Language, Agency, and Politics in a Constructed WorldFrançois Debrix 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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Page xii
... speak about language and post - positivism beyond labels and catchwords , this volume also attempts to offer a wide array of linguistic approaches , of definitions / interpretations of language , and of understandings of what ...
... speak about language and post - positivism beyond labels and catchwords , this volume also attempts to offer a wide array of linguistic approaches , of definitions / interpretations of language , and of understandings of what ...
Page xv
... speaking of and about language beyond disciplinary labels . The first section of the volume ends with a chapter by Kennan Ferguson titled " Three Ways of Spilling Blood . " This chapter's critical impulse ( as well as its title ) is ...
... speaking of and about language beyond disciplinary labels . The first section of the volume ends with a chapter by Kennan Ferguson titled " Three Ways of Spilling Blood . " This chapter's critical impulse ( as well as its title ) is ...
Page 5
... speak as one voice , that they have one single language ? ( Ruggie 1998b , 35 ) . In this chapter , my intent is to present the impact of nonfoundationalist thinking on language as it is used in IR . But I also want to provide a counter ...
... speak as one voice , that they have one single language ? ( Ruggie 1998b , 35 ) . In this chapter , my intent is to present the impact of nonfoundationalist thinking on language as it is used in IR . But I also want to provide a counter ...
Page 6
... speak of performativity , they do not mean the same thing when using the term . By referring to performativity , constructivists assume that the speaker of the word is the performer , and language remains this performer's tool . As such ...
... speak of performativity , they do not mean the same thing when using the term . By referring to performativity , constructivists assume that the speaker of the word is the performer , and language remains this performer's tool . As such ...
Page 8
... speaking human subject either . Although pronounced by the human agent , the agent does not master language either . This apparent paradox is resolved once one understands that language , like the deed , is neither fully self - willed ...
... speaking human subject either . Although pronounced by the human agent , the agent does not master language either . This apparent paradox is resolved once one understands that language , like the deed , is neither fully self - willed ...
Contents
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 |
Common terms and phrases
action actors Adenauer African agents Aideed Aideed's American analysis Arendt argue assertion Belgrade Bellicosity Bosnia British Cambridge chapter China claims Cold War collective identity colonial concept concursive conflict consciousness constituted constructed Constructed World constructivism constructivist constructivist analysis context Croatia cultural Davidson debate deeds Derrida discourse essay ethnic European Fierke Florida International University foreign policy French German Germany's global human humanitarian institutions intention international politics international relations interpretation intervention Konrad Adenauer language language games language-power linguistic turn logic meaning military moral narrative Nicholas Onuf nonfoundationalist nonviolence normative objects Onuf's performativity philosophy phrases-in-dispute political agency positivist post-positivist postcolonial postcolonial critics poststructuralism poststructuralist practices problem question realist reality representational force reverse ethnography role rules scholars Schumacher Searle semantics sense sentence Serbs social Somalia Special Relationship speech acts strategies structure Suez crisis theory Todorov understanding United Nations University Press utterance Wendt Western Wittgenstein words
Popular passages
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...