A Recognition Theory of Global Politics

This paper presents the framework for my book-in-progress (working title: A Recognition Theory of Global Politics), which focuses on agency and identity on the world stage. Whereas most social science simply assumes agency of a particular type is associated with certain identity roles or theorizes it away with implied structural determinism, I argue that the capacity to act in global politics is best understood as the product of social interaction—an aspect of socially constructed identities. Specifically, I argue that relationships of recognition that construct identities in social context also endow actors with agency, situating the ‘persons’ of global politics in time and space. This approach has two key advantages. First, while an understanding of agents and structures as co-constituted has long been a mainstay of critical and constructivist IR, scholarship has overwhelmingly focused on the structural side of this equation, rather than the agentic one. My framework thus provides a necessary corrective, helping rebalance accounts of global change. Second, I argue that a focus on agency’s production can help rebuild lost connections between normative and positive IR theory. Agency is at once both a foundational force in global politics and a moral distinction. Agents are those we include in decision-making and hold accountable for past actions, while non-agents are those we disregard, devalue, and dismiss. Understanding how agency is produced and constrained on the world stage, I argue, is vital to building dialogue between IR theory and work on global justice. I illustrate my framework with reference to the memory politics that have shaped international reparations agreements in the 20^th century.

Find out more about Places, Identities and Memories (PIMs).