Investeste in oameni!
FONDUL SOCIAL EUROPEAN POS DRU 2007-2013 - Axa prioritară 1: „Educaţia şi formarea profesională în sprijinul creşterii economice şi dezvoltării societăţii bazate pe cunoaştere” Domeniul major de intervenţie: 1.5 „Programe doctorale şi post-doctorale în sprijinul cercetării” Numărul de identificare al contractului: POSDRU/187/1.5/S/155589 Titlul proiectului: „Competitivitate și excelență în cercetarea doctorală în domeniul științelor politice, științelor administrative,
sociologie și științele comunicării”
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF POLITICAL STUDIES
AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION MULTIDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL SCHOOL
FIELD OF STUDY: POLITICAL SCIENCE
DOCTORAL THESIS
– ABSTRACT –
PhD Advisor,
Prof. Iordan Gheorghe BĂRBULESCU, PhD
PhD Student,
FILIMON Luiza-Maria
BUCHAREST
2017
Investeste in oameni!
FONDUL SOCIAL EUROPEAN POS DRU 2007-2013 - Axa prioritară 1: „Educaţia şi formarea profesională în sprijinul creşterii economice şi dezvoltării societăţii bazate pe cunoaştere” Domeniul major de intervenţie: 1.5 „Programe doctorale şi post-doctorale în sprijinul cercetării” Numărul de identificare al contractului: POSDRU/187/1.5/S/155589 Titlul proiectului: „Competitivitate și excelență în cercetarea doctorală în domeniul științelor politice, științelor administrative,
sociologie și științele comunicării”
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF POLITICAL STUDIES
AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION MULTIDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL SCHOOL
FIELD OF STUDY: POLITICAL SCIENCE
THE POSTSTRUCTURALIST THEORY
IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
DECONSTRUCTING
DIPLOMATIC AND SECURITY PRACTICES
IN THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD
PhD Advisor,
Prof. Iordan Gheorghe BĂRBULESCU, PhD
PhD Student,
FILIMON Luiza-Maria
BUCHAREST
2017
Beneficiary of the project “Competitiveness and Excellence in Doctoral Research in the fields of Political
Sciences, Administrative Sciences, Sociology and Communication Sciences” (POSDRU/187/1.5/S/155589).
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
INTRODUCTION
● Relevance of Research Topic
● Terminological Clarifications: Poststructuralism vs. Postmodernism
● The State of the Field: Romanian IR and Subfield IR Theories
● Brief Presentation of the Bibliographic Sources
● Research Context
● Research Questions and Objectives
● Structure of Research
○ Chapter I: IR Theory and Disciplinary History
○ Chapter II: The Advent of Postpositivism in IR
○ Chapter III: The Poststructuralist Theory: Challenging Disciplinary Order
○ Chapter IV: The Method of Poststructuralism: Discourse Analysis
○ Chapter V: Security: More than Just a Concept
○ Chapter VI: Diplomacy: Theorizing the Mediation of Estrangement
○ Chapter VII: Imminence, Terror, and Preeemption: The Anatomy of a Discourse
– Part I –
CHAPTER I
AN OVERVIEW OF THE FIELD OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. REVIEWING
THE “GREAT DEBATES” NARRATIVE
I.1. Introductive Elements
I.2. Theory of International Relations and the Great Debates
I.2.1. What Makes a Theory?
I.2.2. The Framework of the Debates: An Unstable Analytic
I.3. A IR Tale about Binary Pairs
I.3.1. Great Debate Summaries
I.3.2. The First Great Debate: Realism versus Idealism
I.3.3. The Second Great Debate: Traditionalism versus Behavioralism
(Positivism)
3
I.3.4. The Third Great Debate or the Inter-Paradigm Debate: (Neo)realism,
(Neo)liberalism, and (Neo)Marxism
I.3.5. The Fourth Great Debate: Rationalism versus Reflectivism
I.3.6. Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, and the Fourth Debate
I.4. The Field of IR in the Aftermath of the Great Debates
CHAPTER II
REVISITING DISSIDENCE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY:
INTERPRETIVISM, POST-POSITIVISM, ANTI-FOUNDATIONALISM
II.1. General Considerations
II.1.1. The Meta-theoretical Predispositions in IR
II.2. On the Issue of Traditions and Myths in IR
II.2.1. The Role of Political Theory Tradition in IRT
II.2.2. Critical Views of Tradition in IR
II.3. Research Paradigms in IR Theory
II.3.1. Positivism
II.3.2. Interpretivism
II.3.3. Post-positivism
II.3.4. Anti-foundationalism
CHAPTER III
POSTSTRUCTURALISM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: AN OUTLIER
THEORY
III.1. Terminological Specifications: Postmodernism vs. Poststructuralism
III.2. Poststructuralism and the Fourth Debate
III.2.1. Relation with Reflectivism, Postpositivism, and Anti-foundationalism
III.2.2. The Poststructuralist Critique of Neorealism
III.2.3. Poststructuralism and the Accusation of Obscurantism
III.3. Point of Origin: The French Poststructuralist Connection?
III.4. Meta-theoretical Considerations
III.4.1. A Poststructuralist Meta-Theoretical Critique of Mainstream
Theorization
III.4.2. The Poststructuralist Relation with Ontology, Epistemology, and
Methodology
4
III.5. The Discursive Universe of Poststructuralism
III.5.1. The Importance of Language
III.5.2. On the Issues of Power and Discourse
III.6. Research Preoccupations
III.6.1. Power
III.6.2. Sovereignty
III.6.3. Identity
CHAPTER IV
AN ATTEMPT TO CONFIGURE A POSTSTRUCTURALIST RESEARCH
FRAMEWORK THROUGH DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
IV.1. Defining Discourse in Discourse Analysis
IV.2. Discourse Analysis and Poststructuralism
IV.2.1. Points of Contention? Structuralism versus Poststructuralism
IV.2.2. The Contribution of Michel Foucault to the Study of Discourse
IV.2.3. Jacques Derrida’s View on Discourse
IV.3. Poststructuralist Forms of Analysis: Strategies and Methods
IV.3.1. Grammatology
IV.3.2. Deconstruction
IV.3.3. Archaeology
IV.3.4. Genealogy
IV.4. Approaches to Discourse Analysis
IV.4.1. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s Discourse Theory
IV.4.2. Critical Discourse Analysis
IV.4.3. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
IV.5. Methodological Tools for Conducting Discourse Analysis
IV.5.1. Predication
IV.5.2. Presupposition
IV.5.3. Subject Positioning
IV.5.4. Articulation
IV.5.5. Interpellation
5
– Part Two –
CHAPTER V
MEDIATING ESTRANGEMENT: A POSTSTRUCTURALIST ANALYSIS OF
DIPLOMACY
V.1. Studying Diplomacy: Views on the “Dearth” of Theorization
V.1.1. A Most Serendipitous Connection
V.1.2. The Absence of a Meta-theoretical Tradition on Diplomacy
V.2. Diplomacy and the Discourse of Otherness
V.2.1. A Post-Classical Approach to Diplomacy
V.2.2. Several Observations on Der Derian’s Theorization of Diplomacy
V.2.3. A Genealogy of Diplomacy
V.3. Review of Diplomatic Paradigms
V. 3.1. Mytho-diplomacy and Proto-diplomacy
V. 3.2. The Paradigm
V.3.3. Anti-diplomacy, Neo-diplomacy, and Techno-diplomacy
V.4. Of Old Orders and New: The Emergence of a Contemporary Antidiplomacy
V.4.1. Remnants of Yesteryear: The State, the Binary, and Diplomacy
V.4.2. Transmitting from the End of History: Views on the Post-Cold War International
Context
CHAPTER VI
A POSTSTRUCTURALIST APPROACH TO SECURITY
VI.1. Conceptual Positioning
VI.2. The Poststructuralist Theory and the Subfield of Security Studies
VI.2.1. Security Studies during the Cold War
VI.2.2. Strategic Studies, Peace Rearch, and the Origins of the
Poststructuralist Theorizing of Security
V.2.3. Anti-foundational Views of Security
VI.3. Security, Language, and Discourse
VI.3.1. On the Structuralist and Poststructuralist View of Language
VI.3.2. Foucault, Derrida, and the Analysis of Security
VI.3.3. Security and the Issue of Discursive Practices
VI.3.4. Security as Speech Act
VI.3.5. Security as Thick Signifier
6
VI.3.6. Security as Empty and Floating Signifier
VI.4. Contemporary Security Practices: In Search of a Purposeful Meaning
VI.4.1. Poststructuralist Views on Contemporary Security: Between
Convention and Contestation
VI.4.2. Assessment of Post-Cold War Security Practices
VI.5. From One Post to Another: Security Practices after Post-September 11, 2001 .. 245
VI.5.1. Terrorism and the New International Security Context
VI.5.2. Global War on Terror and the Politics of Pre-emption: Implications
for (Inter)(national) Security
VI.5.3. Poststructuralist Directions for the Study of Security in the Context of the Global
War on Terror
– Part Three –
CHAPTER VII
THE ANATOMY OF A DISCOURSE: IMMINENT THREAT AND PREEMPTION
VII.1. Chapter Overview
VII.1.1. Scope, Methods, and Limits of Research
VII.2. Discursive Qualifications
VII.3. Lawful Provisions on Self-Defense and the Temporal Criterion in the
Conception of Imminence
VII.3.1. U.N. Charter
VII.3.2. International Customary Law
VII.3.3. The Bush Doctrine and the “New Imminence”
VII.3.4. The Obama Doctrine: Different Rhetoric, Similar Conception
VII.4. The Case for the Intervention against the Khorasan Terror Group
VII.4.1. Context Overview: Syrian Civil War, ISIS, and Iraqi Security Crisis
VII.4.2. The Imminent Threat Posed by the Khorasan Group: Media Coverage Prior
to the U.S. Airstrikes
VII.4.3. Public Statements in the Aftermath of the U.S. Strikes against Khorasan
VII.5. On the Legality of the U.S. Strikes against Khorasan
VII.6. Assessing the (Broad) Meaning of “Imminence” in the Official Statements
Made after the Intervention against Khorasan
VII.6.1. Attorney General Eric Holder
VII.6.2. Pentagon Press Officer Rear Adm. John Kirby
7
VII.6.3. F.B.I. Director James Comey
VII.7. The Textual Mechanisms at Play in the Construction of the Khorasan Group as
an Imminent Threat
VII.7.1. Predication
VII.7.2. Presupposition
VII.7.3. Subject Positioning
VII.8. Final Observations
CONCLUSIONS
● Research Overview
● Limitations of Research
● Contribution to the Field of International Relations in Romania
BIBLIOGRAPHY
8
● General Considerations
At the center of the poststructuralist theory (PT) in International Relations (IR), we find a
preoccupation for uncovering the role played by language in the production and reproduction of
the world. At first glance, a concern with language might seem like a rather inadequate way to
approach international relations given that – somewhere “out there” – there is a global reality
which functions and produces effects independent of our explanations and interpretations. This
world – comprised of states and statesmen, global flows and borders, citizens and immigrants,
wars, conflicts, terrorist atttacks, and arms stockpiles – is undisputably tactile and tangible, with
its very own materiality and pre-set texture. Having said this, language provides the outlet for
articulating this world we find ourselves in. Language is therefore a medium to interact with the
world and to envelop it with meaning. While the field of International Relations has – to various
degrees of success – supported theoretical diversity in place of theoretical monopolies, it is not
until the postpositivist theoretical wave, in general, and the language turn, in particular, that what
was once taken as a given (the external world) started to be problematized in terms of the role
played by power and knowledge in the construction of certain discurses about the world.
