Hobbesian theory

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Theorizing Agency in Hobbess

Wake: The Rational Actor, the Self,or the Speaking Subject?

Charlotte Epstein

Abstract The rationalist-constructivist divide that runs through the disciplineof International Relations ~IR! revolves around two figures of agency, the rationalactor and the constructivist self+ In this article I examine the models of agencythat implicitly or explicitly underpin the study of international politics+I show howboth notions of the rational actor and the constructivist self have remained wedded

to individualist understandings of agency that were first incarnated in the disciplinesself-understandings by Hobbess natural individual+Despite its turn to social theory,this persistent individualism has hampered constructivisms ability to appraise theways in which the actors and structures of international politics mutually constituteone another all the way down+ My purpose is to lay the foundations for a nonin-dividualist,adequately relational,social theory of international politics+To this endI propose a third model of agency,Lacans split speaking subject+Through a Laca-nian reading of the Leviathan, I show how the speaking subject has in fact laidburied away in the disciplines Hobbesian legacy all along+

The most notable inventions of all was that of speech + + + without which, there hadbeen amongst men @sic#neither common wealth,no society,nor contract,nor peace,no more than amongst lions,bears or wolves+

Thomas Hobbes1

Like the words uttered by God in Genesis, speech is a symbolic invocation which

creates, ex nihilo,a new order of being in the relations between men @sic# +Jacques Lacan2

For helpful and encouraging comments on earlier versions of this article,I am grateful to BadredineArfi, Rebecca Adler-Nissen, John D+ Cash,Ariel Colonomos, Toni Erskine, Julia Gallagher, RussellGrigg, Colin Hay, Naeem Inayatullah, Vivienne Jabri, Mark Kelly, Saul Newman, Ben OLoughlin,David Smith,Sharon Stanley,Simon Tormey,R+B+J+Walker,Colin Wight,as well as three anonymousreviewers for the journal

1+ Hobbes 1946,18+2+ Lacan 1988,239+


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The rational actor stands at the heart of rationalist accounts of international pol-itics+By contrast,constructivists suggest that actors agency is shaped as much byan actors context as by intrinsic interests+At its core,the rationalist-constructivistdivide that organizes much of contemporary International Relations ~IR!scholar-ship revolves around divergent models of agency+The starting point for construc-tivist theorizing was the realization of the need to unpack the rationalist assumptionthat actors are self-interested, in order to examine who that self might be,asWendt put it+3 This ushered in identity as the defining consideration for that schol-arship+One of its central legacies was to have tabled a different figure of actor-hood, a self enmeshed in its interactions with others within broader socialstructures+The constructivist challenge,however,also opened up the fundamentalquestion with which this article engages:What conception of the individual pro-vides the adequate foundations for theorizing agency in international politics?

The rational actor and the constructivist self constitute the disciplines two arche-typal individuals that have implicitly or explicitly informed most accounts of inter-national politics+ They provide the starting points for my inquiry+ My purpose,however,is to find a model of the actor that can provide a nonindividualist basisfor apprehending agency in IR, one that is rid of what Wendt himself called arump individualism that continues to cut across both the rational actor and theconstructivist self+4 A third model is afforded, I suggest, by the concept of thespeaking subject socially embedded in language that lies at the core of discoursetheory+5 Vis--vis constructivism,the issue is one of ontological consistency withregards to its own founding project to open up the inquiry into the mutual consti-tution of the actors and the structures of international politics+My concern,then,is to find a different basis for a social theory of the international that fully unravelsthe central constructivist insight that the distinctness of the social world,as opposedto the natural world,lies in the fact that processes of social construction do run,toparaphrase Wendt but where he would not venture,all the way down;that is,rightdown through the self as well+6 While critics of Wendt have extensively exposedthe limits of his treatment of identity,what is still lacking,I contend,is an alter-native conceptualization of the self that can sustain a genuinely relational socialtheory of international politics+It is provided by Lacans speaking subject+ Whatis more,its seeds are already sown in the disciplines starting place , as Vincentcalled it,Hobbess Leviathan+7

3+ Wendt 1999,215+4+ Ibid+,178+5+ Discourse theory is made up of three key components+First,it foregrounds language as the ele-

mentary social bond and consequently, second, a key site of political analysis+ It thus covers a wide

range of methods regrouped under the heading of discourse analyses that focus on the role of lan-guage in international politics ~see notably Milliken 1999; Bially Mattern 2005; Hansen 2006; andEpstein 2008!+ What is still lacking in IR, however, is a theoretical demonstration of not just how but

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Engaging with the Hobbesian legacy is important for two reasons+ Hobbessstate of nature is traditionally considered the founding myth for the rational actor+It thus provides the starting point for examining IRs historically prior and explic-itly individualist model of agency+Yet the critique of these realist and rationalistappropriations of Hobbes,while important,is not new+Hobbess political myth isimportant because of what it actually tells us about the individuals makeup+Mythshave played a central role in revealing collective unconscious structures and inpsychoanalysiss constitution as a body of scientific knowledge+Centering my read-ing on the Hobbesian state of nature,I show how Hobbes and Lacan proceed downsurprisingly similar paths+Strange bedfellows though they may seem at first sight,their theories illuminate one other,the former providing a narrative illustrating therelevance of Lacans understanding of the structure of the human psyche for polit-ical analysis at large;the latter drawing out how Hobbess formulation of the prob-lem of political order reaches deep into the workings of the individual psyche +Hence in engaging with the Hobbesian legacy in IR my aim is to reveal the speak-ing subject that lies buried away in IRs founding myth,and to show how it canhelp to understand agency in international politics+

I introduce the speaking subject as a nonindividualist basis for theorizing inter-national relations by way of a Lacanian reading of HobbessLeviathan+The speak-ing subject provides an alternative to both the rational actor and the constructivistself for laying the foundations of a properly relational social theory of inter-national politicswhere the interactions between the social actors and the polityare mutually constitutive all the way through,right down to the actors core selves+In such a theory,the relationship between the actors is not just a sufficient condi-tion of sociality ~something that they might opt in and out of!+It is a necessaryone because it is founded in a constitutive dependence of the self upon the Other+

The article proceeds in four parts+ In the first part I map the history of IRsrelationship to Hobbes and trace the emergence of its two archetypal actors,the rational actor and the constructivist self+8 I track, first, the appropriation ofHobbess natural man by rationalist scholarship that founded the rational actor,together with efforts by early constructivists and poststructuralists to reclaim IRsfounding author away from that school+I also track the decisive move away fromHobbes that yielded the constructivist self as an alternative model of agency tofound a social theory of international politics+Shining the recent relationalist schol-arship on agency upon this first cut into the disciplines intellectual history thenserves to draw out the degrees of individualism that inhere in these two figures ofactorhood+ These relationist lenses reveal how, despite efforts to elaborate it in

8+ One serious objection to my enterprise would be Skinners~1996,15!injunction to read Hobbesagainst his own historical context,which is a far cry from enterprises that attempt to use his texts asa mirror to reflect back at ourselves our current assumptions and prejudices + This, however, is a cri-

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social theoretical terms,the constructivist self edges toward the rational actor,andfalls short of providing an adequate ontological foundation for a properly social ,relational theory of the international+

The Lacanian reading of Hobbes is then deployed in the second and third parts+I show that HobbessLeviathansymbolizes what Lacan calls the Symbolic+ Thiscategory comprises a collective and an individual dimension that mark the twolevels upon which my reading turns+At the collective level,the Symbolic is thecondition of possibility of political order itself+ In this reading, then, the Levia-than designates not a particular type of political order, conditioned upon sover-eignty,but what makes possible ordered interactions in the first place,whether atthe national or international level+For Hobbes that sine qua non,without whichthere is nothing but chaos,is language+Hence the Hobbesian formulation of theproblem of political order that is relevant for theorizing international anarchy is tobe found not in the state of nature but toward the other pole of Hobbesian narra-tive,the symbol of the Leviathan+

