating the ways in which these stories are constructed and could be
constructed differently’’ (Shephard 2005: 401). In our own self-interroga-
tion, we must grapple with the possibility that state agents are political
agents, and they may have completely different goals for their nation-states
than we think they should have. We must, furthermore, do better than
calling ourselves ‘‘scientists’’ while at the same time asking that which we
study to go around ‘‘repeating’’ our theories in order to ‘‘have the effect of a
self-fulfilling prophecy.’’ If we go about asking international actors to
engage in, for instance, ‘‘[r]epeating the norms [of democratic peace] as
descriptive principles [in order to] help to make them true. Repeating the
proposition that democracies should not fight each other [in order to] rein-
force the probability that democracies will not fight each other’’ (Russett
1993: 136, emphasis added), they might actually do so, but for political
purposes to justify policies which are neither peaceful nor democratic, as it
were. Instead, in light of the issue of self-interrogative reflexivity, I would
only ask scholars to continue to critically examine the assumption that IR,
and political science generally, can be pursued along the models of the
physical sciences – where subjects and objects can be separated. Finally, we
should also, in Anthony Lang’s words, be aware of how ‘‘the creation of
‘experts’ on various issues needs to be challenged as problematic; these
individuals, while capable of providing valuable insights, must not be the
only ones responsible for the creation of narratives about various parts of
the world’’ (Lang 2002: 204). Such deference may be necessary on occasion,
but over time it can also serve to reinscribe the very conditions of authority
which are responsible for the problems these ‘‘experts’’ are consulted about
in the first place.
I have argued in this book that we should look at the possibility that
states are being driven by needs other than their physical sense of security. I
do not see any need to develop ontological security into a framework for
hypothesis development from which one could ‘‘predict’’ state behavior. This
runs completely counter to the nature of the social agency I have outlined in
164 The future of ontological security in IR
this book, for if the contingency of social action is a condition of its reali-
zation, then we can hardly ‘‘predict’’ what form that action might take. All
state agents have choices, although the constraints imposed upon those
choices vary. Shame, self-identity, anxiety, guilt – these are processes which
can only occur if we take as one of our basic assumptions a fluid view of
human (and state) agency. ‘‘Powerful’’ states, for instance, are capable of
carrying out their decisions, and, most importantly, their knowledge of this
capability, of this freedom, implicates them in the outcomes those decisions
produce. They cannot as easily as other less capable agents absolve them-
selves of this responsibility by pointing to forces ‘‘beyond their control,’’
although they have tried and will continue to try. The ontological security
story is not a determinist view of international politics. Contingency is a
fact of life.
I will therefore avoid the practice, which has become so common in
International Relations theory, of ‘‘prophecizing’’ about world politics at the
end of my study: ‘‘human prophecies – which are a form of prediction – are
often self-negating’’ (Lebow et al. 2000: 52). Agency levies upon us (1)
opportunities for transforming world politics to attend to our own needs;
and (2) responsibility for the outcomes of our actions which affect the needs
of others. There can be no ‘‘morality’’ in international politics if we accept
only one, let alone neither, of these two propositions.
Notes

1. Introduction
1 ‘‘Historically, the key difference . . . has been between policy preferences for an
international order in which the United States seeks to institute and live by cer-
tain mildly communitarian organizing principles, and one in which it avoids
entanglement in any serious institutionalized commitments. These positions are
defined as ‘multilateralism’ and ‘unilateralism’’’ (Ruggie 1996: 4).
2 On costly moral action, see Kaufman and Pape (1999); for the ‘‘danger’’ of
honor, see Thucydides (1954); see Osgood (1964) regarding the danger of huma-
nitarian action.
3 Ontological security is defined as ‘‘a sense of continuity and order in events’’
(Giddens 1991: 243). Several IR scholars have used Giddens in their work.
4 This is the view of Chaim Kaufman and Robert Pape (1999). I deal with this
argument in greater detail in Chapter 2.
5 See Wheeler (2001).
6 It should be noted that Morgenthau’s view of the ability to ‘‘predict’’ social life is
a more nuanced and limited one. He places an emphasis on probabilistic rather
than deterministic prediction, and even that is fully constrained by the complex-
ities of human life; thus one can ‘‘point to the different conditions that make it
more likely for one tendency to prevail than for another, and, finally, assess the
probabilities for the different conditions and tendencies to prevail in actuality’’
(Morgenthau 2006: 22).
7 Bull’s point in the quotation is to assert how humans value predictability in their
lives, yet his entire book, and even to varying degrees the entire English School
approach (Dunne 1998: 7–9), reveals the manner in which human behavior, while
patterned, cannot be understood properly through causal prediction. Mor-
genthau also criticized the ‘‘ahistory’’ of predictive theory, branding it a form of
‘‘progressivist theory’’ and even more serious a failure than the Wilsonian ideal-
ism of the interwar period (Morgenthau 1970: 40; see also Morgenthau 2006: 9).
8 While the distinctions between the strategic and ontological security argument
are developed in Chapter 3 and throughout the case chapters, this is not to
overlook the important work that has been produced which reveals the more
critical nature of classical realism. A review of such work would begin with post-
structuralists in the early 1980s (Ashley 1981, 1984) through the 1990s (Der
Derian 1996) and conclude with the recent high-quality scholarship by ‘‘reflex-
ive’’ or ‘‘willful’’ realists (see Lang 2002; Lebow 2003; Williams 2005a, 2005b)
9 We can see his objection to overemphasizing speech in his critique of Freud’s
‘‘slips of the tongue.’’ Freud sees all slips as underpinned by some motivation;
Giddens does not: ‘‘if most particular forms of language use are not directly
166 Notes
motivated, then it follows that most slips of the tongue cannot be traced to
unconscious motivation’’ (Giddens 1984: 104).
10 This emphasis on getting language ‘‘exactly right’’ for actors was especially acute
regarding the American approach to Rwanda, where American policy makers
avoided the use of the term genocide to describe what was happening in order to
avoid responsibility for American inaction. See, especially, the response provided
by Christine Shelley, Spokeswoman for the American State Department, as
detailed in the PBS Frontline special, ‘‘Triumph of Evil’’ (available at http://
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/etc/script.html).
11 Michael Shaara’s character Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in the
American Civil War novel The Killer Angels summed up prior to the battle at
Gettysburg what a permanently separated American Union might have entailed:
‘‘if they (the South) win there’ll be two countries, like France and Germany in
Europe, and the border will be armed. Then there’ll be a third country in the
West, and that one will be the balance of power’’ (Shaara 1974: 179).
12 The list of political psychology studies in foreign policy is too long to mention
here. Cognitivist studies that have focused on ‘‘role theory’’ (Walker 1987),
‘‘analogies’’ (Khong), or ‘‘misperception’’ (Jervis 1976) are just a few examples of
foreign policy research that applied psychological theories to try and explain
decision making. Few cognitivists, however, have applied these concepts to states,
instead focusing upon certain individual leaders, whose otherwise ‘‘rational’’
cognitive abilities were affected by certain conditions.
13 (Singer 1961). Hedrik Spruyt writes:

Agent–structure problems permeate all levels of politics. It depends on what

one takes to be the agent and what the structure. The individual can be
embedded in the structure of a bureaucratic organization. That organiza-
tion, taken as an agent with a particular corporate identity, is in turn
embedded in a larger political structure, and so on.
(Spruyt 1994: 14)

14 ‘‘Conventional constructivism’’ refers to the teleological social theory of Alex-

ander Wendt (1999, 2003). While Wendt’s compelling work through the years is
often used to generalize about constructivism, it really is more of a liberal tele-
ology than constructivist, as noted by Vaughn Shannon (2005), among others.
See Ross (2006) for the role of emotion in Wendt’s constructivism.
15 ‘‘Obviously, not all emotions are helpful in making a decision that might be seen
by others as ‘rational’ from a cost–benefit standpoint. However, what most fail to
realize is that emotional responses are necessary in order to make any decision at
all’’ (McDermott 2004: 693).
16 This is a somewhat shocking omission, since Mitzen posits that the way we
‘‘know a type’’ of state is not through its own self-organization but in its ability
to ‘‘define’’ its needs ‘‘as a goal in terms of the meanings and practices of that
system’’ in which it operates ((Mitzen 2006b: 352). Yet how else are we to know
what ‘‘goals’’ a state has, and how are we to know what drives those goals, if not
through discourse?
17 Close readers of Giddens will point out his objection to viewing collectivities as
agents. Yet I posit that he does leave open the possibility of viewing collectivities
(like state decision makers) as agents when ‘‘there is a significant degree of
reflexive monitoring of the conditions of social reproduction’’ (see Giddens 1984:
220–221). The burden falls on me, then, to prove that such collective reflexive
monitoring occurs, and is therefore possible.
18 One caveat to this final defense of ascribing ontological security to state agents
(and, therefore, to states) is appropriate. The post-structuralist would look at this
 Notes 167
understanding of the state, and the importance of discourse, as evidence that
state agents not only use narrative to create a coherence of the whole but use
discourses of power to exclude certain populations from national membership –
to designate the ‘‘deviants’’ in a society. This is the position of Jenny Edkins
(2003), among others, and it may be true. Accordingly, I address this issue in
Chapters 2 and 3. For now, it is safe to say that there is an incredibly political
nature inherent in the inventory that state agents engage within when developing
the biographical narrative of their states, and the exclusionary possibilities that
narrative holds represent a dark side to ontological security (a dark side that is
not inevitable, however).

2. Identity, morality, and social action

1 As Campbell (2001, esp. fn. 12) also notes, the major works in this normative
turn include those by Chris Brown (1992) and Smith (1992). See also Mervyn
Frost’s seminal book (Frost 1996).
2 Neorealist theory has embraced systemic-level variables, yet, as Richard Ashley
(1984) first observed, neorealism is at the same time utilitarian, assuming states
to be rational and calculating ‘‘units,’’ and structuralist, assuming that systemic
power distributions determine behavior.
3 John Gerard Ruggie makes a similar point in ‘‘Continuity and Transformation in
the World Polity’’ (Ruggie 1983).
4 This is the whole basis for Wendt’s World State thesis, which rests upon the pre-
condition of the need of corporate actors to be recognized, and the fact that ‘‘it is
through recognition by the Other that one is constituted as a Self in the first
place,’’ asserting a ‘‘dependence of Self on Other’’ (Wendt 2003: 511, emphasis
added).
5 Finnemore (1996), for example, places primacy on this outside-in approach, as
it is largely a bracketing mechanism rather than an ontological maxim. Yet
this by no means disregards agency; of course, in many other places in her work
(see also Finnemore 2003) she shows how we only know a structure when we see
states referring to it to justify their actions. So structure can be largely con-
stitutive.
6 Yet this outside-in approach to state interests, and, ostensibly, the self-identity of
states, is emphasized by scholars who we might not consider to be ‘‘conven-
tional’’ constructivists. Many of the studies in the seminal 1996 edited volume on
The Culture of National Security seek to show the prevalence of systemic-level
factors and how they constrain state behavior (Katzenstein 1996a). As noted on
p. 33, Richard Ned Lebow takes an almost deterministic view of how environ-
ment shapes self-identity.
7 The seeming tautology that arises when using democratic culture to predict
‘‘democratic’’ behavior is sidestepped in a number of ways, such as lagging vari-
ables in a regression analysis or developing a separate measure of democraticness
for states. Because it is so ‘‘rare to find a general theoretical model for norm
formation’’ in constructivism, Sarah Mitchell provides such a ‘‘model’’ that tries
to explain democratic behavior in non-democracies. Ascribing the settlement of
territorial disputes by a third party as a ‘‘democratic’’ variable (regardless of the
nature of the third-party arbiter, since no parameter is given for it), Mitchell’s
analysis shows how the systemic proportion of democracies increases the like-
lihood of such behavior (Mitchell 2002: 758).
8 David Dessler, using the effects of language to illustrate it, was one of the first IR
theorists to develop this transformational aspect of ‘‘structure’’ (Dressler 1989:
452–454; see also Onuf 1989). For an impressive analysis of the agent-structure
issue in constructivist social theory, see Gould (1998).
168 Notes
9 Neorealism does this as ‘‘it sees system structures in the manner in which they
appear to states – as given, external constraints on their actions – rather than as
conditions of possibility for state action’’ (Wendt 1987: 347).
10 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q = enabling.
11 See also Doty 1993.
12 See also Neumann’s comments, some critical, regarding Campbell’s use of self/
other (Neumann 1999: esp. 26–28).
13 Niebuhr, writing about Augustine: ‘‘he [Augustine] does not recognize that the
commingling [of love of God and love of Self] is due, not to the fact that two
types of people dwell together but because the conflict between love and self-love
is in every soul. It is particularly important to recognize this fact in political
analyses’’ (Niebuhr 1953: 138, emphasis added).
14 We do need the other to know who we are, it is true, but that is not what
drives our behavior; the ‘‘self does not experience the experience of other directly.
The facts about other available to self are actions of other experienced by self’’
(Laing 1969: 5, emphasis added). That is, we experience ourselves by experien-
cing what others say or signal about us. The ‘‘other’’ only exists as the Self
experiences it.
15 Wachtel’s target in his chapter is Freud, who he claims acontextualized the Self
and whose ‘‘vision for so long dominated intellectual discourse on matters psy-
chological that even as alternative views have emerged both within and outside of
psychoanalysis, they have incorporated more of Freud’s grounding assumptions
than we realize’’ (Wachtel 1996: 47). This statement is evidence that in the field of
psychology scholars have been moving from the acontextual understanding of
the Self to a socially determined (or driven) Self; whereas I am working the
inverse in this book – mainstream scholarship having posited (in my view) an
overly socialized sense of self-identity in states, a sense of self-identity that
instead needs to be internally understood in ontological security terms.
16 Traditional action ‘‘may shade over into value rationality.’’ Value-rational and
affectual actions ‘‘have a common element, namely that the meaning of the
action does not lie in the achievement of a result ulterior to it, but in carrying
out the specific type of action for its own sake’’ (Weber 1968: 24–25).
17 Wight (1995) identifies an inverse argument in Francois Laurent: ‘‘There is a
profound difference between individuals and nations; the former have their
vices and their passions which are continually leading them to do wrong; the
others are fictitious beings whose agents are generally the most intelligent and
most ethical of their time. And even where intelligence and morality are lacking,
public opinion contains them and will increasingly contain them within the limits
of duty.’’
18 Donnelly points out how the related concept of glory influenced the Greek city-
states in the Peloponnesian War: ‘‘Athens’ largest imperial adventure, the ill-fated
Sicilian expedition, is driven by desires for glory and gain . . . utterly unconnected
with self-sufficiency, and flying in the face of safety’’ (Donnelly 2000: 69).
19 As Lebow acknowledges, ‘‘[honor] was a cause of conflict among states rather
than individuals. But it was also a potent source of solidarity at the individual
and communal levels.’’ Referring to soccer teams, he notes that ‘‘honor in the
sense of dignity is independent of how many rounds of competition a team sur-
vives or where it ends up in the rankings’’ (Lebow 2003: 272, also fn. 49).
20 Donnelly elaborates on this point in the context of his review of Thucydides:
‘‘honorable behavior . . . is a matter of everyday conformance to social norms’’
(Donnelly 2000: 177–178, fn. 19).
21 Donnelly explicates honor primarily as a ‘‘heroic ethic’’ evident in antiquity
rather than contemporary international politics, and he also does not discusses
why states desire honor (or glory) (Donnelly 2000: 177–178).
 Notes 169
22 More recent ‘‘realists’’ have echoed these concerns over ‘‘moral’’ precepts, con-
fronting the post-Cold War appeals to ‘‘humanitarian’’ action as dangerous:
‘‘U.S. intervention in these ‘‘humanitarian’’ crises should be, at best, exceedingly
rare . . . using American armed forces as the world’s ‘911’ will degrade cap-
abilities, bog soldiers down in peacekeeping roles, and fuel concern among other
great powers that the United States has decided to enforce notions of ‘limited
sovereignty’ worldwide in the name of humanitarianism. This overly broad defi-
nition of America’s national interest is bound to backfire as others arrogate the
same authority to themselves’’ (Rice 2000: 53–54). Notice again how Rice (in this
case) separates national interests from ‘‘humanitarian’’ action.
23 Emotional affections underlie most conceptualizations of humanitarian inter-
vention. Bihku Parekh’s definition of humanitarian intervention is an action
which is ‘‘primarily guided by the sentiment of humanity, compassion or fellow-
feeling’’ (Parekh 1997: 54). Fiona Terry states that ‘‘any assistance, if it is to be
humanitarian, must be motivated first and foremost by a concern for the welfare
of people, regardless of who or where they are’’ (Terry 2002: 240).
24 ‘‘Collectivist states have a desire to help those they identify with even when their
own security is not directly threatened’’ (Wendt 1999: 124).
25 It is important to note that these types of social action were a form of his ‘‘ideal
types,’’ as Weber had ‘‘no intention of attempting to formulate in any sense an
exhaustive classification of types of action . . . [he only intended] to formulate in
conceptually pure form certain sociologically important types to which actual
action is more or less closely approximated’’ (Weber 1968: 26).
26 ‘‘As a moral argument, realism amounts to a claim that the reasons for over-
riding the constraints of ordinary morality in emergency situations are them-
selves moral’’ (Nardin and Mapel 1992:15).
27 This is of course a play on the title of Nicholas Onuf’s (1989) book. See Lebow (2001).
28 About Augustine, whose work I deal with in the following chapter, Niebuhr
wrote: ‘‘his conception of the radical freedom of man, derived from the biblical
view, made it impossible to accept the idea of fixed forms of human behavior and
of social organization, analogous to those of nature . . . furthermore, his con-
ception of human selfhood and of the transcendence of the self over its mind,
made it impossible to assume the identity of the individual reason with a uni-
versal reason’’ (Niebuhr 1953: 133–134).
29 Orwell painted a much bleaker picture of human consciousness: ‘‘The Party said
that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew
that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago.
But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in
any case must soon be annihilated’’ (Orwell 1983: 30). Thankfully, Niebuhr’s
individuals, and modern nation-states, don’t have the keen ability to annihilate
consciousness.

