Language, Agency, and Politics in a Constructed World

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François Debrix
M.E. Sharpe, May 29, 2003 - Language Arts & Disciplines
Language matters in international relations. Constructivists have contributed the insight that global politics is shaped by the way agents narrate history and produce discourses about themselves and about the world. This insight has induced a profound reexamination of assumptions in the study of international relations.

The contributors to this volume examine (Part I) the critical linguistic/discursive techniques of postmodernists and constructivists, and apply them (Part II) to international relations.

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Contents

Language Nonfoundationalism International Relations
3
Parsing Personal Identity Self Other Agent
26
Constructivist International Relations Theory and the Semantics of Performative Language
50
Breaking the Silence Language and Method in International Relations
66
Three Ways of Spilling Blood
87
Language Agency and Politics Cases and Applications
99
Real Interdependence Discursivity and Concursivity in International Politics
101
Criticism and Form Speech Acts Normativity and the Postcolonial Gaze
121
The Difference that LanguagePower Makes Solving the Puzzle of the Suez Crisis
143
Conflicting Narratives Conflicting Moralities The United Nations and the Failure of Humanitarian Intervention
171
Language Rules and Order The Westpolitik Debate of Adenauer and Schumacher
196
Ce nest pas une GuerreThis Is Not a War The International Language and Practice of Political Violence
220
Bibliography
247
About the Editor and Contributors
273
Index
277
Copyright

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Page 33 - I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places...
Page 35 - I" is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others, the "me" is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes. The attitudes of the others constitute the organized "me," and then one reacts toward that as an "I.
Page 43 - As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, tis to be considered, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal identity. Had we no memory we never should have any notion of causation, nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects which constitute our self or person.
Page 54 - If sentences depend for their meaning on their structure, and we understand the meaning of each item in the structure only as an abstraction from the totality of sentences in which it features, then we can give the meaning of any sentence (or word) only by giving the meaning of every sentence (and word) in the language.
Page 118 - The State and/or company must abandon the idealist and humanist narratives of legitimation in order to justify the new goal: in the discourse of today's financial backers of research, the only credible goal is power. Scientists, technicians, and instruments are purchased not to find truth, but to augment power.
Page 28 - So that a person is the same that an actor is, both on the stage and in common conversation; and to personate is to act...
Page 25 - The name is derived, of course, from 'perform', the usual verb with the noun 'action': it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action — it is not normally thought of as just saying something.
Page 86 - Giving orders and obeying them Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements Constructing an object from a description (a drawing) Reporting an event Speculating about an event Forming and testing a hypothesis Presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams Making up a story; and reading it Play-acting Singing catches Guessing riddles Making a joke; telling it Solving a problem in practical arithmetic Translating from one language into another Asking, thanking,...
Page 110 - Postmodernism is what you have when the modernization process is complete and nature is gone for good.
Page 86 - Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others: Giving orders, and obeying them Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements...

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