At the individual level,the Symbolic is the Other without which the self cannotbecome a self in the first placean autonomous,functional member of the polity+It is the psychic instance that hooks the individual to the collective+It regulatesthe individuals relationship to language and the polity+The function that the Levi-athan performs at the individual level is akin to that of Lacans Other+What Hobbescaptures in dramatizing natural mans contracting with the Leviathan is themoment where the individual enters into the symbolic order, or, to put it differ-ently, where the child learns to speak+ This entry, Lacan shows, is marked bya constitutive splitting, by the fundamental loss of a primeval, natural ~inHobbess term!state+Hobbess political subject,then,prefigures Lacans split speak-ing subject+The latter in turn provides the basis for a relational social theory ofinternational politics because it is founded in a constitutive dependence of the selfupon the Other+

IRs Prevailing Models of Agency: The Rational Actorand the Constructivist Self

The Leviathan posits the site of the original division of labor between politicaltheory and international relations,which revolves around two related yet distinctclusters of meanings+ IR, the discipline that carved out its remit as the relationsbetween states, considers the Leviathan as the state, envisaged from without;whereas political theory appraises the sovereign, envisaged from within+9 Fromthere, in IR, questions pertaining to the relationship between the Leviathan and

the subject have been largely black-boxed and attention has shifted to the other



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pole of the narrative;so that the Hobbesian legacy has mostly revolved around thestate of nature rather than the figure of the Leviathan +The Leviathan is,via realistreadings,both taken for granted as the disciplines founding currency yet largelylost from sight+My contention is that returning to appraise the symbol of the Levi-athan will draw out yet another level of meaning,beneath the state or the sover-eign,that has to do with the very conditions of possibility of political agency itself+10

Before turning to that symbol,I etch out here a schematic history of the disciplineunder the prism of its relationship to Hobbes in order to trace the ways in whichthe Hobbesian state of nature has explicitly or implicitly informed theorizations ofagency in IR,and specifically its two archetypal agents,the rational actor and theconstructivist self+To further expose the theoretical foundations upon which thesetwo figures rest,I draw on the recent theories of agency in the relationism litera-ture,and particularly Emirbayers typology of paradigms of agency+11 This map-ping reveals the persistent individualism that,despite their differences,underwritesthe rational actor and the constructivist self+ Overcoming it will require a thirdmodel altogether,the speaking subject+

Hobbes the Realist

Ever since realism first laid claim to Hobbess state of nature as its founding myth ,the history of IR theory has been punctuated by a succession of efforts to recover

Hobbes away from the Hobbesian tradition, as it has come to be known+12 Thelinchpin to the realist claim is the original analogy drawn in Leviathan betweenindividuals in the state of nature and sovereigns who are seen to stand similarlyfacing one another in the posture of gladiators + + + their weapons pointing, andtheir eyes fixed on one another+13 Upon it hinges the formulation of two found-ing realist concerns,what drives states to behave as they do,and the problem ofinternational order+Both centrally invoke Hobbess natural individual+I considereach in turn+

First,Hobbess natural man@sic#lies at the core of the classical realists quests

to find the prime mover of states,namely the desire for power,the sole movingforce driving the world+14 In these realist accounts the wolfish tendencies of Hob-

10+ A note here to clarify my terminology+A symbol is a rhetorical trope,used notably in religionor art, in which representations of concrete objects serve to invoke abstract , nonfigurable qualities~associated with the divine for example!+ The prefix sym ~with! signifies this joining together+ Amyth is a literary trope that comprises a narrative, dynamic component and some form of resolution~Souriau 1990!+ I thus use the term myth to refer to Hobbess state of nature; when referring to theLeviathan I alternate between symboland the more neutral figure+

11+ See Emirbayer 1997;and Emirbayer and Mische 1998+12+ As is the case with most labels in IR ,Hobbesian has tended to be attributed mostly by otherschools,first by the English school ~see notably Bull 1981;and Vincent 1981!and then constructivists



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bess natural individual explain the permanent struggle for survival and expansionthat characterizes interstate relations+According to Aron, in the state of natureevery entity,whether individual or political unit,makes securitya primary objec-tive+15 Yet Aron is not invoking Hobbess individual per se but rather only half ofit,as it werethat belonging to the state of nature+The other half,Hobbess accountof the making of the political subject,is explicitly cast off limits as it is seen aspertaining to the internal workings of the state+

Taking their cue from Hobbes,classical realists thus turned to the individual toexplain state behavior+Yet given the multiple accounts of human nature that havesucceeded one another in the long history of political thought and their correspond-ing states of nature ~Rousseaus and Lockes notably!,why was Hobbess the onethat stuck,for classical realists? The resonance of Hobbess natural individual owesnot ~merely!to its somber nature that somehow fits easily with realisms inherentpessimism but to the location of this human-state analogy in the history of politi-cal thought+The Hobbesian analogy was seen as the earliest metaphorization ofthe international as a distinct sphere of political interactions+Hobbess account ofstate action by way of individuals played a key role in founding IR as an aca-demic discipline+ It carved out not just a distinct object of inquiry ~the inter-national!, but a style of reasoning+An enduring effect of the Hobbesian legacy,beyond the so-called Hobbesian tradition,was thus to entrench this analogous juxta-position of the individual and the state as a lasting trope of IR theorizing +16

These interacting natural individuals provided the original exemplar for concep-tualizing the problem of political order in the absence of centralized authority+AsWilliams remarks, the concept of anarchy and the name of Hobbes often seemvirtuously synonymous; and the state of nature was where the synonymy wassealed+17 For realists writing against the backdrop of a developing nuclear armsrace~to draw here on an array of classical formulations of the problem!,manag-ing peace in such conditions of anarchy had acquired an urgency it never hadbefore;it was thought to be the problem of the twentieth century+18 Moreoverthe Cold War,a phrase that was seen to express the quintessence of what @Hobbes#took to be the permanent relationship of nations, acutely brought home the rele-vance of his state of nature to contemporary international politics since,as Gauth-ier further puts it,the major nuclear powers share the equality of Hobbesian men@sic#they can utterly destroy one another+19

Classical realism thus cast its eye upon Hobbess natural individual and revealeda highly atomized international system of ever-potentially colliding units like bil-liard balls,to use Wolferss classical metaphor+20

15+ Aron 1966,72 ~emphasis in original!+16+ This is notably the basis for Bulls ~1995!domestic analogy ~see also Suganami 1989!+17+ Williams 1996, 213+ For a good illustration, see Smith 1986+



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The State of Nature and the E-Rational Individual

The state of nature was a key site for the convergence of realism in IR and ratio-nal choice theory in political science+This convergence yielded the strong individ-

ualism that characterizes current rationalist traditions, and locked in the utility-maximizing state as IRs unit of analysis+21 Insofar as these rationalist readingshave played an important part in moving attention away from the role of languageand sociality in Hobbess individual,it is worth considering them at some length+22

The Hobbesian state of nature has provided the foundations for theorizing therational self-interested individual+23 Specifically, it is considered the traditionalexemplar of the prisoners dilemma situation+24 Extensive work has thus been under-taken to model the behavior of Hobbess natural man @sic# as the archetypale-rational ~economically rational!agent,to borrow Neals expression+25 The state

of nature,rather than the Leviathan,lies once again in focus,since it showcasesthe natural individual in a raw,self-interested,utility-maximizing form+26

Neal identifies individualism and instrumentalism as two of the theorys coretenets,which he traces directly to Hobbes+27 By individualism Neal means thatantecedently defined selves stand prior to all sociopolitical relations and insti-tutions+28 The individual is therefore the foundation or independent variable ofrationalist analyses+These individuals or separate selves, moreover,are under-stood to be rationally self-interested maximizers of utility+29

Instrumentalism,then, Neal continues,must deny that human beings are in

any inherent or intrinsic sense social beings+30

Further,instrumentalism seeks tounderstand relations in terms of selves,not selves in terms of relations+31 Throughthese rationalist lenses,set upon the state of nature,Hobbes becomes,by way ofhis natural man, the founder of a radical individualism, to use Hamptons

