State Sovereignty and Intervention

A Discourse Analysis of Interventionary and Non-Interventionary Practices in Kosovo and Algeria

Helle Malmvig

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781134163069
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This new volume shows how state sovereignty is more fluid and contested than is usually appreciated within both conventional and constructivist literature.

Whereas previous constructivist works have investigated the temporal contingency of state sovereignty, the spatial contingency of this concept has been neglected. This book tackles this situation, showing the reader how the meaning of state sovereignty was constituted differently in the case of the intervention in Kosovo and the case of non-intervention in Algeria in the late 1990s.

This essential study clearly and concisely:

• takes existing constructivist and poststructuralist work on state sovereignty one step further, arguing that state sovereignty not only is open to different constructions over time, but also across space
• probes further into the conceptual relationships between sovereignty/ intervention, arguing that legitimations of non-intervention also can be analyzed as a practice, which gives meaning and content to the concept of state sovereignty
• contributes to the emerging debate on the importance of 'methodology' in constructivist studies, turning the philosophical and meta-theoretical assumptions of constructivism and poststructuralism into an informed 'analytical strategy' guiding the book's empirical discourse analysis.

1
Sovereignty as discourse

This book approaches state sovereignty as a discursive practice rather than an already given entity in the world. It seeks to answer how state sovereignty is granted meaning rather than what state sovereignty is, and the focus therefore shifts from an essentialist question of being to a constructivist question of becoming.

Below I will spell out some of the main epistemological and ontological assumptions linked to this proposition and question. Yet, one will not find a lengthy justification of the poststructuralist position, since this book does not aim to bring new insights to the field of International Relations through a philosophical critique of the foundationalist theories that flourish within it.¹

Instead, this chapter will devote considerable space to a discussion of three existing poststructuralist works on state sovereignty: Walker, Bartelson, and Weber.² It will show how the concept of sovereignty is progressively opened up in time by the three authors, but that the full implications of their analyses have not been explored, since they have not examined the contingency of sovereignty in both time and space. In short, the extensive review is to highlight how the problématique of this book builds on, but also adds to previous poststructuralist studies. Simultaneously, this account will serve to illustrate how the three scholars employ the concepts and insights of particularly Foucault and Derrida in practice, and what the analytical consequences of this are.

The chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part some of the basic epistemological and ontological assumptions that guide this book will be addressed. In the second part I will briefly turn to the reception of poststructuralism within the discipline of International Relations, focusing in particular on questions of methodology. On this basis, the third part will turn to the discussion and critique of the three major poststructuralist works on sovereignty.

From reality to discourse

Turning to the first question: why should state sovereignty be studied as a discursive practice, rather than as an objective reality; as a question of how it is spoken of, rather than what it is? The short and declamatory answer is that state sovereignty cannot be investigated independently of our theories, language, thoughts and practices. We cannot know, define or grasp the reality of sovereignty from a position prior to, or outside of, our appropriations and interpretations. Sovereignty is nothing in itself before speech and practice. Moving from a question of being to a question of becoming, thus, means that one studies how state sovereignty is practised and spoken of, rather than what the reality and essence of sovereignty is, or might be. It implies that state sovereignty is approached as a historical and ongoing practice – always in the making – rather than as an already fixed and ahistorical entity. Accordingly, one will not find a definition of state sovereignty within this book. Not only because this would evade the historicity of state sovereignty – as Nietzsche so famously argued, “only that which has no history can be defined” – but also because this book claims that state sovereignty’s meaning has not changed “merely” over time (Nietzsche 1956:212). Even within the same time, multiple meanings and usages of state sovereignty coexist. By making a prior definition of sovereignty I would hence close, on the level of definition, that very object which this book intends to study.

From the contention that the world – for example, state sovereignty –is only present to us and only becomes intelligible through discourse, it does not, however, follow that the world does not exist independently of language and thought. The rather different assertion is that the world (reality) cannot be accessed, understood or rendered meaningful in the absence of speech and interpretation and that reality therefore ceases to constitute an already given empirical referent which knowledge and truth must correspond and refer to. Thus, the poststructuralist assertion is not – at least in the version of this book – that, for instance, “the Holocaust” or “the Gulf War” did not happen, but that we can only know what the Holocaust is through discourse. The Holocaust, to put it bluntly, does not entail any meaning or being before articulations, but comes into being through articulations. As Laclau and Mouffe often are quoted:

The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing to do with whether there is a world external to thought, or with the realism/ idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now, independently of my will. But whether their specificity as objects is constructed in terms of natural phenomena or expressions of the wrath of God depends upon the structuring of a discursive field.