Up until this point, the study of language per se had not been a preoccupation for IR and
language was regarded as a desinterested and neutral medium, being taken for granted in terms
of research. Given this premise, poststructuralism does not reject the world as we know it, nor
does it set out to reinvent it or to revolutionize it. While its reputation for radical transgressions
precedes it, the poststructuralist theory has been rather conservative in its outreach. After all, as
David Campbell remarks, poststructuralism “is not a new paradigm or theory of IR, [but] [...]
rather, a critical attitude or ethos”1. In this sense, PT questions the deeply ingrained notions that
provide the world with rhyme and reason. It looks at the way in which language enables certain
modalities to know the world and assesses how those modalities came to be in the first place. In
operating with language and analyzing discourses, poststructuralism attempts to illustrate how
the world we are so familiar with results from the naturalization of a particular worldview –
worldview that takes the mantle of universality.
The field of International Relations (IR) while undeniably owes part of its development as a
social science to rationalist, positivist, and empiricist influences, has never let itself be captured
by a single, monolithical approach. While not all theories are created equal, the fact remains that
IR provides a theoretical plurality with which we can engage the world of global politics. In turn,
this plurality tells us that there is an disciplinary aperture to entertain even those positions more
inclined to question the orthodoxy rather than to simply embody it or adapt to it.
1 David Campbell, “Poststructuralism”, in International Relations Theories.Discipline and Diversity (Third Edition),
ed. Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 223.
9
The present thesis aims to analyze the poststructuralist theory in the disciplinary context
of the field of IR. Because the poststructuralist theory has a meta-theoretical dimension that
revolves around a theorization of the IR theoretical fabric, the research follows two main tracks
of inquiry: at the level of the discipline and at the poststructuralist level. In other words, the
study will include both an investigation of how the PT relates to the world of international
relations as well as to how International Relations as a field of study can be researched in
particular. The purpose of this research engagement aims to understand how particular
contemporary meanings associated with certain concepts and practices came to be realized.
Divided in three parts, the thesis focuses in the first four chapters on an ontological,
epistemological, and methodological overview of the poststructuralist theory, its place in IR, and
the preferred methods to study IR (focusing specifically on discourse analysis). In the second
part, chapter V and chapter VI look into how IR concepts such as “diplomacy” and “security”
can be studied from a poststructuralist point of view while also looking into the way
contemporary diplomatic and security practices are produced and reproduced in the post-Cold
War period. Finally, the third part comprises of a discourse analysis application that illustrates
the high volatility of meaning across different types of discourse.
● Relevance of Research
The present subject matter attempts to illustrate how certain practices with which we operate
in the study of IR and which produce policy effects, become normalized and naturalized. We see
this, for example, in the way terror and the Global War on Terror have changed the way in which
objects – like security, and subjects – like the current instantiation of the Other – are represented
and operated with in the contemporary period. The relevance of the theme stems from the fact
that this research counts among a select few number of studies that have based their analysis on
innovative IR theoretical approaches. More importantly, given the scope and the breadth of
issues analyzed, the study constitutes an original addition to the Romanian field of IR, in general,
and of the subfield of International Relations Theories, in particular2. Additionally, as can be
seen from the reference list, the reader is provided with an extensive and novel IR literature that
expands the way Romanian IR can be conducted by introducing the field to outside influences
such as French social theory as well as to various types of discourse analysis3.
2 It represents a continuation and expansion of earlier research endeavors on poststructuralism in IR that were at the
center of the author’s B.A. thesis (2011) and M.A. dissertation (2013). 3 Both aspects are covered extensively in the sections and chapters dedicated to them.
10
● Terminological Clarifications
In the IR literature, there is a tendency to operate with poststructuralism and postmodernism
in an interchangeable manner even though the theorists associated with this approach might
reject such a broad generalization that erases the specific particularities of the two terms4. Jill
Steans et al. consider that as far as IR is concerned, there is a certain terminological overlap
between the two terms5. To put things in perspective, postmodernism functions as an umbrella-
term for a movement that emerges after the end of the Second World War and especially after
the 1950s and 1960s, centered around a critique of modernity and of the Enlightenment project.
On the other hand, while the apparition of poststructuralism also dates to this period in history, it
isassociated with the structuralist branch of linguistics and refers specifically to a critical
engagement with language – “with the nature, role and function of language”6. In other words,
with how language constructs (social) meaning, being more closely related with the linguistic
version of (post)structuralism. While admitting that there is a certain overlap between the two
notions, Ben Agger makes the following distinction and refers to poststructuralism as a “theory
of knowledge and language”, while postmodernism is better understood as “a theory of society,
culture, and history”7. In IR, the two notions are often times indistinguishable from one another
because they draw from the same heterogeneous theoretical mix comprising of linguistic, social,
political, and philosophical elements associated with a critical ethos that, in particular, references
the writings of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault8.
The present analysis is influenced by more by the linguistic version of poststructuralism and
less by the postmodernist relation to culture. In this regard, the research makes use of the
poststructuralist toolbox in order to analyze de maner in which (social) language is constructed
as well as the way in which discursive practices operate in practice. In this sense, the study
operates with the notion of “poststructuralism” not just out of some authorial stylistic
convention, but because the research employs a language based approach stemming from
structural linguistics and its poststructural corollary. In this regard, the critical analysis employed
4 For an accessible analysis distinguishing between the two terms in so far as continental philosophy and French
social theory are concerned, refer to the sections on poststructuralism (111-115) and postmodernism (115-118) from
Ben Agger’s article “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological Relevance”, Annual
Review of Sociology 17 (1991): 105-131. 5 Jill Steans et al., An Introduction to International Relations Theory. Perspectives and Themes (Third Edition) (Oxon and New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2010), 130. 6 Ibid. 7 Agger, “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism”, 112. 8 The two are often regarded as exponents of “French poststructuralism” though as Richard Shapcott remarks, it is
debatable whether the two of them can be put in this category “without doing significant violence to either of them”.
(Richard Shapcott, Justice, Community, and Dialogue in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), 61). The notion of a French “poststructuralism” is also contested given that the term is most often
associated with a second order literature that is preponderantly non-French, rather than with the alleged
representatives of the movement. This issue is more closely analyzed in the third chapter, in the section dedicated to
“French poststructuralism” (sic).
11
throughout the chapters – especially in relations to various contemporary IR discourses and
practices – is grounded in a study of language that accounts for the properties of terms, the
contexts that allow certain meanings to proliferate while silencing others, as well as for their
practical impact. In support of this assessment, I linked the theory to discourse analysis – which
not only serves as a method through which PT can be instrumentalized, but it is also
representative of a distinct approach to the study of international relations and of foreign policy9.
● Research Context
Theories are an intrinsic part of the field of International Relations. On the surface, this
observation in itself does not seem to provide a remarkable insight on the inner workings of the
field. After all, any respectable social science relies on its own array of theories in order to
understand how the social world operates. From the end of the XIXth century onwards, we have
witnessed how social sciences have started to shed the influence of the humanities and moved
towards scientific professionalization. In this sense, the field of IR is not an outlier: it too has
underwent various evolutive stages as I will further elaborate in the first chapter. Yet, where IR
distinguishes itself from its fellow bretherns is in the way it puts the process of self-actualization
at center of the discipline. Nowhere is this aspect better witnessed then in the sub-field of IRT.
It can be argued that theories are at the forefront of IR and that the object of study occupies a
secondary position. This does not deny the existence of a “real” world, outside the pages of a
text, a complex world full of actors, objects, processes, and mechanisms that function
irrespective of what some theoretical provision might prescribe. Placing the theories at the
forefront of IR exemplifies Jacques Derrida’s notion that “there is no outside-text” with the
implication being that one cannot grasp “the real” outside an “interpretive experience”10. This
aspect is more prominent in IR because of the way in which the development of this scientific
discipline has been devised in terms of the overarching framework of the “Great Debates”. From
an analytical point of view, framing a field’s disciplinary history around what is essentially a
foundational myth might not be the most appropriate way to create the basis for a scientific
discipline. After all, as Peter Wagner remarks, one of the main reasons for why social sciences
exit the tutelage of the humanities is because of their “claim to provide valid knowledge about
9 See: Lene Hansen, “Discourse Analysis, Post-structuralism, and Foreign Policy”, in Foreign Policy. Theories,
Actors, Cases (Second Edition), ed. Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Tim Dunne (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 97. 10 Jacques Derrida, “Afterword: Towards an Ethic of Discussion”, in Limited Inc, trans. Samuel Weber (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 148.
12
the world”11. In IR, Yosef Lapid observes, the criticisms of the classical approach to the history
of the discipline “have in no way crippled the staying power or popularity of the debate
approach”12. Renouncing the framework of the “Great Debates” would not even be possible
since even though the Debates might not fully capture the breadth of the theoretical positions
coexisting at different disciplinarian stages, they represent the way in which the IR discipline has
been structured. The existence of such a diverse array of theories (ranging from classical realism
to Green theory) is no small thing if we stop to consider that they operate next to certain theories
– beginning with the influence of the American behaviorist current in IR and continuing later on,
with the neorealist – neoliberal consensus – that occupy hegemonic positions in the discipline.