21+ I thus use the term rationalistto refer to theories that foreground a utility-maximizing rationalactor, as in Keohanes ~1988! usage, encompassing both neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism+This is quite distinct from the English Schools understanding as entrenched by Wights ~1992!threetraditions,where rationalism~the Grotian tradition!is opposed to realism~the Machiavelli or Hobbes-

ian tradition!and to revolutionism ~the Kantian tradition!;see also Vincent 1981;Buzan 2004+Ratio-nalism is thus,in the context of my argument,synonymous with realist thought,writ wide+22+ These close links are recognized from the other end by rational choice theorists who readily

cross over onto IRs terrain;one recalls here the appendix Gauthier~1969,20712!devotes to Hobbeson International Relations ~for a critique from within political theory,see Malcolm 2002!+

23+ See,for example,Neal 1988;Hampton 1986;Brams 1985,13946;Kavka 1983,1718;McLean1981,33951;and Gauthier 1969 and 1977+

24+ See Hampton 1986;and McLean 1981+25+ Neal 1988+26+ To the extent that the Leviathan does enter into the analysis,for example in Kaplan ~1956,405!,

it is to limit any hold it might have on the individual by concluding the absence of any extra-individual source of obligation in Hobbess political treaty+Such a conclusion however is premised

on Hobbess political subject and his natural man being two different persons,rather than two facetsof the same individual+27+ Neal 1988+



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expression, that entrenches the individual and the wide gamut of its behavior asthe legitimate object of political analysis+32

Implications for Agency: The Speechless Self-Action Model

This conception of the individual exemplifies Emirbayers self-action model ofagency+33 Emirbayers typology builds on Dewey and Bentleys analysis of thesuccessive epistemological schemes through which agency has been apprehendedthroughout the history of scientific inquiry+The first such model,self-action,fea-tures preconstituted entities or things + + + acting under their own powers+34 Inthis vein, a strong case for self-action is made, for example, by Gauthier who,

taking the route of contractual theory,shows how the social contract necessarilypresupposes self-action+35 Indeed,how could the social contract hold any worth,if the contracting units do not come together of their own volition or power? Inthis individualist ontology,self-action is consequently the necessary basis of socialagency,hence also the foundation of society+In this individualist ontology:

Individual human beings not only can, but must, be understood apart fromsociety+The fundamental characteristics of men are not products of their socialexistence + + +man@sic#is social because he is human,not human because heis social+In particular,self-consciousness and language must be taken as con-ditions,not products,of society+36

It is noteworthy that Hobbes remains once again the key reference point+Buildingon Gauthiers work,Hampton further elaborates the rationalist self-action model:Gauthier is right to find in Hobbess theory a strong brand of individualism ,onethat regards individual human beings as conceptually prior not only to politicalsociety but also to all social interactions+37 An important implication of therationalist-individualist ontology is the minimal role afforded language+As Gauth-ier illustrates,language holds no privileged position+It stands on par with all otherinstitutions as one more instrument put to maximizing the interests of an e-rational,quintessentially a-social actor+ Here, what the actor says does not matter; or itmatters no more than all the other forms of behavior by which the actor furthersits interests+ In this sense the actor is speechless+This is the point at which lan-guage is evacuated from the rationalist theorization of agency in the rationalisttradition and elided in Hobbes+

32+ Hampton 1986+33+ Emirbayer 1997+34+ Dewey and Bentley 1949,108+



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Unearthing the Seeds of Sociality and Signification in the State

of Nature: Cooperative Talking Gladiators

The state of nature provided the battleground for the initial attempts to recover

Hobbes from this individualist ontology and the billiard board model of anarchyit had yielded+ The critiques of its uses and abuses in IR , as Heller put it,occurred on two successive frontsthe themes of sociality and the role of lan-guage+38 First, scholars from both IR and political theory extensively under-lined the limits Hobbes is careful to set upon his analogy immediately afterestablishing it+39 That Hobbes himself fell short of extending the logic of hissolution to the international level was not an oversight but rather indicates hisawareness of the differences between that sphere and the state of nature, whichhas been largely brushed aside as the analogy became increasingly entrenched in

realist thought+Second,with regard to sociality,scholars from the English School tradition sought

to reclaim Hobbes as a founder of international society by unearthing the seeds ofcooperation within Hobbess own state of nature+40 The point to the other dimen-sions of Hobbess natural man, beyond human wolfish tendencies,that also gov-ern interactions between Leviathans, emphasizing the articles of peace thatHobbes explores in his subsequent chapter,and notably the propensity toward coop-eration that emerges from the correct use of reason+41 Grounding the prospects forinternational cooperation within Hobbess conception of natural law ~itself a prod-

uct of well-wielded reason!thus enables them to reclaim this author for the canonof international law+42

The question of language opens up broader epistemological storms aroundHobbes that continue to rage in and beyond IR+Against early appropriations ofHobbes as the protopositivist by rational choice theorists,to borrow Balls expres-sion, scholars in the interpretative tradition have emphasized the nominalism inHobbes that positions him instead as a thinker acutely aware that social andpolitical reality is linguistically made+43 In IR, this new interest in a proto-constructivist Hobbes in the wake of the reflectivist turn has prompted construc-

tivist and poststructuralist efforts to tease out some linguistic elements in thedisciplines founding myth+ Kratochwil anchors his inquiry into the normativestructures of international politics by way of reference to the norms and rulesthat inhere in Hobbess natural state, while Williams considers the epistemicagreement that necessarily underpins even the Leviathans declaring war upon

38+ Heller 1980+39+ The key sentence foregrounded by critics is it does not follow from it that misery which accom-

panies the liberty of particular men ~Hobbes 1946,83!+See Malcolm 2002;Williams 1996;Kratoch-wil 1989;Vincent 1981;Heller 1980;and Bull 1981+40+ See Bull 1981;Vincent 1981;Boucher 1990;Wight 1992;and Williams 1996+



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one another, let alone their cooperating+44 Both factors center upon language astheir primary medium+Among poststructuralists,Hobbess discourse of dangerprovides the starting point for Campbells theorizing of identity, albeit to radi-cally depart from it+45 To the extent that these more recent reengagements withHobbes in IR draw out, not merely cooperation and sociality, but the linguisticphenomena at work in the Hobbesian account, my reading is inscribed in theirwake+Beyond drawing out disparate linguistic components,however,mine fore-grounds the role of language per se as a center point of his theory+

Moving Out of Hobbess Shadow to Findthe States Self

Notwithstanding these efforts to reclaim Hobbes, the most significant challengeto the rational actor was tabled by the constructivist model of the self+ Signifi-cantly for the purposes of this article, agency constituted the terrain where thechallenge was mounted+ Constructivism successfully demonstrated that whatremained wanting in the rational actor was an understanding of the very basisof its self-interested actions,namely identity+46 Because identity was key to throw-ing the gauntlet at the rationalists,a strong theory of that concept was needed tosustain the challenge+It was provided by Wendts theory of the self+47 Insofaras it remains the most complete and authoritative articulation of agency and iden-tity in that scholarship, and given its impact on the discipline, it is my mainfocus here for revealing the constructivist self, or Ego in the Wendtian termi-nology+My starting point is Wights engagement with Wendt on the question ofagency+

Agency,for Wendt,is a function of certain inherent,given, properties of theagent, namely, intentionality and cognition+ The actor, for Wendt, is quintessen-tially a human actoran actor endowed with the ability to reflect and makedecisionsto the degree that actor and agent become equivalent terms forWendt+48 Wendts understanding of agency is thus rooted in human consciousness +As Wight demonstrates,this narrowing of agency to its reflexive dimensions ulti-mately restricts its ability to capture nonhuman agency+Yet doing so is necessaryto properly appraise the agency of structures per se, apart from the individualscomprising it;that is,to appraise an agent beyond the individual actor+What Wightsargumentation draws out for our purposes is that it is Wendts narrow understand-ing of agency,founded in individual consciousness,that leads him to need a selfto theorize state agency+This then yields the states as people thesis for which,with the individual laid down as the foundation of agency,states can henceforth

