Ontological Security and Status-Seeking
Ontological Security and Status-Seeking

Author: Peera Charoenvattananukul

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-01-09

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1000028011

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How and why was it possible for a small state such as Thailand to challenge great powers France and Japan during the Second World War? Putting ontological security theory into dialogue with status seeking approaches, Charoenvattananukul uses a case study of Thailand in the early 1940s to interrogate the dynamics and logic of a small state foreign policy. During this period, Thailand’s foreign policy can appear to be surprising, if viewed through a lens of survival imperatives which would assume that passivity towards more powerful states is the optimal policy. As the majority of states are small- and medium-sized it is very important to understand the imperatives that drive such states, especially in their interactions with great powers. In applying these frameworks to a small state, this book makes a unique and valuable contribution to the field of international relations theory. It will also be of great interest to scholars of twentieth century Thai history and of the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War.

Order, Contestation and Ontological Security-Seeking in the South China Sea
Order, Contestation and Ontological Security-Seeking in the South China Sea

Author: Anisa Heritage

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-01-22

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 3030348075

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This book examines the South China Sea territorial disputes from the perspective of international order. The authors argue that both China and the US are attempting to impose their respective preferred orders to the region and that the observed disputes are due to the clash of two competing order-building projects. Ordering the maritime space is essential for these two countries to validate their national identities and to achieve ontological security. Because both are ontological security-seeking states, this imperative gives them little room for striking a grand bargain between them. The book focuses on how China and the US engage in practices and discourses that build, contest, and legitimise the two major ordering projects they promote in the region. It concludes that China must act in its legitimation strategy in accordance with contemporary publicly accepted norms and rules to create a legitimate maritime order, while the US should support ASEAN in devising a multilateral resolution of the disputes.

Ontological Security in International Relations
Ontological Security in International Relations

Author: Brent J. Steele

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-03-10

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 113598008X

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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 behaviour (moral, humanitarian, and honour-driven) are analyzed here through an ontological security approach. Brent J. Steele develops an account of social action which interprets these behaviours 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 he posits that transformational possibilities exist in the ‘Self’ of a nation-state. The volume 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. Ontological Security in International Relations will be of particular interest to students and researchers of international politics, international ethics, international relations and security studies.

Conflict Resolution and Ontological Security
Conflict Resolution and Ontological Security

Author: Bahar Rumelili

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1317750160

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This volume highlights the ways in which the prospect of peace can generate anxieties and consequently set in motion social and political processes that reproduce and reactivate conflicts. In analysing this issue, the volume builds on the notion of ontological security and its recent applications to international relations theory. Although conflicts threaten the physical security of the parties involved, they also help settle existential questions about basic parameters of life, being, and identity, and thus over time become sources of ontological security. The prospect of peace, through the resolution or transformation of conflict, threatens to unsettle the stability and consistency of self-narratives, and their associated routines and habits at the individual, group, and state levels. The contributors argue two key points: 1) that ontological insecurity may set in motion political and social processes that reproduce and reactivate conflicts; 2) that coping with peace anxieties necessitates the formulation of alternative self-narratives at the individual, societal, and state levels that re-situate the Self in relation to Other and to the world at large. Consequently, the book analyses the ways in which, and the conditions under which, conflict resolution induces ontological insecurity, and the different ways in which ontological insecurity has prevented the successful culmination of peace processes in different conflict contexts, including Cyprus, Israel-Palestine and Northern Ireland. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, conflict resolution, peace and conflict studies, social theory and IR in general.

Putting the Ontological Back into Ontological Security
Putting the Ontological Back into Ontological Security

Author: Meredydd Rix

Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications

Published: 2021-03-22

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 2940600244

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This study sets out to do two things. Firstly, it seeks to contribute to the burgeoning literature on ontological security in International Relations (IR)... Secondly, I hope to say something about Indian nationalism by making the case for Bangladesh’s importance in the project of nation-curation. I show how the uncodability of the Bangladeshi migrant and the Indian citizen presents an ontological threat to the Indian nation, portending an implosion of selfhood by undermining claims to an ontic reality for something called the Indian nation...

Globalization and Religious Nationalism in India
Globalization and Religious Nationalism in India

Author: Catarina Kinnvall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-01-24

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 113413570X

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This book develops an interesting angle on a recognised issue of concern not just in the politics of South Asia, but much more broadly in the context of the contemporary world and developing global politics It explores the key contemporary issue of religious nationalism using a new approach: based on political psychology It will appeal to scholars and students of political sciences, IR, sociology, religious studies and social psychology as well as to those interested specifically in Indian politics

The Power of Deterrence
The Power of Deterrence

Author: Amir Lupovici

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-09

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 110714339X

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Argues that states' attachment to the strategy of deterrence can increase the chances of violence rather than avoid it.

Memory and Trauma in International Relations
Memory and Trauma in International Relations

Author: Erica Resende

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1134692889

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This work seeks to provide a comprehensive and accessible survey of the international dimension of trauma and memory and its manifestations in various cultural contexts. Drawing together contributions and case studies from scholars around the globe, the book explores the international political dimension of feeling, suffering, forgetting, remembering and memorializing traumatic events and to investigate how they function as social practices for overcoming trauma and creating social change. Divided into two sections, the book maps out the different theoretical debates and then moves on to examine emerging themes such as ontological security, social change, gender, religion, foreign policy & natural disasters. Throughout the chapters, the editors consider the social, political and ethical implications of forgetting and remembering traumatic events in world politics Showcasing how trauma and memory deepen our understanding of IR, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, memory and trauma studies and security studies.

The Constitution of Society
The Constitution of Society

Author: Anthony Giddens

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-06-28

Total Pages: 585

ISBN-13: 0745665284

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Anthony Giddens has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade. In The Constitution of Society he outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form. A particular feature is Giddens's concern to connect abstract problems of theory to an interpretation of the nature of empirical method in the social sciences. In presenting his own ideas, Giddens mounts a critical attack on some of the more orthodox sociological views. The Constitution of Society is an invaluable reference book for all those concerned with the basic issues in contemporary social theory.

Status and the Rise of Brazil
Status and the Rise of Brazil

Author: Paulo Esteves

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-07

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 3030216608

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This book explores the evolution of Brazilian foreign relations in the last fifteen years, with a focus on continuities and change. The volume tackles three sets of themes: diplomacy and diplomatic culture, international security and international development cooperation. Central to these themes is how they all relate to Brazil’s international status, and its quest for higher standing. The authors draw on a wide variety of methodologies to grapple with the subject matter, from diplomatic history to international sociology and postcolonial studies. The result is a combination of different approaches that seek to account for the foreign relations of Brazil.