Status insecurity and temporality in world politics
| Author | Joshua Freedman |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1354066115603781 |
European Journal of
International Relations
2016, Vol. 22(4) 797 –822
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066115603781
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JR
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Status insecurity and
temporality in world politics
Joshua Freedman
Northwestern University, USA
Abstract
International Relations scholars concerned with explaining status-seeking behavior in the
international system draw heavily from social comparison theory and its observations
that individuals judge their worth, and accordingly derive self-esteem, through social
comparisons with others. According to this logic, states become status seekers because,
like individuals, they have an innate desire for favorable social status comparisons
relative to their peers. Thus, the great power status literature is often framed in the
language of accommodation, and adjustment, which presupposes that status insecurities
develop from unfavorable social comparisons and can be resolved through relative
social improvements. This article challenges these assumptions by noting, as psychology
has acknowledged for some time, that individuals use both social and temporal forms of
comparison when engaging in self-evaluation. Where social comparisons cause actors
to ask “How do I rank relative to my peers?” temporal comparisons cause actors
to evaluate how they have improved or declined over time. This article advances a
temporal comparison theory of status-seeking behavior, suggesting that many of the
signaling problems associated with status insecurity emerge from basic differences
in how states evaluate their status, and whether they privilege temporal over social
comparisons. The implications are explored through China’s contemporary struggle for
status recognition, situating this struggle within the context of China’s civilizational past
and ongoing dispute over Taiwan.
Keywords
China, great powers, identity, recognition, status, temporal comparison theory
Introduction
China spends more in absolute dollars on its military than any other country in the world
after the US. Its prolific military spending, which increased by 170%1 between 2004 and
Corresponding author:
Joshua Freedman, Northwestern University, Scott Hall, 601 University Place, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Email: joshua.freedman@u.northwestern.edu
603781EJT0010.1177/1354066115603781European Journal of International RelationsFreedman
research-article2015
Article
798 European Journal of International Relations 22(4)
2013, has been sustained by an incredible period of economic growth that saw China
surpass Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010. While still far behind the
US, China’s US$8.2 trillion gross domestic product (GDP)2 is well ahead of its other
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) peers: Britain, France, and Russia. In the rela-
tive and material terms of economic strength and military spending,3 China is the second
most powerful state in the world,4 and yet it has been described by Larson and Shevchenko
(2010) as a “status seeker,” by Suzuki (2008: 51) as a “frustrated great power,” by Scobell
(2012: 719) as a society in dire need of “international respect,” and by Deng (2008: 8) as
“the most status-conscious country in the world.” What accounts for this disconnect, and
what does it mean for thinking about states and international relations that China has all
of this material power and yet appears to be engaged in a profound struggle for status and
great power recognition?
This article argues that China’s status insecurity results primarily from transaction
and signaling problems endemic to the practice of status recognition in great power poli-
tics. As the sociology, economics, and political science literatures make clear, an actor’s
status depends on two conditions: that they can properly signal their desire for (or right
to) status; and that the rest of society can properly signal their recognition of this claim.5
Signaling problems may arise in both of these conditions and are exacerbated, I argue, by
functional and ontological differences in the way in which individuals, groups, and, by
transposition, states engage in self-evaluation. If for recognition between two willing
parties to succeed, both actors need to agree on the signals that constitute recognition,
then it is imperative that what the aspiring actor holds to be necessary for it to “arrive” as
a great power in the international system is shared by those granting recognition. Much
of the status literature in International Relations (IR) has overlooked this dilemma by
assuming that all states pursue status for similar reasons by virtue of engaging in similar
methods of self-evaluation.
A significant portion of this literature draws heavily from social comparison theory
(SCT), and its observations that individuals judge their worth, and accordingly derive
self-esteem, through comparisons with others (Larson et al., 2014: 17). According to this
transposed argument, states become status seekers because, like individuals and groups,
they have an innate desire for favorable social status comparisons relative to their peers
(Wohlforth, 2009: 35). Thus, the literature on status in world politics is often framed in
the language of accommodation, and adjustment (Larson et al., 2014: 4), which presup-
poses that status insecurities develop from lateral social comparisons and can be resolved
through lateral improvements. Yet, while individuals engage in self-evaluation and
derive self-esteem through social comparisons with their peers, they also engage in self-
evaluation and derive self-esteem through temporal comparisons with their past.
Psychology has addressed this distinction for some time, noting that individuals repeat-
edly rely on both social and temporal sources of information when engaging in self-
evaluation. Applied to IR, temporal comparison theory (TCT) suggests that status
insecurities in the international system may not be the exclusive province of unfavorable
social comparisons with peers, but, rather, may actually be the outcome of actors suc-
cumbing to the stresses and failures of their own history. The implications of applying
this temporal approach, I argue, are twofold. First, I suggest that if actors develop status
insecurities because of unfavorable temporal rather than social comparisons, then they
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