Race, Religion, and the Echoes of Status Insecurity in US Foreign Policy

Abstract

This paper examines the racial and religious historical influences on US ontological insecurity in a time of perceived hegemonic decline. It explores the role of particular Protestant theologies from the time of slavery up through the present, and how views on white superiority shaped such thought even after abolition, through Reconstruction, and especially animating the rise of the US as a world power in the 20th Century.

Conclusion: Status, ontological insecurity and authoritarianism

“…Here, it is also necessary to underscore the argument made by Turner and Steele (2022: 11) that “race is a magnifying force” for the ontological insecurity experienced due to status decline. Since the status differences in international hierarchies have been, more often than not, essentialized by reference to unchanging biological and/or cultural traits, the prospect of a status reversal is all the more unsettling for those accustomed to the ontological security of ‘superior’ positioning.…”

“…Since the status differences in international hierarchies have been, more often than not, essentialized by reference to unchanging biological and/or cultural traits, the prospect of a status reversal is all the more unsettling for those accustomed to the ontological security of 'superior' positioning. Thus, Turner and Steele (2022: 2) stress that in the US at least, the international status competition comes with a whole baggage of race related domestic insecurities, "over demographic changes in the US, the loss of white 'control' over previously marginalized groups, and the movement of nonwhite populations seeking refuge in the United States. "…”

“…While Kutlay and Öniş (2022: 14) are hopeful for a democratic renewal because “liberal democracy has better self-correction mechanisms and more capacity to reform itself in the face of domestic and external challenges,” the current competition between political economic systems is not one where we can be assured that the better performer will prevail. As the contributions by Turner and Steele (2022) and Bilgic and Pilcher (2022) stress, this competition is being played out as a status competition, a competition over relative positioning. The liberal international order has established a stratified order, which has differentiated states into categories and positions of relative superiority and inferiority (Towns & Rumelili, 2017; Rumelili & Towns, 2022).…”

“…That is why, just like Saudi and Iranian authorities resorting to fatwas to discipline dissent, the leaders of the South in the aftermath of their defeat in the US Civil War deployed religious arguments to maintain white superiority. As Turner and Steele (2022) discuss, biblical arguments justifying the institution of slavery as a paternalistic duty of the superior white race became prominent in this period.…”

“…First of all, Kutlay and Öniş (2022) links the ontological security literature to the broader systemic questions concerning the future of liberal order. Second, the link between status insecurity and ontological insecurity made especially in the articles by Bilgic and Pilcher (2022) and by Turner and Steele (2022) point to a critical pathway through which the ongoing power transition in world politics is enabling the rise of authoritarianism in both the core and the periphery. Because the power transition from the Western core to the so-called rising powers is unsettling the entrenched status hierarchies, it is empowering political actors which are promising to avoid the ontological insecurity resulting from status loss or to reinstate ontological security through status gain.…”