Illusions of independence: frustrated agency and the politics of great power (mis)recognition

Abstract

How do declining great powers cope with a sudden loss of status? Great powers establish routinized relations of recognition to maintain and reproduce their status as great powers in the international sphere. During periods of structural change, when social norms and these routinized relations of recognition are in flux, the prospect of misrecognition is especially pronounced. Misrecognition leads to the experience of frustrated agency and ontological insecurity. In these scenarios, declining great powers assert agency over their status by anchoring their insecure identity in symbols that are expressive of their status as great powers. To illustrate this argument, the article considers France’s decision to develop an independent nuclear capability after the Second World War. Rather than an instrument of security, nuclear weapons gave France the illusion of an independent identity and offered ontological security.