Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T04:58:50.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anxiety, time, and agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

Felix Berenskötter Open the ORCID record for Felix Berenskötter [Opens in a new window]
Felix Berenskötter*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London, London, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article scrutinizes two concepts central to the ontological security framework, agency and anxiety. Its point of departure is the view that conceptions of agency are expressed in the attempt to become ontologically secure, which requires a more careful look at how humans try to satisfy the need for a ‘stable sense of Self’ by putting in place ‘anxiety controlling mechanisms’. This, in turn, raises the question what these mechanisms are supposed to control, which shifts attention to the concept of ‘anxiety’. Going back to Kierkegaard's original treatment and Heidegger's existential phenomenology, the article reviews the emergence of anxiety as a core feature of the human condition and highlights what it calls the ‘anxiety paradox’: the tendency of reflexive humans facing the freedom of being in time to attach themselves to constructs that provide a sense of temporal continuity, or certainty. The article argues that the existing ontological security literature is trapped in this paradox and therefore cannot account for radical forms of agency.

Keywords

anxietyagencytemporality
Type
Symposium: Anxiety, Fear, and Ontological Security in World Politics: Edited by Catarina Kinnvall and Jennifer Mitzen
Information
International Theory , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 273 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities. Revised edition. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Arfi, Badredine. 2020. “Existential Security qua Surviving (while Always Becoming Otherwise) through Performative Leaps of Faith.” International Theory 12 (2): 291–305.Google Scholar
Assmann, Aleida. 1999. Erinnerungsräume. München: C. H. Beck.Google Scholar
Becker, Ernest. 1973. The Denial of Death. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Berenskoetter, Felix. 2011. “Reclaiming the Vision Thing: Constructivists as Students of the Future.” International Studies Quarterly 55 (3): 647–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenskoetter, Felix. 2014. “Parameters of a National Biography.” European Journal of International Relations 20 (1): 262–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenskoetter, Felix. 2018. “Deep Theorizing in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 24 (4): 814–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenskoetter, Felix, and Giegerich, Bastian. 2010. “From NATO to ESDP: A Social Constructivist Analysis of German Strategic Adjustment after the End of the Cold War.” Security Studies 19 (3): 407–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, Peter, and Luckmann, Thomas. 1991 [1966]. The Social Construction of Reality. Hardmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Bially Mattern, Janice. 2005. Ordering International Politics: Identity, Crisis and Representational Force. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browning, Christopher, and Joenniemi, Pertti. 2017. “Ontological security, self-articulation and the securitization of identity.” Cooperation and Conflict 52 (1): 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cash, John. 2020. “Psychoanalysis, Cultures of Anarchy and Ontological Insecurity.” International Theory 12 (2): 306–21.Google Scholar
Croft, Stuart. 2012. “Constructing Ontological Insecurity: The Insecuritization of Britain's Muslims.” Contemporary Security Policy 33 (2): 219–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doty, Roxanne L. 1997. “Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory.” European Journal of International Relations 3 (3): 365–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1992. Time: An Essay. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Emirbayer, Mustafa, and Mische, Ann. 1998. “What is Agency?” The American Journal of Sociology 103 (4): 962–1023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Charlotte. 2010. “Who Speaks? Discourse, the Subject and the Study of Identity in International Politics.” European Journal of International Relations 17 (2): 327–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Charlotte. 2013. “Theorizing Agency in Hobbes’ Wake: The Rational Actor, the Self, or the Speaking Subject?” International Organization 67 (2): 287–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flockhart, Trine. 2017. “The Problem of Change in Constructivist Theory: Ontological Security Seeking and Agent Motivation.” Review of International Studies 42 (5): 799–820.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Grosz, Elizabeth. 2005. Time Travels. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerlac, Suzanne. 2006. Thinking in Time. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Guignon, Charles, and Gunnell, John G. 1987. Political Philosophy and Time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1990. The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannay, Alastair. 2014. “Translator's Introduction.” In The Concept of Anxiety, edited by Kierkegaard, Søren, ix–xxvii. New York: Liveright.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. 1990. The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. (1927) 2001/1953. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Hom, Andrew R., and Steele, Brent J.. 2020. “Anxiety, Time, and Ontological Security Theory's Third-Image Potential.” International Theory 12 (2): 322–36.Google Scholar