From a pedagogical point of view, tying the field’s developmental process to the support
structure of the Great Debates acts as a convenient mnemonic device. It would not even be
possible to capture the complexity of IRT without the assistance of a theoretical shortcut
precisely because in a very short ammount of time, the discipline was confronted with a high
proliferation rate of theoretical positions. From the onset, this tells us that the field is not defined
by a consensus, but by contestation and dissidence. While the theoretical challengers might not
be able to topple the dominant positions and might even be pushed to the margins of the
discipline, they nonetheless signify the fact that the house of IR remains open to all those that
might provide an insight into the workings of international relations both as a field and as well as
an object of study. The “Great Debates” might inconvenience the sensibilities of those who
would like to have a well organized discipline that establishes once and for all the right way to
study IR, which sets the limits on what is acceptable and inacceptable, and which insists that
contestation be reduced to a minimum. It has been argued that too much internal disagreement
hurts the discipline, making it therefore unstable, and potentially sending it on the road to
become a failed discipline, echoing those failed states that are part of its object of study.
Today, this sentiment is shared by many who argue that the debates have lost their
usefullness, that while they may have been necessary in the beginning when the discipline was
still young, now, they pose a hindrance to the integrity of IR. Yet, IR is coherent because of the
Great Debates and not in spite how them, they help us understand how IR works. The Debates
highlight the play of power and privilege in the way some theories are readily embraced while
others are treated as gratuitous spoilers of the scientific cause. As Ole Wæver remarks “[t]heories
are shaped by their immediate social setting, that is, the academic scene (and only to a much
11 Peter Wagner, A History and Theory of the Social Sciences. Not All that Is Solid Melts into Air (London,
Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2001), 1. 12 Yosef Lapid, “Sculpting the Academy Identity: Disciplinary Reflections at the Dawn of a New Millenium”, in
Visions of International Relations: Assessing an Academic Field, ed. Donald J. Puchala (Columbia, SC: University
of South Carolina, 2002), 4.
13
lower degree by external factors relating to political developments)”13. The fact that the social
setting is as important if not more important to the study of IR than the field’s penchant for
constant self-actualization is a feature, not a bug. In terms of “market presence”, while
theoretical hegemonies tend to accaparate the discipline and influence policy – as seen for
example, in the American IR – the field fundamentally rejects the establishment of a
“monopoly”. This is due to the fact that in IR, theories are hardly ever made redundant or
replaced, but coexist next each other and evolve in order to adapt themselves both relation to
new emerging social settings as well as in relation to contemporary developments in IR.
Having set the stage, the emergence of the poststructuralist theory in IR during the 1980s
appears as a natural progression. By this point in time, if we look at the field’s chronology, IR
had already been through three stages of development. The first one evidenced by the First
Debate was concerned with the ontological aspects of the field covering the interwar years and
the subsequent period post-Second Word War. It sought to ascertain the essence of the relations
between states. In the 1950s and 1960s, the second stage had been preoccupied with issues
related to methodology. In other words, the Second Debate revolved around an attempt to
determine what was “the most reliable way to study international relations”. It pitted the
traditionalists against the behavioralists14. The first camp was in favor of interpretive
historiography and historical sociology, whereas the others advocated for a science of IR
grounded in objective laws. Finally, influenced by Thomas Kuhn15, the third stage was
interparadigmatic and regarded the very nature of scientific development, dividing IR into three
main paradigms – realism, liberal pluralism, and structuralism (or Marxism / Neo-Marxism).
These paradigms had distinct views on IR and were concerned with different issues: state power
and international anarchy, interdependence and cooperation or inequality and underdevelopment.
The advent of the Fourth Debate will bring into the fold of the discipline, a series of theories that
distinctly position themselves in contrast to their older peers while at the same time, not having
too much in common between themselves either. It is at this point that an IR poststructuralist
theory begins to coalesce around a critique of realism and sets in motion a reflectivist wave that
challenges the positivist order.
While PT is considered a radical theory, criticized for its tendency to be prolix and
obfuscating when not outright relativistic and destructive, the theory can be easier to understand
if we think of it in terms of “checks and balances”. Its critique of realism seeks precisely to
13 Ole Wæver, “Still a Discipline After All These Debates”, in International Relations Theories. Discipline and
Diversity (IIIrd Edition), ed. Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 317. 14 Donald J. Puchala, Theory and History in International Relations (New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2003), 217. 15 Published in 1962, Kuhn’s seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions argued that what we consider
“normal science” results from a paradigmatic interplay.
14
denaturalize those truths that we take for granted when we think about the world. In this sense, it
looks at the ingrained minutiae that are part and parcel of IR’s most valuable concepts and
attempts to illustrate how they are non just impenetrable objects that happen to exist in the
international system and influence reality, but how they are, first and foremost, products of
power and discourse. Framed in this way, poststructuralism stops being what some have
considered to be “the most radical or non-mainstream perspective on the terrain of IR”16 and
becomes a theory that is much more accessible to study and operate with than one might initially
think. After all, power, sovereignty, anarchy, security, diplomacy or foreign policy are notions
on which IR is built. What differs is the fact that they are approached with critical-tinted glasses
that focus on what David Campbell considers to be “the importance of representation, the
relationship of power and knowledge, and the politics of identity to the production and
understanding of global politics”17.
● Research Design, Research Questions, and Objectives
In a previous section I have noted that the Romanian study of IRT, in general, and of PT, in
particular, is rather underdeveloped. The present study attempts to fill the gap in the literature by
proposing a multi-pronged incursion into the field of International Relations theories. In terms of
research design, the present thesis comprises of seven chapters divided in three parts (field and
theory analysis, concept analysis, theory application) and structured around two main research
tracks: 1) the relation of poststructuralism to the subfield of IRT and 2) the application of PT in
the field of IR and in its underlying subfields such Security Studies, Diplomatic Studies or
Terrorism Studies. The first track concerns the relation between the poststructuralist theory and
the subdiscipline of IRT, while the second regards how the theory can be applied to the study of
IR concepts and practices. The general objective of this research endeavor has been therefore to
provide an extensive analysis of poststructuralism in International Relations divided across five
levels of analysis: 1) context (chapters one and two); 2) theoretical stance (chapter three);
3) methodology (chapter four); 4) concept analysis (chapter five and six); and 5) analiză de
discurs (chapter 7). Following this, several secondary objectives have been identified which
seek: 1) to analyze the origins of poststructuralism in IR from a disciplinary and meta-theoretical
position; 2) to analyze the theory in relation to French social theory, (post)structural linguistics,
and other IR theories, in particular neorealism; 3) to identify a potential poststructuralist research
16 See: Emanuel Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics”, European Journal of
International Relations 3, no. 3 (September 1997): 319-63, referred to by Hansen, “Discourse Analysis”, 97. 17 Campbell, “Poststructuralism”, 223.
15
framework in IR by examining the influence of French theorists (Foucault, Derrida) associated
with the poststructuralist strand of continental philosophy, to the development of certain types of
discourse analysis; 4) to apply PT to the study of IR concepts and practices (diplomacy and
security); and 5) to design an exercise in discourse analysis in order to illustrate the
poststructuralist theory’s concern with the fluidity of language and the instability of meaning.
The primary research questions that address these objectives concern issues such as: 1) how is it
possible for the field of IR to be so amenable to theoretical diversity?; 2) what type of theory is
PT?; 3) what are its main research preoccupations?; and 4) how can IR concepts be theorized and
instrumentalized in terms of the textual strategies proposed by PT?
The first track addresses the development of the field of IR, its particularities as an area of
study, its engagement with multiple posibilities for knowledge. In this regard, the secondary
research questions that have been entertained and which the study has sought to answer involved
understanding what makes a theory, what purpose it serves, and how – depending on the answer
to these questions – does theory influence both the way we perceive the field of IR and the way
in which we analyze the world. Therefore, the first two chapters and several sections from the
third, fifth, and sixth chapters examine the state of IR and of its subdisciplines (IRT, Security
Studies, Diplomatic Studies), the relation between the field and the “outside world”, as well as
how poststructuralism fits in this framework (what it stands for in the field and what it
contributes to the process of knowledge).
The first track is divided in two subdivisions which concern the poststructuralist theory in
terms of its place in the context of the IRT subdiscipline (first chapter) and in the context of the
meta-theoretical position adopted by PT (second chapter).The objective has been to ascertain
how a poststructuralist approach studies IR concepts in relation to the broader disciplinary
context, how the theoretical perspective is not insulated from its peers, but instead, becomes
instantiated in its critique of the orthodoxy. After all, the specificity of PT results precisely from
the fact that PT is not an ordinary theory and maybe that it is not a theory at all, but more of a
“critical attitude or ethos that explores the assumptions” on which IR is based by addressing the
modality in which the discipline “ʻmaps’ the world”18.
The concern with the way in which the discipline “maps the world” ties into the second
track and regards those aspects related to theoretical, methodological, and conceptual
construction. PT argues that we cannot divorce the object of study from its representation, that
power is involved in the process of knowledge, and that “the production and understanding”19 of
international relations is tributary to the politics of identity. In other words, PT is interested in
18 Ibid., 223. 19 Ibid.
16
the “map of the world” only in so far as it reveals what a theory stands for. If other theories are
preoccupied with constructing a map of the world, with identifying its components, functions,
and processes as well as with explaining how these elements influence the behavior of actors, the
course of events or the way certain things happen a certain way, poststructuralism wants to know
how the map is made possible in the first place.
As Campbell observes, poststructuralism does not set out to develop its very own paradigm
or to construct a set of prescriptions comparable to other theories. Instead, it advances an entirely
different set of “questions and concerns” that has to do more with understanding how theories –
rather than the world – work20. Having said this, the research questions on which this second
track of research has been designed around concern “how things are known?”, “what confers
meaning to a thing?” as well as “who dispenses the knowledge?”. In this sense, I combined the
theoretical position with a broader conceptualization and operationalizaton of discourse. In IR,
not only do PT and discourse analysis complement one another, but PT is, in part, responsible for
introducing discourse analysis to the study of IR and especially to the study of foreign policy.
The objective has been to establish how at both a meta-theoretical level and also at an IR level,
theories and actors alike (such as states for example) seek – in Lene Hansen’s view – “to uphold
particular visions of themselves”21 which are enabled only in and through specific discourses.
Poststructuralism considers that in order to understand how “particular visions” came to be, we
need to look more closely at the role played by language and at the power language wields in
constructing knowledge. Since poststructuralists operated with the notion of “discourse” in order
to showcase the “power of language”, the second track has been aimed at highlighting what is
known about a certain practice, what can be known, and what exactly presupposes this act of
knowing in a poststructuralist perspective22. In this sense, the third and fourth chapters attempt to
provide answers to these questions, while the fifth and sixth chapters illustrate how a
poststructuralist-based analysis can be applied to the study of diplomacy and security.