3 The possibilities of the Self

1 Waltz qualifies this assumption, that his model is a ‘‘simplification of reality,’’
and that

the assumption [of the survival motive] allows for the fact that no state
always acts exclusively to ensure its survival. It allows for the fact that some
states may persistently seek goals that they value more highly than survival;
they may, for example, prefer amalgamation with other states to their own
survival form. It allows for the fact that in pursuit of its security no state
will act with perfect knowledge and wisdom.
(Waltz 1979: 92).
170 Notes
2 Joseph Grieco also notes: ‘‘the key result of the recognition by states of the
possibility that force can be used against them is that they have security as their
principal interest . . . anarchy causes states to be agents concerned first and fore-
most with their survival and security’’ (Grieco 1997: 186–187).
3 ‘‘Security-as-being’’ is used in McSweeney, and he defines it as ‘‘confidence
in an actor’s capacity to manage relations with others’’ (McSweeney 1999:
157). R.D. Laing first developed ontological security, using the term ‘‘ontol-
ogy’’ because ‘‘in its present empirical sense . . . it appears to be the best
adverbial or adjectival derivative of ‘being’’’ (Laing 1969: 40, fn. 1). This is
the basis, it seems, for Heidegger’s ‘‘Dasein,’’ whose being is consumed by
‘‘the possible’’: ‘‘The Being possible which is essential for Dasein, pertains to
the ways of its solicitude for Others and of its concerns with the ‘world,’ as
we have characterized them; and in all these, and always, it pertains to
Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being towards itself, for the sake of itself’’ (Heidegger
1962: 183).
4 As noted on p. 61, Kierkegaard elaborates on this distinction.
5 The Confucian scholar Mencius, living in China during the ‘‘Warring States’’
period, also related the notion of i (shame) to human beings and political leaders.
One scholar notes that ‘‘[a] sense of compassion (jen) and a sense of shame (i)
according to Mencius, were innate in human nature’’ (Hsu 1996: 157). Shame
here is a necessary condition for morality: ‘‘whoever is devoid of the heart of
shame is not human’’ (Mencius 2003: 73).
6 Those familiar with the more senior literature in anthropology, written over fifty
years ago (Ausubel 1955; Benedict 1946, cited in Tangney et al. 1996), will notice
how shame was conceptualized as a ‘‘public’’ emotion and guilt a more private
violation of the Self. This is the exact opposite of the conceptualization taken by
Laing and in the more recent psychological literature as well as of that taken by
Giddensian structuration theory. I obviously take the latter approach to distin-
guishing shame from guilt.
7 One position in social psychological literature on the subject is that shame and
guilt are different in terms of degree rather than kind. But recent research has
shed light on the idea that while both shame and guilt relate to self-regarding
emotions, they are indeed distinct (Tangney et al. 1996).
8 ‘‘Liberal democracies’’ may be more exposed to shame because they are more
vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy, both internally (by their citizens) and exter-
nally (by the international community). Neta Crawford notes this (Crawford
2002: 115, fn. 79). Giddens argues that ‘‘anxiety in a certain sense comes with
human liberty . . . freedom is not a given characteristic of the human individual,
but derives from the acquisition of an ontological understanding of external
reality and personal identity’’ (Giddens 1991: 47). This suggests that with free-
dom comes vulnerability to anxiety. Democracies, perhaps, are more capable of
‘‘ontological insecurity.’’
9 Shame itself is an experience, but it might eventually also have a physical pre-
sence. As it relates to freedom, in that we cannot be ashamed of those acts we
commit where we had no choice, shame might be said to produce in this fashion
the ‘‘nausea’’ that developed within, and then became, Sartre, who confronted
freedom in a similar sense: ‘‘The Nausea has not left me and I don’t believe it
will leave me so soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no longer an illness or
a passing fit: it is I’’ (Sartre 1964: 170). Nausea might refer to that process
whereby an individual ‘‘becomes sick’’ at just ‘‘the thought’’ of something
unpleasant. Thus, the ideational experience of shame might lead to physical dis-
ruptions.
10 (Giddens 1981: 83). Collingwood notes that for the ancient Romans, ‘‘history . . .
meant continuity with their past’’ (Collingwood 1946: 34).
 Notes 171
11 Such intersubjectivity includes, of course, the ability of state agents to construct
an ‘‘Imagined Community’’ through ‘‘fictive’’ spatial measures such as, in Bene-
dict Anderson’s (1991) terms, the Census, the Map, and the Museum.
12 ‘‘Historical knowledge is that special case of memory where the object of present
thought is past thought, the gap between present and past being bridged not only
by the power of present thought to think of the past, but also by the power of the
past thought to reawaken itself in the present’’ (Collingwood 1946: 294).
13 History plays a primary role in Lang’s theory of agency: ‘‘The diplomat does not
just combine the elements of national power in his presentation of the state;
more importantly, he represents the national purpose, the historical record of the
state, a historical record that embodies the political and ethical ideals of the
community’’ (Lang 2002: 18).
14 ‘‘Memoralization that does not return to a linear narrative but rather retains the
trace of another notion of temporality does occur. It is found when the political
struggle between linear and trauma time is resolved . . . by a recognition and
surrounding of the trauma at the heart of any social or symbolic order’’ (Edkins
2003: 16). See also Herman (1996: 5). Ontrauma, see also Fierke (2000) and
Schick (2007).
15 ‘‘The diachronic link of connecting the past through the present to the future via
our individual and common projects. Who we are is significantly shaped by
where we think we come from’’ (Kratochwil 2006: 16).
16 Crawford discusses how these processes inform foreign policy belief systems:

The ingredients of a particular dominant foreign policy belief system within

a state are based on the particular history of the state (or dominant political
group) as mythologized by national historians, dramatic personal and group
experiences such as war or occupation, and individual socialization.
(Crawford 2002: 72)

17 See Krasner (1999), Runciman (2006), and Bukovansky (2005).

18 Laing writes: ‘‘Participation of the self in life is possible, but only in face of
intense anxiety. Franz Kafka knew this very well, when he said that it was only
though his anxiety that he could participate in life, and, for this reason, he would
not be without it’’ (Laing 1969: 95).
19 Heidegger made a similar (although admittedly not identical) distinction between
fear and dread: ‘‘If . . . that which threatens has the character of something alto-
gether unfamiliar, then fear becomes dread’’ (Heidegger 1962: 181–182).
20 Freeman uses Augustine’s Confessions to illustrate a four-step process where
distanciation is but one element (preceded by and continued by ‘‘articulation’’
and ‘‘appropriation’’) necessary in the realization of ‘‘a new Self.’’
21 ‘‘In the same way that a text is detached from its author, an action is detached
from its agent and develops consequences of its own . . . our deeds escape us and
have effects which we did not intend’’ (Ricoeur 1981: 206).
22 Yet even here ontological security could be repaired, what Laing also terms the
‘‘divorce of the self,’’ something ‘‘which is painful to be borne, and which the
sufferer desperately longs for someone to help mend.’’ Further, the disembodied
self can no longer operate on its own and is therefore ripe to be reoccupied by
another actor (Laing 1969: 173–174).
23 ‘‘Remorse delays action, and it is action that ethics specifically requires’’ (Kier-
kegaard 1966: 105). Recognize, however, from the discussion in Chapter 2, that
‘‘ethical action’’ also requires remorse.
24 Survivors of traumatic experiences often face this problem, termed by some
psychoanalysts ‘‘repetition compulsion’’: ‘‘From this perspective the survival of
trauma is more than the fortunate passage past a violent event, a passage that
172 Notes
is accidentally interrupted by reminders of it, but rather the endless inherent
necessity of repetition, which ultimately may lead to destruction’’ (Caruth
1996: 33).
25 ‘‘There is thus a paradox of otherness, a tension between proximity and distance,
which is essential to historical consciousness’’ (Ricoeur 1981: 61).
26 Lebow discusses the fact that the Greek word katharsis ‘‘is a medical term, and
Aristotle used it metaphorically to signify a purge of the soul that restores a
healthy balance by removing toxic emotions and ambitions’’ (Lebow 2003: 43).
27 Tilly 1975: 42.
28 ‘‘From the time of their foundation, states have sought to control the right to
define political identity; since their legitimacy has constantly been threatened by
the undermining power of subnational and transnational loyalties, states’ survival
and success have depended on the creation and maintenance of legitimating
national identities’’ (Tickner 1996: 53).
29 Although at times NGOs and other transnational actors can reinforce the state
system. In this context see Barak Mendelsohn’s (2005) study on terrorism and
international society, and Steele and Amoureux’s (2005) work on NGOs, panop-
ticism, and monitoring genocide.
30 ‘‘Of course, with the invention of writing, those memories which have been
discarded remain somewhere and can be ‘‘re-collected’’ again and become
sometime in the future again part of the collective remembrance’’ (Kratochwil
2006: 17).
31 Freeman observes this about Augustine’s Confessions:

Augustine had managed to acquire certain psychic defenses along the road
of his sorry life, which served to provide that pernicious blanket of security
that often keeps us hopelessly in the dark about who and what we are . . . he
is only able to identify these defenses in retrospect, after they have become
stripped away.
( Freeman 1993: 37)

32 ‘‘The story is never finished: the scripting of memory by those in power can
always be challenged, and such challenges are very often found at moments and
in places where the very foundations of the imagined community are laid out’’
(Edkins 2003: 18–19).
33 The placement of feminist perspectives in International Relations theory is
indebted to the work of not only Tickner (1992, 1996), but also Peterson (1992),
Grant and Newland (1991), and Sylvester (1994).
34 We can think of Randall Schweller’s (1996) ‘‘evil state’’ attributes that are
undoubtedly both masculine and unfavorable.
35 A robust literature exists in feminist social theory on the public–private issue.
See, for instance, Brennan and Pateman 1979; Elshtain 1974, Howell 2005;
Howell and Mulligan 2005; Okin 1979; 1991; Pateman 1988; Phillips 1991;
Runyan 1992; and Sapiro 1995.
36 I am using shame here in a Giddensian sense, yet the concept of shame comes to
us from the Greeks, and permeates, as Elshtain identifies (Elshtain 1981: 15, fn.
11), Plato’s Republic.
37 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about American democracy in such a way:

[T]he majority in the United States has immense actual power and a power
of opinion which is almost as great. When once its mind is made up on any
question, there are, so to say, no obstacles which can retard, much less halt,
its progress and give it time to hear the wails of those it crushes as it passes.
(Tocqueville 1966): 248).
 Notes 173
38 Having emigrated from Weimar Germany, Morgenthau wrote of what can
happen in any nation-state with an over-zealous populace when in conflict:

[T]he citizen of the modern warring nation . . . ’’crusades’’ for an ‘‘ideal,’’ a

set of ‘‘principles,’’ a ‘‘way of life’’ for which he claims a monopoly of truth
and virtue . . . since it is this ‘‘ideal’’ and ‘‘way of life’’ that he fights in
whatever persons they manifest themselves, the distinctions between fighting
and disabled soldiers, combatants and civilians – if they are not eliminated
altogether – are subordinated to the one distinction that really matters: the
distinction between the representatives of the right and the wrong philoso-
phy and way of life.
(Morgenthau 2006: 249)

39 Sartre 1992: 258.

40 A good review of the research on prison suicides appears in Allison Liebling
(1999).
41 We could call the former ‘‘playing the blame game,’’ but perhaps it is more ana-
logous to the ‘‘buck-passing’’ practices of pre-World War II European states with
the ‘‘German problem.’’ See Christiansen and Snyder (1990).
42 I further clarify this component of nation-state ontological security in Chapters
4, 5, and 6.
43 Daya Thussu observed through content analysis of CNN’s coverage leading up
to the Kosovo war that

The focus of CNN news bulletins leading up to the bombing was on Serbian
atrocities – real or alleged. Photographs taken by US spy satellites of sus-
pected mass graves were regularly shown on CNN. Television viewers
worldwide were shown pictures of the misery of refugees, fleeing their
homes.
(Thussu 2001: 352)

Such images play upon the recall noted in section 2 of this chapter (see pp. 55–
57). Media images influence the ability of state agents to narrate a coherent
account of the national Self.
44 As noted in Power’s chapter on American inaction regarding Rwanda, military
agencies have a variety of tactics at their disposal (Power 2002: 372–373); chief
among them is to use the intractable web of bureaucratic agencies to delay
actions until the ‘‘crisis’’ has passed. Dissenters within agencies may be fired or
resign in protest.
45 Peter Maas notes the Powell doctrine’s inability to avoid genocide: ‘‘Powell made
the mistake of treating a genocidal policy as an unbeatable monster’’ (Maas 2002:
87). U.S. Secretary of state Colin Powell’s change of heart regarding humanitar-
ian rescue is thus illuminating in the context of, for instance, the Bush adminis-
tration’s support for a limited intervention in Liberia in 2003.
46 See Snyder 1991.
47 See Onuf 1989: 78–95.
48 Onuf’s view of language as constitutive differs somewhat from Albert Yee’s
view that, once ‘‘particular arguments and phraseology have been deployed, a
‘rhetorical momentum’ is generated which operates independently to affect poli-
cies’’ (Yee 1996: 95). I have avoided the issue of causation and constitution in this
chapter.
49 For examples of learning theory, see Reiter 1994; Jervis 1976; Snyder 1984.
50 Human Rights Watch (HRW) has at times focused solely on shaming the United
States. HRW founder Aryeh Neier has stated that ‘‘as an American
174 Notes
organization, we could focus significantly on U.S. policy, and U.S. policy was
so significant on a worldwide basis, that our impact would derive from our
relationship to U.S. policy’’ (Korey 1998: 344).
51 For signaling, see Morrow (1999: 86–91). Morrow describes signaling occurring
‘‘when one actor knows something of relevance to another actor’s decisions’’
(Morrow 1999: 86).

4. The power of self-identity: British neutrality and the American Civil War
1 One British diplomat and historian, writing in the interwar period, stated:
‘‘the long battle against the slave-trade is one of the noblest in British history . . .
its victory remains one of the greatest blows in the cause of freedom that has
ever been struck’’ (MacInnes 1934: 155). MacInnes also writes that some of
the British motivation for pursuing an abolitionist course was propelled by Brit-
ish anxiety over its practice of colonial subjugation: ‘‘England, at one time the
most guilty nation in the world, has thus in the past century striven to make
amends for her crimes against helpless savages’’ (MacInnes 1934: 210, emphasis
added).
2 It could be argued that allowing the war to continue ensured a divided America.
However, in late 1862 and early 1863 (the time period analyzed in this study) the
outcome of the war was still unclear. Most British policy makers were convinced
that intervention was the most prudent way to ensure a divided America.
3 Frank Owsley mentions the specific forms, at various times, that intervention
took: repudiation of the blockade, mediation during a stalemate, formal recog-
nition of the South following Confederate military successes, or outright armed
intervention (Owsley 1959: 542).
4 One historian writes: ‘‘A veteran of a half-century in British politics, Palmerston
was an exponent of Realpolitik’’ (McPherson 1988: 553). For a gratingly reverent
view of Palmerston as a realist, see Layne 1997.
5 I borrow the term ‘‘positivist fallacy’’ from Nicholas Wheeler (2000: 71).
6 There have been many historical studies which conclude this as well; Owsley
identifies it as part of the ‘‘older school’’ that placed England’s non-intervention
upon a high and idealistic basis: ‘‘the sympathy of the Lancashire population –
and of the common people generally – with the Union as a great experiment in
democracy, as a great model which was held up to the English; and their antip-
athy to slavery’’ (Owsley 1959: 545).
7 Historians have used the terms ‘‘conservative,’’ ‘‘liberal,’’ and ‘‘radical’’ for
roughly three philosophical traditions of nineteenth-century British politicians.
Generally, nineteenth-century British ‘‘Conservatives’’ believed in a limited and
aristocratic government, defended the Church of England (and thus the institu-
tionalization of anti-Catholic laws) from legal reform, and generally valued order
over political reform. While nineteenth-century British ‘‘Liberals’’ supported the
abolition of slavery, they only supported a gradual reform of political structures.
‘‘Radicals’’ were those nineteenth-century British politicians, like John Bright and
Richard Cobden, who supported the abolition of slavery but also wide-scale
parliamentary reform and the ‘‘democratization’’ of the masses, as well as
Catholic emancipation. (For an extended discussion of British politics during the
nineteenth century, see Jones 1993 and Black 1969.)
8 Lincoln issued the EP in September 1862. Most accounts show that it reached
the shores of Britain sometime later that month. It came into effect on January 1,
1863.
9 Gladstone was rebuked by Palmerston and fellow members of the Cabinet for
this statement, and he soon issued the following clarification in a letter to Russell
dated October 17, 1862: ‘‘according to some of the newspapers, some words
 Notes 175
which I have used at Newcastle respecting America have a wider sense than I
intended’’ (Gladstone, quoted in Shannon 1982: 469). Nevertheless, he was a
strong supporter of Russell’s proposal for mediation during that same time, a
time when British citizens were being ‘‘rapidly drawn into Southern sympathies’’
(Shannon 1982: 471).
10 The October 9, 1862, Times account includes the quotation, with loud cheers
included to indicate the audience’s reaction (Shannon 1982: 468).
11 The letter was published in newspapers across America that day, including
Greeley’s own New York Tribune (August 22, 1862, added).
12 Howard Jones asserts that ‘‘the presence of Slaves in the South at first posed
problems for the antislavery British . . . but President Lincoln unintentionally
relieved them of that dilemma by denying any relationship between slavery and
the war and arguing that his sole purpose was to serve the Union’’ (Jones 1999: 9).
13 Doris Kearns Goodwin writes:

despite his greater access to intelligence from abroad, Seward failed to grasp
what Lincoln intuitively understood: that once the union truly committed
itself to emancipation, the masses in Europe, who regarded slavery as an evil
demanding eradication, would not be easily maneuvered into supporting the
South.
(Goodwin 2005: 468).

