¹ Markell, Patchen, Bound by Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

² Our argument tracks close to Cynthia Weber and others’ discussion of subjectivity and state performance as an ongoing effort that is never complete and stable. Our focus on agency differs by highlighting that subjectivity, like identity, follows from and is a result of (frustrated) efforts at achieving agency. See Weber, Cynthia, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State and Symbolic Exchange, Vol. 37 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar . See also Butler, Judith, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar .

For a similar point in IR, see Chowdhury, Arjun and Duvall, Raymond D., ‘Sovereignty and sovereign power’, International Theory, 6:2 (2014), pp. 191–223 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

³ This does not mean, however, that the dynamic is limited to states, as we discuss below.

⁴ The category of the negative is explained and developed in Charlotte Epstein’s contribution to this volume: Epstein, Charlotte, ‘The productive force of the negative and the desire for recognition: Lessons from Hegel and Lacan’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

⁵ See Epstein, Charlotte, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes's wake: the rational actor, the self, or the speaking subject?’, International Organization, 67:2 (2013), pp. 287–316 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Sending, Ole Jacob, 'Agency, order, and heteronomy', European Review of International Studies, 3 (2016), pp. 63–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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⁷ Katzenstein, Peter (ed.), Cultures of National Security: Norms and Identity in the World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996)Google Scholar ; Wendt, Alexander, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar . For a discussion of recognition and identity, see Neumann, Iver B., Uses of the Other (Minneapolis, MI: Minnesota University Press, 1999)Google Scholar .

⁸ Wendt, Alexander, ‘Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics’, International Organization, 46:2 (1992), p. 396 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

⁹ Ibid, p. 397.

¹⁰ Kratochwil, Friederich, Norms, Rules and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Onuf, Nicholas G., World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989)Google Scholar .

¹¹ Symbolic structure is thus distinct from social structure, in that the latter is typically meant to designate relations between groups (classes, etc). Our usage is closer to that used by Bartelson when he discusses sovereignty as a ‘symbolic form’, understood as ‘structures used to organize what otherwise would be a disorderly experience into intelligible wholes. These structures can be understood as modes of objectivation that allow us to combine elements of experience according to generic principles open to endless modification, while existing independently of their end results.’ See Bartelson, Jens, Sovereignty as Symbolic Form (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

¹² For a similar distinction between sovereignty as agency and sovereignty as statehood, see Chowdhury and Duvall, ‘Sovereignty and sovereign power’.

¹³ On the role of formal-legal sovereignty, see also Minda Holm and Ole Jacob Sending, ‘States before relations: On misrecognition and the bifurcated regime of sovereignty’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018), this Special Issue.

¹⁴ Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’, p. 412.

¹⁵ Ibid, p. 399.

¹⁶ Ibid, p. 411.

¹⁷ Ibid, p. 412.

¹⁸ Ibid, p. 411.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ See Epstein, Charlotte, ‘Who speaks? Discourse, the subject and the study of identity in international politics’, European Journal of International Relations, 17:2 (2010), pp. 327–350 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Epstein, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes’s wake’.

²¹ Bartelson, Sovereignty as a Symbolic Form.

²² Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’, p. 412.

²³ Weber, Simulating Sovereignty, p. 3.

²⁴ Ibid, p. 1.

²⁵ Bartelson, Jens, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, Vol. 39 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ;

Bartelson, Sovereignty as a Symbolic Form.

²⁶ For a critique of Wendt´s Social Theory along these lines, see Doty, Roxanne Lynn, ‘Desire all the way down’, Review of International Studies, 26:1 (2000), pp. 137–139 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

²⁷ Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, p. 69.

²⁸ See Wendt, Social Theory. For an extensive critique, see Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, pp. 44–52; Epstein, ‘Who speaks?’; Epstein, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes’s wake’.

²⁹ Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, p. 53.

³⁰ Poststructuralists have, for example, drawn on the concept of desire and the Lacanian concept of fantasy. See Doty, ‘Desire all the way down’, p. 137. Similarly, Badredine Arfi has introduced Lacan’s concept of fantasy to account for Wendt’s undertaking. See Arfi, Badredine, ‘Fantasy in the discourse of social theory of international politics’, Cooperation and Conflict, 45:4 (2010), pp. 428–448 CrossRefGoogle Scholar . This concept is at the heart of Epstein’s contribution, where she uses it to analyse how an ideal grips into the actor’s agency. Epstein, ‘The productive force of the negative and the desire for recognition’.