The fifth and sixth chapters reproduce to a certain degree the two tracks around which the
research has been designed around. As such, the chapters comprise of a part that analyzes the
relation between PT and the particular subfield being analyzed as well as how PT can be applied
to the study of diplomacy and security. Where diplomacy is concerned, the chapter starts from
the premise that while diplomacy is a central concept in IR, it is only in recent years that the
study of diplomacy has sought to develop a comprehensive body of theorization. Moreover, what
20 Ibid., 225. 21 Hansen, “Discourse Analysis, Post-structuralism, and Foreign Policy”, 95. 22 For how PT engages with discursive power, see: Roxanne Lynn Doty, Imperial Encounters. The Politics
of Representation in North – South Relations (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press,
1996).
17
is particular about the issue of diplomacy and IR theory is not only that diplomacy is rather
neglected when compared to other concepts such “sovereignty” or “security”, but that the
poststructuralist theory is one of the firsts to provide a theoretical account of diplomacy.
In the chapter on security, the objective has been to illustrate how in the post-Cold War
period, the poststructuralist theory in IR has been influential in proposing new avenues for the
study of security and how it continued to do so after the post-September 11, 2001 period as well.
In keeping in line with the two tracks of research, the chapter also addresses how the concept of
security can be analyzed from a language-based approach. In this sense, the main research
questions in support of this line of inquiry have been to ascertain whether PT can propose a
different way of thinking about security, and if so, “what would these ways might look like?”,
followed by: “in what way might these ways contribute to the study of security?”.
Based on the poststructuralist understanding of language in IR, the final chapter proposes an
exercise in discourse analysis. In analyzing the notion of “imminence”, the objective has been to
track how the meaning of imminence becomes discursively flexible depending on the particular
context in which it is utilized. In this instance, the notion of “imminence” applied to a particular
case study (an American unilateral intervention against a terror group accused of posing an
imminent threat to the United States from its safe havens in civil war-stricken Syria) is analyzed
at the policy level, at the media level, and at the scholarly level. The proposed discourse analysis
answers a comprehensive array of research questions: descriptive (“What is imminence?”),
interpretive, explanatory, technical, and evaluative.
Interpretive questions concern both conceptual issues surrounding the notion of “imminence”
(“What does it mean?”) as well as “authority-based questions” (“What do these experts,
government officials, and journalists mean when they operate with the notion of “imminence” in
general, and “imminent threat” in particular?). On the issue of explanatory questions, the
discourse analysis is less concerned with causal relations (“Why does the notion of “imminence”
produce specific types of effects under different conditions?” or “What enables it to produce
such effects?”), preferring to address instead a historical dimension (“How did the operational
meaning of “imminence” evolve over time?”). Technical questions are concerned with
ascertainig “How is the notion of “imminence” being used across different types of discourse?”.
Finally, in terms of evaluative questions, it reviews the significance of the way in which notions
are employed by different actors (“What difference is made when the meaning of a notion
changes depending on the given discursive register?”).
18
● Structure of Research
○ Chapter I: IR Theory and Disciplinary History
The first and second chapters provide extensive reviews of the broader theoretical and meta-
theoretical IR context in order to better understand what were the conditions that facilitated the
apparition of poststructuralism as part of – what Robert Keohane refers to as – the “reflectivist”23
wave in IR. Since in the conduct of the present research, poststructuralism represents the entry
point for engaging with IR, the first chapter locates the theory in terms of a brief, but
comprehensive overview of the disciplinary history of IR and analyzes the place occupied by PT
in the Great Debates framework, specifically within the Fourth Debate.
Even from these early chapters, the analysis anticipates PT’s predilection for the study of
binary oppositions and illustrates how the IRT is dominated by theoretical binary frameworks
and paradigmatic entrenchments as evidenced by the “Great Debates”. Traditionally, the Great
Debates have been regarded as theoretical “disputes” between various theoretical positions
ranging from postwar Realism and interwar Liberalism (Idealism) in the First Debate;
Traditionalism and Behaviouralism (Scientism) in the Second Debate; Neorealism,
Neoliberalism, and Neomarxism in the Third (interparadigmatic) Debate; and lastly, Rationalism
(Positivism) and Reflectivism (or Postpositivism) in the Fourth Debate. The themes debated
encompass aspects related to politics, philosophy, epistemology, ontology, and methodology.
The chapter examines background aspects regarding the field of IR as a social science,
followed by a comparative analysis on what constitutes a theory in IR. After setting the scene,
the chapter reviews the history of the discipline in terms of the four debates mentioned above,
provides summaries of the various theoretical positions participating to these debates, and also
addresses how the field of IR was impacted by them.
○ Chapter II: The Advent of Postpositivism in IR
Having located the poststructuralist theory in the context of the Fourth Debate, the second
chapter concerns itself with the meta-theoretical aspects that guide IR research and theorization
and introduces those stances which characterize PT, namely, postpositivism and anti-
foundationalism. According to Ole Wæver, the Fourth Debate was primarily disputed along
philosophical and epistemological lines24. New theories challenge the established order and
propose new meta-theoretical avenues for doing science. If in the first chapter, the section on the
23 See Robert O. Keohane, “International Institutions: Two Approaches”, International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4
(December 1988): 379-96. 24 Ole Wæver, “The Rise and Fall of the Inter-paradigm Debate”, in International Theory: Positivism and Beyond,
ed. Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 157.
19
Fourth Debate addressed the meaning of terms such as “rationalism” and “reflectivism”, the
second chapter seeks to clarify what is meant by “interpretivism”, “postpositivism” or “anti-
foundationalism”. Like in the case of “reflectivism”, these terms are also associated with the
Fourth Debate, and, particularly, with the poststructuralist theory. While each of these meta-
theoretical stances has its own set of particularities, in IR they tend to denote a particular thing
about the way research is conducted. Specifically, they refer to the idea that our analysis of
international phenomena cannot be entirely divorced from our interpretation of them. In other
words, they are skeptical of particular analyses being treated in universalist terms.
○ Chapter III: The Poststructuralist Theory: Challenging Disciplinary Order
Having laid the foundations for the analysis, the third chapter is dedicated exclusively to the
introduction and analysis of PT. Without claiming to provide an exhaustive account of
poststructuralism, the chapter is concerned with several issues: 1) origins, 2) meta-theoretical
sensibilities; 3) the theory’s relation with IR and with other IRTs (in particular, with neorealism);
4) poststructuralism’s propensity for the study of language and discourse; and lastly, 5) the
concepts that occupy a key position in PT’s approach to IR (power, sovereignty, identity).
By inhabiting a discursive dimension, poststructuralism has often times been misconstrued as
being rather dismissive of the international reality, and of the “real” things that are affected and
afflicted by tangible causes. PT’s focus on language, discourse, narratives, and, more
importantly, on the relativity of language has been castigated as nihilistic. This was the case
especially in the beginning when poststructuralism’s predilection for critical meta-theoretical
soliloquies garnered the opprobrium of its peers. Its critics likened themselves to be far removed
from the taint of power, politics, and ideology with which PT was so concerned with. Yet, as this
chapter shows, the theory does not stray too far from the topics generally associated with IR and
brings its contribution to the study of security, war, foreign policy, diplomacy, international
institutions, conflict resolution, terrorism, etc.
○ Chapter IV: Poststructuralism’s to Discourse Analysis
The fourth chapter introduces the notion of “discourse analysis” since poststructuralism relies
on discourse in order to illustrate how language is not just a medium that provides tools for
communication, nor one that can be used to advance purely objective representations of the
20
world. Whereas positivist theories are grounded in assumptions25 designed to separate the
studied world from the research experience, poststructuralism considers that language is political
rather than utilitarian. In this sense, the fourth chapter attempts to put together a poststructuralist
framework for the study of discourse that is grounded in an analysis based on the contributions
of French theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Even though the study of PT is
not limited only to discourse analysis, nor are the two of them exclusively co-dependent on one
another, for the present study, discourse analysis provides PT with an accessible and nuanced
modality to conduct its critical endeavors. The chapter introduces several way of approaching
discourse analysis – some of which originate with Derrida (deconstruction, grammatology) and
Foucault (archaeology, genealogy) while others have been proposed by IR theorists (like in the
case of the textual mechanisms analyzed in the last section of the chapter that have been initially
theorized by Jennifer Milliken or Roxanne Doty). Moreover, another section concerns various
types of discourses analyses that, in turn, have been influenced to a greater or lesser degree by
the poststructuralist theory of language (see for example: Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s
discourse theory, Foucauldian Discourse Analysis).
○ Chapter V: Diplomacy: A Poststructuralist Theory for the Mediation of Estrangement
The fifth and sixth chapters are concerned with the notions of “diplomacy” and “security”.
The thesis focuses on these two concepts more extensively because they occupy such an integral
position in the study of world politics. In terms of “diplomacy”, the chapter points out that,
curiously enough, authors associated with poststructuralism were among the first to propose a
theorization of diplomacy. The chapter notes that while diplomacy occupies a central position in
the conduct of foreign policy, it had been quite neglected from a theoretical perspective with
research being limited to diplomatic histories or practical guides illustrating how to do
diplomacy. From a poststructuralist perspective, the chapter introduces and analyzes “a
genealogy of diplomacy”. James Der Derian’s On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western
Estrangement (1987) is one of the first major contributions to the study of PT in IR as well as to
the study of diplomacy from an IRT perspective. Der Derian’s argument is premised on the idea
that diplomacy represents a “mediation of estrangement” not only between states, but between
communities and polities alike. To understand how a poststructuralist analysis might look like in
25 Here, I am referring specifically to assumptions concerning : the existence of an external world whose essence is
not dependent on the actions of the researcher (“epistemic realism”); “the existence of a universal scientific”
language (meaning that the world can be described and accounted for without recourse to subjectivism, by clinical
observers); and “the correspondence between theory and practice” (this refers to the fact that stated aspects of the
world are considered to be true if they have a correspondent in reality) (Campbell, “Poststructuralism”, 227-228).
21
researching a particular notion or another, Der Derian’s genealogy locates the essence of
diplomacy in this phenomenon of estrangement that goes as far back as the Judeo-Christian
recollection of the Fall. In Der Derian’s view, “the form this mediation takes, [...] constitutes a
theoretical and historical base for the study of the origins of diplomacy”26.
○ Chapter VI: Security: More than Just a Concept
The sixth chapter addresses not only the notion of “security”, but also how – after the end of
the Cold War – the subfield of Security Studies goes through a period of expansion. This period
opened the door to various critical approaches, amidst which we can also talk about a
poststructuralist approach to Security Studies. In terms of international security, studies
inspired by PT have focused on the way the construction of threats, danger, and identity is
dependent upon what Columba Peoples and Nick Vaughan-Williams refer to as “politics of
language, interpretation and representation”27. In this sense, the chapter provides an overview of
how “security” developed in the contemporary period, from the end of the Cold War and up to
the period post-September 11, 2001. Where the analysis of the concept is concerned, the chapter
proposes several ways in which security and security practices can be addressed, ways that have
also been tributary to the contributions of Derrida and Foucault to the study of language.
