Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T00:01:27.917Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agency (mis)recognition in international violence: the case of French jihadism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Thomas Lindemann Open the ORCID record for Thomas Lindemann [Opens in a new window]
Thomas Lindemann*
Affiliation:
L'École polytechnique, Université Paris-Saclay
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This contribution introduces a reconceptualisation of misrecognition that stresses ‘creative agency’ (gift, work, etc.) as a condition of self-consciousness. Drawing on Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, I argue that recognition struggles are often less motivated by the actors’ desire to have a special status than by the desire to make a ‘contribution’ to society, to ‘give’ something. The content of a socially valued contribution-gift (as per Marcel Mauss) varies from one society to another but it is linked to the very ability of actors to act on their ‘own’ and to shape their environment. Thus, subjects identifying with political units or social groups with little recognised agency, while imagining strong abilities to contribute to a given society, will easily feel slighted. It is impossible to be recognised as ‘subjects’ if one is denied in the ability to ‘contribute’ to a given society. I apply this perspective to the case of French jihadism, based on 13 interviews with prisoners in France suspected to belong to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. These individuals experience ‘individual’ agency denial inside the ‘national’ community, but also agency denial of ‘Muslim sovereignty’ outside.

Keywords

MisrecognitionHegelMaussSovereign Agency
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 44 , Special Issue 5: Special Issue on Misrecognition in World Politics: Revisiting Hegel , December 2018 , pp. 922 - 943
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2018 

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

1 Paul, T. V., Larson, Deborah Welch, and Wohlforth, William, Status in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar . See also Zarakol, Ayşe, ‘Sovereign equality as misrecognition’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)Google Scholar , this Special Issue.

2 Bartelson, Jens, ‘Three concepts of recognition’, International Theory, 5:1 (2013), p. 107 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

3 Ringmar, Erik, Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden’s Intervention in the Thirty Years War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar .

4 Lebow, Richard New, A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

5 Lindemann, Thomas, Causes of War: The Struggle for Recognition (Colchester: ECPR Press 2011)Google Scholar ; Wolf, Reinhard, ‘Respect and disrespect in international politics: the significance of status recognition’, International Theory, 3:1 (2011), pp. 105–142 Google Scholar .

6 Duncombe, Constance, ‘Representation, recognition and foreign policy in the Iran US relationship’, European Journal of International Relations, 21:1 (2015), pp. 1–24 Google Scholar .

7 Fehl, Caroline and Kolliarkis, Georgios, Recognition in International Relations: Rethinking a Political Concept in a Global Context (London: Springer, 2015)Google Scholar .

8 Thompson, Simon and Yar, Majid, The Politics of Misrecognition (London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2011)Google Scholar .

9 Dübgen, Franziska, ‘Africa humiliated? Misrecognition in development aid’, Res Publica, 18:1 (2012), pp. 65–77 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

10 Wolf, ‘Respect’, p. 107.

11 Hegel, Georg Wilhel, Phänomenologie des Geistes (Francfort: Suhrkamp 1971)Google Scholar ; Mauss, Marcel, Essais sur le don – forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaiques in Sociologie et Antropologie [The Gift] (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1950)Google Scholar .

12 Hegel, Phänomenologie, p. 145.

13 Sen, Amartya, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 2001); Nussbaum, Martha C., Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001)Google Scholar .

14 Ibid., p. 253.

15 Mauss, Marcel, Essais sur le don: Forme et raison de l'échange dans les sociétés archaïques. Introduction de Florence Weber [The Gift] (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2012)Google Scholar .

16 Hegel, Phänomenologie and Mauss, Essai.

17 See, for example, Martinez, Luis, ‘Structures, environment, and disruption in Jihadism’, Cultures & Conflicts, 1 (2008), pp. 133–156 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Roy, Olivier, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar and Crettiez, Xavier, Sèze, Romain, Ainine, Billel, and Lindemann, Thomas, Saisir les mécanismes de la radicalisation violente: pour une analyse processuelle et biographique des engagements violents (Paris, 2017), available at: {http://www.gip-recherche-justice.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Synthese-rapport-radicalisation-finale.pdf Google Scholar }.

18 Epstein, Charlotte, Thomas Lindemann, and Ole Jacob Sending, ‘Frustrated sovereigns: the agency that makes the world go around’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , introduction to the Special Issue.