14 According to David Paul Crook, ‘‘much evidence still stands to the effect that the
northern image abroad improved, in the long run, after Lincoln adopted a war
aim which was more intelligible to European public opinion,’’ and the EP’s ‘‘very
existence added a new dimension to the dialectics on mediation which cannot be
ignored’’ (Crook 1974: 237–238, emphasis added).
15 Hansard’s, 18 July 1862, col. 520, emphasis added.
16 Hansard’s, 18 July 1862, col. 532.
17 I refer the reader to the Laing quotation from Chapter 2: ‘‘All one ‘feels,’ ‘senses,’
‘intuits’ etc. of the other entails inference from one’s own experience of the other
to the other’s experience of one’s self’’ (Laing 1969: 14).
18 Most historians would agree with Howard Jones’s claim that, ‘‘admittedly, Rus-
sell recognized the role of slavery in bringing on the war, but he did not go any
farther than to assert that the establishment of two American republics – one
slave – the other free – was the solution’’ (Jones 1999: 53).
19 Secretary of War George Cornewall Lewis had been against intervention, basing
his views largely, although not solely, on its untenable international legal
grounds. The EP reinforced his view, but in a new light. Lewis’s opinion was
heavily informed by that of his stepson-in-law, William Vernon Harcourt. The
latter, writing under the pseudonym ‘‘Historicus’’ in the London Times, stated
that, ‘‘to my mind, in the one word ‘slavery’ is comprehended a perpetual bar to the
notion of English mediation as between the North and the South . . . [a bar] to
forcible intervention, because it would be immoral’’ (quoted in Crook 1974: 240).
20 Parliamentary Papers, vol. LXXII: 69.557. Most historical accounts support this
view that Russell and Gladstone ‘‘clung to intervention as the most humanitarian
way to end a war that had reached a new level of intensity at Antietam. Few
British observers initially recognized that the struggle had quietly taken an anti-
slavery turn’’ (Jones 1999: 111).
21 Hansard’s, 30 June 1863, col. 1807. Gladstone biographer Morley paraphrases
further, reporting that Gladstone observed that ‘‘the cause of the South was so
connected with slavery that a strong countercurrent of feeling must arise in the
mind’’ (Morley 1903: 86), a countercurrent which ran against the South’s ‘‘strict
adherence to slavery’’ (Shannon 1982, vol. 1: 489).
176 Notes
22 ‘‘I should think it necessary to communicate with the maritime Powers of Europe
before taking any steps’’ (Hansard’s, 4 August 4 1862, col. 1179–1183).
23 Hansard’s, 23 March 1863, col. 1730.
24 Hansard’s, 23 March 1863, col. 1740, emphasis added. The concept of ‘‘routines’’
is also alluded to in Kaufman and Pape’s study, where they assert that the ability
of abolitionists to ‘‘keep British anti-slavery moving forward’’ was due to ‘‘simple
inertia. After the Slave Trade Department of the Foreign Office was established
in 1821, anti-slavery gradually became increasingly routinized and institutiona-
lized in British foreign and colonial policy.’’ They note that a ‘‘few committed
abolitionists served directly in the corridors of power,’’ and place Lord Palmer-
ston as one of those who ‘‘generally supported anti-slavery’’ (Kaufman and Pape
1999: 660).
25 Hansard’s, 23 March 1863, col. 1740, emphasis added.
26 Jones states that ‘‘intervention became even more likely in mid-September 1862,
when news arrived in Europe of the Union’s second resounding defeat at Bull
Run. . . . Russell triumphantly assured Palmerston that [Union General George]
McClellan’s failure to deliver on his promise to conquer the South gave further
justification for a British intervention’’ (Jones 1999: 98). But after the Union
victory at Antietam, Palmerston told Russell: ‘‘The condition of things therefore
which could be favourable to an offer of mediation would be great success of the
South against the North. That state of things seemed ten days ago to be
approaching. Its advance has been lately checked’’ (Adams 1925: 43; see also
McPherson 1988: 556).
27 Gladstone’s post-EP statements were also made after the devastating Union
defeat at Chancellorsville in May of 1863. This Confederate victory, according
to Shannon, was actually the basis for the debated bid in June regarding
recognition for the Confederacy (Shannon 1982, vol. 1: 482).
28 These are the words of Harcourt, Secretary of War Lewis’s nephew, in the ‘‘His-
toricus’’ letter mentioned in note 19 and published in the London Times on
November 17, 1862 (Crook 1974: 240).
29 See R.J.M. Blackett’s (2001) review of how the debates affected the British
populace.
30 McSweeney’s otherwise compelling work makes the mistake of applying this label
to most constructivist literature (McSweeney 1999: 126). This is incorrect
because constructivists account for the structure of identities and how those
structures change, hardly making identities deterministic. (See also Hall 2000.)
31 McPherson notes that the ‘‘South’s best chance for European intervention’’ thus
ended by late 1862 (McPherson 1988: 556).
32 Temperley observes that ‘‘much that was said [in these debates] throws more light
on British than on American issues’’ (Temperley 1972: 249).
33 As noted on p. 000, what partially defines critical situations is that they are
‘‘unpredictable.’’

5. ‘‘Death before dishonor’’: Belgian self-identity, honor, and World War I

1 Melian Dialogue, quoted in Thucydides 1954: 362, 366. For IR treatments of
Thucydides, see Lebow 2001; Lebow 2003; Alker 1996: ch. 1; Heilke 2004).
2 Richard Ned Lebow notes: ‘‘For many present-day realists . . . Thucydides’’ his-
tory is a primer on strategy and alliances and how they are shaped, or should be,
by considerations of power’’ (Lebow 2003: 115). Joseph Nye, in his well-assigned
introduction to the IR textbook Understanding International Conflict, observes
here that ‘‘the Athenians stated that in a realist world, morality has little place.
Might makes right’’ (Nye 2006: 20).
3 Of course, the Melians did posit that ‘‘good fortune’’ might lead to success.
 Notes 177
4 In terms similar to those used by the Athenians, German Field Marshal Helmuth
von Moltke stated in a 1913 meeting in Berlin attended by Kaiser Wilhelm and King
Albert that ‘‘small countries, such as Belgium, would be well advised to rally to
the side of the strong if they wished to retain their independence’’ (Galet 1931: 23).
5 Total civilian deaths in Gray (1990, vol. 2: 292); August 1914 figure in Kislenko
(2005: 147). Another historian writes that German units in the town of Dinant
shot ‘‘700 civilians, including thirty-nine children between six months and fifteen
years of age’’ (Meeus 1962: 351).
6 Haythornwaite 1992: 148.
7 Everett 1982: 248.
8 Weiler and Tucker 2005: 192.
9 Much work on the values of honor and shame focuses on Ancient Greece. See,
for example, Fisher 1992; Cairns 1993; Lebow 2003; Williams 1993; on the role
of both in the Bible, see DeSilva 1995.
10 A concept somewhat related to honor, that of ‘‘prestige,’’ is often portrayed by
realists as being a function of ‘‘economic and military power’’ (see Gilpin 1981:
30). Ralph Hawtrey (1952, quoted in Gilpin 1981: 32) writes that ‘‘the reputation
for strength is what we call prestige. A country gains prestige from the possession
of economic and military power. . . . In a diplomatic conflict the country which
yields is likely to suffer in prestige because the fact of yielding is taken by the rest
of the world to be evidence of conscious weakness’’ (Hawtrey 1952: 65). Thus
prestige is mainly relevant in these treatments only for those states which have
the largest economic and military capabilities, or, in short, great powers. A literal
distinction is made between prestige and honor by King Albert biographer Emile
Cammaerts. The Belgian king, in a reply to Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, refer-
enced how Belgium faced a ‘‘loss of honor’’ as a result of the German ultimatum.
Cammaerts relates that ‘‘Albert’s conception of honor was not based on the
aristocratic idea of pride or prestige, but on the fundamental principle of hon-
esty, in private and in public matters, which is at the basis of all decent civiliza-
tion’’ (Cammaerts 1935: 31).
11 ‘‘Continental jurists introduced a similar distinction: between ‘‘objective honor,’’
which refers to a person’s reputation (an odd use of the term because there is
nothing objective about such an assessment), and ‘‘subjective honor,’’ which is a
person’s self-worth’’ (Lebow 2003: 271–272).
12 Historian Meeus writes that the leaders of European countries were using ‘‘Bel-
gium’’ as ‘‘just a pawn in the game’’ of power balancing (Meeus 1962: 283). It
may be more accurate to call the Concert not a ‘‘balance of power’’ but a ‘‘just
equilibrium’’:

The notion of a need to actively maintain and manage the balance of power was
not unique to Vienna (the concept of balance of power as a political goal
could be traced back at least to the Peace of Utrecht in 1713). However, the
concept of just equilibrium that dominated the Vienna discussions conferred
authority on the Great Powers precisely because they represented themselves
as guarantors of the territorial order in the aftermath of Napoleon – the
greatest challenger of territorial sovereignty in modern Europe up to that time.
(Lowenheim 2007: 149)

13 There were a myriad of internal factors which inspired this revolution, including
economic (working conditions of the poorest classes) and social (youthful and
unstable population) (see Meeus 1962: esp. ch. 9).
14 The goal of maintaining the independence of individual states is served, accord-
ing to Hedley Bull, by the creation of states like Belgium and Netherlands, but
when they are ‘‘buffer’’ states the true purpose behind their recognition may be to
178 Notes
preserve the international society of which great power states are controlling
members (Bull 1977: 17).
15 Wilhelm’s comments came during a Berlin visit by Leopold II in January of that
year. Wilhelm stated:

The French want war. Well! They shall have it. As for your country, I advise
you to prepare. Your army is inadequate. . . . In the tremendous struggle
which is about to begin, Germany is certain of victory, but this time you will
be forced to choose.
(Albertini 1957: 417)

Another historian writes that ‘‘as the peril grew greater and more apparent, Bel-
gian opinion did not side with France’’ (Meeus 1962: 350).
16 Belgian politics throughout the nineteenth century was defined by political dis-
cord between the Liberal and Catholic parties, and then, beginning in the 1860s,
the Socialists (see Strikwerda 1997).
17 Meeus writes that ‘‘without an appreciation of these conditions, it would be
impossible to understand the national unity of 1914 and the spontaneous resis-
tance of the people against invasion’’ (Meeus 1962: 342).
18 What Meeus calls ‘‘a source of unity on the national level’’ (Meeus 1962: 344)
illustrates the ‘‘overarching loyalty’’ characteristic endemic to what Lijphart
(1978) has termed a ‘‘consociational’’ democracy.
19 Alan Zuckerman writes :

[T]he Belgians continued to believe in miracles, trusting the treaty that

guarded their neutrality and the premise that no harm should come to them
because they bore no blame for European tensions. That a Serb had mur-
dered an Austrian archduke meant nothing to Belgium.
(Zuckerman 2004: 8)

20 The German ultimatum is quoted by Albertini (1957: 454).

21 The German Chancellor stated in his ‘‘Reichstag speech’’ of August 4, 1914:
‘‘Necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxemburg and perhaps
have already entered Belgian territory. That is a breach of international law. . . .
France could wait, we could not’’ (Albertini 1957: 455).
22 Belgian historian Leon van der Essen writes:

When the nephew of King Leopold, Prince Albert, became king of the Bel-
gians under the name of Albert I, he certainly never imagined a day would
come when the very existence of his country would be put at stake by the
felony of one of the powers which were pledged to defend Belgian neutrality.
(Essen 1916: 170).

23 We know what was discussed at the ‘‘Crown Council’’ meeting, mostly through
second-hand accounts and the notes taken by the minister of agriculture and
public works, Georges Helleputte, as reported by Zuckerman (2004: 12): ‘‘Redis-
covered only in 1981, his transcript defies complete decoding, for it is mostly
phrases and words, not complete sentences, that emerge with certainty. Even so,
Helleputte’s scrawl reveals more than his colleagues would probably have wished’’
(Zuckerman 2004: 14).
24 Zuckerman notes further regarding this statement : ‘‘That he [de Selliers] should have
said so seems odd, but to a government concerned about losing its position and its
independence, the comment made perfect sense. International law guaranteed that
a neutral could repel invasion yet retain its status and rights’’ (Zuckerman 2004: 17).
 Notes 179
25 Giddens writes: ‘‘The reflexive monitoring of all states involves the invention of
‘history’ in some sense or another – the documented interpretation of the past
that provides an anchorage for anticipated developments in the future’’ (Giddens
1981: 212).
26 Gibson 1917: 15. The American minister to Belgium, Brand Whitlock, describes
the reaction to this part of Albert’s speech: ‘‘The deputies spring to their feet,
raise their hands as though swearing to an oath, and cry: ‘‘Oui! Oui! Oui!’’
(Whitlock 1919: 61).
27 Quoted in Zuckerman 2004: 17.
28 As quoted by Albertini (1957: 465, emphasis added). Historian Marc Schreiber
reports Albert’s concluding words in the singular, as ‘‘I have faith in our destiny’’
(Schreiber 1945: 107).
29 This illustrates that Belgian state agents were, in fact ‘‘persons who act in behalf
of states’’ (Jackson 1995: 111). In the same vein, the famous Belgian historian
Henri Prienne once stated about Belgium’s King Leopold: ‘‘He was the guardian
of the national honor; and it was this, as much as his own personal honor, that
determined the way in which he acted’’ (as quoted in Meeus 1962: 288).
30 For this observation I’m especially grateful to Oded Lowenheim.
31 The German ambassador in Brussels, von Below Saleske, stated that ‘‘the Bel-
gians will line up to see us pass’’ (Meeus 1962: 350).
32 British General Sir Robert Baden-Powell actually articulated admiration in just
such terms, stating:

[I]t would be trite to quote David against Goliath in the case of gallant little
Belgium standing up to the ogre of Prussian Militarism, but that historic
fight had its counterpart recently where a peaceful, hard-working little tailor
was set upon by a big, beery loafer.
(Cammaerts 1935: 176)

33 As quoted by Haythornwaite (1992: 148).

34 See the recent work by Ringmar (2002) on recognition.
35 Meeus characterizes the transformational quality of the Belgian action as such:
‘‘this little state with its tiny territory had, on a moral level, become a world
power. All the world was interested in its destiny’’ (Meeus 1962: 352).
36 Waltz states that the survival assumption of neorealism ‘‘allows for the fact that
in pursuit of its security no state will act with perfect knowledge and wisdom’’
(Waltz 1979: 92).
37 Selliers, quoted in Albertini 1957: 461, emphasis added.
38 The latter continues to obtain with Mennonites, the Amish, Quakers, and the
Church of the Brethren (Koontz 1996: 170).
39 While there is, in my view, no Archimedean formula to measure the morality of
the principle being advanced by this category of ‘‘futile’’ actions. But scholarship
should note what the international response was to such an action, identifying
both who responded affirmatively and/or negatively, and why.
40 Jules van den Heuvel, quoted in Zuckerman 2004: 17.
41 Luigi Barzini, in Caine 1914: 125.
42 The British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, also referenced the pain endured
by Belgium: ‘‘love of liberty and independence is not crushed by oppression and
force, but set off by courage and suffering becomes an inspiration to its own
generation and is exalted to an imperishable place in history’’ (Caine 1914: 20).
43 http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE03/Zupan03.html.
44 Natural evil, according to Bruce Reichenbach, refers to ‘‘all instances of suffering –
mental or physical – which are caused by the unintentional actions of human
agents or by non-human causes’’; moral evil, in turn, includes ‘‘all instances of
180 Notes
suffering – mental or physical – which are caused by the intentional and willful
actions of human agents’’ (Reichenbach 1976: 179). (For an engaging review of
‘‘moral evil’’ as a concept in IR theory, see Rengger and Jeffery 2005.)
45 The downside to the second parameter, of course, is that it is only useful to the
scholar, not to those who wish to inform policy, since it is not used to ‘‘predict’’
behavior but rather to provide a general understanding of the ‘‘rightness’’ of
resistance.

6. Haunted by the past: shame and NATO’s Kosovo operation

1 Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 04.06.1999. Friedman issued a similar
assertion at the end of the crisis: ‘‘from the start the Kosovo problem has been
about how we should react when bad things happen in unimportant places’’
(New York Times, 06.04.1999).
2 Fouad Ajami, ‘‘The New Hapsburgs,’’ U.S. News & World Report, 06.12.1999.
3 Fareed Zakaria, ‘‘Wage a Full War, or Cut a Deal,’’ Newsweek, 04.12.1999.
4 The astute reader will notice that all of these critics – Friedman, Ajami, Zakaria, and
especially Abrams – have been instrumental supporters of the current Iraq War.
5 As identified by many critics, some of which are noted later in the chapter (pp.
121–124), there were mixed results from NATO’s Kosovo operation. Generally,
supporters of the intervention assert that it put a stop to the ethnic cleansing
policies of the Serbs and ensured a measure of autonomy for Kosovar Albanians;
critics point out that the operation accelerated abuses during the hostilities and
led to reprisal cleansing of Albanian Serbs by returning Kosovar Albanians.
6 Quoted in Chapter 3 (Tickner 1996: 152).
7 Besides the Finnemore (2003) study, a wealth of literature exists on humanitarian
intervention. Several important edited volumes include: Lang 2003; Moore 1998;
Moseley and Norman 2002; and Welsh 2004. The most recent work on inter-
vention deals with its moral-legalistic basis, diverse work which Jennifer Welsh
characterizes as ‘‘divide[d] on the question of humanitarian intervention’’ (Welsh
2004: 54). Such works include Atack 2002; Ayoob 2002; Brown 2002; Chester-
man 2001; Goodman 2006; Heinze 2004a, 2004b; Knudsen 1996, 2005; Lang
2002; Newman 2002; Ramsbotham and Woodhouse 1996; Roberts 1993; Wheeler
and Morris 1996; Wheeler 1997, 2004.
8 This resolution, adopted October 24, 1998, also required the Kosovo Albanian
leadership to ‘‘condemn all terrorist actions, demand[ed] that such actions
cease immediately and emphasiz[ed] that all elements in the Kosovo Albanian
community should pursue their goals by peaceful means only’’ (UNSC Res.
1203, available at http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/98sc1203.htm, accessed Jan-
uary 7, 2007).
9 French President Jacques Chirac posited in an interview shortly after the end of
the air war that, while France and Britain had been directly engaged with the
Kosovo situation for some time, it wasn’t until the Racak massacre that the
United States finally began to focus on a solution: ‘‘The Americans weren’t very
keen on themselves getting involved. And then there was the Racak massacre, on
14 January, which of course greatly shocked the world’’ (Chirac interview with
television company TF1, 06.10.1999).
10 Tim Judah notes:

[B]y the end of the bombing, according to UNHCR [United Nations High
Commission on Refugees] 848,100 Kosovo Albanians had left the province.
Of these 444,600 went to Albania, 244,500 to Macedonia, 69,900 to Mon-
tenegro and 91,057 were airlifted from Macedonia to other countries.
(Judah 2000: 250)
 Notes 181
Samantha Power reported:

All told, Milosevic’s forces drove more than 1.3 million Kosovars from their
homes, some 740,000 of whom flooded into neighboring Macedonia and
Albania. It was the largest, boldest single act of ethnic cleansing of the
decade, and it occurred while the United States and its allies were interven-
ing to prevent further atrocity.
(Power 2002: 450)

11 Sergei Medvedev and Peter van Ham posit that

Kosovo also offers a template for academics, by which to test and taste a
smorgasbord of new, often critical, ideas about European politics and
security. Whereas some would label ‘‘Kosovo’’ as politics-cum-war as usual,
the vast majority [and certainly not a silent one, this time] seems to share the
view that this event stands for ‘‘something different.’’
(Medvedev and Ham 2002: 2, quoted in Sterling-Folker 2006: 3)

The Sterling–Folker volume includes sophisticated presentations of various the-

oretical applications of the Kosovo case, some of which I treat in this section of
the chapter.
12 Moravcsik’s first ‘‘core assumption of liberal IR theory’’ is that individuals and
groups in states are ‘‘rational and risk-averse’’ and ‘‘promote differentiated
interests under constraints imposed by material scarcity, conflicting values, and
variations in societal influence’’ (Moravcsik 1997: 516). (Regarding the Kosovo
case, see Boyer and Butler 2006).
13 This might explain why American President Bill Clinton’s job approval ratings
fell 8–10 points throughout the Kosovo campaign. (See http://pollingreport.com/
clinton-.htm, accessed January 7, 2007.)
14 See the work of Lowenheim on ‘‘moral prestige’’ (Lowenheim 2003).
15 Chomsky summarized this basic position in an interview on April 8, 1999:

Nevertheless, it was necessary, as the Clinton foreign policy team kept

stressing, to preserve the credibility of NATO. Now when they talk about
credibility, they are not talking about the credibility of Denmark or France.
The Clinton Administration doesn’t care about those countries’ credibility.
What they care about is the credibility of the United States. Credibility
means fear: what they are concerned with is maintaining fear of the global
enforcer, namely, the US. And that’s much more important than the fate of
hundreds of thousands of Kosovars, or whatever other consequences are
incurred. So the US and NATO have helped to create a humanitarian cata-
strophe by knowingly escalating an already serious crisis to catastrophic
proportions.
(Chomsky interview, available at
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/chomintyug.htm,
accessed January 4, 2007)