44+ See Kratochwil 1989, 3 6; and Williams 1996+



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be appraised just like people+As Wight also shows,Wendt falls short of unpack-ing his notion of personhood within properly corporate terms;that is,in sucha way that corporate agency can be apprehended as something more than a collec-tion or sum of individuals+49 In other words,for Wendt,corporate and collectiveagency are equivalent; whereas for Wight working through their differences ~inorder to better hone in on corporate agency!is central to deploying a conceptionof agency suitable for the state+50 Taking a step further than Wight,my argumentis that doing so is also key to steering clear of the ontological individualism thatWendt ultimately falls back on,because of the particular conception of the self heharbors+ I now turn to consider that self by way of a close examination of itsderivative,the essential state, and the function it performs in laying the founda-tions for a constructivist model of agency+

Wendts essential state is the linchpin of his efforts to deploy onto the inter-national theories originally developed to appraise individuals+It is constructed byway of reference to a human essence+This essential self is taken to be the seat ofa presocial,unconstructed identity,for the individual and the state alike+51 Wendthas been extensively taken to task for an essentialist understanding of identity,which ignores alternative conceptualizations+52 My aim in this article is to empha-size how this rump essentialism impairs the possibility of developing a construc-tivist model of agency that provides a genuinely nonindividualist and properlyrelational alternative to the rational actor+I show that the essential state leads Wendtinstead to fall back onto what I would call an inadvertent individualism,by whichI mean an atomized ontology for which self-other relations remain secondary ratherthan constitutive of the self+

Implications for Agency: Unchanging Speechless Inter-Action

In the Wendtian project the essential state sets up a bulwark against the theorizingthat Wendts efforts serve to perfect+Wendt is explicit about not wanting to unravelthe constructivist logic all the way down and about the importance of holdingon to a middle-ground rump materialism+53 To this end,toward the beginning ofthe second part of his opus,he engages in a series of line-drawing moves to con-tain the very constructivist logic that he successfully deployed throughout the firstpart+The essential state,buttressed by way of reference to the physical body,con-stitutes the site where such line-drawing occurs+54

49+ Ibid+,18386+50+ Ibid+,18599+

51+ It is worth noting that Hobbess shadow here still looms large,insofar as,in disciplinary histor-ical terms,anthropomorphizing the state by way of analogy with the individual is founded in and stillderives its legitimacy from the Hobbesian trope+ Wendts essential state could appear in this light as



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With identity thus firmly grounded in a core self,the Wendtian state,or Ego,enters fully formed into interactions with an Alter+ The constructivist self cor-responds to Emirbayers second model of agency, inter-action+Here entities nolonger generate their own action,but rather the relevant action takes place amongthe entities themselves+55 In Dewey and Bentleys original chronology,the firstmodel of agency ~self-action!took shape in the context of appraising natural phe-nomena~such as gravity!,while the second one emerged to be able to appraise thespecificities of the social world+56 This mirrors the evolution from rationalist toreflectivist epistemologies in IR+For the theories of agency explicitly centered onthe social rather than the natural world,such as constructivism,the central ques-tion becomes what part do the interactions between the units play in constitutingthe units themselves;or to what extent should these interactions be foregroundedin theorizing the units and their agency? Rephrased again differently,the key ques-tion becomes whether these interactions are essential or merely secondary to themaking of social actors+

With his essential state,Wendt settles the question in a direction quite differentfrom that upon which he had initially set out+The essential state serves to cordonoff a primary self from constructivist dynamics+By the same token it also estab-lishes self-other interactions as secondary and thus, ultimately, as exogenous tothe formation of the selfat least at its core+This ultimately defeats Wendts orig-inal intention to show that the identities and interests of purposive actors are con-structed since their core remains given,just as in the rationalist model+57

Doing so requires a third model of agency that does not shy away from apprais-ing the ways in which the interactions between the actors not only affect but actu-ally constitute them all the way down,which Emirbayer termstrans-action+Havingdeveloped his typology,Emirbayer shows that the substantive line of divide betweenthe different paradigms of agency runs in fact between essentialist ~or substan-tialist in his term!ones,which include both the self-action and inter-action mod-els,and relational ones,such as the trans-action model,tabled,but not quite fleshedout,by his Manifesto+ Importantly,Emirbayer emphasizes that the inter-actionmodel is onlyapparentlythe chief rival to rational choice models because enti-ties remain fixed and unchanging throughout such interaction, each independentof the existence of the other,much like billiard balls or the particles in Newtown-

55+ Emirbayer 1997,285 ~emphasis in original!+56+ Dewey and Bentley 1949+57+ Wendt 1999,1+Given that his Social Theoryholds four types of identity ~type, role, col-

lective, and personal or corporate!, the reader may wonder why the onus here is placed on thelast one alone~the personal or corporate!+First,because it is posited as the core of identity within

Wendts typology+ Second, because the middle ground that Wendt thus seeks to carve out remainsridden with an irreconcilable tension between a set of ontological commitments ~to constructivist dynam-ics!on the one hand,and a set of epistemological ones ~to certain rationalist premises,such as a par-



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ian mechanics+58 Jackson and Nexon further underscore the illusionof agencyperpetuated by constructivism in IR+59 In their analysis:

While it might seem credible that inter-action has agentsafter all,it positsconcrete,self-organizing entities that inter-act to produce outcomesso calledagents at the heart of inter-actionism do not act at all+ It is variablesattributes of entitiesthat do that acting+60

In the Wendtian framework,for example,such variables would comprise the rolesof enemy,rival,or friend that a preconstituted Ego would take up upon enteringinto interactions with an Alter, according to the broader cultures of anarchy inwhich the two states are embedded~Hobbesian,Lockean,or Kantian respectively!+

Two important implications stem from here regarding the question of change

and the role of language+ First, this unchanging core self sits uneasily withconstructivisms founding promise to better explain change than rationalism can,which in turn hinged on its ability to appraise the constitution of the actors iden-tities and interests+The social theorist Abbot captures the challenge in these terms:

Social theories that presume fixed,given entitiesrational choice being theobvious examplealways fall apart over the problem of explaining changein those entities,a problem rational choice handles by ultimately falling backon biological individuals,whom it presumes to have a static,given character+61

Wendts reverting to the biological body to ground the states self is significant inthis regard+62 Abbot further unpacks the problem by positing that @in order toexplain change# ,we must begin with it and hope to explain stasiseven the sta-ble entity that is human personalityas a byproduct+63 Short of being able to doso,one is left with social ontology that by making stasis primary loses its abilityto explain change+64 The essential state locates Wendts social theory in this typeof ontology+

Second,language,the primary medium of social construction,is also removedfrom the realm of the core self+ This marks the point in the elaboration of theconstructivist self where language and signification are cleft from considerationsabout identity formationthe point where,as Drulak puts it,Wendt forgets aboutthe contribution of language65 and breaks with the linguistic sensibilities that hadmarked early constructivist IR theory+66 If language is a social construct,whereas

58+ Emirbayer 1997,284 ~emphasis in original!+59+ Jackson and Nexon 1999,294 ~emphasis in original!+60+ Ibid+

61+ Abbot 1995,859+62+ See Wendt 1999,22425;and Epstein 2011,for an extensive critique+63+ Abbot 1995,863+



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the core self is given,then,at its core,language is nonessential to the formation ofidentity+