Therefore, the chapter contains sections on security understood in terms of discursive practices,
security as speech act or security as (thick, empty, or floating) signifier. Particular attention is
given to Jef Huysmans’ article “Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick
Signifier” (1998). Similar to the way Der Derian’s research opened the door to new theoretical
avenues to research diplomacy, Huysmans’ study also proposed an innovative approach to
security that stems from a concern with the “meaning of security”28, independent of more
traditional definitional or conceptual approaches.
○ Chapter VII: Imminence, Terror, and Preeemption: The Anatomy of a Discourse
The sixth chapter ends on an analysis of how the terror attacks from September 11, 2001 had
influenced state practice and the subfield of Security Studies and the seventh chapter further
expands on this topic. More specifically, the chapter analyzes how the meaning of “imminence”
26 James Der Derian, On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 6. 27 Columba Peoples and Nick Vaughan-Williams, Critical Security Studies. An Introduction (Second Edition) (Oxon
and New York: Routledge, 2015), 76. 28 Jef Huysmans, “Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick Signifier”, European Journal of
International Relations 4, no. 2, (June 1998): 226.
22
– a condition that occupies a central place (next to “necessity” and “proportionality”) in the
context of a state’s use of force in self-defense – has been broadened in the aftermath of the
terrorist attacks from September 11, 2001. The chapter uses discourse analysis to illustrate how
this process of broadening occurred. Up until this point, we have seen how PT is preoccupied
with the way in which meaning and identities are constructed and how, by extension, they play a
role in the development of foreign policies and security practices. While realist theorist Stephen
Walt might have described poststructuralism as “a prolix and self-indulgent discourse that is
divorced from the real world”29, a poststructuralist discourse-based approach can help us better
understand how things came to be. Not „why?”, but „how was it possible?”30. A “why?”
question wants to know the reasons behind something, the causes that made a certain outcome
possible. Roxanne Lynn Doty considers that a “why-question” only tries to ascertain why “a
certain policy decision was predictable given a particular set of circumstances”31. Whereas
“how?” is interested in the manner in which something transpired. It refers to the process, to the
“mechanics” that were conducive to a certain outcome. According to Doty, the “how-question”
“examines how meanings are produced and attached to various social subjects / objects, thus
constituting particular interpretive dispositions which creat certain possibilities and preclude
others”32. In other words, how something is “socially constructed” and which, in turn, enables
particular interpretive practices or courses of action.
The chapter reviews the provisions on imminence specified in the U.N. Charter and in the
international customary law as well as in the post-2001 National Security Strategies which
starting with the Bush Administration propose and operate with a new conception of imminence,
that has also been upheld and expanded on by the Obama Administration. The argument on
which the new conception is premised states that given the threat posed by terrorism and rogue
states, a victim state can no longer afford to wait until there is definitive proof that an attack is
incoming. The current international provisions no longer meet a state’s contemporary security
requirements since according to President Obama, they pertain to “a rule-book written for
another century”33.
“Imminence” represents a concept that at any one point, inhabits a plurality of meanings: a
literal meaning (“imminent as in something that is about to happen”), an official meaning (used
to legitimate the use of force in self-defense, it stipulates that a state has to “show a necesity of
29 Stephen M. Walt, “The Renaissance of Security Studies”, International Studies Quarterly 35, no. 2 (June 1991): 223. 30 Roxanne Lynn Doty, “Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of U.S.
Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines”, International Studies Quarterly 37, no. 3 (September 1993): 297-8. 31 Ibid., 298. 32 Ibid. 33 Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly”, United
Nations, New York, September 24, 2014, accessed August 25, 2016, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-
press-office/2014/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly.
23
self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of
deliberation”34), and a broad meaning advanced by the United States (which stems from the
notion that there are malicious actors – constantly planning (terror) attacks – that given an
opportunity would not hesitate to attack which is why states have to act as if the threat is
“imminent”). The case analyzed in this chapter illustrates how – depending on the interpretive
disposition used – the meaning attached to the word is relative to the target audience. Therefore,
though switching between meanings might produce certain cognitive and rhetorical dissonances
(“not imminence” as “imminence”), the notion maintains its semantic consistency due to the
given register in which it is being used as well as to the various factors that are involved in its
construction. The question asked is not “what provoked this change in meaning?”, but “how this
change is being actively produced and reproduced by the discourse on terror, threat, and the
state’s right to self-defense?”. To illustrate this play of meaning, the chapter analyzes the case
surrounding the intervention against a terror group – Khorasan – affilitated with al Qaeda and
which the U.S. regarded as an imminent threat. Members of the group were said to have moved
to Syria in order to take advantage of the safe havens created in the course of the ongoing civil
war in order to recruit foreign jihadists that had European and American passports, with the
intent to plant an undetectable bomb in an aircraft bound for the U.S. The reason why the
intervention is not seen as an arbitrary use of force as well as why it did not attract too much
attention at that time or ever since, is due to the way in which “imminence” has been broadened
in the context of the threat posed by terrorism.
The discourse analysis focuses on two issues. First, it tracks how the rhetoric on imminence
switches from one register to another, from a threat that is about to happen – “instant and
overwhelming” – to a threat located in a “future in the future”35. Second, it points out how the
“imminent threat” was constructed initially by applying a series of textual mechanisms
(predication, presupposition, and subject positioning). These textual mechanisms deconstruct the
discourse in its component elements in order to see how the concept is constituted through a
discursive practice that structures it into – what Doty refers to as – a “grid of intelligibility”36:
“Taken together, these textual mechanisms, predication, presupposition, and subject positioning
produce a “world” by providing positions for various kinds of subjects and endowing them with
34 See: Daniel Webster, “Letter from Secretary of State Daniel Webster to British Minister to the United States Lord
Alexander Baring Ashburton”, Department of State, Washington, July 27, 1842, The Avalon Project. Documents in
Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed August 10, 2016, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/br-1842d.asp. 35 For the reference on “future in the future”, see: Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, “Department of Defense
Press Briefing by Rear Adm. Kirby in the Pentagon Briefing Room”, September 25, 2014, U.S. Department of
Defense, accessed on August 6, 2016, https://www.defense.gov/News//Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/606
932/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-rear-adm-kirby-in-the-pentagon-briefing/. 36 Doty, “Foreign Policy as Social Construction”,306.
24
particular attributes”37. In order to illustrate how meaning is constructed, the discourse analysis
utilizes official statements, public addresses by government officials, and media articles.
More importantly, outside what the discourse analysis shows in terms of the various
conceptions employed in the utilization of “imminence”, outside the contradictions and
discursive tensions, the analysis also highlights how such a discourse influences and shapes a
media discourse while also impacting upon the lawful character of the intervention. This ties into
the fact that the contemporary terror and counter-terror practices – as I show in the chapter on
security – create, what Giorgio Agamben describes as “a state of exception”38 – where the
decision-makers inhabit a paradoxical position “by standing inside and outside the law
simultaneously” and therefore being able to “suspend the normal juridical framework”39. In
practice, this leads to a suspension of the normal juridcal framework especially when, as seen by
this case, the operational practice contradicts the international norms.
37 Ibid., 306-7. 38 Meaning “the singularity that defies categorization and so jams up the foundation of juridical reason” (Robin
Truth Goodman, Policing Narratives and the State of Terror (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
2009), 63). 39 See Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998), 15, referred toin: Saul Newman, Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought.
New Theories of the Political (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2005), 105.
25
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
1. Allen, Amy. “Ethics and Post-structuralism”. In Ethics and World Politics, edited by
Duncan Bell, 54-72. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 2. Alvesson, Mats, and Kaj Sköldberg. Reflexive Methodology. New Vistas for Qualitative
Research (Second Edition). London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE
Publications, 2009.
3. Anderson, M.S. The Rise of Modern Diplomacy (1450-1919). Oxon and New York:
Routledge, 2013. 4. Angermuller, Johannes. Why There Is No Poststructuralism in France. The Making of an
Intellectual Generation. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 5. Angermuller, Johannes. Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis. Subjectivity on Enunciative
Pragmatics. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
6. Aradau, Claudia, and Rens van Munster. “Poststructuralist Approaches to Security”. In
Routledge Hanbook of Security Studies (Second Edition), edited by Myriam Dunn Cavelty
and Thierry Balzacq, 75-84. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2017. 7. Aradau, Claudia, Martin Coward, Eva Herschinger, Owen D. Thomas, and Nadine
Voelkner. “Discourse / Materiality”. In Critical Security Methods. New Frameworks for
Analysis, edited by Claudia Aradau, Jef Huysmans, Andrew Neal, and Nadine Voelkner,
57-84. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2015 8. Arribas-Ayllon, Michael, and Valerie Walkerdine. “Foucauldian Discourse Analysis”. In
The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, edited by Carla Willing and
Wendy Stainton-Rogers, 91-108. London: SAGE Publications, 2008.
9. Ashley, Richard K. “The Achievements of Post-structuralism”. In International Theory:
Positivism and Beyond, edited by Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marysia Zalewski, 240-
253. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
10. Ashley, Richard K. “Living on Border Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War”. In
International / Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, edited by
James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro, 259-321. New York and Ontario: Lexington
Books, 1989.
11. Åhäall, Linda, and Stefan Borg. “Predication, Presupposition and Subject-Positioning”. In
Critical Approaches to Security. An Introduction to Theories and Methods, edited by
Laura J. Shepherd, 196-207. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2013.
12. Banks, Michael. “The Inter-Paradigm Debate”. In International Relations. A Handbook of
Current Theory, edited by Margot Light and A.J.R. Groom, 7-26. London: Frances Pinter,
1985.
13. Barker, Stephen. “Grammatology”. In Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, edited by Victor
E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist, 162-164. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
14. Barkin Samuel. “ʻQualitative’ Methods?”. In Qualitative Methods in International
Relations. A Pluralist Guide, edited by Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash, 211-220. London
and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
15. Barela, Steven J. “The Question of “Imminence”: A Historical View on Anticipatory
Attacks”. In Legitimacy and Drones. Investigating the Legality, Morality and Efficacy of
UCAs, edited by Steve J. Barela, 139-162. Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate
Publishing, 2015.
16. Baxter, Judith. “Positioning Language and Identity. Poststructuralist Perspectives”. In The
Routledge Handbook of Language and Identity, edited by Siân Preece, 34-49. Oxon and
New York: Routledge, 2016.