Similar lines of argument from that time include the contributions to the March–
April 1999 edition of the New Left Review, and David Rieff’s (1999) article. This
has been termed the critique ‘‘from the left’’ by David Campbell (2001: 120).
16 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/chomintyug.htm, accessed January 4, 2007.
17 Cook, quoted in Henig 2001: 49.
18 In an interview on March 28, 1999 with Le Journal du Dimanche the French
foreign minister justified the NATO action in the following terms: ‘‘it is intolerable
182 Notes
to allow the recurrence in Europe of such scenes of barbarity – and the risks of
regional destabilization they entail.’’
19 Text of national address given on March 24, 1999, New York Times, 03.25.99:
A15, emphasis added.
20 Text of national address given on March 24, 1999, New York Times, 03.25.99:
A15, emphasis added.
21 This supports the position I presented in Chapter 3 regarding the effects of
‘‘military doctrines’’ influencing the assessment of a crisis. The American Defense
Department, including then Secretary of Defense William Cohen, largely
opposed American involvement in the Kosovo operation, and one could posit
that these skeptics were influenced by a tenet of the ‘‘Powell Doctrine’’ that cases
of humanitarian disaster had no clear solution and thus military actions were
imprudent.
22 Of the five main NATO countries which contributed to the Kosovo interven-
tion, Italy was most reluctant to provide military assistance, and Italian public
approval for the war never reached above 50 percent. One study notes that
support was most consolidated following the launching on March 29 of the
Arcobaleno Mission, which called for Italy to take in Kosovar refugees. Both
Massimo D’Alema, the Italian premier, and Lamberto Dini, the Italian foreign
minister, while pledging their support for the NATO bombings, continually
reinforced to their Italian public the idea that Italy was different from the other
NATO allies and the Italian contribution to the action would remain limited.
The Aviano base remained one of NATO’s main air bases from which bombing
runs were launched, and this prompted negative reactions and protests from both
the Italian public and its media (see Morelli 2001).
23 Maja Zehfuss, who I quote in more detail in following pages regarding this case,
observes that ‘‘this focus on NATO’s credibility seems inappropriate. Indeed, the
very name of the operation [‘Allied Force’] seems to indicate NATO’s conception
of self’’ (Zehfuss 2002b: 116).
24 Mandelbaum was reflecting on the interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti, and
chiefly responding to the then American National Security Advisor Anthony Lake’s
comments likening America’s foreign policy calling to the work of Mother Teresa.
25 Vandenberg (2000). The use of rape by Serbs is also highlighted in Falger and
van der Dennen’s ‘‘biopolitics’’ contribution to the Sterling–Folker volume
(Falger and van der Dennen 2006: esp. 298–300), as well as by Kennedy-Pipe and
Stanley (2001).
26 An ontological security interpretation should not, however, be likened to a lib-
eral feminist perspective, where ‘‘the answer’’ to the subjugation of women is
simply to ‘‘add more women’’ (Mertus 2006: 256; Tickner 2001: esp. 12–13).
Relating back to the discussion in Chapter 3 on history and the general role of
contingency in social action, my ontological security account is quite skeptical of
the notion of ‘‘progress.’’ On this issue, ontological security shares the perspective
of critical feminist IR scholars, who assert that it is the way in which traditional
liberal ‘‘progress’’ is conceptualized that is most problematic, as evidenced by
Kimberly Hutchings’s critique regarding discourse ethics:

[T]he principles of discourse ethics are always underpinned by an account of

historical development in which relations between ontogenetic and phyloge-
netic moral progress reinforce the moral superiority of the cultural tradition
which also happens to be politically and economically pre-eminent in the
current world order.
(Hutchings 2005: 165)

27 Blair in Independent on Sunday, 02.14.1999.

 Notes 183
28 This would make intelligible some of the rather contradictory reactions to the
Kosovo campaign in NATO countries, noted in David Fromkin’s critique of
American unwillingness to accept Kosovar refugees:

Many Americans were upset even by the original U.S. offer to take in a mere
twenty thousand Kosovar refugees. That opposition would define the extent
to which the United States is prepared to be humanitarian rather than self-
interested. What is morally inconsistent is to be unwilling to resettle Koso-
vars in the United States, but – supposedly on humanitarian grounds – to
support a military intervention to restore them to their homes: a course of
action that involved loss of life. Preferring that people die rather than have
someone thought to be undesirable move into your neighborhood may be
human nature, but it is not humanitarian.
(Fromkin 2002: 182–183)

In ontological security terms, however, this ‘‘moral inconsistency’’ is somewhat

logical – Americans were not concerned with the plight of ethnic Albanians
outside of confronting what their plight said about American self-identity.
29 The Munich Agreement ended the Munich Crisis of 1938. Led most notably by
the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, it was signed by the major
powers of Europe after a conference held in Munich in Germany in 1938 and
concluded on September 29, 1938. The purpose of the conference was to discuss
the future of Czechoslovakia. Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, in exchange
for a peace agreement, surrendered the Sudetenland portion of Czechoslovakia
to Nazi Germany. Chamberlain famously stated upon his return to Britain: ‘‘My
good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has
returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our
time.’’ (For more on the Munich Agreement, see Taylor 1979; Kee 1988.)
30 New York Times, 05.10.99: A9.
31 Speech in House of Commons, 04.13.1999.
32 (Robertson’s commentary in News of the World, March 28, 1999, emphasis
added.) Robertson often linked this argument to the Holocaust, even though
appeasement policies were more directly responsible for interstate conflict than
intrastate ethnic cleansing. See for instance, Robertson’s claim in Midland
Newspapers on April 6 that ‘‘[w]e have not seen scenes like these in Europe since
Hitler’s attack on the Jews in the Second World War.’’
33 One British MP, Michael Wicks, even linked the two issues as one continuing
source of shameful British negligence:

We now talk about Kosovo, but not long ago we talked about Bosnia. As a
new Member in the previous Parliament in 1992, I was shocked by what I
took to be the majority view of both sides of the House that we should be
extremely cautious about intervention. The view was that, at best, we should
go easy and, at worst, do nothing. The Foreign Office was led by the key
appeasers. I grew up in post-war Britain, and found it difficult to under-
stand the appeasement of Nazi Germany that had taken place in the 1930s.
It was only when I heard debates about Bosnia in this House in the early
1990s that I started to understand the appeasement of the 1930s. In a parlia-
mentary Session in the early 1990s, I visited Sarajevo – not at the height of
the conflict, but nevertheless when the city was being shelled. I was there for
just two or three days. Talking to people in Bosnia and Sarajevo helped me to
understand what it was like to live in that civilized, cosmopolitan city sur-
rounded by mountains from which Serb soldiers could look down the rifle
sights of their sophisticated weaponry and decide which old lady, child or
184 Notes
woman to kill that day. In Bosnia, ethnic cleansing gave us a vile new voca-
bulary to add to the lexicon of International Relations. The situation in
Kosovo bears comparison, but is a more extreme case. However, no one could
foresee or predict the scale of the tragedy of recent weeks. No one in the
House would argue about that.
(Michael Wicks, in Hansard Parliamentary debates, 19 April 1999, col. 652)

34 Former President Bill Clinton, ‘‘Embracing our Humanity: Global Security in

the 21st Century,’’ remarks at the University of Iowa, March 23, 2003, available
at http://www.clintonfoundation.org/032603-sp-cf-gn-gl-usa-sp-embracing-our-
humanity,-global-security-in-the-21st-century.htm, accessed January 10, 2003.
35 See, especially, Power 2002: esp. ch. 10.
36 ‘‘Ghosts of Rwanda,’’ transcript available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/ghosts/etc/script.html, accessed on January 7, 2007.
37 ‘‘Ghosts of Rwanda,’’ transcript available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/ghosts/etc/script.html, accessed on January 7, 2007, emphasis
added. One wonders why Albright should feel such remorse if ‘‘pushing for a
large humanitarian intervention’’ would have ‘‘never happened.’’ To me, her
statement implies that she does not fully believe that such a push would have
been futile.
38 New York Times, 03.26.1998.
39 ‘‘Ghosts of Rwanda,’’ transcript available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/ghosts/etc/script.html, accessed on January 7, 2007.
40 ‘‘Ghosts of Rwanda,’’ transcript available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/ghosts/etc/script.html, accessed on January 7, 2007.
41 Many members of the American Congress expressed American interests in such
self-identity terms as well. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel stated at the begin-
ning of the war: ‘‘History will judge us harshly if we do not take action to stop
this rolling genocide’’ (Hagel, quoted in New York Times, ‘‘Conflict in the Bal-
kans,’’ Jane Perlez, March 24, 1999: 1.
42 IR scholar Michael Barnett, who worked for the United Nations mission in
Rwanda during the genocide, made the following remark about this ‘‘apology’’ in
the PBS Frontline film Triumph of Evil (1999):

It was meaningless. It was hollow. It was unclear to me what he was apol-

ogizing for and for whom he was apologizing. He didn’t say ‘‘I take personal
responsibility for the failure of the United States, the international commu-
nity to do something to stop genocide.’’ He made, as I recall, some kind of
vague reference to the failure of the international community to act and to
help the Rwandans in their hour of need.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/etc/script.html, accessed
January 7, 2007)

43 As quoted in the Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 04.01.1999: A23.

44 New York Times, 05.14.1999, emphasis added. Clinton’s remarks were made to
an American military veterans’ group in Washington, D.C.
45 Samantha Power interprets the role of both as influencing ‘‘senior officials in the
Clinton administration’’: ‘‘[Albright] and the rest of the Clinton team remem-
bered Srebrenica, were still coming to grips with guilt over the Rwanda genocide,
and were looking to make amends. They feared Racak was just the beginning of a
campaign of mini-Srebrenicas’’ (Power 2002: 447, emphasis added).
46 As quoted in New York Times, ‘‘Clinton Voices Anger and Compassion at Ser-
bian Transience,’’ 03.20.1999: A7, emphasis added.
47 New York Times, 03.25.1999: A15.
 Notes 185
48 We may never know whether policy elites truly believed the conflicts to be caused
by primordial attachments or whether they simply employed that view for pur-
poses of convenience. As David Campbell has stated:

If ethnic and nationalist conflicts are understood as no more than settled history
or human nature rearing its ugly head, then there is nothing that can be done
in the present to resolve the tension except to repress or ignore such struggles.
(Campbell 1996: 173)
49 ‘‘The leaders of ethnic movements invariably select from traditional cultures only
those aspects that they think will serve to unite the group which will be useful in
promoting the interests of the group as they define them’’ (Brass 1991: 74).
50 New York Times, ‘‘Clinton’s Painful Words of Sorrow and Chagrin,’’ 03.26.1998: A12.
51 In this context, it is also noteworthy that Clinton chose to employ this argument
in front of groups less sympathetic to the Kosovo policy. In the previously cited
speech given in front of veterans’ groups on May 14, 1999, Clinton stated:

I don’t believe that the Serb people in their souls are any better, I mean any
worse, than we are. Do you? Do you believe when a little baby is born into a
certain ethnic or racial group that somehow they, they have some poison in
there that has to at some point when they grow up, turn into some vast flame
of destruction? You think the Germans would have perpetrated the Holocaust
on their own without Hitler? Was there something in the history of the German
race that made them do this? No. We’ve got to get straight about this. This is
something political leaders do. And if people make decisions to do these kinds
of things, other people can make decisions to stop them and if the resources are
properly arrayed, it can be done. And that is exactly what we intend to do.
(Clinton, New York Times, 05.14.1999: A12)
52 New York Times, 05.14.1999: A12.
53 Nicholas Wheeler writes about the Rwandan genocide:
It is comforting for those of us who live in the West to think that what
happened in Rwanda was the result of ancient tribal hatreds. . . . However,
this image, which is replete with Conradian overtones of Africa as The
Heart of Darkness, is simply wrong. The fact is that this genocide, like that
of the Holocaust, was the product of deliberate political design.
(Wheeler 2000: 209)
54 For work on German ‘‘political culture,’’ see Berger 1996 and, especially, Berger
1997, 1998. Berger’s studies highlight similar constitutive elements of German
‘‘political culture,’’ sources which can be considered similar to the sources of
‘‘shame’’ which I posit in this chapter.
55 Schroeder addressing SPD conference on April 11, 1999, quoted in ‘‘A Look into
the Void: Kosovo as Holocaust Analogy,’’ Washington Post, 04.16.1999: A29.
56 Schroeder in ‘‘Ich bin kein Kreigskanzler’’ (‘‘I am not a war chancellor’’), Der
Spiegel, 04.12.1999: 17, emphasis added.
57 Schroeder in ‘‘Ich bin kein Kreigskanzler’’ (‘‘I am not a war chancellor’’), Der
Spiegel, 04.12.1999: 17, emphasis added.
58 Schroeder reiterated the argument on German ‘‘responsibility’’ during an address
to the German Bundestag on April 22, 1999, during the fiftieth anniversary of
the NATO:

In participating in the NATO operation in Kosovo, Germany has assumed

its share of the overall responsibility. Our contribution is not just a normal
186 Notes
expression of Alliance solidarity. As part of the democratic community we
Germans, also in the light of our history, have an obligation to stand up
for peace and security and against repression, expulsions and the use of
force.
(http://www.germany.info/relaunch/politics/speeches/042299.html,
accessed January 7, 2007, emphasis added)

59 ‘‘Pacifist German Turns Hawkish on Serbs,’’ Washington Post, 04.11.1999: A23.

At the Green Party conference on May 13, 1999, Fischer made what the Finan-
cial Times described as ‘‘the speech of his political career’’ and Kaarbo and
Lantis termed the ‘‘most important speech of his life’’ (Kaarbo and Lantis 2003:
37). This implies that the debate over self-identity, and the recollection of painful
collective memories, has domestic ‘‘second-image reverse’’ consequences, as
detailed by Kaarbo and Lantis:

Through extreme efforts, Fischer garnered a majority vote for a compromise

resolution that authorized a continuation of the air war. . . . What is impor-
tant to note, however, is that Fischer’s leadership in this situation and pos-
sibly his courage over taking a stand against many in his party and his
party’s constituency increased his credibility and won him a great deal of
influence over German participation in Kosovo.
(Kaarbo and Lantis 2003: 37)

60 Ramet and Lyon note:

[A]ny student of German foreign affairs cannot be struck with the frequency
with which the term ‘‘normality’’ comes up, as a standard against which to
measure Germany, generally with the unspoken assumption and implication
that Britain, France, Greece, Spain, Italy, and perhaps also Canada and the
US are all ‘‘normal’’ countries. And this, in turn, is very much a legacy of
World War II, the Third Reich, and notions of collective German guilt.
(Ramet and Lyon 2001: 101)

61 ‘‘Ich bin kein Kreigskanzler,’’ Der Spiegel, 04.12.1999: 17.

62 Interview in Deutschland, August/September 1999: 18.
63 Germany had dispatched peacekeeping forces to Somalia in 1992 and to Bosnia
in 1995, but these forces could not be considered combat equipped.
64 The Economist noted on April 24, 1999, that Germans supported the Kosovo
action by a 63 to 34 percent margin. But by the end of May the number sup-
porting German action had dropped to a smaller majority of 51 percent (New
York Times, 05.26.1999: A12).
65 Boyer and Butler echo this assessment: ‘‘Kosovo offered a potential opportunity
for a unified Germany to finally shed its confining historical legacy and assume a
place within the pantheon of major military powers’’ (Boyer and Butler 2006: 87).
66 ‘‘Knowledge without action is perhaps even more tragic, and certainly more
painful, than the most profound ignorance,’’ (Freeman 1993: 43).
67 (Lamizet and Debras 2001: 109).
68 Lamizet and Debras, quoting journalists Jacque Almaric and Jean-François
Helvig in Liberation, May 9, 1999.
69 March 28, 1999.
70 Jacques Chirac: ‘‘Aucune raison de changer de stratégie ’’ (Jacques Chirac: ‘‘No
reason to change strategy’’), Le Figaro, May 4, 1999.
71 Emphasis added. Speech available at: http://www.ambafrance-us.org/news/
statmnts/1999/conflict1.asp, accessed January 7, 2007.
 Notes 187
72 Although there were economic security reasons for Italy’s more measured stance,
as noted by Morelli (2001).
73 This is the argument of Boyer and Butler (2006: esp. 85).
74 See, in this context, Robert Putnam’s ‘‘Two Level Games’’ thesis (Putnam 1988).
75 Liberia was founded by an abolitionist group for freed American slaves in 1822.
Approximately 5 percent of Liberia’s inhabitants are descendants of slaves – half
of those are descendents of American slaves, the other half are Caribbean slave
descendants. Descendants of these slaves have often constituted the ruling class
in Liberia.
76 Since 2000, rebel groups struggled with Liberian President Charles Taylor to re-
establish a democratic form of government. In short, the situation on the ground
in Liberia deteriorated to such a point that by June of 2003 civilians were reg-
ularly caught in the crossfire even in the large cities of Buchanan and (the capi-
tal) Monrovia. Although the American media, preoccupied in Iraq and
elsewhere, provided little coverage of the crisis during the summer of 2003, a few
moving images were beamed back to American households. Some images inclu-
ded shots of pro-American demonstrations by Liberian civilians and Liberians
piling their dead relatives at the gates of the American embassy in Monrovia.
(See New York Times issues during June and July of 2003, and also the documentary
Liberia: An Uncivil War, by Jonathan Stack and James Brabazon (2004)).
77 Essentially:

[T]he Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last
resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended
target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate
to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the cam-
paign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the
conflict in which the military is engaged.
(quoted at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/
iraq/powelldoctrine_short.html)

78 Washington Times, July 23, 2003: A1.

79 The Liberian intervention was too limited to be that successful. While America
moved two ships carrying 2000 Marines to just off the Liberian shores in July,
and while a ‘‘vanguard’’ force of 200 Marines was deployed into Monrovia on
August 15, the troops were pulled back out of the city in mid-September. One
editorial appearing in the Washington Post in September interpreted the deploy-
ment as ‘‘the United States sen[ding] its forces 99 percent of the way to Liberia –
close enough to claim credit for acting, but not so close as to assume risk or
responsibility’’ (Tom Malinowski, ‘‘Broken Promises to Liberia,’’ Washington
Post, September 24, 2003.
80 For the first time an American official used the term ‘‘genocide’’ to describe an
ongoing humanitarian crisis. In this case, it was Powell who stated in front of the
American Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 8, 2004: ‘‘Genocide
has been committed in Darfur. The government of Sudan and the Janjaweed
[militias] bear responsibility and genocide may still be occurring.’’
81 http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004a.html.
82 The Act called for a number of measures, short of American intervention with
force, which included:

a new UN Security Council resolution with sanctions; concerted U.S.

diplomacy to achieve an effective UN Security Council resolution; an
extension of the current arms embargo to cover the Government of Sudan;
the freezing of assets and denial of visas to those responsible for genocide,
188 Notes
crimes and humanity, and war crimes; accelerated assistance to the African
Union mission; a Presidential Envoy for Sudan; and a military no-fly zone
in Darfur.
(http://corzine.senate.gov/press_office/record.cfm?id = 232683)

83 Accessed from Corzine’s Senate website on March 10, 2005: http://corzine.senate.

gov/press_office/record.cfm?id = 232683, emphasis added.
84 New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof observed in July 2005, regarding
American coverage of Darfur:

The real failure has been televisions. According to monitoring by the Tyn-
dall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in
its nightly newscasts all last year – and that turns out to be a credit to Peter
Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3
minutes – about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast,
Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.
Incredibly, more than two years into the genocide, NBC, aside from covering
official trips, has still not bothered to send one of its own correspondents
into Darfur for independent reporting.
(Jennings, ‘‘All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt,’’
New York Times, July 26, 2006.