This middle-ground constructivist self,grounded in an essential core,ultimatelytakes the bite out of the founding constructivist insight into the co-constitution ofthe actors and the structures+It ultimately short-circuits the possibility of foundinga relational social theory of international politics+While Wendt does not explicitlyset out to find a relational ontology and thus, on some level,cannot be taken totask on this score,the structurationist theorizing under whose aegis Wendt placeshis efforts is fundamentally relational, in that it emphasizes the complex inter-actions and the feedback loops circuiting between the social actors and the struc-tures+67 Yet by excising an essential self from these structurationist dynamics,Wendtelides a key dimension of this relationality+Developing a social theory that fullydraws out the ways in which the actors selves and the structures mutually consti-tute one another requires eschewing this individualistic starting point altogether+Itrequires enquiring into dynamics of social construction that do run all the way down,and reintegrating the role of language in the making of the self+It is in search ofsuch a possibility that we now turn to Lacan and return to Hobbes+

The Symbol-Leviathan as Signifier of the Symbolic:The Collective Level

In coining the Leviathan,what Hobbes conjures is none other than the LacanianSymbolicthe symbol symbolizes the Symbolic+Although a complete expositionof Lacans complex thought is beyond the scope of this article,68 a few remarksare useful to contextualize the concept+As a practicing clinician, Lacan had hissights set upon the individual or rather the subject+ The two key features of theLacanian subject are first, that it is a subject of languagea speaking subjectand second, that it is inherently divideda split subjectbetween consciousand unconscious cognitive processes+In the wake of Freuds discovery,the cen-

tral task of psychoanalytic theorizing has been to unearth the deep structuresof the unconscious+The unconscious significantly expands,or rather profoundlyshakes up, our understanding of the sources of human agency+ It ushers in therealization that an entire dimension of motivations and interests remain constitu-tively inaccessible to the actors consciousness;that actors are also acted upon

67+ See,notably,Giddens 1984;and Bhaskar 1998+This is not to say that all structurationist theo-rizing qualifies as relational in Emirbayers~1997!term,but only that this pitfall is avoided by iden-

tity not being the central concern ~notably in Giddens 1984!, whereas it is for Wendt ~1992, 1999,2004!+68+ Fink 1995+ For a clear exposition of the Lacanian Symbolic,see Juranville 1984; and Juignet



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by motives that are theirs yet elude themthat,to paraphrase Freud,we are notmasters in our own dwelling places+

Lacans key contribution to the psychoanalytic enterprise was to draw out theefficacies of language+For Lacan,as for Hobbes,speechour ability to signify,to make meaningis what constitutes us as political animals, and thus the pri-mary social bond+In Hobbess words:the most notable inventions of all was thatof speech+ + +without which,there had been amongst men neither common wealth,no society,nor contract,nor peace,no more than amongst lions,bears or wolves+69

That human beings are first and foremost creatures of language entails that theyare structured by language+That is,language provides the basic organizing prin-ciple of collective life, but also, and this is Lacans key finding, of the uncon-scious as well+

The Symbolic is this realm of language, of the collective, with which thesubject is constantly contending+The concepts purchase for political analysis istwofold+The first is its location at the nexus of the individual and the collective +At the individual level,the Symbolic is a clinical term designating one of threecategories of the subjects experience ~of the subjects reality!; alongside theImaginary~schematically,the realm of preverbal identifications!and the Real ~thatwhich cannot be put into words!+70 Grossly simplified,the Symbolic is the placewithin the subject where the subject connects ~or fails to connect! to the collec-tive+At the collective level,the symbolic order is not simply the political order;itdesignates something more foundational,namely the conditions of possibility oforganized life+The concepts second key advantage over other forms of theoriza-tion of the political is the depth and breadth of its writ+71 The conceptual space inwhich we are operating here is the deepest stratum of political ontology,to bor-row the expression that Blits uses to point to the level where fear is at work in theHobbesian ontology ~as opposed to the political level to which it tends to bereduced in the wake of Rousseaus critique of Hobbes!+72 Thus,to string out thespatialization,the Symbolic designates a liminal space below or beneath the pol-ity+It evokes a manner of underlying matrix that underpins the possibility of col-lective life in the first place+

I develop my Lacanian reading of Hobbes in two movements that reflect thesetwo aspects of the Symbolic+I analyze the function performed by the Leviathan atthe collective level first before considering it at the individual level in the next

69+ Hobbes 1946,18+70+ Crucially,the Real~that which ultimately resists symbolization!,which is considered Lacans

most important contribution to philosophy ~Juranville 1984!,is not to be confused with reality:theReal,the Imaginary,and the Symbolic are all dimensions of an individuals reality+

71+ Compared notably with that of Schmitts ~2007!+In carving out his political ontology,Schmittsets out to separate the political from other realms of organized life ,notably religion and the econ-omy+Although he gives precedence to religion,he ultimately holds them discrete+ Schmitts theoriz-



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section+First I show how,in Hobbess political treatise the Leviathan operates asthe signifier of the Symbolic,by way of two different theories of language ,that ofLacan and speech act theory+Starting in the state of nature,my argument followsthe movement of the Hobbesian narrative,which is one of entry into socialization+

The State of Nature, Where the Sound and Fury Signify

Nothing: Hobbess Empty Signifiers

Hobbess theory of signification,nicely dubbed by Watkins his humpty dumptytheory of meaning, is key to appraising his moral philosophy+73 At its core lies aninherent disconnect between the signifier and signified,or words and their mean-ing+ In the state of nature,which consists in a multitude of humpty dumpties,words mean only what the utterer intends them to+74 Consider the following well-known evocation of the natural state from Leviathan:

But whatsoever is the object of any mans appetite or desire,that is it whichhe for his part calleth good:and the object of his hate and aversion, evil;andof his contempt, vileand inconsiderable+For these words of good,evil,andcontemptible,are ever used with relation to the person that useth them:therebeing nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good andevil,to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves;but from the per-son of man,where there is not commonwealth;or,in a commonwealth,from

the person that representeth it+75

Considering the state of nature here,with Williams,not @as#an actual conditionbut rather as an intellectual construct @that seeks#to explicate the basic elementsof human action, this passage reveals the centrality of language to Hobbess ontol-ogy+76 What it starkly illuminates is that signifiers, for Hobbes, are naturallyempty+They do not hold any inherent meaning+ In the state of nature words areappropriated by individuals for whatever suits their purpose+Nothing fixes moralpredicates,such as good, to a set of commonly accepted meanings of what con-stitutes the good+ That is precisely the role of the Leviathan+

In the Hobbesian thought experiment the state of nature is the liminal place thatprecedes social construction+In this,it is of key interest to constructivist theoriz-ing+In this passage the state of nature is revealed,in the strongest possible sense,as a space of meaninglessness+ Humans cannot understand each other since thesame words hold different meanings for every person+While there are utterances~indeed Hobbess natural man speaks!, there is no language, in the sense of acollective,transmittable sets of meaning that can provide the basis of a commonunderstanding+Consequently no collective action is possible+In the state of naturethere is only sound and fury,signifying nothing+



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This meaningless or topsy-turvyism is also what constitutes the most robust objec-tion to taking the state of nature at face value as the founding paradigm for apprais-ing the space of interstate relations+Tempting though the image may be,that spaceis not quite populated by a multitude of humpty dumpties;and history has pro-vided sufficient evidence of successful collective action between states,as amplyemphasized by the English School+ In international anarchy, then, language andmeaning still obtain+That is,despite the multiplicity of languages,the possibility,if not always the actuality,of a common understanding still remains+

What the state of nature represents,then,is the solipsistic world of the infantetymologically the prespeaking being~in-fans!+77 The condition that Hobbes evokes,I suggest,is that of the infant+I will show that the Hobbesian individual is muchcloser to the speechless and utterly vulnerable infant than to the aggressive gladi-ator fully in possession of his weapons that IR chose to focus on +