(Laclau and Mouffe 1985:108)

Similarly, whether the Gulf War constituted an attempt to create a new world order, to protect the territorial integrity of Kuwait from aggression, or to secure the West’s strategic interest in the Middle East; which kind of subjects (the international community, neo-colonial imperialists, or a new hegemonic superpower) were involved; with which motivations, interest and intentions this subject acted; and how “we” – for instance, International Relations scholars – are able to know and assess these motivations and justifications distinguishing them, for instance, from rhetoric and manipulations, is – just as in the case of the earthquake – dependent on how the Gulf War has been and continues to be discursively structured and restructured. This does not imply that discourse is to be equated with mere opinions or ideas. Neither is discourse to be seen as synonymous with language as a signifying tool.

What then is to be understood by the concept of discourse? Albeit no unanimous definition exists, it seems fair to claim that discourse is generally taken to denote an order, or a field, that makes specific beings and practices intelligible and knowledgeable, and makes us who we are, and what we do and think (see, for example, Foucault 1984b; Milliken 1999; Åkerstrøm Andersen 2002; Simons 1995). Or more specifically along the Foucauldian definition, a discourse is a group of statements, which govern the production of objects, concepts and subjects (Foucault 1972). Thus, a given discourse orders the production of a number of subject positions, which grants individuals or groups a position to speak authoritatively and meaningfully about certain objects and concepts and delineates these individuals as acting and wilful subjects. For instance, discourses on international politics typically organize the production of sovereign states, diplomats, heads of states or international organizations as purposeful and acting subjects who are allowed to act and speak about certain objects and concepts, for instance, war, peace and cooperation. Yet, these subjects cannot speak in any way they like if their statements are to be taken seriously. A discourse will similarly entail criteria, which makes it possible to differentiate between, for instance, true and false, normative and objective, invalid and valid, absurd and reasonable statements (Foucault 1972:115). To use an example from the chapter on Algeria, not just any kind of propositions were taken to be legitimate when Western leaders, officials, commentators and intellectuals were speaking about the Algerian crisis. Notably, a sharp boundary was drawn between judgemental/punitive enunciations on the one hand, and empathetic and understanding enunciations on the other. One had to speak in terms of the latter rather than in terms of the former, if statements were not to be disregarded and rejected as improper and untimely.

To counter a common (mis)perception, it should hence be emphasized that studying the world as discourse does not imply that the world can simply be constructed in a different image according to our instrumental preferences or aesthetic likings. As Negri and Hardt also caution, having recognized that identities are contingent and arbitrary constructs does not mean that they evaporate into thin air. “They are real illusions and continue to function as if they were essential” (Hardt and Negri 2000:129). To argue that the world is discursively constructed does not mean that we willingly and self-consciously can make up, for instance, alternative subject positions. For example, a housewife will not easily be accepted as an acting subject in international politics nor as an authoritative speaker on the object of International Relations. Similarly, showing that, for instance, national interest is a discursive construction does not imply that the very concept of interest ceases to constrain how we can talk, know and practise international politics. Poststructuralists, in other words, view the world as relatively rule-bound and regulated. Albeit knowledge and identities always are, in principle, regarded as contingent and arbitrary, which specific identities an individual might occupy in a given situation, or which kinds of statements that are accepted as meaningful are relatively restricted (Jørgensen and Phillips 1999:14). Discourses set specific limits for being and knowledge; limits for what we can possibly think, say and do, and who this “we” might be. Studying discourse is, hence, in this Foucauldian version, a matter of identifying those conditions of possibilities under which we can say, think and do, as we do, of analysing and reflecting upon the limits of being and knowing (Foucault 1984b, 1972).

Yet, in contrast to Kant, Foucault – and poststructuralists in general – do not view these limits as necessary, transcendental or universal, but as contingent, open and historically produced. This is one of poststructuralists’ most crucial points. It makes it possible to show how what we presently take for granted has been different, how the world is open to various discursive fixations and how we have thought differently about, for instance, health, punishment, international politics or state sovereignty. This in itself constitutes a political intervention and a specific form of critique.³ As Johnson explains in Derrida’s Disseminations:

The critique reads back from what seems natural, obvious self-evident or universal, in order to show that these things have their history, their reasons for being the way they are, their effects on what follows from them, and that the starting point is not a (natural) given but a (cultural) construct, usually blind to itself.

(Johnson in Derrida 1981: xvi)

This type of critique should, however, not be seen as yet another attempt to transcend discursive limits, or as a new form of ideology critique where only the poststructuralist analyst seemingly is able to access the truth and disclose the hidden workings of power. The analyst does not stand in a point outside of, or “uncontaminated” by, discourse. Poststructuralists rather work with and use the concepts of discourses, operating on the border of our historical constructions. No attempts are made to transgress what is said, thought and done, or to dominate the said from an exterior sovereign position. It is not a matter of creating an exterior space from where the schisms of modernity can be evaluated, criticized or escaped. Whether in the form of “Derridean deconstruction” or of “Foucauldian discourse analysis”, such textual strategies do not claim to hold a privileged access to the world. They do not attempt to evaluate the truth and rightness of competing representations or to disclose particular discourses as rhetoric or fraud. As Derrida emphasized:

We have no language – no syntax and no lexicon – which is foreign to this history: we can pronounce not a single deconstructive proposition which has not already had to slip into the form, the logic and the implicit postulations of precisely what it seeks to contest.