19 See Antonio, Robert, ‘Immanent critique as the core of critical theory: its origins and developments in Hegel, Marx and contemporary thought’, The British Journal of Sociology, 32:3 (1981), pp. 330–345 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Ikäheimo, Heikki, ‘A vital human need: Recognition as inclusion in personhood’, European Journal of Political Theory, 8:1 (2009), pp. 31–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

20 Hegel, G. W. F., Principes de la philosophie du droit (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998: Edition critique établie par Jean-François Kervégan), pp. 535–539 Google Scholar .

21 These are not Hegel’s concepts. However, seen in relation to the issue of objectivity (one might say, of objectality), subjectivity (about the future of the subject) and recognition, this expression seems to allow us to better understand today Hegelian questioning by having it resonate with other issues, especially the theory of capacity (capabilities) of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. We present these three moments by immediately integrating some elements of Maussian analysis.

22 See Epstein, Charlotte, ‘The productive force of the negative and the desire for recognition: Lessons from Hegel and Lacan’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

23 Markell, Patchen, Bound by Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar ; Hegel, Phänomenologie, p. 143.

24 See Pippin, Robert B., Hegel on Self-consciousness: Desire and Death in the Phenomenology of Spirit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

25 Jameson, Frederic, The Hegel Variations: On The Phenomenology of Spirit (London: Verso Books, 2014), p. 57 Google Scholar .

26 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), p. 117 Google Scholar .

27 Ibid., p. 118.

28 Jameson, The Hegel Variations, p. 23 Google Scholar .

29 Hegel, Phänomenologie, pp. 183, 147, my translation.

30 Sayers, Sean, ‘Creative activity and alienation in Hegel and Marx’, Historical Materialism, 11:1 (2003), pp. 107–128 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

31 See the stimulating work of Haleem, Irm, The Essence of Islamist Extremism: Recognition through Violence, Freedom through Death (London: Routledge 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

32 Mauss, Essais.

33 And which Claude Lefort had well carried out in his important article, ‘L’échange ou la lutte des hommes’, Les Temps modernes (1951), pp. 1401–17, first criticism, inspiration of merleau-pontyenne, of structuralism by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Re-edited in C. Lefort, Les formes de l’histoire, Bibliothèque des Sciences Humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1978).

34 See, for example, Godelier, Maurice, The Enigma of the Gift (Cambridge: Cambridge: Polity Press); Gouldner, A. H., ‘The norm of reciprocity: a preliminary statement’, American Journal of Sociology, 25:2 (1960), pp. 161–178 Google Scholar ; Klein, Melanie, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946–1963, Vol. III (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1987)Google Scholar .

35 Mauss, Essais, p. 39.

36 And therefore, let’s say, to be worthy of being loved, respected, and esteemed.

37 See High, Holly, ‘Re‐reading the potlatch in a time of crisis: debt and the distinctions that matter’, Social Anthropology, 20:4 (2012), pp. 363–379 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Baldwin, Jon, ‘Lessons from witchetty grubs and eskimos: the French anthropological context of Jean Baudrillard’, French Cultural Studies, 19:3 (2008), pp. 333–346 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

38 Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘Symbolic power’, Critique of Anthropology, 4:13–14 (1979), pp. 77–85 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

39 See also Bourdieu, Pierre, La distinction (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1979)Google Scholar .

40 Mauss, Essais, p. 95.

41 Cf. Godelier, Maurice, La production des grands hommes (Paris: Fayard, 1982)Google Scholar .

42 See Gallagher, Julia, ‘Misrecognition in the making of a state: Ghana’s international relations under Kwame Nkrumah’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue and Epstein, ‘The productive force of the negative and the desire for recognition’.

43 Two stimulating works: Stirrat, Roderick and Henkel, Heiko, ‘The development gift: the problem of reciprocity in the NGO world’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 554:1 (1997), pp. 66–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Ramel, Frédéric, ‘Marcel Mauss et l’étude des relations internationales: un héritage oublié’, Sociologie et sociétés, 36:2 (2004), pp. 227–245 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

44 See Kanungo, Rabindra, ‘Culture and work alienation western models and eastern realities’, International Journal of Psychology, 25:3–6 (1990), pp. 795–812 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Loriol, Marc, ‘Collective forms of coping and the social construction of work stress among industrial workers and police officers in France’, Theory & Psychology, 26:1 (2016), pp. 112–129 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

45 See Lindemann, Thomas, Causes of War: The Struggle for Recognition (Colchester: ECPR Press 2011), p. 23 Google Scholar and Holm, Minda and Sending, Ole Jacob, ‘States before relations: On misrecognition and the bifurcated regime of sovereignty’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

46 We think here of the challenges of UN recognition of the Palestinian Authority.

47 Khosrokhavar, Farhad, Prisons de France: Violence, radicalisations, déshumanisation: surveillants et détenus parlent (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2016)Google Scholar .