The Leviathan as the Quilting Point Fastening

the Social Order

This inherently loose relation between the signifier and signified dramatized inHobbesian myth is the hallmark of the floating signifier, a defining concept ofthe linguistic turn in contemporary political thought+It is also what marks Hobbesas the precursor to a turn that occurred,in Balls words,almost as an instance

of uncoordinated simultaneous discovery in the social science and humanities atlarge,constructivism being its offshoot in IR+78 The floating signifier captured theshattering of the correspondence theory of truth,whereby words were seen to nolonger simply mirror the world,but indeed to partially constitute it+That the sig-nifier floats expresses simply that meaning does not inhere in it,since meaningis a matter of social convention,and different languages feature different signifi-ers for the same signified+The signifier,per se,is empty+Signification,then,or themaking of meaning, is the tying together of a signifier and a signifier within abroader signifying system,or language+79

The fixing of meaning or the filling of an inherently empty signifier is theprimary process of social construction+Understanding the workings of language,then, is crucially relevant to constructivist theorizing because it illuminates thehow of social construction+80 This is the main motivation for finding ways to bringthe centrality of language to bear on political analysis+81 What the linguistic tradi-

77+ Inas in prior to; fansas the present participle offari,to speak+78+ Ball 1985,741+79+ A signifying system is a language in structural linguistics + Importantly, what structural lin-

guistics underlines is that meaning emerges from the play of difference between the signifiers withinthis system+The meaning of hot is giving by its contrast with cold and neither term would meananything to anyone who does not speak English +



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tion has underscored more starkly than other forms of constructivist theorizing isnot merely the contingency ~or historicity!of social constructs,but that this con-tingency itself owes to the unfixity of meaning as the base condition underlyingprocesses of social construction+

The floating signifier is also the center point of Lacans conception of lan-guage+82 With unfixity as his starting point, a key concern was to capture howthe signifier is fastened together with a signified in speech+For Lacan,this float-ing or constant slippage between the level of the signifier and that of the signi-fied is temporarily arrested by what he calls quilting points ~points de capiton!,or ~literally!upholstery buttons+83 While Lacan coined the concept to analyze theindividuals discourse, the concept was developed in his wake to analyze politi-cal discourses at large+84 Quilting points are key signifiers in the discourse of thenormal ~nonpsychotic! subject that function as anchoring points where signifi-ers and signifieds are knotted together+ The analogy here is that the upholsterybutton is a place where the mattress-makers needle has worked to prevent a shape-less mass of stuffing from shifting about+The button links the two outer edges ofthe mattress, which evoke these two levels involved in signification+ Stringingout the analogy, just like the lines radiating from the upholstery button on themattresss surface,the quilting point captures the idea of an organizing point run-ning through broader discourses,a form of overarching referent for multiple indi-vidual utterances,which Lacan then proceeds to flesh out with his concept of themaster signifier+85 The master signifier is thus a key signifier that unifies a dis-cursive field,fixing the meaning of often open-ended or contested concepts+ Forexample Zizek shows how,under communism,certain signifiers,such as democ-racy, freedom, and the state, acquired a particular meaning when quiltedby the master signifier or point de capitoncommunism+86 The same words rangquite differently in the West where they were quilted otherwise+

These signifiers,however,designate apolitical order,not the order underlyingthe possibility of politics itself+ This is precisely what Hobbes nailed with thesymbol-Leviathan+ What the signifier-Leviathan conjures, then, is the Symbolicper se+ It is an open-ended signifier that necessarily eludes all attempts to pin itdown to a set of signifieds,because it operates as the master signifier that desig-nates the Symbolic at large+87 Just as the quilting point is the point at which a

82+ With his thesis of the primacy of the signifier ~primaut du significant!, Lacan goes perhapsfurthest in foregrounding the floating signifier+This unfixity is what enables the signifier to capture theunconscious productions that constitute the material of psychoanalytic practice +

83+ Lacan 1981+84+ See Laclau and Mouffe 1985;Edkins 1999;Stavrakakis 1999;and Zizek 2003+85+ Lacan 1981+

86+ Zizek 2003,282+87+ Pinning down the meanings of the symbol is what Schmitt ~2008!sets out to do+After miningthe text for the terms occurrences, Schmitt, frustrated by its slipperiness, concludes to its failure, an



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signifier is knotted to the otherwise indeterminate and floating signifieds,the Levi-athan is the instance that fastens the otherwise ever-shifting and always relativemeaning of good to a fixed,objective,and commonly agreed-upon set of under-standings about what constitutes the good+

Centrally,Hobbess theory of signification developed two chapters earlier car-ries this dimension beyond moral predicates alone+His description of the naturalstate thus needs to be read against his insistence on the necessity of defini-tions+88 This fastening together of signifiers and signifieds is a precondition forlanguage to be able to function as the effective social bond that can contain thethreat of disorder suffusing the natural state+The Leviathan is this fastening instance+

This enables us to revisit in a new light the notorious description of the state ofnature in Leviathan:

In such condition,there is no place for industry;because the fruit thereof isuncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor useof the commodities that may be imported by the sea;no commodious build-ing; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require muchforce;no knowledge of the face of the earth,no account of time;no arts;noletters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger ofviolent death; and the life of man @sic# , solitary, poor, nasty, brutish andshort+89

The grammatical negative functions here, to draw on a metaphor from analoguephotography,as the negative vis--vis the silver print+The final picture of the stateof nature captures, exactly inverted, the key components of the symbolic order+Hobbes is careful to include here the major cardinal points undergirding sociallife:markers of time and space;the possibility of cultivating the earth~and indeedall cultural productions!; the possibility of knowledge, and in fact, all peacefulinteractions ~including at the international level!+ The Leviathan, in turn, is thecenter point of that symbolic order+It both refers to ~signifies!and makes possiblethe Symbolic order itself+It is the master signifier that guarantees the possibilityof all signification+

The Leviathans Performativity

The performativity of the symbol-Leviathan can also be illuminated from withinspeech act theory+ It operates on two different levels: first, on the level of whatHobbes achieved, and second, in terms of what the symbol achieves+ The firstpertains to Hobbess historical location at a juncture where theorizing was directlyefficacious as in few areas of contemporary public life+Standing on the verge of a

civil order that was coming undone,Hobbess poietic act consisted in creating asymbol that could conjure up a unified polity as the horizon for political action+



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That the symbol still remains common currency for evoking the British Common-wealth is a testimony to the success of Hobbess foundational act+90

As for the second,Watkins has underlined the ways in which speech and actionare co-extensive in the figure of the Leviathan+In declaring something to be rightor wrong, a sovereign is not describing it or making a statement about it+ Hisdeclaration is,to use Austins term,a performative+91 The function of the Levi-athan,in other words,is not merely one of revealing a preexisting natural or divineorder~as in correspondence theory of the world!,but of actual constitution+Thereare thus two parallel levels of constitution at play+ Hobbess sovereigns actuallymake the things they command @sic# +92 The Leviathan makes the social orderitself:that which makes possible language and all ulterior conventions +

Taking this line of argument beyond Watkins and indeed Austin himself, thetype of performative power implied in the sovereign speech act could be said tobe pre-locutionary+ It is not simply an act supported by social conventions, asin illocutionary acts ~such as the judge who pronounces a sentence!+ Rather, itmakes all social conventions possible in the first place+ It is also therefore whatenables perlocutionary acts to take effect,to name the other main speech act underexamination in speech act theory ~acts that operate by way of consequence ratherthan conventions per se,such as offending someone by insulting them!+Watkins,whose argument centers on the act of naming, compares the Leviathans speechact to that of the clergyman who christens a child+ Remarkably, in a Lacanianperspective,the act of naming is precisely what inscribes the child into the sym-bolic order+ This initial inscription ~performed by a clergyman or not! is whatmakes social existence possible for the individual,as we will see+However Wat-kins clergyman operates on the conventions of an already existing symbolic order+What the Leviathan does is name the symbolic order into existence+ Thus, farahead of Lacan,in coining the symbol Hobbes names the instance that makes allnaming possible+ In sum, the Leviathan is the signifier that makes all significa-tion possible+

The Leviathan as the Master Signifier That EnablesSignification: The Individual Level

At the collective level,the Leviathan functions as the master signifier that desig-nates the symbolic order,hence the very possibility of human collectives existingin the first place+The second movement of my argument hinges on the Leviathansfunction at the individual level+A key problem for Hobbes was to ground the rela-tionship between the individual and the sovereign within the subject,in order to