85 The story was reported in several major newspapers throughout the United
States in August 2003. It was first reported on August 17, 2003, in the Los
Angeles Times, by Maggie Farley, Ann Simmons, and Paul Richter, in ‘‘Team in
Liberia Sought Fast Aid; Pentagon Specialists Called for Rapid U.S. Intervention
to Restore Order, but the Report Was Revised before It Reached the President,’’
p. 1, added. The story notes that the Pentagon ‘‘sat’’ on the report before
American President George W. Bush could see it.
86 Wheeler quotes Clark, saying that he believed ‘‘in an unguarded moment at a
press briefing [that] ‘air power alone cannot stop paramilitary action’’’ (Wheeler
2000: 270).
87 Shelton and many in the Pentagon, according to David Halberstam, debated the
use of helicopters in Kosovo, but the debate was not ‘‘about heliborne warfare; it
was always about ground troops. What the Pentagon suspected was that Clark
wanted the Apaches as a Trojan horse for ground troops.’’ And then, when Clark
did request the troops he ‘‘requested forty-eight of them; the army sent twenty-
four.’’ And even at that point the helicopters never made it into service (Halber-
stam 2001: 464–466).

7. The future of ontological security in International Relations

1 McSweeney’s view on this subject:

[S]ocial action is reflexive: this does not refer to the self-conscious and
deliberate reflection on self, of which most actors are capable to varying
degrees. It refers, rather, to the unconscious and taken-for-granted skill
which all display of necessity, in drawing on and producing the routine
which makes action comprehensible to oneself and others.
(McSweeney 1999: 140)

This understanding of reflexivity may apply to individuals, but in states the primary
way actions can be ‘‘comprehensive’’ is through self-reflection. Thus in the latter case
self-reflection is an integral (although by no means sole) condition of reflexivity.
 Notes 189
2 Williams writes of neoconservative Robert Kaplan’s work that it celebrates

an heroic choice to accept that there is no choice but to act decisively in

conditions of emergency when others – or even society as a whole – have
become too soft, too secure, too ‘‘decadent’’ to recognize the imperatives of
responsibility and power politics.
(Williams 2005a: 201)

3 See Keck and Sikkink 1998; Tarrow 1994; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999. For an
engaging examination of the influence of early twentieth-century peace move-
ments upon international society (specifically the transition from the League of
Nations to the United Nations), see Cecilia Lynch’s (1999) book.
4 Neta Crawford calls social movements ‘‘organized publics,’’ groups who

deploy arguments based on principled beliefs, and shape the political con-
text or conditions of acceptability within which states and other social
actors try to act. Through direct action, [social] movements may also make
large-scale behavioral change, without direct involvement of governments,
desirable, possible and a fact on the ground.
(Crawford 2002: 57)

5 An example of a reference to the nation-state self in the context of international

organization legitimacy comes from California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s op-ed
in the San Jose Mercury News on April 27, 2003:

After 9/11, the world was supportive of the United States. But we have lost a
lot of that goodwill largely because of the way the administration approa-
ched the war in Iraq, but also because of a wider perception that the attitude
has become ‘‘the American way or the highway.’’ With the refusal to sign the
Kyoto Treaty on global warming, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and
the International Criminal Court – to name but three examples – the atti-
tude has been one of unilateralism: that the United States knows better than
the rest of the world. Now, in the reconstruction of Iraq, the United States
can repair some of this damage by working with our allies and the United
Nations.

6 Barnett and Finnemore list the sources and forms such IO authority takes: (1)
rational-legal (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 21–22); (2) delegated authority
(Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 22–23); (3) moral (Barnett and Finnemore
2004: 25); and (4) expert authority, derived from the ‘‘scientific’’ expertise and
specialized knowledge which IOs provide (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 24–
27).
7 Besides Benedict Anderson’s (1991) study, Giddens also proposes that the media
in ‘‘late modernity produces a situation in which humankind in some respects
becomes a ‘we,’ facing problems and opportunities where there are no ‘others’’’
(Giddens 1991: 27).
8 A bevy of recent publications, too many to name here, have focused on the role news
networks played by providing ‘‘friendly’’ coverage for the Bush administration’s
claims of weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda connections in Iraq. (For a
general review, see Rieder 2004.) Many articles recently appearing in the journals
American Journalism Review and Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies provide
a critical perspective on the relationship between the Western media and the
American military prior to and during the Iraq War. More generally, James der
Derian has focused upon the ‘‘Military–Industrial–Media–Entertainment Network’’
190 Notes
in his book (see der Derian 2001), and in many subsequent articles which have
appeared in more public periodicals.
9 Additionally, human rights NGOs can also provide information which can be
used to ‘‘discipline’’ deviant actors through prosecution (see Steele and Amour-
eux 2005: 413, esp. fn. 34).
10 Examples of such criticism abound. William Korey notes how the 1998 Human
Rights Watch World Report ‘‘scathingly criticized the United States for its ‘Great
Power Arrogance on Human Rights.’ On a host of human rights issues, the NGO
community is and will continue to be critical of the United States’’ (Korey 1998: 22).
11 See the contributions in Risse et al. 1999.
12 See andrewsullivan.com. Fein’s exhibition, which recreates the scenes of the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal, was displayed at the Toomey Tourell Gallery in San
Francisco from January 4–30, 2007.
13 http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/this_is_an_actu.html, accessed January
11, 2007.
14 ‘‘Conflict is the fountainhead of progress . . . conflict and its incumbent violence
impel and justify both the emergence of republican governments and the greater
peace necessary to their survival and improvement’’ (Huntley 1996: 61).
15 One American army officer characterized ‘‘the stakes’’ of this tension in a letter
to an American Senator, asking:

Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? Terrorism inspires

fear and suppresses ideals like freedom and individual rights. Overcoming
the fear posed by terrorist threats is a tremendous test of our courage. Will
we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals, or will our
courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of
sacrifice? My response is simple. If we abandon our ideals in the face of
adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our posses-
sion. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the
idea that is ‘‘America.’’
(‘‘A Matter of Honor,’’ reprinted in the Washington Post,
September 28, 2005: A21)

16 As Williams notes, in Hobbes’s theory the escape from the ‘‘state of nature’’
arises from the ‘‘prevalence of error,’’ rather than ‘‘rational calculation’’ (Williams
2005a: 30).
Bibliography

