Concept and Politics in Derrida and Deleuze

Abstract

This paper points to significant similarities between the political orientations of Deleuze and Derrida. Derrida's appeal to a pure form of existing concepts (absolute hospitality, pure forgiveness, and so on) parallels Deleuze and Guattari's distinction between relative and absolute ‘deterritorialisation’. In each case, the absolute form of the concept is a condition of the possibility of change.     

论欧洲立宪的主体行为模式建构

本文通过建构欧洲立宪主体中超国家行为体、国家行为体和公民行为体的多重行为模式,指明各种行为体在欧洲一体化的互动实践中都受到“国家认同”、“欧洲认同”和“公民认同”的根本性建构作用,并各自发展出具有“国家主义”、“欧洲主义”和“民主主义”的行为模式。欧洲立宪进程中,三种最主要行为体基于各自的身份认同和利益取向展开相互协调与合作。而建构以“欧洲公民”为纽带、以实现“合力平衡”为目的的良好宪政秩序,是欧洲统合的必经之路。     

‘States have emotions too’: an affect-centred approach to South African foreign relations

Building on established scholarship in international relations theory, notably Alexander Wendt's assertion that ‘states are people too’, this paper explores South African foreign policy decisions that are routinely dismissed as being ‘schizophrenic’, and makes two claims: first, that existing scholarship fails to adequately address causal factors of South African foreign policy and, second, that we need to turn to emotions and affect to do so. As such, the theoretical framework adopted for the purposes of the paper treats ‘state-level’ affect as a central explanatory factor, in contrast to established scholarship on emotion theorisation, which treats states as ontologically subordinate to their constituent members and thus subject to the private affects and cognitions of the individuals that make decisions on behalf of the state. Existing literature on collective emotion seems to support the possibility of state emotion. This notion of transsubjective emotionality facilitates the argument that states have emotions too, and that these emotions condition not only identities but also actions in international relations.     

Disentangling Actors from Their Environment? Pitfalls and Added-Value of the Strategic-Choice Approach

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the Strategic-Choice Approach (SCA) put forward by Lake and Powell (1999b) can be further developed in two directions. First, the article highlights the challenge posed by the interdependence between actors and their environment. From this it draws two conclusions. A) The SCA approach is most fruitful for synchronic analysis but more challenging to implement in a diachronic research design. B) The interdependence between actors and their environment can be lessened by distinguishing between three types of actor preferences: meta, ranked, and pragmatic-preferences. Second, it argues that the SCA is an ideal framework to combine qualitative and quantitative research designs.     

Historical aspirations and the domestic politics of Russia's pursuit of international status

What determined Russia's national interests and grand strategy in the first decade after the Cold War? This article uses aspirational constructivism, which combines social psychology with constructivism, to answer this question. Central to aspirational constructivism are the roles that the past self and in-groups, and their perceived effectiveness play in the selection of a national identity and the definition of national interests. This article explains why Russian political elites settled on a statist national identity that focused on retaining Russia's historical status as a Western great power and hegemon in the former Soviet Union and in engaging the country in bounded status competition with the United States.     

The Social Construction of Policy Reform: Economists and Trade Liberalization Around the World

We argue that the global spread of ideas contributes to trade liberalization. Building on insights from a rich case-based literature, we suggest an explicit mechanism of trade policy diffusion: US-trained Ph.D. economists, who share a common belief in the benefits of free trade, and who operate with varying degrees of political influence around the world. We offer the first cross-national test of the impact of economists on trade liberalization using a unique dataset recording the country of residence of all 6,493 foreign-based, US-trained American Economic Association (AEA) members over the period 1981–1997. Specifically, we measure the influence of economists on the timing and extent of trade liberalization. First, we endogenize the date of trade liberalization using hazard and probit models. Controlling for alternative diffusion mechanisms and other confounding variables, our results suggest that economists significantly speed up the reform process. Second, we find that countries with greater numbers of economists are more open to trade at the end of the period. All of our results are robust to an instrumental variables strategy that employs the number of Fulbright grants allocated by the United States as an instrument for the number of US-trained economists.     

