International/inter-carbonic relations
| Author | Jan Selby |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221116015 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221116015
International Relations
2022, Vol. 36(3) 329 –357
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221116015
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International/inter-carbonic
relations
Jan Selby
The University of Sheffield
Abstract
If international relations can be theorised as ‘inter-textual’, then why not also – or indeed better –
as ‘inter-carbonic’? For, not only is the modern history of carbon to a large degree international;
in addition, many of the key historical junctures and defining features of modern international
politics are grounded in carbon or, more precisely, in the various socio-ecological practices and
processes through which carbon has been exploited and deposited, mobilised and represented,
recycled and transformed. In what follows I seek to make this case, arguing that carbon and
international relations have been mutually constitutive ever since the dawn of modernity in 1492,
and that they will inevitably remain so well into the future, as the global economy’s dependence
on fossil carbon continues unabated and the planet inexorably warms. Will climate change
generate widespread conflict, or even civilisational collapse? How are contemporary power
dynamics limiting responses to climate change? And how, conversely, might 21st-century world
order be transformed by processes of decarbonisation? Building on research in political ecology,
I argue that a dialectical sensitivity to ‘inter-carbonic relations’ is required to properly answer
these questions. Scholars and students of International Relations (IR), I suggest, need to approach
climate change by positioning the element C at the very centre of their analyses.
Keywords
carbon, climate change, fossil fuels, international relations, political ecology
Introduction
In their landmark 1989 collection, International/Intertextual Relations, James Der
Derian and Mike Shapiro famously set out the case for analysing ‘the world of interna-
tional relations as a text’. Texts, narratives, discourses and representations, they and their
contributors argued, are of such importance within international relations that they
should not just be considered an issue within or an aspect of international politics, but at
Corresponding author:
Jan Selby, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.
Email: j.e.selby@sheffield.ac.uk
1116015IRE0010.1177/00471178221116015International RelationsSelby
research-article2022
Article
330 International Relations 36(3)
its very core. Texts, they effectively argued – and many other postmodern, post-structur-
alist and constructivist scholars have followed suit – are no less than the lifeblood of
international relations, constituted by the international but also constitutive of it. And the
analysis and denaturalisation of texts, they suggested, should thus be accorded due meth-
odological importance, and approached as the methodological key to both understanding
how world politics is made and remade, and to challenging it.1
There are many possible objections to such claims, but these are not my concern here.
Instead I want to ask: if international relations can be theorised as ‘inter-textual’, as Der
Derian, Shapiro and many others have contended, then why not also – or indeed better
– as ‘inter-carbonic’; that is, as pertaining to the circulation of carbon? For, not only is
the modern history of carbon to a large degree international; in addition, many of the key
historical junctures and defining features of modern international politics are grounded
in the element C or, more precisely, in the various socio-ecological practices and pro-
cesses through which carbon has been exploited and deposited, mobilised and repre-
sented, recycled and transformed. Carbon and international relations, I want to argue,
have been mutually constitutive ever since the dawn of modernity, and will remain so
well into the future – albeit in historically specific and changing ways. Carbon and inter-
national relations are locked in an embrace which is crucial to understanding both their
conjoined histories, and the Earth’s future.
My central concern in making this case is that the discipline of IR’s record of engage-
ment with climate change, carbon politics and ecology more broadly remains poor. There
are of course large, important and ever-growing bodies of specialist literature on climate
negotiations, climate policies, climate security, energy politics and more, much of which
engages with questions of international relations – and to which I am greatly indebted in
what follows. However, environmental politics as a whole remains on the margins of IR
as a discipline. With notable exceptions, environmental politics remains the preserve of
specialists. Both environmental politics generally and climate change specifically are
still mostly absent from major IR debates, except as sources of case studies and sites for
testing or developing other theories.2 Moreover, I have been to major IR conferences
where there hasn’t been a single paper on climate change, or a single title that refers to
oil, gas, coal, fossil fuels or energy. Critical IR scholarship has generally been no better
than the mainstream in these regards, indeed it has often been worse: just as there still
exist Marxists who can write books without mentioning climate change, so a similar
tendency continues to afflict critical IR as well.3 In my view, all of this needs to change.
My central methodological premise, in turn, is that one of the main barriers to such
change is the problematic framing of climate change as a discrete ‘issue’, and an ‘envi-
ronmental’ one at that; or stated differently, that when ‘climate change’ or ‘environmen-
tal issues’ provide the conceptual starting point, then peripheralisation inexorably ensues
– as in Steve Smith’s still-revealing reflections on the subject.4 Hence in what follows I
opt to avoid such framings, and instead both to adopt carbon as my organising focus, and
to analyse it not as a discrete issue or problem but as an element that courses through –
and simultaneously constitutes and is constituted by – society, politics and the interna-
tional. The text-carbon analogy with which I began – the suggestion that international
relations might be interpreted as ‘inter-carbonic’, just as others have theorised it as ‘inter-
textual’ – is intended to capture this methodological strategy. My suggestion is that a
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