Abrams, E. (1999) ‘‘Strange Nestfellows: The Cast of Hawks on Kosovo,’’ National

Review, 51 (10): 52.
Adams, E.P. (1925) Great Britain and the American Civil War, vol. 2, London:
Longmans, Green, and Co.
Adams, K.R. (2006) ‘‘Structural Realism: The Consequences of Great Power Poli-
tics,’’ in J. Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Relations Theory,
Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Adler, E. and Barnett, M. (1998) ‘‘A Framework for the Study of Security Commu-
nities,’’ in E. Adler and M. Barnett (eds.) Security Communities, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Albertini, L. (1957) The Origins of the War of 1914, trans. and ed. I.M. Massey,
London: Oxford University Press; originally published 1942.
Alker, H. (1996) Rediscoveries and Reformulations: Humanistic Methodologies for
International Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism, London: Verso.
Ashley, R.K. (1981) ‘‘Political Realism and Human Interests,’’ International Studies
Quarterly, 25 (2): 204–236.
—— (1984) ‘‘The Poverty of Neorealism,’’ International Organization, 38 (2): 225–286.
—— (1986) ‘‘The Poverty of Neorealism,’’ in R. Keohane (ed.) Neorealism and Its
Critics, New York: Columbia University Press.
Astrom, A. and Rise, J. (2001) ‘‘Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior,’’ Psy-
chology and Health, 16: 223–237.
Atack, I. (2002) ‘‘Ethical Objections to Humanitarian Intervention,’’ Security Dia-
logue, 33: 279–292.
Auerswald, P. and Auerswald, D. (eds.) (2000) The Kosovo Conflict: A Diplomatic
History through Documents, Cambridge: Kluwer Law International.
Ausubel, D.P. (1955) ‘‘Relationships between Shame and Guilt in the Socializing
Process,’’ Psychological Review, 62: 378–390.
Ayoob, M. (1997) ‘‘Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective,’’ in K.
Krause and M.C. Williams (eds.) Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases,
London: UCL Press.
—— (2002) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention and State Sovereignty: International Society and
the Challenge of Human Rights,’’ International Journal of Human Rights, 6 (1): 81–102.
Bach, J. (1999) Between Sovereignty and Integration German Foreign Policy and
National Identity after 1989, New York: St. Martin’s Press and Lit Verlag.
192 Bibliography
Barkin, J.S. (2003) ‘‘Realist-Constructivism,’’ International Studies Review 5: 325–342.
Barnett, M.N. and Finnemore, M. (2004) Rules for the World: International Organi-
zations in Global Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bauman, Z. (1990) Modernity and the Holocaust, Cambridge: Polity.
Bayard de Volo, L. (2001) Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs: Gender Identity Politics in
Nicaragua: 1979–1999, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Belgium Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1915) The First Belgian Grey Book, London:
Darling and Sons Limited Press.
Benedict, R. (1946) The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Berger, T. (1996) ‘‘Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan,’’
in P. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security, New York: Columbia
University Press.
—— (1997) ‘‘The Past in the Present: Historical Memory and German National
Security Policy,’’ German Politics, 6 (1): 37–59.
—— (1998) Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bially-Mattern, J. (2005) Ordering International Politics, New York: Routledge.
Black, E. (1969) British Politics in the Nineteenth Century, New York: Walker and
Company.
Blackett, R.J.M. (2001) Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War, Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State Press.
Boyer, M.A. and Butler, M.J. (2006) ‘‘Public Goods Liberalism: The Problems of
Collective Action,’’ in J. Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Rela-
tions Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Brass, P. (1991) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison, New Delhi: Sage
Publications.
Brennan, T. and Pateman, C. (1979) ‘‘‘Mere Auxiliaries to the Commonwealth’:
Women and the Origins of Liberalism,’’ Philosophical Quarterly, 27 (2):183–200.
Brown, C.C. (1992) A Reinhold Niebuhr Reader: Selected Essays, Articles, and Book
Reviews, Philadelphia: Trinity Press.
Brown, C. (1992) International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches, New
York: Columbia University Press.
—— (2002) ‘‘On the Justifiability of Military Intervention: The Kosovan Case,’’ in
A. Moseley and R. Norman (eds.) Human Rights and Military Intervention,
London: Ashgate.
Bukovansky, M. (2002) Legitimacy and Power Politics, Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press.
—— (2005) ‘‘Hypocrisy and Contested Legitimacy: Agricultural Trade in the World
Trade Organization,’’ paper presented at the International Studies Association
annual meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii, March 2005.
Bull, H. (1977) The Anarchical Society, New York: Columbia University Press.
— (1984) Intervention in World Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burgerman, S. (2001) Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action,
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Buzan, B. (1991) People, States and Fear, 2nd edn., Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers.
Cafruny, A.W. (2006) ‘‘Historical Materialism: Imperialist Rivalry and the Global
Capitalist Order,’’ in J. Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Rela-
tions Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
 Bibliography 193
Caine, H. (ed.) (1914) King Albert’s Book, London: Daily Telegraph.
Cairns, D. (1993) Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient
Greek Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cammaerts, E. (1935) Albert of Belgium: Defender of Rights, London: Nicholson
and Watson.
Campbell, D. (1992) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics
of Identity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
—— (1996) ‘‘Identity, Sovereignty, and Responsibility,’’ in Y. Lapid and F. Kratochwil
(eds.) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rien-
ner Publishers.
—— (1998) National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia, Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
—— (2001) ‘‘Justice and International Order: The Case of Bosnia and Kosovo,’’ in
J.-M. Coicaud and D. Warner (eds.), Ethics and International Affairs, Tokyo:
United Nations University Press.
Caruth, C. (1996) ‘‘Traumatic Departures: Survival and History in Freud,’’ in
C.B. Strozier and M. Flynn (eds.) Trauma and Self, London: Rowman and
Littlefield.
Case, L.M. and Spencer, W.F. (1970) United States and France: Civil War Diplomacy,
Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Checkel, J. (1999) ‘‘Norms, Institutions and National Identity in Contemporary
Europe,’’ International Studies Quarterly, 43 (1): 83–114.
Chesterman, S. (2001) Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and Inter-
national Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, N. (1969) American Power and the New Mandarins, New York: Pantheon
Books.
Christiansen, T.J. and Snyder, J. (1990) ‘‘Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting
Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,’’ International Organization, 44: 137–168.
Clinton, W.J. (2004) My Life, New York: Random House.
Collingwood, R.G. (1946) The Idea of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cottam, R. (1977) Foreign Policy Motivation: A General Theory and a Case Study,
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Cox, R. (1986) ‘‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International
Relations Theory,’’ in R. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics, New York:
Columbia University Press.
Crawford, N. (2000) ‘‘The Passion of World Politics,’’ International Security, 24 (4):
116–156.
—— (2002) Argument and Change in World Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Crook, D. (1974) The North, the South, and the Powers, 1861–1865, New York: John
Wiley and Sons.
D’Amico, F. (2006) ‘‘Critical Feminism: Deconstructing Gender, Nationalism and
War,’’ in J. Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Relations Theory,
Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
der Derian, J. (1996) ‘‘A Reinterpretation of Realism,’’ in F.A. Beer and R. Harriman
(eds.) Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations, East Lansing:
Michigan State University Press.
—— (2001) Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Net-
work, New York: Westview Press.
194 Bibliography
DeSilva, D.A. (1995) Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Main-
tenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Atlanta, GA: Scholar Press.
Dessler, D. (1989) ‘‘What’s at Stake in the Agent–Structure Debate?,’’ International
Organization, 43 (3): 441–474.
Deudney, D. (1990) ‘‘The Case against Linking Environmental Degradation and
National Security,’’ Millenium, 19 (3): 461–476.
Donnelly, J. (1992) ‘‘Twentieth Century Realism,’’ in T. Nardin and D.R. Mapel
(eds.) Traditions of International Ethics, New York: Cambridge University Press.
—— (2000) Realism and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Doty, R.L. (1993) ‘‘Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis
of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy in the Phillipines,’’ International Studies Quar-
terly, 37: 297–320.
—— (1996) Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North–South
Relations, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Drulak, P. (2006) ‘‘Reflexivity and Structural Change,’’ in Stefano Guzzini and Anna
Leander (eds.) Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and
His Critics, Abingdon: Routledge.
Dunne, T. (1998) Inventing International Society: A History of the English School,
Oxford: St. Antony’s College.
Economist (1998) ‘‘Welcome, Whoever You Are: The European Union’s Other Lea-
ders Are Itching to See What Schroeder Is Made of, and What He Wants to Make
of Europe,’’ 3 October 1998, Vol 349, Issue 8088: 56.
Edkins, J. (2003) Trauma and the Memory of Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Edmonds, J.E. (1951) Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1914, London:
Macmillan.
Elman, C. (1996) ‘‘Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign
Policy?,’’ International Security, 6: 7–53.
Elman, M. (ed.) (1997) Paths to Peace: Is Democracy the Answer?, Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Elshtain, J.B. (1974) ‘‘Moral Woman and Immoral Man: A Consideration of
the Public–Private Split and Its Political Ramifications,’’ Politics and Society, 4:
453–474.
—— (1981) Public Man, Private Woman, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
—— (1996) ‘‘Shame and Public Life,’’ in C.B. Strozier and M. Flynn (eds.) Trauma
and Self, London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Essen, J. van der (1916) A Short History of Belgium, Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Everett, S. (1982) History of World War I, New York: Simon and Schuster.
Falger, V.S.E. and van der Dennen, J.M.G. (2006) ‘‘Biopolitics: Evolutionary History
and Modern Conflict,’’ in J. Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International
Relations Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Fekadu, Z. and Kraft, P. (2001) ‘‘Self-Identity in Planned Behavior Perspective: Past
Behavior and Its Moderating Effects on Self-Identity Intention Relations,’’ Socia
Behavior and Personality, 29 (7): 671–686.
Fierke, K. (2004) ‘‘Whereof We can Speak, thereof We must not be Silent Trauma,
Political Solipsism and War’’ Review of International Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4,
pp. 471–492.
 Bibliography 195
Finley, M. (1954) The World of Odysseus, New York: Viking Press.
Finnemore, M. (1996) National Interests in International Society, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
—— (2003) The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force,
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Finnemore, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) ‘‘International Norm Dynamics and Political
Change,’’ International Organization, 52 (4): 887–917.
Fisher, N.R.E. (1992) Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient
Greece, Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips.
Foot, R. (2006) ‘‘Torture: The Struggle over a Peremptory Norm in a Counter-Ter-
rorist Era,’’ International Relations, 20 (2): 131–153.
Fossum, M.A. and Mason, M.J. (1986) Facing Shame: Families in Recovery, New
York: Norton.
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York: Vin-
tage Books.
Freeman, M. (1993) Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, and Narrative, London:
Routledge.
Fromkin, D. (2002) Kosovo Crossing: The Reality of American Intervention in the
Balkans, New York: Free Press.
Frost, M. (1996) Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Galet, Lieut.-General (1931) Albert, King of the Belgians, trans. Major-General Sir
E. Swinton, London: Putnam.
George, A. and Keohane, R. (1980) ‘‘The Concept of National Interests: Uses and
Limitations,’’ in A. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy, Boulder,
CO: Westview.
Gibson, H. (1917) A Journal from Our Legation in Belgium, New York: Doubleday.
Giddens, A. (1981) The Nation-State and Violence, Cambridge: Polity Press.
—— (1984) The Constitution of Society, Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
—— (1987) Social Theory and Modern Sociology, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
—— (1989) ‘‘A Reply to My Critics,’’ in D. Held and J.B. Thompson (eds.) Social
Theory of Modern Societies: Anthony Giddens and His Critics, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
—— (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
—— (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
—— (1994) ‘‘Risk, Trust, Reflexivity,’’ in U. Beck, A. Giddens, and S. Lash (eds.)
Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradtions and Aesthetics in the Modern Social
Order, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gilpin, R. (1981) War and Change in World Politics, New York: Columbia University
Press.
Goodman, R. (2006) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention and the Pretext for War,’’ Amer-
ican Journal of International Law, 100 (1), 107–141.
Goffman, E. (1973) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York: Doubleday.
Goodwin, D.K. (2005) Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Gould, Harry D. (1998) ‘‘What Is at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?’’, in
V. Kubalkova, N. Onuf and P. Kowert (eds) International Relations in a Con-
structed World, New York: AE Sharpe.
196 Bibliography
Grant, R. and Newland, K. (eds.) (1991) Gender and International Relations, Bloo-
mington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Gray, R. (1990) Chronicle of the First World War, New York: Facts on File.
Grieco, J.M. (1997) ‘‘Realist International Theory and the Study of World Politics,’’
in M.W. Doyle and J. Ikenberry (eds.) New Thinking in International Relations
Theory, Oxford: Westview Press.
Guzzini, S. (2000) ‘‘A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations,’’
European Journal of International Relations, 6 (2): 147–182.
Haas, P. (1993) ‘‘Epistemic Communities and the Dynamics of International Envir-
onmental Co-operation,’’ in V. Rittberger (ed.) Regime Theory and International
Relations, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
—— (2002) ‘‘Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coor-
dination,’’ International Organization, 46 (1): 1–35.
Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, Reason and the Rationa-
lization of Society, vol. 1, trans. T. McCarthy, Boston, MA: Beacon Press; origin-
ally published in 1981.
Halberstam, D. (2001) War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals, New
York: Scribner.
Hall, Rodney B. (1997) ‘‘Moral Authority as a Power Resource,’’ International
Organization, 51: 591–622.
—— (1999) National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and International Systems,
New York: Columbia University Press.
—— (2000) ‘‘Review of Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International
Relations,’’ American Political Science Review, 94 (4): 995–996.
—— (2001) ‘‘Applying the ‘Self/Other’ Nexus in International Relations,’’ Interna-
tional Studies Review, 3 (1): 101–111.
—— (2003) ‘‘The Discursive Demolition of the Asian Developmental Model,’’
International Studies Quarterly, 47: 71–99.
Hall, R.B. and Bierstecker, T. (2002) The Emergence of Private Authority in Global
Governance, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Harrison, E. (2004) ‘‘State Socialization, International Norm Dynamics, and the
Liberal Peace,’’ International Politics, 41 (4): 521–542.
Hasenclever, A., Mayer, P., and Rittberger, V. (1997) Theories of International
Regimes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hawtrey, R. (1952) Capital and Employment, London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Haythornwaite, P.J. (1992) The World War One Source Book, London: Arms and
Armour Press.
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, New
York: Harper and Row; originally published in 1927.
Heilke, T. (2004) ‘‘Realism, Narrative, and Happenstance: Thucydides’ Tale of Bra-
sidas,’’ American Political Science Review, 98 (1): 121–138.
Heinze, E.A. (2004a) ‘Law, Force and Human Rights: The Search for a Sufficiently
Principled Legal Basis for Humanitarian Intervention,’’ Journal of Conflict Stu-
dies, 24 (2): 5–32.
—— (2004b) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention: Morality and International Law on Intol-
erable Violations of Human Rights,’’ International Journal of Human Rights, 8 (4):
471–490.
Henig, S. (2001) ‘‘Britain: To War for a Just Cause,’’ in A. Weymouth and S.
Henig (eds.) The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in Europe?, London:
Reuters.
 Bibliography 197
Herman, J. (1996) ‘‘Crime and Memory,’’ in C.B. Strozier and M. Flynn (eds.)
Trauma and Self, London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Howell, J. (2005) ‘‘Introduction,’’ in J. Howell and D. Mulligan (eds.) Gender and
Civil Society: Transcending Boundaries, London: Routledge.
Howell, J. and Mulligan, D. (2005) Gender and Civil Society: Transcending Bound-
aries, London: Routledge.
Hsu, C. (1996) ‘‘Applying Confucian Ethics to International Relations,’’ in Joel H.
Rosenthal (ed.) Ethics and International Relations: A Reader, Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Hudson, V. (2005) ‘‘Foreign Policy Analysis: Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground
of International Relations,’’ Foreign Policy Analysis, 1: 1–30.
Huntley, W. (1996) ‘‘Kant’s Third Image: Systemic Sources of the Liberal Peace,’’
International Studies Quarterly, 40 (1): 45–76.
Hurd, I. (1999) ‘‘Legitmacy and Authority in International Politics,’’ International
Organization, 53 (2): 379–408.
Hutchings, K. (2005) ‘‘Discourse Ethics, Feminism and IR,’’ Review of International
Studies, 31 (1): 155–165.
Huysmans, J. (1998) ‘‘Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick Sig-
nifier,’’ European Journal of International Relations, 4: 226–255.
Ignatieff, M. (2001) Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Inayatullah, N. and Blaney, D.L. (1996) ‘‘Knowing Encounters: Beyond Par-
ochialism in International Relations Theory,’’ in Y. Lapid and F. Kratochwil (eds.)
The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers.
Jackson, P.T. (2006) ‘‘Relational Constructivism: A War of Words,’’ in J. Sterling-
Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Relations Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne
Reinner Publishers.
Jackson, R.H. (1990) Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third
World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—— (1995) ‘‘The Political Theory of International Society,’’ in K. Booth and S.
Smith (eds.) International Relations Theory Today, Oxford: Polity Press.
—— (2000) The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, B. (1980) Britain and the War for the Union, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press.
Jenkins, R. (1995) Gladstone, London: Macmillan.
Jervis, R. (1968) ‘‘Hypotheses on Misperception,’’ World Politics 20(3) (April): 454–479
— (1976) Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Johns, M., Schmader, T., and Lickel, B. (2005) ‘‘Ashamed to Be an American? The
Role of Identification in Predicting Vicarious Shame for Anti-Arab Prejudice after
9–11’’ Self and Identity, 4: 331–348.
Jones, H. (1993) Union in Peril, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
—— (1999) Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom, Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Judah, T. (2000) Kosovo: War and Revenge, New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Kaarbo, J. (1996) ‘‘Power and Influence in Foreign Policy Decision Making: The
Role of Junior Coalition Partners in German and Israeli Foreign Policy,’’ Inter-
national Studies Quarterly, 40: 501–530.
198 Bibliography
Kaarbo, J. and Lantis, J.S. (2003) ‘‘The ‘Greening’ of German Foreign Policy in the
Iraq Case: Condition of Junior Party Influence in Governing Coalitions,’’ Acta
Politica 38 (3): 201–230.
Katzenstein, P. (ed.) (1996a) The Culture of National Security, New York: Columbia
University Press.
Katzenstein, P. (1996b) ‘‘Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Secur-
ity,’’ in P. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security, New York: Columbia
University Press.
Kaufman, C. and Pape, R. (1999) ‘‘Explaining Costly International Moral Action:
Britain’s Sixty Year Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade,’’ International
Organization, 53(4): 631–668.
Kay, S. (2006) ‘‘Neoliberalism: Institutions at War,’’ in J. Sterling-Folker (ed) Making
Sense of International Relations Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Keck, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in
International Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kee, R. (1988) Munich: The Eleventh Hour, London: Hamilton.
Keegan, J. (1998) The First World War, New York: Alfred P. Knopf.
Kennan, G. (1985/86) ‘‘Morality and Foreign Policy,’’ Foreign Affairs, 64 (2):
205–218.
Kennedy-Pipe, C. and Stanley, P. (2001) ‘‘Rape in War: Lessons of the Balkan Con-
flicts in the 1990s,’’ in K. Booth (ed.) The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights
Dimensions, London: Frank Cass.
Kierkegaard, Soren (1966) The Concept of Dread, trans. W. Lowrie, Princeton:
Princeton University Press; originally published 1844.
Kilminster, R. (1991) ‘‘Structuration Theory as a World-View,’’ in C.G.A. Bryant
and D. Jary (eds.) Giddens’ Theory of Structuration: A Critical Appreciation,
London: Routledge.
King, G., Keohane, R., and Verba, S. (1994) Designing Social Inquiry, Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Kinnvall, C. (2004) ‘‘Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity and the
Search for Ontological Security,’’ Political Psychology 25 (5): 741–767.
Knudsen, T.B. (1996) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention Revisited: Post-Cold War
Responses to Classical Problems,’’ International Peacekeeping, 3 (4): 146–165.
—— (2005) Humanitarian Intervention: Contemporary Manifestations of an Explosive
Doctrine, London: Routledge.
Kislenko, A. (2005) ‘‘Atrocities,’’ in S.C. Tucker (ed.) The Encyclopedia of World War
I: A Political Social and Military History, vol. 1, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Klotz, A. (1995) Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid,
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kolodziej, E. (1992) ‘‘Renaissance in Security Studies? Caveat Lector!,’’ International
Studies Quarterly 36: 421–438.
Koontz, T.J. (1996) ‘‘Christian Nonviolence: An Interpretation,’’ in T. Nardin (ed.)
The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, Princeton: Prin-
ceton University Press.
Korey, W. (1998) NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Curious
Grapevine, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Koslowski, R. and Kratochwil, F.V. (1994) ‘‘Understanding Change in International
Politics: The Soviet Empire’s Demise and the International System,’’ International
Organization, 48: 215–247.
 Bibliography 199
Krasner, S. (1993) ‘‘Sovereignty, Regimes, and Human Rights,’’ in V. Rittberger (ed.)
Regime Theory and International Relations, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
—— (1999) Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kratochwil, F.V. (1989) Rules, Norms and Decisions, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
—— (2006) ‘‘History, Action and Identity: Revisiting the ‘Second’ Great Debate and
Assessing its Importance for Social Theory,’’ European Journal of International
Relations, 12: 5–29.
Lackey, D.P. (1989) The Ethics of War and Peace, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Laing, R.D. (1969) Self and Others, London: Tavistock.
Lamizet, B. and Debras, S. (2001) ‘‘France: Questions of Identity,’’ in A. Weymouth and
S. Henig (eds.) The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in Europe?, London: Reuters.
Lang, A. (2002) Agency and Ethics: the Politics of Military Intervention, Albany, NY:
SUNY Press.
—— (ed.) (2003) Just Intervention, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Lapid, Y. and Kratochwil, F. (eds.) (1996) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR
Theory, Boulder CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Layne, C. (1997) ‘‘Lord Palmerston and the Triumph of Realism: Anglo-French
Relations, 1830–48,’’ in M.F. Elman (ed.) Paths to Peace: Is Democracy the
Answer?, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lebow, R.N. (1981) Between Peace and War, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
—— (2001) ‘‘Thucydides the Constructivist’’ American Political Science Review, 95
(3): 547–560.