³¹ Ashley, Richard K., ‘The poverty of neorealism’, International Organization, 38:2 (1984), p. 269 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Walker, Rob B. J., Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar .

³² Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, p. 19; Ashley, Richard K., ‘Living on the borderlines: Man, post-structuralism and war’, in Derian, James Der and Shapiro, Michael J. (eds), International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 260–261 Google Scholar .

³³ Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, pp. 246–48. See also Walker, Inside/Outside.

³⁴ Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, ‘Sovereignty’, in Rebecca Adler-Nissen (ed.), Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR (London: Routledge, 2013), p. 181 Google Scholar .

³⁵ Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty, p. 5. See also Duncombe, Constance, ‘Representation, recognition and foreign policy in the Iran–US relationship’, European Journal of International Relations, 21:1 (2015), pp. 1–24 Google Scholar ; Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Alexei Tsinovoi, ‘International misrecognition: the politics of humour and national identity in Israel’s public diplomacy’, European Journal of International Relations, Online First (January 2018), pp. 1–27, available at: doi.org/10.1177/1354066117745365.

³⁶ Bartelson, Genealogy of Sovereignty.

³⁷ Nietzsche, Friedrich W., Genealogy of Morals, trans. Carole Dieth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 36–37 Google Scholar .

³⁸ Wendt, Social Theory, p. 182.

³⁹ Ibid, emphasis added.

⁴⁰ Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security; Zürn, Michael and Checkel, Jeffrey T., ‘Getting socialized to build bridges: Constructivism and rationalism, Europe and the nation-state’, International Organization, 59:4 (2005), pp. 1045–1079 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn, ‘International norm dynamics and political change’, International Organization, 52:4 (1998), pp. 887–917 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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⁴² Fearon, James and Wendt, Alexander, ‘Rationalism v. constructivism: a skeptical view’, in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Simmons, Beth A. (eds), Handbook of International Relations (London: SAGE Publications, 2002), pp. 52–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

For a discussion, see Sending, ‘Agency, order, and heteronomy’.

⁴³ Others have recently deployed a similar critique of the conceptualisation of how the ‘social’ or ‘culture’ is treated as a constituting and causal factor in international politics, focused on the conceptualisation of ‘culture’ as a bounded, homogenous entity that acts on actors in specific ways. See Reus-Smit, Christian, ‘Cultural diversity and international order’, International Organization, 71:4 (2017), pp. 851–885 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

⁴⁴ Pippin, Robert, ‘Recognition and reconciliation: Actualized agency in Hegel’s Jena phenomenology’, in Bert Van den Brink and David Owen (eds), Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 66–67 Google Scholar ; A similar sensitivity to agency as an achievement is found in Ashley, Richard K., ‘The poverty of neorealism’, International Organization, 38:2 (1984), pp. 225–286 CrossRefGoogle Scholar . See especially p. 260. On this, see Sending, ‘Agency, order, heteronomy’, pp. 6–7.

⁴⁵ Markell, Patchen, ‘Tragic recognition: Action and identity in Antigone and Aristotle’, Political Theory, 31:1 (2003), p. 21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

⁴⁶ See Dessler, David, ‘What’s at stake in the agent-structure debate?’, International Organization, 43:3 (1989), pp. 441–473 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Wendt, Alexander, ‘The agent-structure problem in International Relations theory’, International Organization, 41:3 (1987), pp. 335–370 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’. For a recent and useful overview, see Benjamin Braun, Sebastian Schindler, and Tobias Wille, ‘Rethinking agency in International Relations: Performativity, performances and actor-networks’, Journal of International Relations and Development, online (April 2018), pp. 1–21, available at: doi.org/10.1057/s41268-018-0147-z.

⁴⁷ Lindemann, Thomas, Causes of War: The Struggle for Recognition (Colchester: ECPR Press 2011)Google Scholar ; Lindemann, Thomas and Ringmar, Erik (eds), The International Politics of Recognition (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2012)Google Scholar ; Fabry, Mikulas, Recognizing States: International Society and the Establishment of New States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Agné, Hans et al., ‘Symposium: the international politics of recognition’, International Theory, 5:1 (2013), pp. 94–176 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Strömbom, Lisa, ‘Thick recognition: Advancing theory on identity change intractable conflicts’, European Journal of International Relations, 20:1 (2014), pp. 168–191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Duncombe, ‘Representation, recognition and foreign policy’.