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explain the subjects entry into the social contract as an internal necessity,as Gauth-ier had correctly sensed+As Foucault underscores:

What, indeed, was the sovereign + + + for Hobbes? + + + @It was# the instance

capable of saying no to the individuals desiderata; the problem then beinghow this no + + + could be legitimate and founded in this individuals veryown will+93

The Lacanian framework reveals the extent to which Hobbes achieves exactly that,in ways that reach far beyond what Foucault himself gauged+ Doing so rests onthe second dimension of the Lacanian Symbolic, which designates, for the indi-vidual,the order of the Other+The term Lacan coins to circumscribe this functionof the Other at the individual level is the Name of the Father+ Here I show thatthe Leviathan corresponds to the Lacanian Name of the Father, that is,the instancethat connects the individual to the collective+The individuals perspective~the per-spective of natural man!thus reveals how the Leviathan operates as that whichfastens together the individual and collective levels+

The Leviathan as the Other

The Symbolic,for the individual,is the order of the Other+The moment when theindividual acquires a name marks its birth as a social,symbolic being+The orderinto which the individual is thus hailed by being named into it,is initially fun-damentally alien to the speechless infant+The words that the infant learns belong,quite literally,to a foreign worldan order that preexists it and where these wordsalready hold given meanings+To learn to speak is to step into this alien order+TheSymbolic is that world+It designates the place of the Other,constituting both thereservoir of preexisting signifiers~its treasure chest!94 and the original addressee,the person with whom the infant first interacts,and with whom it learns eventu-ally how to speak ~the figure of the ~m!other!+This foundational exchange deter-mines the basic structure of signification+Subsequently,to speak is only ever todraw upon preexisting signifiers ~first aspect of the Other!to convey meaning toan addressee~second aspect of the Other!+To draw upon,or better said in a Laca-nian sense to borrow:becoming a social animal rests on a Great Debt+95 This isthe symbolic debt that one incurs in borrowing signifiers from the Other in orderto be understood, and therefore to be acknowledged as belonging to that order+Lacan emphasizes the mythical origin of the symbol as both a gift and a pactthat all at once indebts and binds together those who receive it ~the Argonauts inhis example!,creating the basic social bond+96

93+ Foucault 2004,75 ~my translation!+94+ Lacan 2006,336+



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What, then, underwrites this debt, and whence does it draw its power? Thisstepping into the Symbolic is not merely the acquisition of a positive ,distinctlyhuman,neurological capacity of speech+97 To the contrary,what Lacan draws outis that the entry into the Symbolic is premised on a constitutive loss+Alienationwithin the symbolic order is a basic condition of ones becoming a social speakingbeing+Lacan captures this foundational loss,or lack,with the concept of castra-tion+To be clear,it has nothing to do with the physical act of mutilation;we arehere squarely within the realm of the Symbolic rather than the Real+In fact,cas-tration is the concept that centrally underpins that realm+It captures the originalforsaking that each of us undergoes in order to accede to language+98

Subsequently,however,we forever uncomfortably straddle these two realms,therealm of immediate,preverbal experience~the world of raw needs,impulses,frus-trations,anger,and joy,of the Imaginary and the Real!;and the mediated realm ofthe Symbolic,into which we must first be integrated in order to express that expe-rience+But to be able to express it is also to lose it in its raw,immediate form+Hereinlies the constitutive split that marks the tragedy of the human condition+Words cannever completely convey exactly what the speaker wants to say+For anything tobe said requires that it be mediated by words that belong to everyone ,words thathold generic meanings and are thus fundamentally ill-fitted for that unique andimmediate impulse that led the subject to want to speak in the first place+As Lacanput it in his famous quips,the thing must be lost in order to be expressed, or againspeech is the murder of the thing+99 The thing in its original,raw individual-ized form must be relinquished so as to be fitted into existing signifiers and therebycommunicated+This forsaking is a condition of entry into the Symbolic+It is whatone gives up in order to be able to become a social, speaking being+Man @sic#speaks,then,but it is because the symbol has made him man+100

The Social Contract as Castration and the Leviathan as the

Name of the Father

This symbolic debt casts a new light on the depths that Hobbes plumbs with hisunderstanding of the psychic mechanisms underpinning the social contract+First,in contracting with the Leviathan,the individual forsakes liberty in exchange forsecuring life and,centrally,being rid of the fear of death+That fundamental free-dom,I argue,pertains to the realm of immediate experience and unimpeded desires +Hobbess natural man is the being that does exactly as it pleases ,takes exactly

face,the debt that is being incurred by the childrens insertion into the symbolic order,by their becom-ing adults~which will then lead them to give back to other children in order to observe the rite,and

thereby in turn partake in the further perpetuation of the Symbolic !+97+ As in,for example,Chomsky 1993+98+ This centrality of loss as foregrounded by castration is what places Lacans perspective fun-



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what it wants,calling whatever suits its momentary appetite good and whateverdispleases it,evil+ It wanders without any moral compass,its wants unhindered+What Hobbes offers,I suggest,is in fact a fantasmatic representation of the pre-verbal individual prior to its encounter with the Symbolic and to castration takinghold+Hobbess state of nature is an apt rendition of the world of Lacans infantwho,unaware of its limit,experiences itself as all-powerful+Its primordial libertyis what is lost in order to enter the social order+Centrally,however,it is also afantasmatic liberty,an expression of this illusion of omnipotence+Seen in this light,what Hobbes draws out perhaps more than any other social contract theorist is theextreme vulnerability that natural man finds itself in,which drives it to enteringthe contract with the Leviathan+That fear of death is a foundational fear+Its con-stitutive role is akin to that of the slave in Hegels master-slave relationship+101 Itis not just the fear of dying after having lived a free life+It is the fear of not beingable to live in the first place,to establish oneself as an autonomous self+

In this light,then,in the contract passed between the individual and the Levia-than, the Leviathan is, much more fundamentally than has been recognized, theOther upon whom the self constitutively depends to acquire the means to becomeitself+ That contract institutes not merely the monarchs subject, not merely thepolitical subject~or the subject of a certain kind of political order!+Rather,it foundsthe speaking subject itself,which is also always split+It constitutes the individualqua political animal+ This is the true meaning of that symbolic pact: it is anexchange of the freedom to do however one pleases against language and the abil-ity to act politically+It is underwritten,and herein lies Hobbess Lacanian insight,by a symbol,the Leviathan+

In Lacanian thought,one signifier in particular performs a similar function,theName of the Father+102 Lacan elaborates the concept in the same seminar wherehe coins the notion of quilting point+103 He realizes that there is a signifier morefundamental still,one that holds no signifier+104 This is properly the master sig-nifier,or pure signifier as Juranville captures it,in that it attaches to no partic-ular signified,and instead encompasses them all+It is the instance that underwritesall other signifiers,all chains of signification+105 It is what makes meaning possi-ble in the first place+

The father is the instance that triangulates the mother-child relationship andopens it up to the Symbolic+106 The father ruptures the original mother-child sym-biosis+This constitutes an essential loss; but it is also what ushers the child into

101+ See also Blits 1989+102+ To be specific,Lacan calls it at different stages of theoretical development,The Name-of-the-

Father, master signifier, or S1+ These terms are thus interchangeable at this final stage of my

argument+103+ Lacan 1981+104+ Lacan 1975, 74 ~my translation!+



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the symbolic order and thereby institutes the possibility of symbolizing,of speak-ing+Subsequently,this instance detaches from the actual father in this primordialconfiguration, and becomes the Other that supports all social relationships , allpossibility of interaction between a self and an otherhence why it is a sig-nifier, the Name of the Father+ It is the signifier that designates the order ofOther and,in doing so,underwrites the possibility of signification itself+In Hob-bess world that signifier is none other than the Leviathan,the instance that makespossible interactions and common understandings+