—— (2003) The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
—— (2004) ‘‘Constructive Realism,’’ International Studies Review, 6 (2): 346–348.
Lebow, R.N., Gross-Stein, J., Weber, S., and Bernstein, R. (2000) ‘‘God Gave Physics
the Easy Problems: Adapting Social Science to an Unpredictable World,’’ Eur-
opean Journal of International Relations, 6 (1): 43–76.
Levy, J. (1988) ‘‘Domestic Politics and War,’’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 18:
653–673.
Liebling, A. (1999) ‘‘Prison Suicide and Prisoner Coping,’’ Crime and Justice, 26: 283–359.
Lifton, B.J. (1996) ‘‘The Adopted Self,’’ in C.B. Strozier and M. Flynn (eds.) Trauma
and Self, London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Lifton, R.J. (1993) The Protean Self: Human Resistance in an Age of Fragmentation,
New York: Basic Books.
Lijphart, A. (1978) Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration, New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lowenheim, O. (2003) ‘‘‘Do Ourselves Credit and Render a Lasting Service to
Mankind’: British Moral Prestige, Humanitarian Intervention and the Barbary
Pirates,’’ International Studies Quarterly, 47: 23–48.
—— (2007) Predators and Parasites: Persistent Agents of Transnational Harm and
Great Power Authority, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Lowenheim, Oded and Gadi Heimann (2006) ‘‘‘And if you Wrong Us shall we not
revenge? The Pursuit of Revenge in International Politics’’’, paper presented at the
2006 International Studies Association annual meeting, San Diego, CA, March.
Lynch, C. (1999) Beyond Appeasement: Interpreting Interwar Peace Movements in
World Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
200 Bibliography
Maas, P. (2002) ‘‘Paying for the Powell Doctrine,’’ in N. Mills and K. Brunner (eds.)
The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention, New York: Basic
Books.
McDermott, R. (2004) ‘‘The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific
Advances for Political Science,’’ Perspectives on Politics, 2 (4): 691–706.
MacInnes, C.M (1934) England and Slavery, Bristol, UK: Arrowsmith.
McPherson, J.M. (1988) Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, New York:
Oxford Press.
McSweeney, B. (1999) Security, Identity, and Interests, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Mandelbaum, M. (1996) ‘‘Foreign Policy as Social Work,’’ Foreign Affairs, 75 (1):
16–32.
Manners, I. (2001) ‘‘European [Security] Union: From Existential Threat to Onto-
logical Security,’’ COPRI working papers. Online. Available HTTP: http://
www.ciaonet.org/wps/mai04/ (accessed January 17, 2007).
Mearsheimer, J. (1996) ‘‘The False Promise of International Institutions,’’ Interna-
tional Security, 19: 5–49.
—— (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: Norton.
Medvedev, S. and Ham, P. van (2002) ‘‘Preface: Kosovo and the Outlines of Europe’s
New Order,’’ in P. van Ham and S. Medvedev (eds.) Mapping European Security
after Kosovo, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Meeus, A. de (1962) History of the Belgians, trans. G. Gordon, New York: Praeger.
Mencius (2003) Mencius, trans. D.C. Lau, bilingual edn., rev., Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press.
Mendelsohn, B. (2005) ‘‘Sovereignty under Attack: International Society Meets Al
Qaeda,’’ Review of International Studies, 31: 45–68.
Mercer, J. (1996) Reputation and International Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
—— (2005) ‘‘Rationality and Psychology in International Studies,’’ International
Organization, 59 (1): 77–106.
Mertus, J. (2006) ‘‘Liberal Feminism: Local Narratives in a Gendered Context,’’ in J.
Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Relations Theory, Boulder, CO:
Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Mill, J.S. (1859 [1997]) ‘‘On Liberty,’’ in A. Ryan (ed.) Mill, New York: W.W. Norton.
Miller, R.B. (1996) ‘‘Divine Justice, Evil and Tradition: Comparative Reflections,’’ in
T. Nardin (ed.) The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Milliken, J. (1999) ‘‘The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique
of Research and Methods,’’ European Journal of International Relations, 5 (2):
225–254.
Mitchell, S. (2002) ‘‘A Kantian System? Democracy and Third Party Conflict Reso-
lution,’’ American Journal of Political Science, 46 (4): 749–759.
Mitzen, J. (2006a) ‘‘Anchoring Europe’s Civilizing Identity: Habits, Capabilities, and
Ontological Security,’’ Journal of European Public Policy, 13 (2): 270–285.
—— (2006b) ‘‘Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security
Dilemma,’’ European Journal of International Relations, 12 (6): 341–370.
Moore, J. (ed.) (1998) Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention,
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Moravcsik, A. (1997) ‘‘Taking Liberal Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of
International Politics,’’ International Organization, 51 (4): 513–553.
 Bibliography 201
Morelli, U. (2001) ‘‘Italy: The Reluctant Ally,’’ in A. Weymouth and S. Henig (eds.)
The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in Europe?, London: Reuters.
Morgenthau, H. (1946) Scientific Man vs. Power Politics, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
—— (1970 [1996]) ‘The Intellectual and Political Functions of Theory’, in H. Mor-
genthau (ed.) Truth and Power: Essays of a Decade, New York: Praeger Publishers;
reprinted in James der Derian (ed.) International Theory: Critical Investigations,
New York: New York University Press.
—— (2006) Politics among Nations, 7th edn, New York: McGraw Hill; originally
published 1946.
Morley, J. (1903) Life of William Ewart Gladstone, vol. 2, London: Macmillan.
Moseley, A. and Norman, R. (eds.) Human Rights and Military Intervention,
London: Ashgate.
Morrow, J.D. (1999) ‘‘The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and
Negotiation in International Politics,’’ in D.A. Lake and R. Powell (eds.) Strategic
Choice and International Relations, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mutua, M. (2001) ‘‘Human Rights International NGOs: A Critical Evaluation,’’ in
C. Welch (ed.) NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance, Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania.
Nardin, T. (1992) ‘‘Ethical Traditions in International Affairs,’’ in T. Nardin and
D.R. Mapel (eds.) Traditions of International Ethics, New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Nardin, T. and Mapel, D. (eds.) (1992) Traditions of International Ethics, New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Neumann, I.B. (1999) Uses of the Other: ‘‘The East’’ in European Identity Formation,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
—— (2001) ‘‘From Meta to Method: The Materiality of Discourse,’’ paper presented
at the 42nd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Chicago,
February 2001.
—— (2002) ‘‘Kosovo and the End of the Legitimate Warring State,’’ in P. van Ham
and S. Medvedev (eds.) Mapping European Security After Kosovo, Manchester,
UK: Manchester University Press.
Newman E. (2002) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention: Legality and Legitimacy,’’ Interna-
tional Journal of Human Rights, 6 (4): 102–120.
Niebuhr, Reinhold (1932) Moral Man, Immoral Society, New York: Scribner Sons.
— (1943 [1949]) Human Destiny, vol. 2: The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian
Interpretation, New York: Scribner’s.
—— (1947) ‘‘Two Forms of Utopianism,’’ Christianity and Society, 12: 6–7; reprinted
in A Reinhold Niebuhr Reader: Selected Essays, Articles, and Book Reviews, Phila-
delphia, PA: Trinity Press.
—— (1949) The Nature and Destiny of Man, New York: Scribner’s; reprinted in A
Reinhold Niebuhr Reader: Selected Essays, Articles, and Book Reviews, Philadel-
phia, PA: Trinity Press.
—— (1953) ‘‘Human Nature and Social Change,’’ Christian Century, 50: 363.
—— (1960) Moral Man and Immoral Society, New York: Scribner.
Nye, J.S. (2006) Understanding International Conflict, London: Pearson Longman.
O’Neill, B. (1999) Honor, Symbols and War, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
—— (2001) Honor, Symbols and War, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
202 Bibliography
Offer, A. (1995) ‘‘Going to War in 1914: A Matter of Honor?,’’ Politics and Society,
23: 213–241.
Okin, S.M. (1979) Women in Western Political Thought, Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press.
—— (1991) ‘‘Gender, the Public, and the Private,’’ in David Held (ed.) Political
Theory Today, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Onuf, N. (1989) World of Our Making, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina
Press.
—— (1998) ‘‘Constructivism: A User’s Manual,’’ in V. Kubalkova, N. Onuf, and P.
Kowert (eds.) International Relations in a Constructed World, New York: A.E. Sharpe.
Orwell, G. (1983 [1949]) 1984, New York: Plume.
Osgood, R. (1953) Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Owen, J. (1994) ‘‘How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,’’ International Secur-
ity, 19 (2): 87–125.
Owsley, F.L. (1959) King Cotton Diplomacy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Parekh, B. (1997) ‘‘Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention,’’ The Dilemma of
Humanitarian Intervention, special issue of International Political Science Review,
18 (1): 49–69.
Pateman, C. (1988) ‘‘The Fraternal Social Contract,’’ in J.B. Keane (ed.) Civil
Society and the State: New European Perspectives, London: Verso.
Peristiany, J.G. (ed.) (1966) Honour and Shame, London: Trinity Press.
Peterson, V. (1992) ‘‘Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender,
and International Relations,’’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 21 (2):
183–206.
Phillips, A. (1991) Engendering Democracy, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press.
Pitt-Rivers, J. (1966) ‘‘Honour and Social Status,’’ in J.G. Peristiany (ed.) Honour and
Shame, London: Trinity Press.
Polanyi, K. (1945) The Great Transformation, New York: Toronto, Farrar & Rine-
hart, Inc.
Power, S. (2002) A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, New York:
Basic Books.
Putnam, R. (1988) ‘‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level
Games,’’ International Organization 42 (3): 427–460.
Rae, H. (2002) State Identities and the Homogenization of Peoples, New York:
Cambridge.
Ramet, S. and Lyon, P. (2001) ‘‘Germany: The Federal Republic, Loyal to NATO,’’
in A. Weymouth and S. Henig (eds.) The Kosovo Crisis: The Last American War in
Europe?, London: Reuters.
Ramsbotham, O. and Woodhouse, T. (1996) Humanitarian Intervention in Con-
temporary Conflict: A Reconceptualization, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Reichenbach, B. (1976) ‘‘Natural Evils and Natural Laws: A Theodicy for Natural
Evils,’’ International Philosophical Quarterly, 16 (2): 179–196.
Reiter, D. (1994) ‘‘Learning, Realism and Alliances: The Weight of the Shadow of
the Past,’’ World Politics, 46 (4): 490–526.
Rengger, N. and Jeffrey, R. (2005) ‘‘Moral Evil and International Relations,’’ SAIS
Review, 25 (1): 3–16.
Rice, C. (2000) ‘‘Promoting the National Interest,’’ Foreign Affairs, 79 (1): 45–62.
Ricoeur, P. (1981) Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, trans. John B. Thompson,
New York: Cambridge University Press.
 Bibliography 203
Rieder, R. (2004) ‘‘Toothless Watchdogs: The Media, WMD and Abu Ghraib,’’
American Journalism Review, 26 (4): 6.
Rieff, D. (1999) ‘‘A New Age in Imperialism?,’’ World Policy Journal, 16 (2): 1–10.
Ringmar, E. (2002) ‘‘The Recognition Game: Soviet Russia against the West,’’
Cooperation and Conflict, 37 (2): 115–136.
Risse, T. (1999) ‘‘International Norms and Domestic Change: Arguing and
Strategic Adaptation in the Human Rights Area,’’ Politics & Society, 27 (4): 526.
—— (2000) ‘‘‘Let’s Argue!’ Communicative Action in World Politics,’’ International
Organization, 54: 1–39.
Risse, T., Ropp, S., and Sikkink, K. (eds.) (1999) The Power of Human Rights:
International Norms and Domestic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Roberts, A. (1993) ‘‘Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights,’’
International Affairs, 69 (3): 429–449.
Rock, S. (1997) ‘‘Anglo-U.S. Relations, 1845–1930: Did Shared Liberal Values and
Democratic Institutions Keep the Peace?,’’ in M.F. Elman (ed.) Paths to Peace: Is
Democracy the Answer?, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Ross, A.A.G. (2006) ‘‘Coming in from the Cold: Constructivism and Emotions,’’
European Journal of International Relations, 12 (2): 197–222.
Ruddick, S. (1990) Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace, London: The
Women’s Press.
Ruggie, J.G. (1982) ‘‘International Regimes, Transactions and Change: Embedded
Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,’’ International Organization, 36 (2):
378–415.
—— (1983) ‘‘Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neore-
alist Synthesis,’’ World Politics, 35: 261–285.
—— (1992) ‘‘Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,’’ International Orga-
nization, 46 (3): 561–598.
—— (1996) Winning the Peace: America and World Order in the New Era, New
York: Columbia University Press.
Runciman, D. (2006) The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in
the New World Order, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Runyan, A.S. (1992) ‘‘The ‘State’ of Nature: A Garden Unfit for Women and Other
Living Things,’’ in V.S. Peterson (ed.) Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of
International Relations Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Russett, B. (1993) Grasping the Democratic Peace, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Saldana, J. (2003) Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change through
Time, New York: Altamira Press.
Sapiro, V. (1995). ‘‘Feminist Studies and Political Science – and Vice Versa,’’ in D.
Stanton and A. Stewart (eds.) Feminisms in the Academy, Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
Sartre, J.P (1964) Nausea, trans. Lloyd Alexander, New York: New Directions Pub-
lishing; originally published 1938.
—— (1992) ‘‘Being and Nothingness,’’ in S. Oaklander (ed.) Existentialist Philoso-
phy: An Introduction, Upper Saddle Hall, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Savarese, R. (2000) ‘‘Infosuasion in European Newspapers,’’ European Journal of
Communication, 15 (3): 363–381.
Schelling, T. (1960) The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schick, K. (2007) ‘‘Mourning and Political Risk: Thinking beyond Atrocity and
Justice in World Politics’’, paper presented at the 2007 International Studies
Association annual meeting, Chicago, Illinois, USA, March.
204 Bibliography
Schreiber, M. (1945) Belgium, trans. H. Becker, London: Macdonald & Co., Ltd.
Schweller, R. (1994) ‘‘Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back
in,’’ International Security, 19: 72–107.
—— (1996) ‘‘Neorealism’s Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?,’’ in B. Fran-
kel (ed.) Realism: Restatements and Revewal, London: Frank Cass.
Shaara, M. (1974) The Killer Angels: A Novel, New York: McKay Books.
Shannon, R. (1982) Gladstone, London: Hamilton.
Shannon, V. (2005) ‘‘Wendt’s Violation of the Constructivist Project: Agency and
Why a World State Is Not Inevitable,’’ European Journal of International Relations,
11 (4): 581–587.
Shephard, L.J. (2005) ‘‘Loud Voices behind the Wall: Gender Violence and the Vio-
lent Reproduction of the International,’’ Millennium: Journal of International Stu-
dies, 32 (2): 377–400.
Shinko, R.E. (2006) ‘‘Postmodernism: A Genealogy of Humanitarian Intervention,’’
in J. Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of International Relations Theory, Boulder,
CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Sideman, B.B. (ed.) (1962) Europe Looks at the Civil War, New York: Collier Books.
Sikkink, K. (1993) ‘‘Human Rights, Principled Issue-Networks, and Sovereignty in
Latin America,’’ International Organization, 47 (3): 411–441.
Singer, J.D. (1961) ‘‘The Levels of Analysis Problem in International Relations,’’ in K.
Knorr and S. Verba (eds.) The International System, Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Singer, J. and Salovey, P. (1993) The Remembered Self: Emotion and Memory in
Personality, New York: The Free Press.
Smith, S. (1992) ‘‘The Forty Years Detour: The Resurgence of Normative Theory in
International Relations,’’ Millennium, 21: 489–506.
—— (2002) ‘‘The United States and the Discipline of International Relations: ‘Hege-
monic Country, Hegemonic Discipline’,’’ International Studies Review, 4 (2): 67–86.
—— (2004) ‘‘Singing Our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and
September 11,’’ International Studies Quarterly, 48 (3): 499–515.
Snyder, J. (1984) Ideology of the Offensive, New York: Cornell University Press.
—— (1991) Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition, Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
Spruyt, H. (1994) The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Steele, B. (2005) ‘‘Ontological Security and the Power of Self-Identity: British
Neutrality and the American Civil War,’’ Review of International Studies, 31:
519–540.
—— (2007a) ‘‘Liberal-Idealism: A Constructivist Critique,’’ International Studies
Review, Spring.
—— (2007b) ‘‘Making Words Matter: The Asian Tsunami, Darfur, and ‘Reflexive
Discourse’ in International Politics,’’ International Studies Quarterly.
Steele, B.J. and Amoureux, J.L. (2005) ‘‘NGOs and Monitoring Genocide: The
Benefits and Limits to Human Rights Panopticism,’’ Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, 32 (2): 401–432.
Sterling-Folker, J. (ed.) (2006) Making Sense of International Relations Theory,
Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Strikwerda, C. (1997) House Divided: Catholics, Socialists, and Flemish Nationalists
in Nineteenth-Century Belgium, Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield.
Sylvester, C. (1994) ‘‘Empathetic Cooperation: A Feminist Method for IR,’’ Millen-
nium: Journal of International Studies, 23 (2): 315–334.
 Bibliography 205
Taliaferro, J.W. (2006) ‘‘Neoclassical Realism: The Psychology of Great Power
Intervention,’’ in Sterling-Folker (ed.), Making Sense of International Relations
Theory, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
Tangney, J.P., Miller, R., Flicker, L., and Barlow, D.H. (1996) ‘‘Are Shame, Guilt,
and Embarrassment Distinct Emotions?’’ Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 70 (6): 1,256–1,269.
Tarrow, S. (1994) Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action, and
Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, T. (1979) Munich: The Price of Peace, Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Temperley, H. (1972). British Antislavery, 1833–1870, London: Longman.
Terry, F. (2002) Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Theiler, T. (2003) ‘‘Societal Security and Social Psychology,’’ Review of International
Studies, 29: 249–268.
Thucydides (1954) History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. R. Warner, Baltimore,
MD: Penguin Books.
Thussu, D. (2001a) ‘‘An ‘Insight’ into CNN’s Coverage of NATO’s First War,’’ in S.
Harvard (ed.) News in a Global Society, Göteborg, Sweden: Nordicom.
—— (2001b) ‘‘Legitimizing ‘Humanitarian Intervention?’ CNN, NATO and the
Kosovo Crisis,’’ European Journal of Communication, 15 (3): 345–361.
Tickner, J.A. (1992) Gender in International Relations, New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press.
—— (1996) ‘‘Identity in International Relations Theory: Feminist Perspectives,’’ in
Y. Lapid and F. Kratochwil (eds.) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory,
Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
—— (2001) Gendering World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press.
Tilly, C. (1975) ‘‘Reflections on the History of European State-Marking,’’ in C. Tilly
(ed.) The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton, NJ: Prince-
ton University Press.
Tocqueville, A. de (1966) Democracy in America, trans. G. Lawrence, New York:
Harper and Row; originally published 1835.
Tucker, K. (1998) Anthony Giddens and Modern Social Theory, London: Sage Publications.
Turley, D. (1991) The Culture of English Antislavery, 1780–1860, London: Routledge.
Vandenberg, M.E. (2000) ‘‘Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Kosovo: Rape as a
Weapon of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’,’’ Human Rights Watch Report. Online. Available
HTTP: www.hrw.org/reports/2000/fry (accessed January 17, 2007).
Volkan, V. (1997) Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism, New York:
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc.
Wachtel, P. (1996) ‘‘The Contextual Self,’’ in C.B. Strozier and M. Flynn (eds.)
Trauma and Self, London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Walker, S. (1987) Role Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis, Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Walt, S. (1987) The Origin of Alliances, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
—— (2006) ‘‘‘Realpolitik’ Letter to the Editor,’’ Commentary 121 (1): 3–4.
Waltz, K.N. (1979) Theory of International Politics, New York: Random House.
Weber, C. (1995) Simulating Sovereignty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weber, M. (1968) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, G.
Roth and C. Wittich (eds.), trans. E. Fischoff (1978), New York: Bedminster Press.
Weiler, T.J. and Tucker, S.C. (2005) ‘‘German Occupation of Belgium,’’ in S.C.
Tucker (ed.) The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political Social and Military
History, vol. 2, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
206 Bibliography
Weldes, J. (1999) ‘‘The Cultural Production of Crises: U.S. Identity and Missiles in
Cuba,’’ in J. Weldes, M. Laffey, H. Gusterson, and R. Duvall (eds.) Cultures of
Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger, Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press.
Weldes, J. and Saco, D. (1996) ‘‘Making State Action Possible: The United States
and the Discursive Construction of ‘The Cuban Problem’ 1960–1994,’’ Millenium:
Journal of International Studies, 24: 101–117.
Welsh, J. (ed.) (2004) Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Wendt, A. (1987) ‘‘The Agent–Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,’’
International Organization, 41: 335–370.
—— (1992) ‘‘Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power
Politics,’’ International Organization, 46: 395–421.
—— (1994) ‘‘Collective Identity Formation and the International State,’’ American
Political Science Review, 88 (2): 384–396.
—— (1996) ‘‘Identity and Structural Change in International Politics,’’ in Y. Lapid
and F. Kratochwil (eds.) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, Boulder,
CO: Lynne Reiner Publishers.
—— (1999) Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
—— (2003) ‘‘Why a World State Is Inevitable,’’ European Journal of International
Relations, 9 (4): 491–542.
—— (2004) ‘‘The State as Person in International Theory,’’ Review of International
Studies, 30 (2): 289–316.
Wheeler, N.J. (1997) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention and World Politics,’’ in J. Baylis
and S. Smith (eds.) The Globalisation of World Politics: An Introduction to Inter-
national Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—— (2000) Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—— (2001) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo: Emergent Norm, Moral
Duty or the Coming Anarchy,’’ International Affairs, 77 (1): 113–128.
—— (2004) ‘‘The Humanitarian Responsibilities of Sovereignty: Explaining the
Development of a New Norm of Military Intervention for Humanitarian Purposs
in International Society,’’ in J. Welsh (ed.) Humanitarian Intervention and Interna-
tional Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wheeler, N.J. and Morris, J. (1996) ‘‘Humanitarian Intervention and State Power at
the End of the Cold War,’’ in R. Fawn and J. Larkins (eds.) International Society
after the Cold War: Anarchy and Order Reconsidered, London: Macmillan.
Whitlock, B. (1919) Belgium: A Personal Narrative, New York: Appleton.
Widmaier, W. (2004) ‘‘Theory as a Factor and the Theorist as an Actor: The ‘Prag-
matist-Constructivist’ Lessons of John Dewey and John Kenneth Galbraith,’’
International Studies Review, 6 (3): 427–446.
Wight, M. (1995) ‘‘Why Is There No International Theory?’’ in James der Derian
(ed.) International Theory Critical Investigations, New York: New York University
Press; originally published 1966.
Williams, B.A.O. (1993) Shame and Necessity, Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
Williams, M. (2005a) The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Bibliography 207
—— (2005b) ‘‘What Is the National Interest? The Neoconservative Challenge in IR
Theory,’’ European Journal of International Relations, 11 (3): 307–337.
Woodward, S. (2001) ‘‘Humanitarian War: A New Consensus?’’ Disasters, 25 (4):
331–344.
Yee, A.S. (1996) ‘‘The Causal Effect of Ideas on Policies,’’ International Organization,
50 (1): 69–108.
Young, A. (1995) The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Dis-
order, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Young, O. (2001) ‘‘Environmental Ethics in International Society,’’ in Jean-Marc
Coicaud and Daniel Warner (eds.) Ethics and International Affairs: Extent and
Limits, Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
Zehfuss, M. (2002a) Constructivism and International Relations, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
—— (2002b) ‘‘Kosovo and the Politics of Representation,’’ in P. van Ham and S.
Medvedev (eds.) Mapping European Security After Kosovo, Manchester, UK:
Manchester University Press.
Zeid, A.A.M. (1966) ‘‘Honour and Shame among the Bedouins of Egypt,’’ in J.G.
Peristiany (ed.) Honour and Shame, London: Trinity Press.
Zuckerman, L. (2004) The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I, New
York: New York University Press.
Index