Comparative Regionalism: A Field Whose Time has Come?

Is comparative regionalism a field whose time has come? While the contemporary interest in comparing regions and regionalisms may be not completely new, it is different from older approaches. Our understanding of what makes regions has changed with social constructivist and critical theoretical approaches that have led to a less behavioural and more nuanced, complex, contested and fluid understanding of regions. Moreover, the globalisation phenomenon has deeply affected all social sciences and radically redefined the relative autonomy of regions. In keeping with the rapid growth and development of regionalism and institutions in the non-Western world, including in regions which were relatively late starters, such as Asia, there have emerged new ways of looking at regional cooperation, including claims about distinctive approaches and even ‘models’ that are not only different from those identified with the EU, but also supposedly more appropriate and thus ‘workable’ for non-Western regions than the EU straightjacket.     

公共政策:从政策科学到建构主义

在传统的政策科学研究纲领中,政策问题是硬核,政策过程阶段论是保护带。20世纪80年代以来,建构主义的政策研究框架受到越来越多的重视,在这一新的政策研究纲领中,硬核与保护带转化成为政策行动者以及政策行动者之间在系列约束条件下的互动,公共政策不再被视为公共权力机关为解决公共问题、达成公共目标、实现公共利益的方案或行为,而是政策行动者可资利用实现其利益、目标和价值的载体或工具。尽管建构主义的研究纲领没有为政策研究编织出一个真正标志其科学性的花环,但它确实为人们理解公共政策的复杂性提供了一个不同的窗口。     

Democratic justice: the priority of politics and the ideal of citizenship

In his Democratic justice and the social contract, Weale presents a distinctive contingent practice-dependent model of ‘democratic justice’ that relies heavily on a condition of just social and political relations among equals. Several issues arise from this account. Under which conditions might such just social and political relations be realised? What ideal of equality is required for ‘democratic justice’? What are its implications for the political ideal of citizenship? This paper focuses on these questions as a way to critically reconsider Weale’s model. After presenting Weale’s procedural constructivism, I distinguish his model from an institutional practice-dependent model, one salient example of which is Rawls’s political constructivism. This distinction allows for a formulation of the social and political equality required for justice in each case. The contingent model assumes that an equality of ‘status’ will generate just social practices, yet it fails to recognise that an equality of ‘role’ is also important to ensure citizens’ compliance. The paper ultimately seeks to show that the contingent model is insufficient to ensure that just social practices will become stable.     

虚幻的不相容与想象的安全困境——权力转移进程中敌意身份的互主性建构

国际政治中的角色身份与利益认知是在社会性交往互动中被不断建构的产物。在以"主权零死亡时代"为核心特征的洛克体系文化成熟阶段,单纯的权力转移已不再构成体系内大国间安全困境的原因。不论是崛起国,还是守成国,其在权力转移进程中对体系主导观念的认知决定了其对时代主题的判断,对时代主题的判断又决定了战略手段的选择,并最终在崛起国与霸权国之间建构出不同的社会性关系与互动模式。权力转移进程中,大国间敌意身份的互主性建构是如何形成的?通过对其成因的分析,能否为避免敌意螺旋的生成提供新的解决方案?通过对权力转移进程中出现的"想象的安全困境"成因分析发现:崛起国与霸权国之间并不存在现实的生存竞争,但却可能由于经济领域同质化竞争而产生族群排他性负面意象的敌意投射,并在对声望和荣誉的追求基础上形成虚幻的不相容与想象的敌意螺旋。从崛起国战略谋划的角度出发,选择"联系性崛起战略"往往更容易开启同霸权国之间非对抗的新型大国关系,而选择"变位性崛起战略"则更容易开启同霸权国之间的"修昔底德陷阱"。