The Language of International Actorness (original) (raw)

2013, The Language of Interstate Relations

The Language of International Actorness Most of us have some preconception of world affairs, no matter how incomplete it is. Scholars of IR are not unanimous in their views on what precisely constitutes the scope of the discipline. While the political state used to be considered the major, if not the only, point of interest for theorists of IR, recent decades have witnessed an uncontrolled growth of other international entities. In this chapter, our focus is on the language used in both IR theory and practice whenever specific reference is being made to the major divisions of the world-system. Those divisions have traditionally been called actors (or agents). Both terms evoke the idea either of acting or of those who actively participate in relations and exert their influence upon other actors. The language of international actorness generally conforms to the language used in any of the major schools of IR. Owing to the multiplicity of studies and approaches, those schools have been given different names. The well-established division of schools in IR can be enumerated as follows: (1) realist, (2) pluralist, liberal, or rationalist, and (3) structuralist, Marxist, or revolutionist. All three paradigms deserve a summary description. Realism, the oldest tradition in IR, goes as far back as ancient Greece and has become the dominant paradigm within the contemporary discipline of IR (see Beer and Hariman, 1996: 1). The Athenian general Thucydides, Chinese strategist Sun Tsu, Indian statesman Kautilya, Italian diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and many others in more recent times have contributed substantially to the realist tradition. Among the commonly accepted characteristic features of the realist doctrine is the deeply flawed nature of humanity, that is, self-interest, pride, anger, and ambition provoking fear and suspicion among people, putting at risk the possibility of 7