Hom, Andrew R. 2010. “Hegemonic Metronome: The Ascendancy of Western Standard Time.” Review of International Studies 36 (4): 1145–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopf, Ted. 2002. Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Max, and Adorno, Theodor. (1947) 1998. Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt: Fischer.Google Scholar
Hutchings, Kimberly. 2008. Time and World Politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huysmans, Jef. 1998. “Security! What Do You Mean? From Concept to Thick Signifier.” European Journal of International Relations 4 (2): 226–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Patrick T. 2006. Civilizing the Enemy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1959. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, and What Is Enlightenment? Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Kinnvall, Catarina. 2006. Globalization and Religious Nationalism in India. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kirkegaard, Søren. (1844) 2014. The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by Alastair Hannay. London and New York: Liveright.Google Scholar
Krishna, Sankaran. 1994. “Cartographic Anxiety: Mapping the Body Politic in India.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 19 (4): 507–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto. 1996. Emancipation(s). London and New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Lebow, Richard N. 2012. The Politics and Ethics of Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebow, Richard N. 2017. National Identities and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lupovici, Amir. 2012. “Ontological Dissonance, Clashing Identities, and Israel's Unilateral Steps towards the Palestinians.” Review of International Studies 38 (4): 809–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massey, Heath. 2016. The Origin of Time: Heidegger and Bergson. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Michelsen, Nicholas, and Hirst, Aggie. 2013. “Introduction: International Relations and the Death of God.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42 (1): 103–13.Google Scholar
Mitzen, Jennifer. 2006. “Ontological Security in World Politics. State Identity and the Security Dilemma.” European Journal of International Relations 12 (3): 341–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitzen, Jennifer, and Schweller, Randall L. 2011. “Knowing the unknown unknowns: misplaced certainty and the onset of war.” Security Studies 20 (1): 2–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murchadha, Felix O. 1999. Zeit des Handelns und Möglichkeit der Verwandlung. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.Google Scholar
Odysseos, Louiza. 2002. “Radical Phenomenology, Ontology and International Political Theory.” Alternatives 27 (3): 373–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringmar, Erik. 1996. “On the Ontological Status of the State.” European Journal of International Relations 2 (4): 439–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossdale, Chris. 2015a. “Enclosing Critique: The Limits of Ontological Security.” International Political Sociology 9 (4): 369–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossdale, Chris. 2015b. “Dancing Ourselves to Death: The Subject of Emma Goldman's Nietzschean Anarchism.” Globalizations 12 (1): 116–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumelili, Bahar. (ed) 2015. Conflict Resolution and Ontological Security: Peace Anxieties. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rumelili, Bahar. 2020. “Integrating Anxiety into International Relations Theory: Hobbes, Existentialism, and Ontological Security.” International Theory 12 (2): 257–72.Google Scholar
Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 2003. “Death and immortality ideologies in Western philosophy.” Continental Philosophy Review 36 235–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, Ty. 2014. “Time and Subjectivity in World Politics.” International Studies Quarterly 58 (4): 671–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, Brent J. 2005. “Ontological Security and the Power of Self-Identity: British Neutrality and the American Civil War.” Review of International Studies 31 (3): 519–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, Brent J. 2008. Ontological Security in International Relations. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subotic, Jelena. 2016. “Narrative, Ontological Security, and Foreign Policy Change.” Foreign Policy Analysis 12 (4): 610–27.Google Scholar
Vieira, Marco. 2017. “(Re-)Imagining the ‘Self’ of Ontological Security: The Case of Brazil's Ambivalent Postcolonial Subjectivity.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 46 (2): 142–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1987. “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory.” International Organization 41 (3): 335–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Hayden. 1987. The Content of the Form. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Michael C. 2005. “What is the National Interest? The Neoconservative Challenge in IR Theory.” European Journal of International Relations 11 (3): 307–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zarakol, Ayşe. 2017. “States and Ontological Security: A Historical Rethinking.” Cooperation and Conflict 52 (1): 48–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar