Self/other interaction in international relations (IR)

Abstract

As introduced in the previous chapter, in assessing the implications of community-building for regional and global order, the question of how collective identities relate to others is very important. This chapter seeks to address this question at the theoretical level. Despite a growing number of studies (for reviews, see Neumann 1996 and Hall 2001), the IR literature on self/other interaction remains mired in conceptual confusion. This is mainly because, in its conceptualization of self/other interaction, the constructivist literature in IR has drawn on diverse literatures in social theory - symbolic interactionism, poststructuralism, and social identity theory - in an unconsciously eclectic fashion, without recognizing their inherent incompatibilities. The failure to recognize the diverse roots of theorizing in IR theory has created a rather confused intellectual terrain, where the debates on the ontological foundations of self/other relationship have been conflated with the debates on the behavioral implications of the relationship. As a result, the literature forces us into an artificial choice between either disregarding the constitutive role of difference in identity formation or assuming Othering - perception and representation of the other as an identity threat.