A substantial body of literature centers on the concept of ‘practice’. This article parses the practice turn in International Relations. It suggests that the meaning of ‘practice’ is a moving target. Sometimes it means process. Sometimes it refers to a particular type of knowledge and related action. And sometimes it is used as a quasi-synonym for institution. There are actually three concepts animating the practice turn: ‘practice’, ‘practical knowledge’, and ‘practices’. These concepts hail from different intellectual pastures and lead to different ways of explaining and understanding international relations. The article introduces the three concepts, explains how each concept entails a particular interpretation of the nature and possibility of change, as well as affords a particular theory of peace(making).
The quest for perpetual peace is a modern phenomenon, associated with a progressive view of history which emerged only in the Enlightenment. In addition, boredom -a feeling of ennui associated with a loss of the ability to act -is a fundamental mood of the modern age. Modern societies are thus, simultaneously, becoming more peaceful and their inhabitants are becoming more bored. As a means of overcoming our boredom, we are increasingly fascinated by violence, and war is glorified as a means of restoring our ability to act. Empirical illustrations of this thesis are drawn from World War I and from the Bush administration's 'global War on Terror'.
The contributions to this Forum on Ritual and Authority in World Politics examine the role that ritual performances play in the constitution of positions of authority and the maintenance of relations of authority in historical and contemporary international relations. The Forum takes as its point of departure three related observations: (i) that recent years have witnessed a remarkable upsurge of interest in ritual as a recurring feature of international practice, but (ii) that this recent interest in ritual has not extended, thus far, to the study of international authority, (iii) in spite of political anthropologists' long-standing claim that the performance of ritual is absolutely crucial to the production of authority. The performance of ritual grounds, makes tangible and enhances various forms of authority, including forms of international authority, historical and contemporary. The contributions to this Forum demonstrate the veracity of that claim in five different empirical contexts-Byzantine diplomacy, early modern cross-cultural encounters, British imperialism in India, military lawyering in America's armed forces, and the casting of ballots in Crimea and the US-and attempt also to explain precisely how it is that ritual served to undergird and stabilise authority in these various instances. The return of ritual in international relations(Jorg Kustermans and Ted Svensson)
This article discusses the diplomatic practice of gift-giving in the Ancient Near East and Early Modern East Asia. In both cases, gift-exchange served to consolidate the dominant polity’s international authority. The causal relation between gift-giving and authority is typically rendered in terms of generosity inspiring gratitude, but a different mechanism connects diplomatic gift-giving and the consolidation of international authority. Diplomatic gift-giving is a ceremonial form of gift-exchange and it as a ritual practice helps maintain international authority. By means of ritualization, diplomatic gift-exchange renders international authority palatable. Ritualization enables both dominant and subordinate actors to come to terms with the ambiguity of the experience of authority. Subordinate actors are at once entranced and frightened by the authority of the dominant actor. The dominant actor feels both pride and insecurity. By defining an identity as participants in a shared ritual, by orchestrating their demeanor during ritual, and by identifying an external source of the dominant actor’s authority, diplomatic gift-giving contributes to the maintenance of international authority. The ambiguity of the experience of authority is probably irreducible. It is therefore to be expected that any case of ‘international authority’ will feature the performance of similar ritualizing practices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.