26
17. Baylis, John. “International and Global Security”. In The Globalization of World Politics.
An Introduction to International Relations (Seventh Edition), edited by John Baylis, Steve
Smith, and Patricia Owens, 238-252. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 18. Bărbulescu, Iordan Gheorghe. Noua Europă. Identitate și model european. București:
Editura Polirom, 2015. 19. Beardsworth, Richard. Derrida & the Political. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. 20. Behnke, Andreas. NATO’s Security Discourse after the Cold War. Representing the West.
Oxon and New York: 2013. 21. Bellamy, Alex J. “The Ethics and Laws of War”. In An Introduction to International
Relations (Second Edition), edited by Richard Devetak, Anthony Burke, and Jim George,
218-230. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 22. Bigo, Didier, and Anastassia Tsouakala, “Understanding (In)Security”, in Terror,
Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11, edited by Didier
Bigo and Anastassia Tsouakala, 1-9. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2008.
23. Birns, Nicholas. “Deconstruction”. In Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, edited by Victor
E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist, 84-86. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
24. Bormann, Natalie. National Missile Defence and the Politics of US Identity. A
Poststructural Critique. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2008. 25. Boucher, David. Texts in Context. Revisionist Methods for the Studying the History of
Ideas. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985.
26. Bourne, Mike. Understanding Security. Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
27. Bradley, Arthur. Derrida’s Of Grammatology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
2008.
28. Brown, Chris, and Kirsten Ainley. Understanding International Relations (Fourth
Edition). Hampshire, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
29. Burke, Anthony. “Post-structural Security Studies”. In Critical Approaches to Security.
An Introduction to Theories and Methods, edited by Laura J. Shepherd, 77-88. Oxon and
New York: Routledge, 2013. 30. Burke, Anthony. Beyond Security, Ethics and Violence. War against the Other. Oxon and
New York: Routledge, 2007. 31. Buzan, Barry. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the
Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
32. Buzan Barry, and Lene Hansen. The Evolution of International Security Studies.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 33. Campbell, David. “Poststructuralism”. In International Relations Theories. Discipline and
Diversity (Third Edition), edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, 223-46.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
34. Campbell, David. Writing Security. United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of
Identity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
35. Carty, Anthony. Philosophy of International Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2007. 36. Chernoff, Fred. Theory and Metatheory in International Relations. Concepts and
Contending Accounts. New York and Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
37. Chouliaraki, Lilie. “Discourse Analysis”. In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis,
edited by Tony Bennett and John Frow, 674-696. London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New
Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2008.
38. Christopher, Russell. “Imminence in Justified Targeted Killing”. In Targeted Killings.
Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World, edited by Claire Finkelstein, Jens David
Ohlin, and Andrew Altman, 253-284. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012.
39. Constantinou, Costas M. On the Way to Diplomacy. Minneapolis, MN and London:
University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
27
40. Constantinou, Costas M., and Paul Sharp, “Theoretical Perspectives in Diplomacy”. In
The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy, edited by Costas M. Constantinou, Pauline Kerr, and
Paul Sharp, 13-27. London: SAGE Publications, 2016. 41. Cook, Kay E. “Discourse” In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods
(Volume 1), edited by Lisa M. Given, 216-217. Thousand Oaks, CA, London, and New
Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2008.
42. Cornago, Noé. “(Para)diplomatic Cultures: Old and New”. In Diplomatic Cultures and
International Politics. Translations, Spaces and Alternatives, edited by Jason Dittmer and
Fiona McConnell, 175-194. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2016. 43. Cox, Wayne S., and Claire Turenne Sjolander. “Crititical Reflection on International
Relations”. In Beyond Positivism. Critical Reflections on International Relations, ed.
Claire Turenne Sjolander and Wayne S. Cox, 1-10. Boulder, CO. and London: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 1994.
44. Coyle, Adrian. “Discourse Analysis”. In Research Methods in Psychology (Third Edition),
edited by Glynis M. Breakwell, Scan Hammond, Chris Fife-Schaw, and Jonathan A.
Smith, 366-387. London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2006
45. Critchley, Simon. The Ethics of Deconstruction. Derrida and Levinas (Third Edition) .
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
46. Croft, Stuart. “What Future for Security Studies”. In Security Studies. An Introduction,
edited by Paul D. Williams, 568-680. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2013. 47. Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction. Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.
48. Daalder, Ivo H. “Beyond Premption: An Overview”. In Beyond Preemption. Force and
Legitimacy in a Changing World, edited by Ivo H. Daalder, 1-18. Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press, 2007.
49. Danaher, Geoff, Tony Schirato, and Jen Webb. Understanding Foucault. St. Leonards,
Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000.
50. Deeks, Ashley S. “Taming the Doctrine of Pre-emption”. In The Oxford Handbook of the
Use of Force in International Law, edited by Marc Weller, 661-678. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015.
51. Der Derian, James. “Post-Theory: The Eternal Return of Ethics in International
Relations”. In New Thinking in International Relations Theory, edited by Michael W.
Doyle and G. John Ikenberry, 54-76. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
52. Der Derian, James. “Hedley Bull and the Idea of Diplomatic Culture”. In International
Society after the Cold War: Anarchy and Order Reconsidered, edited by Rick Fawn and
Jeremy Larkins, 84-100. London: Macmillan Press, 1996. 53. Der Derian, James. Antidiplomacy. Spies, Terror, Speed, and War. Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell, 1992
54. Der Derian, James. On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1987.
55. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology (Corrected Edition). Translated by Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997.
56. Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”. In
A Postmodern Reader, edited by Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon, 223-242. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.
57. Derrida, Jacques. “Deconstruction and the Other”. In Dialogues with Contemporary
Continental Thinkers. The Phenomenological Heritage, edited by Richard Kearney, 107-
125. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.
58. Derrida, Jacques. Positions. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1981.
28
59. Devetak, Richard. “Post-structuralism”. In Theories of International Relations (Fifth
Edition), edited by Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater, 187-216. Basingstoke,
Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
60. Devetak, Richard. “Foundationalism / Anti-foundationalism”. In Encyclopedia of
International Relations and Global Politics, edited by Martin Griffiths, 286-289. Oxon
and New York: Routledge, 2005.
61. Diez, Thomas, Ingvild Bode, and Aleksandra Fernandes da Costa. Key Concepts in
International Relations. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2011.
62. Dillon, Michael. Politics of Security. Towards a Political Philosophy of Continental
Thought. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. 63. Duffy, Helen. The ʻWar on Terror’ and the Framework of International Law (Second
Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 64. Edkins, Jenny. “Poststructuralism”. In International Relations Theory for the Twenty-First
Century. An Introduction, edited by Martin Griffiths, 88-98. Oxon and New York:
Routledge, 2007. 65. Edkins, Jenny, “Poststructuralism”. In Encyclopedia of International Relations and
Global Politics, edited by Martin Griffiths, 681-689. Oxon and New York: Routledge,
2005.
66. Edkins, Jenny. Poststructuralism and International Relations. Bringing the Political Back
In. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999.
67. Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London
and New York: Routledge, 2005.
68. Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population. Lectures at the Collège de France
(1977-78). Edited by Michel Senellart, translated by Graham Burchell. Houndmills,
Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 69. Foucault, Michel. Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984. Volume Two: Aesthetics,
Method, and Epistemology. Edited by James D. Faubion, translated by Robert Hurley and
others. New York: The New Press, 1998.
70. Foucault, Michel. “Politics and the Study of Discourse”. In The Foucault Effect. Studies in
Governmentality, edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 53-72.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991.
71. Foucault, Michel. “The Order of Discourse”. In Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist
Reader, edited by Robert Young, 51-78. Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1981.
72. Gasché, Rodolphe. “Deconstruction as Criticism”. In Jacques Derrida. Critical
Assessments of Leading Philosophers (Volume 2), edited by Zeynep Direk and Leonard
Lawlor, 85-120. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
73. George, Jim. “International Relations Theory in the Age of Critical Diversity”. In An
Introduction to International Relations (Second Edition), edited by Richard Devetak,
Anthony Burke, and Jim George 22-34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 74. George, Jim. Discourse of Global Politics: A Critical (Re)Introduction to International
Relations. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.
75. Gill, Rosalind. “Discourse Analysis”. In Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and
Sound. A Practical Handbook, edited by Martin W. Bauer and George Gaskell. London,
Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2000.
76. Goodman, Robin Truth. Policing Narratives and the State of Terror. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 2009. 77. Griffin, Penny. “Deconstruction as ʻAnti-method’”. In Critical Approaches to Security. An
Introduction to Theories and Methods, edited by Laura J. Shepherd, 208-222. Oxon and
New York: Routledge, 2013.
78. Griffiths, Martin, Terry O’Callaghan and Steven C. Roach. International Relations. The
Key Concepts (Third Edition). Oxon and New York, 2014.
29
79. Griffiths, Martin. Rethinking International Relations Theory. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011.
80. Gutting, Gary. French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001. 81. Guzzini, Stefano. “Power”. In Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global
Politics, edited by Martin Griffiths, 689-694. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2005.
82. Hall, Stuart. “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power”. In Formations of Modernity,
edited by Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben, 275-332. Cambridge: The Open University, 1992.
83. Halperin, Sandra, and Oliver Heath. Political Research. Methods & Practical Skills
(Second Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
84. Hansen, Lene. “Poststructuralism”. In The Globalization of World Politics. An
Introduction to International Relations (Seventh Edition), edited by John Baylis, Steve
Smith, and Patricia Owens, 159-173. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
85. Hansen, Lene. “Discourse Analysis, Post-structuralism, and Foreign Policy”. In Foreign
Policy. Theories, Actors, Cases (Second Edition), edited by Steve Smith, Amelia
Hadfield, and Tim Dunne, 94-109. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
86. Hansen, Lene. Security as Practice. Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. Oxon and
New York: Routledge, 2006.
87. Hansen, Lene. “R.B.J. Walker and International Relations: Deconstructing a Discipline”.
In The Future of International Relations. Masters in the Making?, edited by Iver B.
Neumann and Ole Wæver, 339-60. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
88. Herschinger, Eva. Constructing Global Enemies. Hegemony and Identity in International
Discourses on Terrorism and Drug Prohibition. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2011. 89. Hobson, Marian. Jacques Derrida. Opening Lines. London and New York: Routledge,
1998.
90. Hoffman, Stanley H. “International Relations as a Discipline”. In Contemporary Theory in
International Relations, edited by Stanley H. Hoffman, 1-28. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.:
Prentice-Hall, 1960.
91. Hollis, Martin, and Steve Smith. Explaining and Understanding International Relations.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
92. Holsti, Kalevi. Kalevi Holsti: A Pioneer in International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy
Analysis, History of International Order, and Security Studies (ebook). Springer (Springer
Brief on Pioneers in Science and Practice 41), 2016.
