States and ontological security: A historical rethinking
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836716653158 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cooperation and Conflict
2017, Vol. 52(1) 48 –68
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0010836716653158
journals.sagepub.com/home/cac
States and ontological security:
A historical rethinking
Ayşe Zarakol
Abstract
In this brief essay, I explore the relationship between ‘states’ (or more broadly, institutions of
political authority) and ontological security. Drawing from historical examples, I argue that it is
a mistake to assume that all ‘states’ seek ontological security: this generalisation applies only to
those polities that claim to be the main ontological security providers. I then develop a typology
of institutional ontological security provision arrangements as have existed throughout history,
arguing that another reason the concept of ontological security is valuable for international
relations (IR) is because it offers a way to compare systems across time and space without
assuming the primacy of politics or religion. In summary, IR does not have to limit its use of the
concept of ontological security to a synonym for ‘state identity’ – ontological security can offer
much more than that by helping the discipline reach across time and space.
Keywords
Axial age, modernity, ontological security, religion, sovereignty, state
Introduction
‘Ontological security’ comes from having a consistent sense of ‘self’, and having that
sense affirmed by others, an outcome that requires shared ontological structures. This
concept was imported nearly two decades ago into the international relations (IR) litera-
ture from Psychology and Sociology, and later used to argue that states, just like indi-
viduals, care about their ontological security and act in ways in order to maintain a stable
sense of ‘self’ (e.g. Mitzen, 2006b). Some have objected to the transfer of the concept
into IR by countering that states do not have ‘selves’1 and therefore cannot ‘care’ about
ontological security. This objection, while not entirely implausible, implicates ‘the state
as a unitary actor’ trope in IR altogether. If states do not have selves, they also cannot
‘care’ about their physical survival2 or be thought of as purposeful rational agents.
Without ontological security, the self cannot know where it begins and ends, and what is
essential to the body (and its survival) can only be defined by the self. Individuals with
Corresponding author:
Ayşe Zarakol, University of Cambridge, 7 West Road, Alison Richard Building, Room 112, Cambridge CB3
9DT, UK.
Email: az319@cam.ac.uk
653158CAC0010.1177/0010836716653158Cooperation and ConflictZarakol
research-article2016
Article
Zarakol 49
Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), for instance, find perfectly healthy limbs to be
superfluous and prefer amputation as a pathway to a more accurate bodily expression of
the self.3 In other words, any IR theory that works with an assumption that states care
about state survival implicitly assumes the state to be an ontological security-seeking
agent.4 However, until the recent emergence of the ontological security literature in IR
(see e.g. Huysmans, 1998; Kinnvall, 2004, 2006, 2015; Lang, 2002; Lupovici, 2012;
McSweeney, 1999; Manners, 2002; Mitzen 2006a, 2006b; Rumelili, 2015; Steele, 2007,
2008a, 2008b; Subotic, 2015; Zarakol, 2010),5 the ontological security dimensions of
state agency remained unproblematised.6 The growth of this literature, by making explicit
what used to be implicit, now gives us an opportunity to pause and wonder why the state
behaves in this manner, whether it always has, and whether it will continue to do so.
The relationship between states and ontological security seeking is difficult to parse
analytically, however, because our ‘modern’ understanding of the State often assumes
that the state provides ontological security, that is, it acts as a shared ontological struc-
ture for citizens’ security: ‘Ultimately the legitimacy of the state rests on its capacity
to provide order—not a particular content of order but the function of ordering, of
making life intelligible’ (Huysmans, 1998: 242). Put another way, ‘states’ that do not
perform this type of ordering function do not seem sovereign in the sense we under-
stand the word today. They do not claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of force
within a given territory (if we go by the Weberian definition of the state) or separate
friends from enemies and decide exceptions (if we go by the Schmittian one). The
modern state (but not necessarily all of the contemporary states of the present moment)
is thus understood to be an ontological security-providing institution for its citizens.
Arguably, it is for that reason we can conceive of it as an ontological security-seeking
agent itself. For good portions of human history, it was not possible to think of political
authority quite in this manner, which is precisely the reason why we have some diffi-
culty recognising many (though not all) polities predating modernity as ‘states’.7 This
raises the intriguing possibility that sovereignty itself cannot be thought of as separate
from such an institutional monopolisation of the provision of ontological security –
that is, it is possible that institutions of political authority that do not offer the people
a secure ontological framework may not be thought of as truly sovereign, even if they
have exclusive territorial control.
The recognition of the historical contingency of the relationship between political
authority and ontological security would have significant implications for the discipline
of IR. Firstly, this suggests that the state as an ontological security-providing – and there-
fore seeking – institution is not a timeless element of the human condition but rather a
version of political authority that grew out of particular historical and sociological condi-
tions of a particular time in a particular place, that is, in Western Europe.8 Secondly, this
recognition would support the observation that the ontological security needs of a given
populace may be met by other institutions besides those commanded by political author-
ity; as will be discussed below, historically, religious authority has been the most likely
other candidate for maintaining this type of ontological structure.9 This further implies
that we can compare and contrast societies at any given time and across space by focus-
ing on the primary institutional providers of ontological security rather than assuming
the priority of one type of institution over another. In other words, the concept of
To continue reading
Request your trial