Let’s quarrel (streiten)! Introducing a Kantian framework for social interaction in international politics
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088219890371 |
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Author | Jiun Bang |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088219890371
Journal of International Political Theory
2021, Vol. 17(3) 356 –374
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088219890371
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Let’s quarrel (streiten)!
Introducing a Kantian
framework for social
interaction in international
politics
Jiun Bang
University of Southern California, USA
Abstract
Actors in international politics have been driven predominantly by two (maybe three)
logics of social interaction: fighting, bargaining, and some arguing. Yet, if international
politics is characterized by a lack of determinate laws unlike its domestic corollary, it
would be unrealistic to expect leaders to simply rely on a singular mode of evaluating
facts based primarily on cognition and interests. In turn, I offer quarreling to address this
gap. As a type of affective social interaction based on the subjective validity of one’s
feelings and thus one that goes beyond mere disagreement to disapproval, quarreling tries
to establish who is right about what is right. I establish a theoretical framework based
on Kant’s intuitions of a quarrel (streiten) and in so doing clarify both the purpose and
utility of quarreling: to demand assent for one’s feelings (in the absence of established
rules and norms) and expose an underlying contention involving values.
Keywords
International politics, Kant, quarrel, social interaction
Introduction
Despite the common expectation that disputes get messy, the main actors of International
Relations Theory (IRT) have been primarily bound to a clinical consensus model of poli-
tics involving bargaining or arguing (Kotzian, 2007), which in turn has left no viable
Corresponding author:
Jiun Bang, Korean Studies Institute, University of Southern California, 809 West 34th Street, Los Angeles,
CA 90089, USA.
Email: jiunbang@usc.edu
890371IPT0010.1177/1755088219890371Journal of International Political TheoryBang
research-article2019
Article
Bang 357
dialogical option that does not fit the sterile mold of inter-state interaction. To fill that
gap, this article suggests a different type of social interaction of “quarreling” based on
the philosophical treatise of Immanuel Kant and his works on the aesthetics of politics.
By transposing Kant’s theory regarding the judgment of taste to the realm of interna-
tional politics—a space that often lacks the objective and determinate rules to facilitate
reasoned consensus—quarreling offers a way forward for thinking about how countries
may deal with that vacuum by resorting to claims to legitimacy of feelings.
Specifically, I define quarreling as a type of affective social interaction based on the
subjective validity of one’s feelings and thus one that goes beyond mere disagreement (of
positions) to disapproval (of values). It is primarily affective, because instead of relying
foremost on cognitive reasoning and empirical proof, actors base their legitimacy on
feelings, which are the experiential counterparts to emotions. In this sense, a quarrel dif-
fers from a dispute, in that it does not simply involve a matter of facts where empirical
proofs can demonstrate the right of one side against another (as in a courtroom adjudica-
tion)—when we think about just how much of international relations (IR) is yet to be
ossified through determinate laws and legalization, the need for this type of interaction
becomes all the more clear. As the personal coloring to experience, then, validity claims
stemming from feelings are not only subjective but also normative: on the one hand,
there is an evaluative component or a judgment about what is “right” and “wrong” (of
approval and disapproval), while on the other, there is a directive/prescriptive element
that demands assent from others of one’s feelings about what is “right” and “wrong.” At
first glance, the idea that one could appeal to some universal values to obtain legitimacy
for one’s subjective feelings seems contradictory, but this quality of “subjective univer-
sality” accurately reflects the reality of international politics—state leaders are often
balancing issues that involve a tension between what is deemed to be concurrently
“objective” and “subjective,” that is, the respect for human rights in the abstract form
(objective) and the functional interpretation of what those human rights actually entail
(subjective). Quarreling recognizes this complex reality and embraces the ambivalence
of the institutions that govern our interaction regarding international politics.
But why risk the prized pursuit of parsimony for greater complexity? Since quarreling
is essentially a contestation about how we know who is right about what is right, its util-
ity does not necessarily lie in the dialogical goal of “winning” (after all, it is hard to reach
definitive conclusions about fuzzy questions concerning values). Instead, its goals are
extra-dialogical and grounded in the actor’s sights on asserting greater authority, of a
kind that is not necessarily rooted in materialist power. Authority here may be tied to
obtaining greater legitimacy,1 status,2 normative power,3 or even moral power.4 In con-
trast to bargaining, which privileges material power, and arguing, which assumes that
relationships of power and social hierarchies recede in the background in favor of argu-
mentative consensus,5 quarreling recognizes power as an incredibly appealing motivator
of state action, albeit in a form that does not reinforce its “hard” elements.
Moreover, by claiming that the purpose of quarreling is to demand recognition or
assent for one’s feelings (in the absence of established rules and norms), while its utility
is that it reveals an underlying conflict in values, I am treating values as a critical factor
in the way we assess and frame interests. After all, “many international issues are char-
acterized by the presence of both value and interest actors” (Abbott and Snidal, 2002:
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