Arrival of Normative Power in Planetary Politics

Abstract

This lead article in a JCMS symposium marking 20 years of normative power provides a prospective intervention into thinking through the rest of the century by taking the language of Arrival, the 2016 speculative fiction film based on Ted Chiang's 1998 short ‘Story of Your Life’ and applying it to normative power by double‐decolonising the anthropocentrism of capitalist culture and Eurocentrism in order to arrive at planetary politics. The article will first reflect on the 20‐year development of the normative power approach to arrive at a language of comprehension. The subsequent sections will then set out a mode of simultaneous awareness, a medium of sharing relationships and a means for action in concert found in the normative power approach before concluding on how planetary symbiosis is the story of our lives.

Nakedly Normative: A Feminist (Re‐)Imagination of Planetary Politics

“…Achieving transdisciplinarity will mean that in addition to looking backwards, as Manners (2023) provokes us to do, and remembering the geography and location from where we approach the EU, we also need to think sideways in terms of seeking to Feminist (re-)imagination of planetary politics transcend the disciplinary silos or inheritances into which our work is confined in order to better conceptualise a planetary politics approach to NPA. This requires a willingness to ask critical questions about the very gaze of European studies.…”

“…For Manners, the language of arrival of normative power in planetary politics must find ways of thinking about actors and agency that are aware of colonial, postcolonial, and post-imperial relations, but that seeks to empower and give voice to non-western and marginalised subjects as well as planetary lives that cannot speak for themselves. (Manners, 2023) Drawing on the work of Mouffe (2013) and Honig (2006), Manners calls for an understanding of politics that is both historically grounded and temporally flexible, drawing on the tensions and paradoxes implicit in agonistic cosmopolitical theory. This position draws attention to a tension implicit in the way this form of politics can lead to empowerment, whether at the local or planetary level.…”

“…In order to be an empathetic international actor, the EU needs to reckon with its own, that ‘own’ meaning past histories and actions, the perceptions of others, as well as the levels of trust amongst and within the member states. Fundamental to this are trust and confidence, two concepts that do not feature in Manners' (2023) opening article as part of this special section, though they underpin much of what he says. If, as we argue, the ability to reflect is indeed dependent on an ability to empathise, the requisite reflexivity will only be acquired over time, and language – and communication – are fundamental parts of the process.…”

“…This article interrogates the opportunities offered by applying a critical feminist lens to the understanding of the European Union (EU) as it seeks to engage with the future challenges that transcend boundaries, national or otherwise. Reflecting on Manners' (2023) vision for a normative power approach (NPA) as a tool to realise planetary politics (as defined in Manners, 2023), the question is how to construct processes and political characteristics that embody the elements necessary to deal with the increasingly complex tests – crises – faced by the planet. Climate change constitutes a crisis of its own but one exacerbated by the longer term failure to question the effects of existing hierarchies and ordering structures on human relations, to say nothing in respect of the planet as a whole.…”

The Third Democratic Transformation: From European to Planetary Politics

“…Applying the insights of the 'normative power' approach to planetary politics, as we do in this symposium, expands this IR agenda to the interdisciplinary and post-colonial critique of European powerhood, putting into question the Eurocentrism of contemporary IR notions of 'normativity', 'power' or 'borders', as well as the units to which they may apply, for example, 'nation', 'regions' or 'empires', and the languages used to analyse them (Manners, 2002(Manners, , 2023.…”