Creating a state: A Kleinian reading of recognition in Zimbabwe’s regional relationships

Abstract

This article contributes to recent debates about mutual recognition between states, and, more broadly, to discussions of the role of emotion in International Relations. It challenges 'moral claims' made in some of the literature that interstate recognition leads to a progressive erosion of difference or a pooling of identity, and underlying assumptions that recognition constitutes a stage in the development of states that have already established internal coherence. Instead, it claims that processes of recognition are fractious and unstable, characterised by aggression and self-assertion, as well as affection and the creation of a 'we-feeling', and that such processes are an enduring feature of state identity. Using the case of Zimbabwe -a state that is clearly fractured, with an apparently insecure collective identity -the article explores how recognition both challenges and reinforces state selfhood through dynamics that are bumpy, intense and unstable. It moves on to develop a theoretical interpretation of these dynamics by drawing on the work of psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, showing links between individual psychic anxiety and collective need for a state that exists uneasily but inextricably in relation to others. The article concludes that international recognition works as a way both to establish and to challenge state coherence.

Bottom-up change in frozen conflicts: Transnational struggles and mechanisms of recognition in Western Sahara

“…Due to the multiple, cross-cutting identities that exist in the socio-political world, 'processes of recognition are fractious and unstable, characterised by aggression and selfassertion, as well as affection and the creation of a "we-feeling"'. 143 In particular, partial and one-sided recognition initiatives driven by instrumental rationality and far removed from the ideal of mutuality tend to widen self vs. other differences, 144…”

‘Speaking proper French’: citizen bids for state recognition in Chad and Côte d’Ivoire

“…Under the apparent control of the subject, but always with reference to another, these expressions of agency together curate subjectivity by making things and showing them as a way to create oneself in relation to the world. This is similar to an objectrelations approach, where actors create a 'working model' of the world that they use to make sense of it and themselves in it (Gallagher, 2016).…”

“…This is because recognition is inter-objective, always shifting within unstable relationships that constitute unstable selfhoods. The closest we might get to 'real recognition' is an appreciation of the discomforts of misrecognition (Gallagher, 2016).…”

“…To create a state appearance implies making state-like attributes and possessions: buildings, constitutions and rituals, as well as paraphernalia like flags, currencies and uniforms. These are, like 'internal objects', things that create a 'working model' of statehood (Gallagher, 2016) that creates relations with the external world. To act like a state in the world involves, among other things, participating in international bodies, pursuing diplomatic relations, making trade deals and going to war.…”