93. Howarth, David R. Poststructuralism and After. Structure, Subjectivity and Power. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
94. Howarth, David, and Yannis Stavrakakis. “Introducing Discourse Analysis and Political
Analysis”. In Discourse Theory and Political Analysis. Identities, Hegemonies and Social
Change, edited by David Howarth, Aletta J. Norval, and Yannis Stavrakakis, 1-23.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
95. Huysmans, Jef. “James Der Derian: The Unbearable Lightness of Theory”. In The Future
of International Relations. Masters in the Making?, edited by Iver B. Neumann and Ole
Wæver, 361-383. London and New York: Routledge, 1997 (print) / 2005 (online edition).
96. Innes, Alexandria J. Migration, Citizenship and the Challenge of Security. An
Ethnographic Approach. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2015. 97. Jabri, Vivienne. “Reflections on the Study of International Relations”. In Issues in
International Relations, edited by Trevor C. Salmon, 263-285. London and New York:
Routledge, 2000.
98. Jackson, Richard. Writing the War on Terrorism. Language, Politics and Counter-
Terrorism. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2005. 99. Jackson, Robert, and Georg Sørenson. Introduction to International Relations. Theories
and Approaches (Sixth Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
30
100. Jackson, Robert. The Global Covenant. Human Conduct in a World of States. Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
101. Jarvis, Darryl S.L. “Conclusion. International Relations: An International Discipline?”. In
International Relations – Still and American Social Science? Toward Diversity in
International Thought, edited by Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis, 369-380.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.
102. Jarvis, Darryl S.L. International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism.
Defending the Discipline. Columbia, SC.: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.
103. Jarvis, Lee, and Michael Lister. Anti-Terrorism, Citizenship and Security. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2015. 104. Jorgensen, Marianne, and Louise J. Phillips. Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method.
London and Thousand Oaks, CA.: SAGE Publications, 2002.
105. Jørgensen, Knud Erik. International Relations Theory: A New introduction. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
106. Jönsson, Christer. “Theorising Diplomacy”. In Routledge Handbook of Diplomacy and
Statecraft, edited by B.J.C. McKercher, 15-28. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2012. 107. Jönsson, Christer, and Martin Hall. Essence of Diplomacy. Basingstoke: Hampshire and
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 108. Jørgensen, Knud Erik. “Four Levels and a Discipline”. In Constructing International
Relations. The Next Generation, edited by Karin M. Fierke and Knud Erik Jørgensen, 36-
53. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2015.
109. Jørgensen, Knud Erik. International Relations Theory. A New Introduction. Houndmills,
Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
110. Kaplan, Fred. The Wizard of Armageddon. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983.
111. Kaplan, Morton A. System and Process in International Politics. Colchester, UK: ECPR
Press, 2005.
112. Kaplan, Morton A. “The New Great Debate. Traditionalism vs. Science in International
Relations”. In An Overview of International Studies, edited by John R. Howard, 26-47.
New York: MSS Information Corporation, 1972.
113. Kendall, Gavin, and Gary Wickham. Usings Foucault’s Methods. London, Thousand
Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2003.
114. Kernoff, Fred. Theory and Metatheory in International Relations. Concepts and
Contending Accounts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
115. Klein, Bradley S. Strategic Studies and World Order: The Global Politics of Deterrence.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 116. Knutsen, Torbjørn L. A History of International Relations Theory (Second Edition).
Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997.
117. Knutsen, Torbjørn L. “International Relations: History”. In International Encyclopedia of
Political Science, edited by Bertrand Badie, Dirk Berg-Schlosser and Leonardo Morlino,
1274-86. London: SAGE Publications, 2011.
118. Koch, Andrew M. Poststructuralism and the Politics of Method. Lanham, MD and
Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2007. 119. Koivisto, Marjo. Normative State Power in International Relations. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012.
120. Koukouzelis, Kostas. “The “Foundations” of Political Cosmopolitanism”. In Re-
grounding Cosmopolitanism. Towards a Post-foundational Cosmopolitanism, edited by
Tamara Caraus and Elena Paris, 223-239. New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2016.
121. Kubálková, Vendulka. “The Twenty Years’ Catharsis: E.H. Carr and IR”. In International
Relations in a Constructed World, edited by Vendulka Kubálková, Nicholas Onuf and
Paul Kowert, 25-57. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2015.
122. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Third Edition). Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
31
123. Kurki, Milja. “Roy Bhaskar”. In Critical Theorists and International Relations, edited by
Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams, 89-101. Oxon and New York: Routledge,
2009.
124. Kurki, Milja, and Colin Wight. “International Relations and Social Science”. In
Internatonal Relations Theories. Discipline and Diversity (Third Edition), edited by Tim
Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, 14-35. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
125. Laclau, Ernesto. “Subject of Politics, Politics of the Subject”. In Emancipation(s), 47-65.
London and New York: Verso, 1996.
126. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a
Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 1985.
127. Lamont, Christopher. Research Methods in International Relations. London: SAGE
Publications, 2015.
128. Lapid, Yosef. “Sculpting the Academy Identity: Disciplinary Reflections at the Dawn of a
New Millenium”. In Visions of International Relations: Assessing an Academic Field,
edited by Donald J. Puchala, 1-15. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 2002. 129. Lawson, Stephanie. Theories of International Relations. Contendidng Approaches to
World Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015.
130. Lechte, John Lechte. Key Contemporary Concepts. From Abjection to Zeno’s Paradox.
London, Thousaund Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2003.
131. Leucea, Ioana. Constructivism și securitate umană. Iași: Institutul European, 2012.
132. Lewis, Jeff. Cultural Studies: The Basics (Second Edition). London, Thousand Oaks, CA,
and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2008. 133. Linklater, Andrew. “Introduction”. In International Relations. Critical Concepts in
Political Science (Volume I), edited by Andrew Linklater, 25-26. London and New York:
Routledge, 2000.
134. Little, Richard. The Balance of Power in International Relations. Metaphors, Myths and
Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
135. Long, David. “Interdisciplinarity and the Study of International Relations”. In
International Studies. Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Pami Aalto, Vilho Harle,
and Sami Moisio, 31-65. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
136. Lucarelli, Sonia. Europe and the Breakup of Yugoslavia. A Political Failure in the Search
of a Scholarly Explanation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000.
137. Lynch, Cecelia. Intepreting International Politics. New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2014.
138. Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated
by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1984.
139. Malmvig, Helle. State Sovereignty and Intervention. A Discourse Analysis of
Interventionary and Non-interventionary Practices in Kosovo and Algeria. Oxon and New
York: Routledge, 2006. 140. Mansbach, Richard W., and Kirsten L. Taylor. Introduction to Global Politics (Second
Edition). Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2012.
141. Martin, Lauren. “Security”. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography,
edited by John Agnew, Virginie Mamadouh, Anna J. Secor, and Joanne Sharp, 100-113.
Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. 142. Masschelein, Anneleen. The Unconcept. The Freudian Uncanny in Late-Twentieth
Century Theory. Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2011.
143. Massey, Heath. “Archaeology of Knowledge: Foucault and the Time of Discourse”. In
Understanding Foucault, Understanding Modernism, edited by David Scott, 79-94. New
York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
144. Mattingly, Garrett. Renaissance Diplomacy. New York: Cosimo Inc., 2010. 145. McNabb, David. Research Methods for Political Science. Quantitative and Qualitative
Approaches (Second Edition). Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2010.
32
146. McQuillan, Martin. “Introduction: Five Strategies for Deconstruction”. In Deconstrution.
A Reader, edited by Martin McQuillan, 1-43. New York: Routledge, 2001.
147. Miles, Bart. “Discourse Analysis”. In Encyclopedia of Research Design (Volume I), edited
by Neil J. Salkind, 367-370. Thousand Oaks, CA, London, and New Delhi: SAGE
Publications, 2010.
148. Milliken, Jennifer. “Discourse Study: Bringing Rigor to Critical Theory”. In Constructing
International Relations, edited by Karin M. Fierke and Knud Erik Jørgensen, 136-159.
New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 2001.
149. Morris, Christopher W. An Essay on the Modern State. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998. 150. Mutimer, David. “Critical Security Studies: A Schismatic History”. In Contemporary
Security Studies (Fourth Edition), edited by Alan Collins, 87-107. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016. 151. Nabers, Dirk. A Poststructuralist Discourse Theory of Global Politics. Basignstoke,
Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
152. Neufeld, Mark. “Reflexivity and International Relations Theory”. In Beyond Positivism.
Critical Reflections on International Relations, edited by Claire Turenne Sjolander and
Wayne S. Cox, 11-36. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.
153. Neumann, Iver B. “Discourse Analysis”. In Qualitative Methods in International
Relations. A Pluralist Guide, edited by Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash, 61-77. London
and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
154. Newman, Saul. Unstable Universalities. Poststructuralism and Radical Politics.
Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2007. 155. Newman, Saul. Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought. New Theories of the
Political. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2005. 156. Nyman, Jonna. “Securitization Theory”. In Critical Approaches to Security. An
Introduction to Theories and Methods, edited by Laura J. Shepherd, 51-62. Oxon and
New York: Routledge, 2013 157. O’Loughlin, Antony. Overcoming Poststructuralism. Rawls, Kracktowil and the Structure
of Normative Reasoning in International Relations. Houndmills, Basingstoke and New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
158. Ohlin, Jens David, and Larry May. Necessity in International Law. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016.
159. Owens, Patricia, John Baylis, and Steve Smith. “From International Politics to World
Politics”. In The Globalization of World Politics. An Introduction to International
Relations (Seventh Edition), edited by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, 1-
14. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
160. Peoples, Columba, and Nick Vaughan-Williams. Critical Security Studies. An
Introduction (Second Edition). Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2015. 161. Peterson, V. Spike. “Security and Sovereign States: What Is at Stake in Taking Feminism
Seriously”. In Gendered States. Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory,
edited by V. Spike Peterson, 31-64. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
1992.
162. Puchala, Donald J. Theory and History in International Relations. New York and Oxon:
Routledge, 2003.
163. Rengger, Nicholas J. International Relations, Political Theory and the Problem of Order.
Beyond International Relations Theory?. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
164. Rosenow, Doerthe. “Decentring Global Power: The Merits of a Foucauldian Approach to
International Relations”. In Foucault and International Relations. New Critical
Engagements, edited by Nicholas J. Kiersey and Doug Stokes, 135-156. Oxon and New
York: Routledge, 2011.
33
165. Rouse, Joseph. “Power / Knowledge”. In The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (Second
Edition), edited by Gary Gutting, 95-122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
166. Savigny, Heather and Lee Marsden. Doing Political Science and International Relations.
Theories in Actions. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
167. Schmidt, Brian C. “On the History and Historiography of International Relations”. In
Handbook of International Relations (Second Edition), edited by Walter Carlsnaes,
Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons, 3-28. London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi:
SAGE Publications, 2013.
