‘Real’? As if! Critical reflections on state personhood

Abstract

In a 2004 forum, Alexander Wendt, Patrick Jackson, Colin Wight and Iver Neumann asked two questions about state personhood: Are states real, or merely as-if? Are they people? I question the terms of their debate, which relies upon a problematic distinction between ‘real’ and ‘as if’. Drawing largely upon Foucault, I challenge that distinction. This challenge has important theoretical and normative implications. Theoretically, a discourse of state personhood is completely unnecessary to understand world politics. Normatively, by tightly linking personhood and responsibility, some of the authors obscure important dimensions of responsibility to and respect for the non-human world.