⁴⁸ Adler-Nissen and Tsinovoi, ‘International misrecognition’, p. 3.

⁴⁹ Our emphasis on the systemic aspect of misrecognition – as expressed in the international system’s symbolic structure, is discussed in some detail in Section III, below.

⁵⁰ See, for example, Bourdieu, Pierre, Pascalian Mediations (Cambridge: Polity, 2000)Google Scholar . For a good discussion of Bourdieu’s social theory and the concept of misrecognition, see Steinmetz, George, ‘Bourdieu’s disavowal of Lacan: Psychoanalytic theory and the concepts of “habitus” and “symbolic capital”’, Constellations, 13:4 (2006), pp. 445–464 CrossRefGoogle Scholar . For a Bourdieu-inspired application that stresses misrecognition, see Sending, Ole Jacob, The Politics of Expertise: Competing for Authority in Global Governance (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

⁵¹ See Epstein, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes’s wake’, pp. 287–316; Braun, Schindler, and Wille, ‘Rethinking agency in International Relations’, pp. 1–21.

⁵² Markell, Bound by Recognition.

⁵³ Ibid, p. 10.

⁵⁴ Ibid, p. 11.

⁵⁵ Ibid, p. 12.

⁵⁶ Ibid, p. 12.

⁵⁷ Epstein, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes’s wake’.

⁵⁸ Morgenthau, Hans J., A New Foreign Policy for the United States (New York, NY: Preager, 1969)Google Scholar . See also Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1939)Google Scholar .

⁵⁹ Morgenthau, A New Foreign Policy.

⁶⁰ Indeed, our point here is that while our focus is on states, and on sovereign agency, the logic we identify is one that we also think hold for other actors in the international system, whose operations are also marked by a desire for sovereign agency.

⁶¹ Linklater, Andrew, Critical Theory and World Politics: Citizenship, Sovereignty and Humanity (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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⁶⁶ But see Epstein’s contribution in this Special Issue for some of it: ‘The productive force of the negative and the desire for recognition’.

⁶⁷ Forbes, ‘Introduction’, p. x.

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⁷² Epstein, ‘Theorizing agency in Hobbes’s wake’.

⁷³ Kratochwil, Friedrich and Ruggie, John Gerard, ‘International organization: a state of the art on an art of the state’, International Organization, 40:4 (1986), pp. 753–775 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’; Wendt, Social Theory. See also Epstein, ‘Who speaks?’.

⁷⁴ Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, p. 178, emphasis added.

⁷⁵ Pippin, Robert, Hegel’s Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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⁸² Gallagher, Julia, ‘Misrecognition in the making of a state: Ghana’s international relations under Kwame Nkrumah’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

⁸³ Lindemann, Thomas, ‘Agency (mis)recognition in international violence: the case of French jihadism’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

⁸⁴ Ashley, ‘Poverty of neorealism’, p. 260.

⁸⁵ Markell, Bound by Recognition, p. 93.

⁸⁶ Kinnvall, Catarina and Svensson, Ted, ‘Misrecognition and the Indian state: the desire for sovereign agency’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

⁸⁷ Holm and Sending, ‘States before relations’.

⁸⁸ Katzenstein (ed.), Cultures of National Security. For a discussion of recognition and identity, see Neumann, Uses of the Other, pp. 223, 226.

⁸⁹ Lake, David, ‘Rightful rules: Authority, order, and the foundations of global governance’, International Studies Quarterly, 54:3 (2010), pp. 587–613 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Jacob Sending, Ole, ‘Recognition and liquid authority’, International Theory, 9:2 (2017), pp. 311–328 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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⁹¹ Aalberts, Tanja, ‘Misrecognition in legal practice: the aporia of the Family of Nations’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar , this Special Issue.

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⁹³ Wæver, Ole, ‘Identity, integration and security: Solving the sovereignty puzzle in EU studies’, Journal of International Affairs, 48:2 (1995), p. 389 Google Scholar .

⁹⁴ In which we include economic systems; see Waltz, Theory.

⁹⁵ Ibid.

⁹⁶ Holm and Sending, ‘States before relations’.

⁹⁷ Ayşe Zarakol, ‘Sovereign equality as misrecognition’, Review of International Studies, 44:5 (2018), this Special Issue.