Face-saving is a ubiquitous yet under-theorized phenomenon in International Relations. Prevailing accounts refer to face-saving as a shorthand for status and reputation, as a “cultural” trait found outside Euro-American societies, and as a technique for defusing militarized inter-state crisis, without, however, an explanation of its source and repertoire. In this article, I argue that it is possible to recover face-saving from cultural essentialism, and that face-saving practices geared to avoid embarrassment are micro-level mechanisms that produce international institutions like diplomacy. Drawing on the work of sociologists Erving Goffman and Pierre Bourdieu, I propose a theory of face-saving that accounts for its source, effects, and variation. I evaluate this theory with a study of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a diplomacy that has long espoused a discourse of “saving face” couched in Asian cultural exceptionalism. I combine a political sociology of ASEAN’s ruling regimes with an ethnography of its diplomats based on 13 consecutive months of fieldwork in Jakarta, Indonesia, to substantiate this wider theoretical argument. I demonstrate that, first, ASEAN’s face-saving practices are rooted in the legacies of authoritarianism rather than essentialist “culture,” and, second, that face-saving practices enable performances of sovereign equality, diplomatic kinship, and conflict avoidance among ASEAN’s diplomats. This article grants a distinct conceptual space to face-saving in International Relations, contributes to international practice theory by situating practices in the context of state–society relations, and offers a novel interpretation of what the “ASEAN Way” of doing diplomacy looks like in practice.
This article advances a methodological argument on how to do ethnographic fieldwork amid social elites and inaccessible bureaucracies in international politics. Instead of participant observation or semi-structured interviews, the article proposes “hanging out” as an alternative strategy to generate immersion and ethnographic insight. While the ethnographer studying “down” is arguably always “hanging out” (the village as the exemplary mise-en-scene of this genre), this technique takes a more defined form when studying “up” elites. Specifically, hanging out when studying “up” is a strategy where the fieldworker commits to a period of continuous residence amid members of a community; engages in ludic, informal, and often sociable interactions outside or at the sidelines of their professional habitats; and participates in a range of activities where building rapport is as important as the primary goals of the research. I illustrate this methodological strategy and its payoffs by reflecting upon a year of fieldwork among the diplomats and bureaucrats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—an informal, quiet, and often sub rosa diplomatic project run by a band of mostly authoritarian states in Southeast Asia. This article contributes to debates on the viability of ethnographic fieldwork in international relations (IR); advances a methodological corrective to fieldwork prescriptions in new micropolitical studies of practice, interactions, and emotions in IR; and offers a practical illustration of what studying “up” looks like in diplomacy and international politics.
This article advances a theory on the power of international bureaucrats and bureaucracies in world politics. It argues that bureaucrats become powerful when they stage emotionally calibrated performances as “servants” before state principals and carve out space for action through “whispering,” “propagating,” cultivating patrons, and building coalitions in the backstage of official interaction. These “servant” performances involve what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls “emotional labor”—the management of feelings in work performances. I develop a theory of emotional labor that suggests why international bureaucrats manage emotions as they perform as servants and why some bureaucrats with prized sociological profiles are empowered on the back of “confident” servant performances. In contrast to principal–agent, constructivist, and psychological accounts, this is a micro-sociological explanation for bureaucratic power. I evaluate this theory with an ethnography of the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—a “least likely” case for bureaucratic power under prevailing theorizations. I also demonstrate how the ASEAN case is a sharper instance of a more general phenomenon. This article advances the study of emotions and emotional labor, the role of social class in shaping competent practice, and the debate on the power of bureaucrats and international organizations in international relations.
Sociability or “the play form of association” appears in a range of interactions in world politics sited at banquets, drinking gatherings, golf courses, and even the sauna. Notwithstanding this salience, the form and effects of sociability are poorly understood in International Relations. This article fills this gap. It conceptualizes sociability—its distinct sociological structure; its variations along class, race, and gender; its effects on social interaction—and argues that sociability matters in world politics. Specifically, sociability contributes to identity formation and community maintenance, enables learning, produces social capital, and generates a “backstage” where actors can manage disagreement. I substantiate this argument by examining the sociability fostered from playing golf in the diplomacy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). I explain why golf emerged as a sociable practice in capitalist ASEAN's diplomacy in contrast to socialist and nonaligned circuits of Cold War Southeast Asia; examine the elite and male-homosocial character of this sociability; suggest how it influenced the Associations’ diplomacy; and outline the structural shifts that have led to its post–Cold War decline. This article contributes to the study of sociability in world politics, international practice theory, the political sociology of leisure, and the international politics of Southeast Asia.
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