Humiliation in International Relations: A Pathology of Contemporary International Systems

ISBN-13: 9781509934669 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 184 str.

Bertrand Badie

Opis

In international relations (IR), some states often deny the legal status of others, stigmatising their practices or even their culture. Such acts of deliberate humiliation at the diplomatic level are common occurrences in modern diplomacy. In the period following the breakup of the famous `Concert of Europe', many kinds of club-based diplomacy have been tried, all falling short of anything like inclusive multilateralism. Examples of this effort include the G7, G8, G20 and even the P5. Such `contact groups' are put forward as if they were actual ruling institutions, endowed with the power to exclude and marginalise. Today, the effect of such acts of humiliation is to reveal the international system's limits and its lack of diplomatic effectiveness. The use of humiliation as a regular diplomatic action steadily erodes the power of the international system. These actions appear to be the result of a botched mixture of a colonial past, a failed decolonisation, a mistaken vision of globalisation and a very dangerous post-bipolar reconstruction. Although this book primarily takes a social psychology approach to IR, it also mobilizes the resources of the French sociological tradition, mainly inspired by Emile Durkheim. It is translated from Le temps des humilies. Pathologie des relations internationales (Paris, Odile Jacob, 2014).

Spis treści

Part One: Humiliation in the History of International Relations: The Discovery of a New Form of Social Pathology 1. Pitfalls of the Ordinary Lives of People Tectonics of Societies Lack of Integration The Uncertainties of Status The End of the Cold War and Beyond 2. Humiliation, or Power without Rules Power Against Humiliation How Power Goes Wrong 3. Types of Humiliation and their Diplomacies Constructing a Typology Type 1: Humiliation by Lowering of Status Type 2: Humiliation through Denial of Equality Type 3: Humiliation by Relegation Type 4: Humiliation through Stigmatisation Part Two: An International System Fed by Humiliation 4. Constitutive Inequality: The Colonial Past Exceptions and Outrages Pathways of Humiliation New forms of Patronage 5. Structural Inequality: To be Outside the Elite The Broken Dream of the ‘Middle Powers’ Emergent Powers and the Bonds of Past Humiliations Small Countries’ Narrow Range of Action 6. Functional Inequality: Being Excluded from Governance Minilateralism Oligarchic Pressure A Certain Diplomatic Paternalism Part Three: The Dangerous Repercussions that Follow Humiliation: Towards an Anti-System? 7. The Mediating Role of Societies The International Mobilisation of Societies Neo-Nationalism and Fundamentalism The Insoluble Contradictions of the Arab Spring 8. Are there Anti-System Diplomacies? Oppositional Diplomacies Diplomacies of Deviance 9. Uncontrolled Violence New Conflicts, New Violence Violence and Social Integration Conclusion