(Derrida 1978:280)

Hence, poststructuralism does not offer a new solution or foundation upon which we can be directed to better policies or proceed towards a superior version of the world.⁴ Walker’s analysis of sovereignty, as we will see on p. 12, is a good example of how a poststructuralist reading can unravel the conceptual linkages between sovereignty and the core concepts of International Relations. Walker shows how the conceptualization of sovereignty has profound consequences for the way we perceive politics and identity, but his analysis cannot escape or transcend itself (for example, by pointing to alternative forms of political organization than the sovereign state).

While poststructuralists, thus, depart from the modern foundations of Enlightenment, they do not offer a new (postmodern) safe haven, from where we can point to new directions and redeem modernity’s promises of freedom, truth and emancipation.⁵ This has often led to accusations of political nihilism and scientific relativism. Yet, emphasizing the contingency and discontinuity of our historical constructs, pointing to the politics involved in what often appear as innocent and self-evident discursive practices – be they scientific discourses, the drawing of a map, or legitimations of intervention – do not necessarily lead to a blasé posture of indifference. Poststructuralist studies may make us less prone to accept self-evident truths and the powerful invocations of the good, the moral, the true and the right – this often is referred to as the nihilistic or relativistic side of poststructuralism – but the other side of that coin should be underscored as well. If we believe, as Torfing has emphasized, that

what is ethically good or morally right is guaranteed by God, rationality or the essence of Man, we might be less inclined to participate actively in the preservation of those ethical and moral values than if we realized that only our responsible defence of what is good and right will ensure the persistence of our ethical and moral standards.

(Torfing 1999:288)

Or as Ole Wæver has argued with reference to Nietzsche – the supposed nihilism of Nietzsche does not equate to “demolishing values”. Rather, since “there is no stable foundation for given values … we must create values” (Wæver 1989b: 40).

The implication of “constructivism” is, in other words, itself a source of construction! The consequences of the disappearances of any assured foundations is itself a matter of interpretation and appropriations, which can equally turn into despair and passivity as rejoicing and activism. Without taking a grand detour into the Habermas/Foucault debate, I will argue that Habermas’ critique of Foucault and poststructuralists in general is conditioned on this grand contention of Enlightenment, which tells us that political activism and critique must be based on a solid foundation of universal moral and communicative reason. Without it, Habermas cannot contemplate any reason “to take up the fight”, or engage in academic practices. The absence of safe foundations must translate into paralysis and indifference (Habermas 1987:287; see also Simons 1995:110–16; Campbell 1998b: 502).⁶ Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982:95) surprisingly voice a somewhat similar critique, arguing that Foucault’s archaeological description of discourses “prevents him from offering any account of which social issues should be taken seriously and what might be done about them. Archaeology … can never enter the debates which rage around the moments it studies”. Foucault and Derrida are, however, both good examples of poststructuralists who personally took the latter consequence of “constructivism”, working for prison reforms, Médecins sans Frontières, the rights of Algerian immigrants in France and Czech Charter 77 dissidents, and against apartheid in South Africa (see also Campbell 1998b). Although this book does not, and has no intentions of, providing a manual for political action or a safe foundation upon which the truth or rightness of prevailing discourses can be judged, the political is not absent or removed from the analysis. I do not offer any policy advice or normative prescriptions; neither do I draw lessons from Kosovo, nor evaluate the legitimacy of intervention and non-intervention. Yet the analysis of the discourses on Kosovo and Algeria may, for instance, serve to emphasize the depoliticizing effects of a moral language of humanitarian intervention, the power involved in invocations of threats or the seemingly neutral delimitation of who are fundamentalist terrorists. Hopefully, this book will also display those discursive strategies and conditions of possibilities, which served to portray the conflict in Kosovo as an international responsibility where “our” future and identity was at stake, and those which served to tell us that Algeria’s problems never could be ours; that our primary identity and obligations reside within territorial boundaries. Revealing the fluidity of the boundary of national and international, the contingency of the definition of the competencies and authorities of states, and the unquestioned foundations of sovereignty, may also caution those International Relations theorists and commentators who often too readily reproduce these divides.

Receptions

These epistemological assertions and discussions are obviously not new to the discipline of International Relations, although they arrived conspicuously late. A relatively small number of International Relations theorists have over the span of two decades soug...

Table of contents

• The New International Relations
• Contents
• Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Sovereignty as discourse
• 2 Analytical strategies
• 3 From object of observation to object of intervention
• 4 Sovereignty and intervention
• 5 From object of concern to object of non-intervention
• 6 Sovereignty and non-intervention
• 7 Contrasting constitutions
• 8 Sovereignty intervened
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index