48 See Crettiez, Sèze, Ainine, and Lindemann, Saisir les mécanismes de la radicalisation violente.

49 For the problem of securitisation of Muslim populations in France, see Bonelli, Laurent, La France a peur…: Une histoire sociale de ‘l’insécurité’ (Paris: La Découverte, 2014), ch. 2; Bartolucci, Valentina, ‘Analysing elite discourse on terrorism and its implications: the case of Morocco’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 3:1 (2010), pp. 119–135 Google Scholar . On the often-occulted phenomenon of state terrorism, see Blakeley, Ruth, ‘Bringing the state back into terrorism studies’, European Political Science, 6:3 (2007), pp. 228–235 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

50 Offer, Avner, ‘Between the gift and the market: the economy of regard’, The Economic History Review, 50:3 (1997), pp. 450–476 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Bolton, Sharon C., ‘Who cares? Offering emotion work as a “gift” in the nursing labour process’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32:3 (2000), pp. 580–586 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed .

51 See Honneth, Axel, ‘Invisibility: On the epistemology of “recognition”’, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 75:1 (2001), pp. 111–126 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

52 Klandermans, Bert, The Social Psychology of Protest (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1997)Google Scholar .

53 See Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, ‘Stigma management in international relations: Transgressive identities, norms, and order in international society’, International Organization, 68:1 (2014), pp. 143–176 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

54 See also Kinnvall, Catarina and Svensson, Ted, ‘Misrecognition and the Indian state: the desire for sovereign agency’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

55 See Khosrokhavar, Farhad, Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide (London: Routledge, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

56 Hoffman, Bruce, ‘Radicalization and subversion: Al Qaeda and the 7 July 2005 bombings and the 2006 airline bombing plot’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 32:12 (2009), pp. 1100–1116 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

57 Schissel, Bernhard, ‘Boys against girls: the structural and interpersonal dimensions of violent patriarchal culture in the lives of young men’, Violence Against Women, 6:9 (2000), pp. 960–986 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

58 Siméant, Johanna, ‘Socialisation catholique et biens de salut dans quatre ONG humanitaires françaises’, Le mouvement social, 2 (2009), pp. 101–122 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

59 Jansen, Yolande, ‘Secularism and security: France, Islam, and Europe’, Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 69–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

60 Jasper, James M. and Poulson, Jane D., ‘Recruiting strangers and friends: Moral shocks and social networks in animal rights and anti-nuclear protests’, Social Problems, 42:4 (1995), pp. 493–512 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

61 Braud, Philippe, L’émotion en politique, 335 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1996), pp. 335–354 Google Scholar .

62 François, Burgat, L’islamisme à l’heure d’Al-Qaida (Paris: La Découverte, 2008)Google Scholar .

63 See {https://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,22989-1761688,00.html}.

64 Khosrokhavar, Prisons de France; Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017)Google Scholar .

65 Nacos, Brigitte, Mass-Mediated Terrorism: Mainstream and Digital Media in Terrorism and Counterterrorism (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016)Google Scholar ; Roy, Olivier, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar .

66 Clément, Maéva, Lindemann, Thomas, and Sangar, Eric, ‘The hero‐protector narrative: Manufacturing emotional consent for the use of force’, Political Psychology (online, 2016)Google Scholar .

67 Malik, Shiv, ‘My brother the bomber’, Prospect Magazine, 31:5 (2007)Google Scholar .

68 Haleem, The Essence of Islamist Extremism, p. 30.

69 ‘You will be killed, just as you kill’, The Guardian, Extracts from Bin Laden Tape (14 November 2002), available at: {https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/14/alqaida.terrorism3}.

70 Bloom, Mia, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005)Google Scholar .

71 Moghadam, Assaf, The Globalization of Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2008)Google Scholar .