Symbols and world politics: Towards a long-term perspective on historical trends and contemporary challenges
| Author | Andrew Linklater |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066118806566 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066118806566
European Journal of
International Relations
2019, Vol. 25(3) 931 –954
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066118806566
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JR
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Symbols and world politics:
Towards a long-term
perspective on historical trends
and contemporary challenges
Andrew Linklater
Aberystwyth University, UK
Abstract
The role of symbols in world politics remains on the margins of the study of international
relations. There has been no systematic discussion of how to promote theoretically
informed empirical analyses of their role in earlier epochs and in the current era. This
article defends a long-term perspective on symbols that emphasises their relationship
with the overall historical trend towards societies of greater magnitude and destructive
power. It advances a preliminary classification of analytically distinguishable core
symbols in order to support future inquiries into symbols in state-organised societies
and symbols that have been central to attempts to create wider solidarities. A long-term
perspective on symbolic realms is important in order to understand the relationship
between ‘national’ and ‘cosmopolitan symbols’ in the current era. Current challenges in
the symbolic sphere illustrate more general trends in human societies, namely, problems
in constructing wider symbolic frameworks that permit closer cooperation between
groups in the context of increasing levels of interconnectedness.
Keywords
Historical sociology, long-term processes, political symbols, state power, universal
orientations
Introduction
A flag is only a bit of cloth; nevertheless, a soldier will die to save it. (Durkheim, 1974: 87)
Corresponding author:
Andrew Linklater, Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion, Aberystwyth, SY23 3FE, UK.
Email: adl@aber.ac.uk
806566EJT0010.1177/1354066118806566European Journal of International RelationsLinklater
research-article2018
Article
932 European Journal of International Relations 25(3)
Durkheim’s striking comment about the emotional power of the flag remains highly
relevant in the contemporary era. The observation provides a reminder of the relative
weakness of global symbols that command equivalent loyalty or inspire comparable acts
of personal sacrifice. Whether the balance of power between national and global symbols
will change in future decades and centuries — whether large sections of humanity will
come to identify strongly with symbols that represent their common humanity — is an
important question for reflections on the prospects for higher levels of international
cooperation, for, as Durkheim (1947 [1915]: 231) maintained, ‘social life in all its aspects
and in every period of its history [has been] made possible only by a vast symbolism’.
The example of flag symbolism illustrated his thesis that the ‘social sentiments’ that
underpin human groups are ‘precarious’ unless they are underpinned by shared symbols
(Durkheim, 1947 [1915]: 231). Developing the point, Durkheim observed that support
for ‘collective ideals’ and attachments to specific communities have depended on how
far shared values and principles have been ‘concretely realised in objects that can be seen
by all, understood by all and represented to all minds’ — in objects such as ‘animate or
inanimate objects’, ‘formulae, whether written or spoken’, sacred places, commemora-
tions of significant historical events, and revered figureheads, including prophets, priests
and political leaders (Durkheim, 1965: 94; see also Lukes, 1973: 424). The inventory of
influential symbols demonstrates that social groups have ascribed symbolic significance
to an almost limitless range of phenomena (Durkheim, 1965: 87). In so doing, they have
engaged in the process of symbolisation, which invests particular phenomena with no
intrinsic meaning with societal significance. (Here, it is worth noting that the Oxford
English Dictionary definition of a symbol includes material objects that represent ‘some-
thing immaterial or abstract’, such as a ‘being, idea, quality, or condition’ that has ‘sacred’
importance.) Durkheim (1965: 94) stated that social groups often have no memory of
how the particular was converted into the abstract. They often presume that there is a
‘natural affinity’ between collective social ideas and important symbols, although, in
reality, various ‘contingent characteristics’ have shaped the selection of ‘chosen’ sym-
bols (Durkheim, 1965). A resulting challenge for the sociology of symbols is to under-
stand how specific phenomena with no obvious social meaning acquired symbolic value
for human groups.
Leading critics have argued that Durkheim and several followers largely neglected the
ways in which ruling groups have used collective symbols to defuse internal tensions and
to secure political hegemony (Lukes, 1977: ch. 3). The contention is that power relations
and social conflicts have shaped symbol formation across human history. It is indeed the
case that, over the millennia, governing elites have employed controls over the symbol-
ism of public ceremonies and rituals, monumental architecture, and historical myths and
narratives to legitimate their rule. However, traditional symbols have often been fiercely
contested as part of political contests between dominant and subordinate strata, and they
have often been replaced by a new symbolism that reflected changing distributions of
power and social sensibilities. Recent protests in the US against police brutality by sit-
ting or kneeling before the flag in football stadiums (and President Trump’s condemna-
tion of the athletes involved) illustrate such struggles.1 Disputes over statue symbolism,
particularly with respect to monuments honouring the Confederate military commander
Colonel Robert Lee, belong to the same social trend.2 A notable parallel in the UK was
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