Germany as a Dividual Actor: Competing Social Logics and their Political Articulations

Abstract

This article introduces a ‘dividual actor’ approach as a novel way of explaining German foreign policy. It presents its main tenets and demonstrates its relevance – both theoretically and in an illustrative sketch of German arms’ exports policy. The article starts from the observation that mainstream approaches, exemplified here by civilian power and geo-economic power, struggle to explain the recurring inconsistencies and tensions in German foreign policy. I argue that this is rooted in problematic assumptions about actorness, which is seen as coherent and unfolding linearly over time. As an alternative, I construct the dividual actor framework and develop it via the concepts of social logics, which capture recurring patterns in foreign policy, and articulation, which grasps the contingent and political moment in decision making. The notion of a dividual actor with multiple identities provides a theoretical explanation for the recurring inconsistencies in Berlin's actions. It also opens space for novel insights, by bridging the analysis of social patterns with the analysis of how these patterns are reshaped through political decision-making. Lastly, it offers a way of embracing some empirical insights of civilian and geo-economic power by incorporating them into a more open-ended and context-specific framework.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Alister Miskimmon, Ingo Peters and participants of editorial workshops in Prague and Berlin for their comments and suggestions.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jakub Eberle is Researcher at the Peace Research Center Prague/Charles University Center of Excellence. He focuses on IR Theory, International Political Sociology and German Foreign Policy. He is the author of the monograph Discourse and Affect in Foreign Policy: Germany and the Iraq War (Routledge) and his work appeared in journals including International Political Sociology, Foreign Policy Analysis and Journal of International Relations and Development. He is also Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague.

Notes

1 Glynos and Howarth, as well as other works in the Essex School tradition, use the psychoanalytical notions of the ‘split subject’, or the ‘lacking subject’. I introduce the alternative term ‘dividual actor’ for two reasons. First, because it aligns more clearly with the familiar IR language of actorness. Second, because I am borrowing only a small part of the more complex conceptualisation of the ‘split subject’, which works also with the categories of affect, desire, and the unconscious (Eberle 2017). Raunig (2016) reviews different uses of dividualism and dividuality.

2 This is not to say that all authors are completely unaware of the problem. Maull and Harnisch (2001), for instance, call for incorporating theories of decision-making into civilian power frameworks. To my knowledge, however, this has not been developed further.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation grant no. 16-17670S: ‘Identities and Practices of a Dividual Actor: Interpreting Germany's Current Foreign Policies’.