168. Schmidt, Brian C. The Political Discourse of Anarchy. A Disciplinary History of
International Relations. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998.
169. Sharp, Paul. Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009. 170. Smith, James K.A. Jacques Derrida: Live Theory. New York: Continuum, 2005.
171. Smith, Steve. “Six Wishes for a More Relevant Discipline of International Relations”. In
The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, edited by Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan
Snidal, 725-732. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
172. Smith, Steve. “The Increasing Insecurity of Security Studies: Conceptualizing Security in
the Last Twenty Years”. In Critical Reflections on Security and Change, edited by Stuart
Croft and Terry Terriff, 72-101. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000. 173. Smith, Steve. “New Approaches to International Theory”. In The Globalization of World
Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (First Edition), edited by John Baylis
and Steve Smith, 165-90. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
174. Smith, Steve. “The Self Images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations
Theory”. In International Relations Theory Today, edited by Steve Smith and Ken Booth,
1-37. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.
175. Spindler, Manuela, and Siegfried Schieder. “Theory in International Relations”. In
Theories of International Relations. Edited by Siegfried Schieder and Manuela Spindler,
translated by Alex Skinner, 1-21. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2014.
176. Stone, Brad Elliott. “Genealogy”. In Understanding Foucault, Understanding Modernism,
edited by David Scott, 244-245. New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 177. Sturrock, John. Structuralism (Second Edition). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003
178. Telò, Mario. International Relations: A European Perspective. Surrey, England and
Burlington, VT: Asghate Publishing, 2009.
179. Torfing, Jacob. “Power and Discourse: Towards an Anti-Foundationalist Concept of
Power”. In The SAGE Handbook of Power, edited by Stewart R. Clegg and Mark
Haugaard, 108-124. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009.
180. Wæver, Ole. “Still a Discipline After All These Debates In Internatonal Relations
Theories. Discipline and Diversity (Third Edition), edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki,
and Steve Smith, 306-327. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
181. Wæver, Ole. “The Sociology of a Not so International Discipline: American and European
Developments in International Relations”. In Exploration and Constestation in the Study
of World Politics, edited by Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen D.
Krasner, 47-88. Cambrigde, MA. and London, England: The MIT Press, 1999.
182. Wæver, Ole. “Four Meanings of International Society: A Trans-Atlantic Dialogue”. In
International Societ and the Development of International Relations Theory, edited by
Barbara A. Roberson, 80-144. New York: Continuum, 1998.
183. Walker, Robert B.J. “The Subject of Security”. In Critical Security Studies. Concepts and
Cases, edited by Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams, 61-81. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1997. 184. Walker, Robert B.J. Inside / Outside: International Relations as Political Theory.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993
34
185. Weber, Cynthia. International Relations Theory. A Critical Introduction (Fourth Edition).
Oxon and New York: Routlede, 2014.
186. Weber, Cynthia. Simulating Sovereignty. Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 187. Wight, Martin. “Why Is There No International Theory?”. In Diplomatic Investigations.
Essays in the Theory of International Politics, edited by Herbert Butterfield and Martin
Wight, 17-34. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Pres, 1966.
188. Williams, James. Understanding Poststructuralism. Chesham: Acumen, 2005.
189. Wolfreys, Julian. Deconstruction • Derrida. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
Journals
1. Agger, Ben. “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological
Relevance”. Annual Review of Sociology 17 (1991): 105-131. 2. Armitage, David. “The Fifty Years’Rift: Intellectual History and International Relations”.
Mordern Intellectual History 1, no.1 (April 2004): 97-109.
3. Ashley, Richard K. “The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Toward a Critical Social
Theory of International Relations”. Alternatives 12, no. 4 (October 1987): 403-34.
4. Ashley, Richard K. “The Poverty of Neorealism”. International Organization 38, no. 2
(Spring 1984): 225-86.
5. Ashley, Richard K., and Robert B.J. Walker. “Introduction: Speaking the Language of
Exile: Dissident Thought in International Studies”. International Studies Quarterly 34, no.
3 (September 1990): 259-68.
6. Ashley, Richard K., and Robert B.J. Walker. “Conclusion: Reading Dissidence / Writing
the Discipline. Crisis and the Question of Sovereignty in International Studies”.
International Studies Quarterly 34, no. 3 (September 1990): 367-416. 7. Biersteker, Thomas J. “Critical Reflections on Post-Positivism in International Relations”.
International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 3 (September 1989): 263-67.
8. Brown, Chris. “The Development of International Relations in the United Kingdon:
Traditions, Contemporary Perspectives and Trajectories”. Internationtional Studies 46, no.
1-2 (January / April 2009): 221-237.
9. Brown, Chris. “ʻTurtles All the Way Down: Anti-Foundationalism, Critical Theory and
International Relations”. Millennium – Journal of International Studies 23, no. 2 (June
1994): 213-36.
10. Constantinou, Costas. “Late Modern Diplomacies”. Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 22, no. 1 (March 1993): 89-96. 11. Der Derian, James. “The (S)pace of International Relations. Simulation, Surveillance, and
Speed”. International Studies Quarterly 34, no. 3 (September 1990): 295-310.
12. Der Derian, James. “Mediating Estrangement: A Theory for Diplomacy”. Review of
International Studies 13, no. 2 (April 1987): 91-110. 13. Dillon, G.M. “The Alliance of Security and Subjectivity”. Current Research on Peace and
Violence 13, no. 3 (1990): 101-24. 14. Doty, Roxanne Lynn. “Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis
of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines”. International Studies Quarterly 37,
no. 3 (September 1993): 297-320.
15. Dunne, Tim, Lene Hansen, and Colin Wight. “The End of International Relations
Theory?”. European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 3 (September 2013): 405-
25.
16. Epstein, Charlotte. “Who Speaks? Discourse, the Subject and the Study of Identity in
International Politics”. European Journal of International Relations 17, no. 2 (2011): 327-
50.
35
17. Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power”. Critical Inquiry 8, no. 4 (Summer 1982):
777-95.
18. Foucault, Michel. “History, Discourse and Discontinuity”. Translated by Anthony M.
Nazzaro. Salmagundi 20 (“Psychological Man: Approaches to an Emergent Social Type”)
(Summer – Fall 1972): 225-48.
19. George, Jim. “Of Incarceration and Closure: Neo-Realism and the New / Old World
Order”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 22, no. 2 (June 1993): 197-234.
20. George, Jim, and David Campbell. “Patterns of Dissent and the Celebration of Difference.
Critical Social Theory and InternationaL Relations”. International Studies Quarterly 34,
no. 3 (September 1990): 269-93.
21. de Goede, Marieke. “The Politics of Preemption and the War on Terror in Europe”.
European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 1 (March 2008): 161-85. 22. Hakimi, Monica. “Defensive Force against Non-State Actors: The State of Play”.
International Law Studies 91 (2015): 1-31.
23. Hansen, Hansen. “Theorizing the Image for Security Studies: Visual Securitization and
the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis”. European Journal of International Relations 17, no. 1
(March 2011): 51-74. 24. Hansen, Lene. “The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of
Gender in the Copenhagen School”. Millennium – Journal of International Studies 29, no.
2 (June 2000): 285-306.
25. Hansen, Lene. “A Case for Seduction? Evaluating the Poststructuralist Conceptualization
of Security”. Cooperation and Conflict 32, no. 4 (December 1997): 369-97. 26. Holsti, Ole R. “Models of International Relations and Foreign Policy”. Diplomatic History
13, no. 1 (January 1989): 15-43.
27. Huysmans, Jef. “What’s in an Act? On Security Speech Acts and Little Security
Nothings”. Security Dialogue 42, no. 4-5 (October 2011): 371-83. 28. Huysmans, Jef. “Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick Signifier”.
European Journal of International Relations 4, no. 2, (June 1998): 226-55. 29. Huysmans, Jef. “Post-Cold War Implosion and Globalisation: Liberalism Running Past
Itself”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 24, no. 3 (December 1995): 471-87. 30. Keohane, Robert O. “International Institutions: Two Approaches”. International Studies
Quarterly 32, no. 4 (December 1988): 379-96.
31. Lake, David A. “Theory Is Dead, Long Live Theory: The End of the Great Debates and
the Rise of Eclecticism in International Relations”. European Journal of International
Relations 19, no.3 (September 2013): 567-587.
32. Lapid, Yosef. “The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-
Positivist Era”. International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 3 (September 1989): 235-54.
33. McClelland, Charles A. “A Classification of International Relations Theory”. American
Behavioral Scientist 2, no. 4 (March 1959): 32-4.
34. Milliken, Jennifer. “The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique of
Research and Methods”. European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 2 (June
1999):225-54.
35. Neufeld, Mark. “Interpretation and the ʻScience’ of International Relations”. Review of
International Studies 19, no. 1 (January 1993): 39-61.
36. Rathbun, Brian. “Politics and Paradigm Preferences: The Implicit Ideology of
International Relations Scholars”. International Studies Quarterly 56, no. 3 (September
2012): 607-22. 37. Raulet, Gérard. “Structuralism and Post-Structuralism: An Interview with Michel
Foucault”. Telos XVI, no. 55 (March 1983): 195-211. 38. Rengger, Nicholas J. “James Der Derian, On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western
Estrangement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, 258 pp) – Book Review”. Millennium:
Journal of International Studies 17, no. 2 (June 1988): 378-80.
36
39. Sharp, Paul. “For Diplomacy: Representation and the Study of International Relations”.
International Studies Review 1, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 33-57. 40. Shepherd, Laura. “A User’s Guide: Analyzing Security as Discourse: Security as Practice:
Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War by Lene Hansen”. International Studies Review
8, no. 4 (December 2006): 656-658. 41. Shiner, Larry. “Reading Foucault: Anti-Method and the Genealogy of Power –
Knowledge”. History and Theory 21, no. 3 (October 1982): 382-398.
42. Stoddart, Mark C.J. “Ideology, Hegemony, Discourse: A Critical Review of Theories of
Knowledge and Power”. Social Thought & Research 28 (2007): 191-225.
43. Walker, Robert B.J. “Security, Sovereignty, and the Challenge of World Politics”.
Alternatives 15, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 3-27. 44. Warren, Mark. “On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement. By James Der
Derian (Book Review)”. The Journal of Politics 51, no. 1 (February 1989): 208-11. 45. Weber, Cynthia. “Interruption Ashley”. Review of International Studies 36, no. 4 (October
2010): 975-87.