2 - States as outsiders

Summary

Much could be gained from a better understanding of the dynamics of established-outsider figurations and thus of the problems involved in the changing position of groups in relation to each other, of the rise of groups into the position of monopolistic establishment from which others are excluded, and the decline and fall from such a position to another where they themselves are, in some respects, outsiders.

Norbert Elias, Established and Outsiders

Introduction

In this chapter, I advance the argument that social relations between the states throughout the history of the modern international system have often resembled the “established-outsider” figuration outlined by Elias in his seminal work with the same title. I also demonstrate that negative assessments of states in the international system have never been value-neutral objective descriptions of reality, but are best thought of as “stigma” labels in the sociological sense. This, in turn, implies that the integration of the historically outsider states into the modern international system cannot be explained without the larger normative context of international stigmatization.

Stigmatized states are very much driven by that condition. At times when there is the opportunity to give new direction to state policy, such as the immediate aftermath of major defeat, the limited array of social strategies dealing with stigmatization are dominantly featured options in the domestic debates. The specific form those strategies take and which one ultimately gets picked is contingent on the features of the socio-normative hierarchy at a given time, but we may generally predict that strategies which satisfy the social-status cravings of historically stigmatized states will be both immediately preferred and easier to sustain in the long run.