abduction 8 Belgium 14, 15, 23–24; action as ‘Just

Abrams, E. 114, 115 War’ 105, 109–12; German
Adams, E.P. 90 ultimatum 95–96, 99–106; honor 59,
Adams, Karen Ruth 118 93, 97, 101–6, 112–13, 148;
affectual action 36–37, 43–44 independence of 98–99; material
agents 15–20, 60–63 capabilities 69–70; misperception of
aggregation 36, 37, 43, 58, 64 German threat 106–9; neutrality 98,
Albanians (Kosovo) 116–17, 123, 127, 100, 101, 107–8, 111; relationship
134, 139, 141, 142 with Germany 98–99, 100, 107, 111–
Albert I (of Belgium) 99, 100, 102, 103, 12; self-identity 101–3; self-
104, 107–8, 177n10 interrogative reflexivity 150; shame
Albertini, L. 104, 107, 108 13; sovereignty 98, 103–6; strategic
Albright, Madeleine 132, 133 arguments 10
Algeria 141 Bially-Mattern, Janice 158
altruism 32–33 Biersteker, Thomas 156, 157
American Civil War 13, 15, 76; British biographical narrative 10–12, 55–57,
neutrality 5, 10, 12, 23, 77–83, 148; 65, 123, 134–35; self-identity 10–12,
British ontological security 83–91; 50, 71–73; self-interrogative
self-interrogative reflexivity 150–51; reflexivity 150–63; and shame 52–55;
see also United States (US) social movements’ use of 152–53
Amette, Leon 105, 106 Blair, Tony 124, 126, 127–29, 130, 147
anarchy 27–28 Blaney, David 28
Ancient Greece 94–95 Blau, Peter M. 28
anxiety 82–83, 92, 126, 137; and blogs 159
discourse 60–63, 145–46; as identity Bonior, David 114, 115
challenge 51, 52; and threat 64, 71 Bosnia 5, 128, 129–31, 134, 138, 140
appeasement (World War II) 127–29 Bright, John 81
Arendt, Hannah 19 Britain 5, 14, 15, 42, 76; American Civil
artificial self 63 War, neutrality in 5, 10, 12, 23, 77–
Asquith, Herbert Henry 105 83, 148; American Civil War,
Athenian subjugation of the Melians ontological security perspective 83–
94–95 91, 92; Belgian action, World War I
99, 105, 107–8, 111; Kosovo 5, 120,
Bach, Jonathan 136, 139 121, 125, 126–31, 143; self-
Balfour, Arthur J. 105, 106, 111 interrogative reflexivity 150–51;
Barnett, Michael 154 shame 13, 127–31
Bauman, Zygmunt 64 Bukovansky, Mlada 29
Beck, Ulrich 150 Bull, Hedley 8, 27, 42, 51, 96, 98
being, and security 52 Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Edward 78
 Index 209
Bush administration (US) 16, 131, 143– cultural structure 27–30
44, 145, 158, 160
D’Alema, Massimo 143
Cafruny, Alan 119–20 D’Amico, Francine 122
Cairns, Douglas 97 Darfur 143, 144–46, 155
Cammaerts, E. 105 de Broqueville, Charles (Baron) 101–2,
Campbell, David 30–31, 41, 122, 123 104
Campbell, Lord 87–88 de Selliers de Moranville, Antonin
case studies, selection of 13–15 (General) 101, 109–10
case-narrative approach 8–9 Debras, Sylvie 140–41
Chamberlain, Neville 127 deconstruction 55–56, 65
Chechnya 69 democracy 41, 82, 85, 118, 154; belief
China 69, 119 in 160–61, 163; and self-identity 68,
Chirac, Jacques 124, 141–42 125, 143
Chomsky, Noam 71, 119 discourse 10–11, 29, 123–24; and
Christenssen, J.C. 105, 106 anxiety 60–63, 145–46; co-actor
Churchill, Winston 105, 106 discourse strategies 50, 74–75;
civil rights movement 153 insecurity 92, 145–46; reflexive 74–
Clark, Wesley 147 75, 127, 157–59; see also language
Clinton, Bill 115, 120, 124, 126, 128, discursive abilities 71
131–34, 135 discursive remorse 52
co-actor discourse strategies 50, 74–75 discursive representations 92
Cobden, Richard 81 discursive shame 128
Cold War 69 distanciation 54, 61–62, 65, 140
collective action 24, 32–35, 143, 148–49 domestic politics 117–18, 136–37
collective identity 22, 27–32, 97, 113, dread 61; see also anxiety
125–26, 143 drivers of events 72, 73
collective interest 1–2, 32–35 Drulak, Petr 150
collectivist states 43
Collingwood, R.G. 56 economic considerations 77, 79–81, 84,
Congo 119 99, 120
conscience 47 economic structuralist accounts 10
constructivism: environment 28–29; Edkins, Jenny 56–57
humanitarian actions 4, 24; Egeland, Jan 158
international organizations 27; moral Elman, C. 3
action 35, 43; power 7, 33; state Elshtain, J.B. 67–68
identity 16, 22, 55; survival motive 51 Emancipation Proclamation (EP) 23,
contingency 124, 149, 150, 164 76, 81–82, 148, 151; effect on British
continuity 7, 31, 81 ontological security 83–91, 92
conventional constructivism 28 emotion 16–17, 114–15
Cook, Robin 120, 128, 130 empathy 3–5
corporate identity 32–33 English School 14, 22, 27, 28;
Corzine, Jon 144–45 humanitarian actions 4, 24, 42, 120,
Cottam, Richard 107 125; states 18, 33, 35
cotton 77, 79–80, 84 environment 27–30, 33–34, 125
counterfactuals 13, 55, 89, 92, 111–12, ethics 6–7, 149
126 Europe 101, 103–4, 105–6, 141–42, 149
counter-narratives 24, 65, 152, 155–57, evil, measurement of 111–12
163 external honor 14, 96–97, 113; Belgian
Crawford, Neta 16, 74 59, 69–70, 101–6, 109, 148
credibility 119, 120–21
crisis assessment 23, 50, 68, 70–71, false self 63
133–34, 145 fear 51, 61, 64
critical situations 12–13, 73, 91 Fein, Clinton 159
210 Index
feminist theory 35–36, 66–67, 122–23 honor 2, 14, 38–40, 95, 96–98; Belgian
Ferrero, Gulielmo 105, 106 59, 93, 97, 101–6, 109, 112–13, 148;
Finley, John 14 external 14, 96–97, 103–6, 113;
Finnemore, Martha 4, 7, 8, 42–43, 154 internal 96–97, 101, 103, 113; and
Fischer, Joschka 138–39 International Relations (IR) 112–13
Foot, Rosemary 159–60 Howard, Michael 130–31
force 92, 140; see also violence human security 162
foreign policy 152, 153, 155, 161 humanitarian actions 2, 3–5, 41–44,
Fossum, Merle 53 123, 128, 149, 158; American Civil
Foucalt, M. 163 War 84–85; British response to
France: American Civil War 84, 86; Kosovo 5, 120, 121, 125, 126–31,
and Belgium 15, 95, 98, 99, 100, 102, 143; French response to Kosovo 121,
107–8; Kosovo intervention 121, 125, 125, 140–42; German response to
140–42; support for Europe 149 Kosovo 121, 125, 126–27, 135–40;
freedom 46, 61, 85, 88, 92 Italian response to Kosovo 121, 125,
Freeman, Mark 19–20, 56, 61 142–43; Kosovo intervention 15,
Frost, Mervyn 6, 28 116–17, 121–24, 127, 147; non-
governmental organizations (NGOs)
game theory 39 156; ontological security perspective
genocide 118, 129, 132, 144 124–27, 146–47; as rational actions
George, Alexander 51 22, 24, 27, 54, 122–23, 149; and self-
Germany: Belgian attitude to 98–99, identity 24, 115–16, 118, 120, 146–
100, 107, 111–12; discursive shame 47; and shame 53–54, 143–47; US
128; Kosovo 121, 125, 126–27, 135– response to Kosovo 5, 114–15, 118,
40; perception of threat from 106–9; 120–21, 125, 126–27, 131–35, 143
ultimatum 95–96, 99–106 Huysmans, Jeffrey 52, 57, 58, 64
Gibson, Hugh 103 Hymans, Paul 103, 104
Giddens, Anthony 10, 11–12, 28, 29,
62–63, 88; ontological security 50, ideational accounts 10
51; self-identity 2, 91, 118; shame 13, 53 identity costs 71, 126, 145, 146
Gilpin, Robert 52 illocutionary discourse 71–73
Gladstone, William 81, 82, 86, 87, 89 imperfect knowledge 106–9
global media: see media Inayatullah, Naem 28
Goffman, Erving 62 India 79
Grant, Ulysses S. 84 insecurity 48, 51, 52, 57, 64, 157; see
Great Britain: see Britain also ontological insecurity
Greeley, Horace 83, 86 institutions, form of 20–21
Griendl, Jules 102–3, 104, 108 instrumentally rational action 36–37,
guilt 53, 135–36, 140 43
Guzzini, S. 150 integrity 39
internal honor 96–97, 101, 103, 113
Haiti 114 international organizations 4–5, 24, 27,
Hall, Rod 20–22, 156, 157 152, 153–55, 156
hegemony 7, 69, 77, 80, 159 International Relations (IR): collective
Heidegger, M. 61 and self in 27–35; critical theory 63–
Heimann, Gadi 16–17 68; and honor 112–13; Kosovo
hermeneutic approach 6 intervention 117–21; meta-narratives
historicity 88 1–2, 160–63; and moral actions 35–
history 20, 55–57, 103 48; normative turn 26; and
Hitler, Adolf 127, 129, 136, 138, 139 ontological security 22–23, 25, 57–
Holbrooke, Richard 117 60, 63–68, 149, 163–64
Holocaust 5, 127, 128, 129, 135–36, international society 14, 27, 120
138, 140 international structures 27
interpretivist approach 6
 Index 211
intervention, and ontological security organizations 152, 154–55, 156; and
143–47 power 124–25, 151; of states 157; and
Iraq 16, 145, 160, 162, 189n8 ‘strangers’ 57, 64
irrational action 44, 114–15 Leopold II (of Belgium) 98–99
Ischinger, Wolfgang 139 levels of analysis (L.o.A.) 15–20, 26,
Italy 121, 125, 142–43 31–32
Lewis, George Cornewall 90
Jackson, Patrick 124, 125 liberalism 4, 16, 118, 154; British
Jackson, Robert 42 neutrality in American Civil War 81,
Jenkins, B. 85 82, 85
Jervis, Robert 107 Liberia 143–44, 145–46
Jospin, Lionel 140, 141 Lifton, Betty Jean 63
jus ad bellum 109–12, 149 Lifton, Robert Jay 48
Just War theory 95–96, 105, 109–12, 149 Lincoln, Abraham 81, 82, 83–84, 86,
87, 89, 148
Katsenstein, Peter 30 Lindsay, William 85–86
Kaufmann, Chaim 42 Lowenheim, Oded 16–17, 96
Kennan, George F. 41, 44 Lynch, Cecilia 153, 160
Keohane, Robert 51 Lyon, Phil 137
Kerry, John 144
Kierkegaard, Soren 61 Major, John 131
knowledge 150 Mandelbaum, Michael 123
Kosovo 15, 24, 116–17; British Manners, I. 58
response 5, 120, 121, 125, 126–31, mapping strategies 115
143; critical readings of 121–24; Mason, Marilyn 53
discursive shame 128; French material capabilities: ontological
response 121, 125, 140–42; German insecurity 93, 133; and self-identity 7,
response 121, 125, 126–27, 135–40; 50; and shame 69–71, 125–26, 131,
as humanitarian action 15, 43, 116– 145; traditional security 52
17, 121–24, 127, 147; IR perspective materialism 119–20
on intervention 117–21; Italian McDermott, Rose 16–17
response 121, 125, 142–43; language McSweeney, Bill 18, 51–52, 58
74; NATO response 5, 10, 13, 14, 24, Mearsheimer, John 51
117–24; non-governmental media: influence of 71, 127, 137, 140–
organizations (NGOs) 71; 41, 145–46; reflexive discourse 158–
ontological security perspective 124– 59; reflexive imaging 159–60; self-
27, 147; self-identity 24, 115–16, 118, interrogative reflexivity 24, 152, 155
120, 146–47; shame 24, 53–54, 126, Meeus, Adrian 111
127–40, 143–47; United States (US) Melian Dialogue 94–95
response 5, 114–15, 118, 120–21, 125, memory 17, 55–57
126–27, 131–35, 143 Mercer, Jonathan 16–17
Kratochwil, Friedrich 8–9, 33–34, 56 meta-narratives 1–2, 160–63
military 14, 21, 41, 71, 144, 146–47; and
Lafontaine, Oskar 136 state 45–46, 50, 149, 159–60; see also
Laing, R.D. 35, 48, 62, 63 American Civil War; Belgium; Kosovo
Lamizet, Bernard 140–41 Milliken, Jennifer 11
Lang, Anthony 18, 19, 146, 163 Milosevic, Slobodan 116; European
language 11–12, 72, 74; see also concerns 127, 128, 129, 130, 139;
discourse NATO 119, 120, 130, 147; United
learning 74, 134, 150 States (US) response 134
Lebow, Richard Ned 4, 14, 33, 40, 96– misperception 106–9
97, 112 Mitzen, Jennifer 17–18, 58–59, 60
legitimacy: in democracy 143; and moral action 2–4, 67, 111, 115; and
discourse 29; of international collective action 32–35; and
212 Index
International Relations (IR) 35–48; intervention 143–47; Kosovo
vs. selfish action 32, 44–48 intervention 124–27, 146–47;
moral authority 156–57 meaning of 51; meta-narratives 160–
moral community 53 63; and post-structuralism 63–66;
moral prestige 119 security interests 115, 121, 147, 148–
morality 22, 26, 40–44, 61, 119, 164 49; of states 15–20, 34–35, 68–75; vs.
Morelli, Umberto 121 traditional security 50–57 see also
Morgenthau, Hans 9, 19, 44–45, 119, security
161 Onuf, Nicholas 7, 72, 121
motives of state behaviour 2, 6–7, 9–10 Operation Allied Force 116, 122, 125,
multilateralism 1–2 143; see also Kosovo
order 8, 28
narrative 57, 123–24, 137; and organized hypocrisy 69
ontological security 17, 19–20; of the other, vs. self 30–32, 34–35
Self 31–32, 58, 118; see also outcomes 52
biographical narrative; counter- Owen, John 81, 82, 85
narratives Owsley, Frank 79
national debate 90–91
national identity 57, 63–68 Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd
national interest 16, 41–44, 50, 150, Viscount (Lord) 78–79, 89, 92
169n22 Pape, Robert 42
nation-state 63–64, 161–63 patriotism 38
NATO intervention in Kosovo 5, 10, Peloponnesian War 94–95
13, 14, 24, 117–24; discursive shame perceptions 85
128; international context 148; performative language 72
ontological security perspective 124– Peristiany, J.G. 96
27, 146–47; reconceptualization of perlocutionary discourse 74–75
identity 21; self-interrogative Peterson, Spike 66–67
reflexivity 150; see also Kosovo Peterson, V. 115
neoclassical realism 119 Philippines 131
neoconservatism 16, 162 photographs 159
neoliberalism 16, 22, 119 physical security 32, 151–52
neorealism 16, 22, 44, 108, 118 plausibility 71
nested community arguments 125 pluralism 42
Neumann, Iver 31, 123–24 policy choices 71, 72, 73, 143, 152
Niebuhr, Reinhold 59, 151, 161; moral political influences 143, 146
action 36, 37, 45, 46–48; social political science 15–20
theory 22, 26, 27, 43–44 positivist fallacy 81
non-conformism 47 post-modernism 121–22
non-governmental organizations post-structuralism 55, 63–66
(NGOs) 24, 65, 71, 74, 152, 155–57 Powell, Colin (Powell Doctrine) 144
norms 27–30, 38, 43 power 7, 9, 110, 119, 164; legitimacy
124–25, 151; relative 14, 66, 118
Offer, Anver 39 Power, Samantha 118, 123
O’Neill, Barry 39 prediction of future behaviour 8
ontological insecurity 57, 126–27; prestige 119, 177n10
discourse 5, 50, 145–46; reflexivity principles 26, 38
24, 93; state capabilities 70, 133–34 private vs. public separation 66–68
ontological security 2–5, 7, 10–15, 17; prospective shame 13, 55, 89–90, 138
British neutrality in American Civil psychology 15–20
War 83–91; corporate identity 32; public opinion 117–18, 140
and deconstruction 55–56; and public vs. private separation 66–68
International Relations (IR) 22–23,
25, 57–60, 63–68, 149, 163–64; queueing, between actors 75
 Index 213
Ramet, Sabrina 137 behaviour 8, 21; of Self 48, 51, 65,
rational action 9, 16–17, 35–38, 66–67, 67, 68; self-identity 34, 50–57; self-
117; Belgium, World War I 96, 100, interrogative reflexivity 151–53; see
106–9, 112; evaluation of 109, 112; also ontological security; traditional
humanitarian actions 22, 24, 27, 54, security
122–23, 149; and morality 40, 43–44; Self 20, 60–63, 140; morality 32, 44–48;
and self-identity 27, 43–44, 45, 115– narrative of 31–32, 118; vs. other 30–
16, 138 32, 34–35; security of 48, 51, 65, 67,
rationalization of decisions 44, 100, 68
106–9, 149 self interest, vs. collective interest 1–2
realism 8, 40–41, 50–51, 58–59, 78–79, self-categorization 30
119 self-concepts 3
reason 37–38 self-identity 2–3, 5, 21–22, 65, 122, 123;
recognition 32 Belgian honor and 101–3;
reflexive capabilities 50, 69–70, 93 biographical narrative 10–12, 50, 71–
reflexive discourse 74–75, 127, 157–59 73; British neutrality in American
reflexive imaging 159–60 Civil War 85, 91, 92–93; and
reflexive routines 61 collective action 24, 143, 148–49; and
reflexivity 17, 127, 150; see also self- collective identity 27–32, 143; costs
interrogative reflexivity 71, 126, 145, 146; crisis assessment
relationships 58–60 70–71; democracy 68, 125, 143; and
remorse 13; see also shame humanitarian actions 24, 115–16,
research agenda 20–22 118, 120, 146–47; internal honor 97;
resources: see material capabilities Kosovo 24, 115–16, 118, 120, 142,
responsibility 42 146–47; material capabilities 7, 50; of
retrospective shame 55, 138 opinion leaders 17; rational action
Rice, C. 44 27, 43–44, 45, 115–16, 138; and role
Ricoeur, P. 61 29–30; and security 34, 50–57; self-
rigid routines 60, 61 interrogative reflexivity 150–63;
Risse, Thomas 74 shame 13, 52–55; social construction
Robertson, George 128, 129, 147 65; of states 19, 30–32, 33, 35, 44–48,
Rock, Stephen 80 49, 91; suicidal tendencies 113;
role-identities 29–30 threats 12–13, 49, 51, 152; violence
Ropp, Stephen C. 74 63–64
routines 3, 52, 58, 60–61, 65, 90 self-interest 5, 16, 32–35, 38, 41–48, 138
rules 26, 38 self-interrogative reflexivity 24, 149–51;
Russell, John (Lord) 77, 81, 86, 87–89, constitutive conditions of 152–57;
90, 92 meta-narratives 160–63; physical
Russia 69, 78, 98, 108, 119, 142 insecurity 151–52; strategies for
Rwanda 5, 114, 128, 131–35, 143, 144– stimulating 157–60
46, 166n10 Serbians, in Kosovo 116–17, 124, 134,
148
sacrifice 110–11 Seward, William 79, 84
Sanki, Michael 129 shame 3, 13, 40, 62, 65, 70, 95;
Scharping, Rudolf 136, 138 biographical narrative 52–55; ‘blame
Schelling, Thomas 9 game’ 60, 130, 132; British neutrality
scholarship, influence of 160–64 in American Civil War 13, 88, 92;
Schollaert, Frans 102 and guilt 53, 135–36; and history 55–
Schroeder, Gerhard 128, 136–39 57; images 159–60; vs. intervention
security 45, 50, 52, 57, 162; 143–47; Kosovo 24, 53–54, 126, 127–
biographical narrative 72–73; 40, 143–47; and material capabilities
military influence 41, 146, 149; 69–71, 125–26, 131, 145; and
ontological 50–57, 115, 121, 147, memory 55–57; prospective shame
148–49; prediction of future 13, 55, 89–90, 138; public vs. private
214 Index
separation 67–68; and self-identity Thoreau, Henry David 49
13, 52–55 threats 57, 64, 71, 157, 161–63; see also
Shinko, Rosemary 121–22 fear
Sierra Leone 119 Thucydides 94–95
signaling, between actors 75 Tibet 69
slave trade 77, 81–83, 85, 92 Tickner, J.A. 66, 67
Smith, Steve 160 Tilly, Charles 63
Snyder, Jack 71 torture 159, 162
social action 26–27, 35–48 traditional action 36–37, 43
social collective identity 20–21 traditional security 9, 50–57, 78, 142;
social construction 19, 63–65 see also security
social environment 4–5, 99 transnational actor counter-narratives
social grace 39 24, 152, 155–57
social identity 30, 32–33, 97 traumatic experiences 57
social movements 24, 152–53
social norms 27–30, 38, 43 unilateralism 1–2
social relationships 58–60 United Kingdom (UK) 128; see also
solidarists 4, 22, 24, 42 Britain
Somalia 114, 133 United Nations (UN) 117, 119, 132
sovereignty 103–6, 111, 122 United States (US) 1–2, 5, 16, 71, 153,
specter images 122, 127, 129, 138 158; Iraq 162–63; Kosovo 5, 114–15,
speech: see discourse 118, 120–21, 125, 126–27, 131–35,
stability 121 143; material capabilities 69; national
state agents 18–20 interest 169n22; reflexive imaging
states 32, 43, 65, 104, 122, 146, 152; 159; shame 128, 131–35, 143; see also
agents as states 18–20; behaviour American Civil War
prediction 164; insecurity 52; legitimacy
157; as level of analysis (L.o.A) 15– value-rational action 36–37, 43
20; military influence 45–46, 50, 149, values 125
159–60; morality 22, 40–41, 44–48, van den Heuvel, Jules 101
61; ontological security 15–20, 34– Vane Tempest, George (Lord) 85, 86
35, 68–75; ontological vs. traditional Védrine, Hubert 141
security 50–57; political influences Verstehen approach 6
143, 146; security-seeking behaviours Vietnam 71
68–75; self-identity 19, 30–32, 33, 35, violence 63–64, 93, 122, 159, 162; see
44–48, 49, 91; survival of 161–63; also force
violence 63–64; see also agents
Sterling-Folker, J. 119 Waltz, Kenneth 50–51, 108
‘strangers’ 57, 64 war 63–64, 77, 122–23, 162; see also
strategic arguments 9–10, 80 American Civil War; World War I
structurationist-constructivism 7 We, vs. Them 32
structure 27–30, 52, 108–9 Weber, Max 22, 26, 36–37, 43–44
success 109–12 Weldes, Jutta 69, 70
Sullivan, Andrew 159 well-being 39
survival motive 50–51, 52, 95–96, 108– Wellstone, Paul 114, 115
9, 112, 161–63 Wendt, Alexander 15, 28, 32–33, 43, 51,
symbols, and honor 39 57, 59–60
Wheeler, Nicholas 4, 42, 118, 125, 147
Taliaferro, J.W. 121 Wilhelm II (of Germany) 98–99, 102
Tarrow, Sidney 153 Williams, Michael 16, 28, 44
Taylor, Peter 81, 85, 86 Woeste, Charles 102, 103
terrorist organizations 65, 155, 157, Woodward, Susan 71
158, 159, 162 World War I 5, 13, 98–99; Belgian
Them, vs. We 32 action as ‘Just War’ 109–12; Belgian
 Index 215
perception of threat 106–9; German Young, Allan 53
ultimatum 99–106
World War II 5, 127–29, 135–36, 140, Zehfuss, Maja 123–24, 135–36, 138
141 Zeid, Abou A.M. 113

Yee, Albert 72