Abstract
This article argues that the normative promise of recognition theory in International Relations has become increasingly inadequate to the cross-cutting and intersecting issues characteristic of a globalised and fragmented world. Engaging in critical readings of cosmopolitan forms of recognition theory, the critique of sovereignty and Markell’s influential critique of recognition theory, I suggest that the increasing ontological specificity of recognition theory in IR has come at the expense of its ability to develop links between different areas of international politics. The result is a failure to deal with recognition’s simultaneity, or the co-existence of analytically distinct and internally coherent recognition orders that is characteristic of the international. Building on this insight, I argue that a more historically-sensitive and materialist approach to recognition can be grounded in the concept of multiplicity. By opening recognition up to processes of interaction, and not merely reproduction, multiplicity frames the international more clearly as a historical presupposition, rather than a limit, of recognition. Furthermore, placing recognition struggles within the state, international institutions or transnational movements in relation to each other ensures that IR can contribute to the further development of recognition theory by situating recognition struggles at the intersection of different moral geographies.
Highlights
This article explores the limits of recognition theory for the discipline of International Relations (IR), with a particular emphasis on the role that recognition plays in a world of pervasive interdependence, fragmentation and emergent global challenges
This paper began by arguing that the central issue confronting contemporary approaches to recognition in IR was that of their simultaneity; the co-existence, differentiation and interpenetration of manifestly different social relations of recognition in what Beardsworth (2017) has termed ‘a globalised and fragmented world’
Others, including Epstein et al, have argued from a more political reading that the desire for recognition lies at the core of problems understood as fundamental to state sovereignty
Summary
This article explores the limits of recognition theory for the discipline of International Relations (IR), with a particular emphasis on the role that recognition plays in a world of pervasive interdependence, fragmentation and emergent global challenges. Relations of recognition that have played a transformative role in world politics as key drivers of global civil society, such as the World Social Forum, coexist in international space with those which drive continued appeals to the failed ideal of sovereign autonomy, or underpin global marketplaces This juxtaposes the continued dependence of recognition theory on identifying patterns of normative consensus with historical processes of integration, fragmentation and differentiation that come into focus once one no longer takes the domestic-social foundation of recognition theory for granted. De-emphasising the significance of sovereignty with the aim of securing the transformative potential of recognition runs the risk of rendering the substantive issues that IR poses for recognition theory as contingent upon its emancipatory logic Rather than accepting this split as a function of theory, I build on the work of Schick (2015) to argue that the ‘difficulty’ of recognition for IR emerges from the structure of the international as such. By expanding recognition to include interactive, as well as reproductive, practices of recognition, the international can be more clearly situated as a historical presupposition of recognition as it emerges within societies, in addition to its role as a distinct source of recognition struggles
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