Erik Ringmar

The Recognition Game: Soviet Russia Against the West

The problem with traditional explanations of relations between states is that they focus on matters of interests and pay insufficient attention to matters of identities. This article seeks to improve on this situation by providing a formal discussion of the role of recognition. World politics is best described as a recognition game rather than as a prisoners dilemma. To prove the applicability of this argument, an analysis is made of the relations that obtained between Soviet Russia and the West. From the perspective of the alternative, identity-based, model, a number of the most important events of the twentieth century are explained in quite a new fashion.

Performing International Systems: Two East-Asian Alternatives to the Westphalian Order

This article provides a framework for the comparative study of international systems. By analyzing how international systems are framed, scripted, and performed, it is possible to understand how interstate relations are interpreted in different historical periods and parts of the world. But such an investigation also has general implications—inter alia for a study of the nature of power, the role of emotions in foreign policymaking, and public opinion formation. Case studies are provided by the Sino-centric, the Tokugawa, and the Westphalian systems. As this study shows, the two East Asian systems were in several respects better adapted than the Westphalian to the realities of international politics in the twenty-first century.

Recognition and the origins of international society

The international system of civilized states that came to develop in Europe in the course of the nineteenth century was formed through practices of recognition, which created and affirmed similarities between all European states, but also through practices of non-recognition, which created and affirmed differences between Europeans and non-Europeans. Practices of non-recognition are generally ignored in liberal accounts of the origins of international society. A theory of recognition allows us to retrieve this alternative history and make it explicit.

Nationalism: The Idiocy of Intimacy

Historically speaking democracy, understood as the representation of interests, is intimately linked to nationalism, understood as the representation of identities. In the wake of the French Revolution, rule by the people came to be understood as rule by our people, people who are like us. Yet the two principles do not logically imply each other, and can indeed be regarded as antithetical. While democracy understood as the satisfaction of interests should pay no attention to the identity of a politician, identity is all that many nationalists care about. If this is the case, we have a puzzle which requires an explanation: how did democracy come to be related to nationalism? As the author argues, the connection must be understood as a result of the transformation of the concept of the person which took place in the course of the eighteenth century, and which brought about a new conception of the public sphere. What modern men and women wanted was to have their unique qualities acknowledged and to be listened to as individuals. That is, they wanted their preferences to matter in collective decision making - hence democracy - but also that the public sphere be populated by people like themselves with whom they could speak on free and intimate terms - hence nationalism. Only once public relations came to be interpreted in intimate terms did the character of our leaders, notjust his or her policies, become a paramount concern, and democracy connected to nationalism.

The relevance of international law: a Hegelian interpretation of a peculiar seventeenth-century preoccupation

International law, traditional scholars of international politics tell us, is a useless fiction. Statesmen either do not follow legal stipulations or they do so only when it is in their interest to do it. International law plays no independent role in world politics since it can always be reduced to the more fundamental considerations of power politics. National interests simply do not bow to legal requirements.

Outline of a Non-Deliberative, Mood-Based, Theory of Action

In a series of famous experiments, Benjamin Libet claimed to have shown that there is no scientific basis for our commonsensical understanding of freedom of the will. The actions we are about to undertake register in our brains before they register in our conscious minds. And yet, all that Libet may have shown is that long-invoked notions such as “the will” and “freedom” are poor explanations of how actions are initiated. Actions take place as we respond to the call of the mood of the situation in which we find ourselves. Action is a way of attuning ourselves. Simple actions happen as long established habits kick in, and complex actions happen as the mood of a situation comes to correspond to the mood of a story we have been telling ourselves. When it feels right, we just act.

Modernity, boredom, and war: a suggestive essay

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 administrations ‘global War on Terror’.

“How to Fight Savage Tribes”: The Global War on Terror in Historical Perspective

The Bush administrations “Global War on Terror” has, by both defenders and critics, been characterized as unique. However, as this article shows, there is a long tradition, both in the United States and in Europe, of fighting wars against “savage tribes”—against enemies who fail to make a distinction between soldiers and civilians, and who use terror as a weapon. The problem of how to fight such groups was much discussed in the legal literature of the nineteenth century. This is a discussion from which it is possible to learn contemporary lessons.

Lucid Dreams, Perfect Nightmares: Consciousness, Capitalism and Our Sleeping Selves

Review article discussing three books: Thompson, Evan. Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Mavromatis, Andreas. Hypnagogia: The Unique State of Consciousness between Wakefulness and Sleep. London: Thyrsos Press, 2010. Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso, 2014.

What Are Public Moods

‘Public moods’ are often referred to in laymen’s accounts of public reactions to social events, yet the concept has rarely been invoked by social scientists. Taking public moods seriously as an analytical concept, this article relies on recent work on the moods of individuals as a means of exploring the moods of the public. To be in a certain mood is to attune oneself to the situation in which one finds oneself. Our mood is the report we give on the state of our attunement. A public mood can either be understood as the mood of a certain age, the mood of an audience which jointly attends to a public performance, or the bonding which takes places between bodies which are in close physical proximity to each other. It is in the public mood that emotions, thoughts and plans for action arise.