The Speaking Subject: Conclusions for IR Theory

Reading Hobbes through Lacan shines a dramatically different light upon the indi-vidual that has stood in the disciplines sights ever since it turned to Hobbessstate of nature for its first cues about the structure of the international system ~inrealism!,and that remained in its sights even when it moved away from Hobbes tofurther distil the essence of the units selves ~in constructivism!+ It restores thesecond half of the Hobbesian individual obscured by IRs gaze having being castupon the state of nature alone+The key realist insight that does carry over into aLacanian reading is that the agonistic relations dramatized by Hobbess mythicalnature, that state of permanent and latent warfare between the units ,is constitu-tive and it is structural+Where the Lacanian reading departs from realism,how-ever,is that,with Hobbess full picture and the Leviathan back in sight,that unitis not a discrete, self-contained entity or billiard ball; nor does it consequentlyyield an atomistic billiard board of utility-maximizing unitswhether colliding orrolling in the same direction+

This individualist conception of the individual,for which Hobbess natural manwas first marshaled by rationalism,and which has not been entirely shaken off byconstructivisms concept of the self, actually falls short of appreciating just howfar Hobbes reaches in foregrounding the fear of death as prime mover of his nat-ural individuals behavior+107 This fear is indeed what drives the individual, andsubsequently for realism,states,to seek security as their primary objective,to echoArons words+108 But,centrally,it is also what drives the individual to not dwell inthe state of nature at all+Hence freezing the narrative at this point to uphold onlythe state of nature in sight makes little sense+What is to be found there,a Laca-nian reading reveals,is a wordless infant,a naked being stripped of the trappingsof agency+It is a pre-actor,whose life would be very short indeed+For its part,therational actor,an actor presumably equipped with the means to actwho can talk

both terms refer to roles in the structure of the relationship,not to the genders of the real persons whooccupy them+



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and walk at the very leastis the one who leaves the state of nature as quickly aspossible and contracts with the Leviathan in order to stay alive+That is the ratio-nal thing to do+ That survival is at stake is true in a fundamental, constitutivesense+It is what constitutes the individual per senot a natural man or a pow-erless wordless infant,but the full-blown individual,complete with the trappingsof agency+But it also means that the actor is always already a social being whodoes not exist outside of its constitutive relation to the Leviathan-Other+It is,inHobbess dramatization,simply crushed by the dangers lurking in the state of nature +

The Split, Desiring, Speaking Subject

Finding a new basis for elaborating human agency first requires restoring thesetwo halves to Hobbess individual,his natural individual and his political subject+The picture thus emerging overlies Lacans subject,on three central points+First,it reveals an individual constitutively split between these two realms ,the realm ofimmediate, unimpeded impulses ~here is the state of nature!, and the Symbolic,the realm of language and the social;but also, importantly,an individual who ~innormal circumstances! is not so rent between these two as to be reduced to par-alysis+The split speaking subject forever straddles these two realms,one foot ineither+

That tension,second,is the motor of human desire+Lacans and Hobbess theo-ries of agency both centrally foreground the role of desire as the dynamic compo-nent of the human psyche+Desire,in Lacan as in Hobbes,is the engine,not of thenatural individual ~that was the fear of death in Hobbes! but of human agencyitselfthat is,of the whole of the individual rather than its half+Hobbess desirefor power that so captured the imagination of the disciplines founding fathers is adesire to secure the means of ones agency+It is a desire for potency,rather thanfor the material power IR has tended to focus on+109 The splitting,dramatized inHobbes by leaving the state of nature and contracting with the Leviathan,consti-tutes the individuals desire and the individuals ability to act in the social world+Working with the Hobbesian myth,leaving the state of nature is in fact the veryfirst expression of that desire+ Desire is what drives the individual to step intosociality and language for the means to express it,and to obtain what the individ-ual wants+This desire to want to know how to speak ~and the frustrations of notquite yet knowing how to!is a tangible feature in a child+

The split desiring subject is therefore also, third, a speaking subject, an actorwho does things with words,to paraphrase Austins seminal work+What Lacanstheory draws out, however, is the extent to which that actor, acting in words, isequally embedded in sociolinguistic structures that act upon the actor, in accor-dance with a structurationist social theory+



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Toward a New Social Theory of International Politics

The split speaking subject thus provides the ontological basis for deploying a struc-turationist and properly transactional social theory of international politics where

the mutual constitution of the actors and the structures runs,this time,all the waydown+Because deploying such a theory in full is not possible within the space ofone article,my primary concern has been simply to lay a first cornerstone,with anew model of agency to be found in the Lacanian figure of the split speakingsubject+With it,however,four features of what such a social theory may look likebegin to take shape+

First, a relational social theory of international politics foregrounds front andcenter the foundational dependence of the self upon the Other,instead of revert-ing to an individualist atomistic ontology that posits an autonomous, sovereign

Ego interacting with a discrete Alter as in the Wendtian social theory+110

Whatgrounds this relationality,and prevents it from such slippage,is that it is revealedas an ontological dependency,not merely as a secondary,contingent relation+It isthe foundational dependence that makes the self in the first place,and subsequentlyremains an ongoing feature of political order+ This Lacanian reading of Hobbesthus drastically revisits constructivisms defining concern with constitution andwith identity+

Second, the speaking subject paves the way for a social theory that shifts thefocus away from interests to desire as the basis for human agency+The speaking

subject brings new depths to the founding constructivist insight underpinning itsconception of agency, namely, that understanding actors identities is central toappraising their interests,since the actors understanding of its interests is a func-tion of its self-understanding+As a key implication of this insight,constructivistshave rightly emphasized the extent to which an actors interests are not self-explicit or automatically given,insofar as they are read through its identities+Thespeaking subject illuminates the ontological basis for this opacity+It is not merelythat its interests are not fully transparent to the actor in that they are bound upwith its identity+It is that identity itself is not fully accessible to the actor,since

the self is constitutively split between conscious and unconscious dimensions+Thesplit subject significantly dents conceptions of the autonomous actor who knowsand does what it wants+Bearing out this realization draws out the restrictions thathave been placed by conceiving agency within the terms of interests alone+It pavesthe way for the more productive category of desire as the foundation for humanaction+

Third,refounding a social theory upon the speaking subject opens up the cat-egory of structure itself+The linguistic Lacanian ontology presents a new typeof structure altogether,alongside the objective social structures shaped by actors



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interactions that are habitually considered by social theoretical IR+Lacan tables adeeply intersubjective structure that is also a key driver of action , the uncon-scious+As that side of the subject that has been constitutively split off from theactors consciousness, this is what eludes at first-hand the actors knowledge ofthe actors intentions and motivations+Lacans central theoretical contribution wasto uncover the parallel functioning of the unconscious and of language , the pri-mary medium of social construction+In this it is centrally relevant to the construc-tivist concern with the social construction of institutions and identities +Languageprovides a way of accessing this whole other source of human agency,alongsideconscious, intentional action+ Language and the unconscious would thus consti-tute two additional structural foci for a Lacanian relational social theory+

The fourth implication is methodological+The speaking subject shores up thetheoretical foundations for the discursive study of international politics+ElsewhereI have shown that the methodological added-value of the concept of speaking sub-ject for empirical scholarship is that it allows the analysis to travel the levels ofanalyses implicated in IR,from the state to the individual+Apprehending the actoras a speaking subject suspends the ontological a priori as to who constitutes theactors of international politics,thereby moving the analysis beyond IRs character-istic state centrism+111 The speaking subject is the actor located at the place of I 0Wein a discourse+That talking actor may be an individual,a state,or indeed a non-governmental organization,according to the case at hand+112 Discourse thus pro-vides a more theoretically parsimonious way of studying identity than theconstructivist self,because it holds no presumptions about the actors selves+WhatI hope to have added in this article to this theoretical edifice is to illuminate whothat self might actually beand to show that it was always there,buried away inour Hobbesian legacy+It is a split,desiring,speaking,political subject+

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Hobbesian theory