Constructing National Interests: Narrating the Suez Crisis

ABSTRACT

The year 2016 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the Suez crisis. Proposing a metaphor of a chain of hypothetical propositions, this article examines the construction of national interests through a case study of the Suez crisis. This metaphor offers a useful way to step back from common sense and to think of Britain’s official representation of “the Suez crisis” as numerous antecedents and consequents coupled together. It then enables researchers to: (1) detect each individual proposition hidden in plain sight through the identification of inference indicators; (2) examine the actual truth or falsity of each individual proposition; (3) see a striking parallel between the deduction of one proposition from another and the construction of national interests; and (4) apprehend why valid yet false inferences obtained by pure deduction could appear as incontrovertible truths even in the absence of empirical foundations.

KEYWORDS:

• National interests
• language
• a chain of hypothetical propositions
• deductive reasoning
• discourse analysis

Acknowledgements

Part of this article is drawn from my PhD thesis. I would like to thank Colin Hay and Jutta Weldes for their substantial inputs and comments on earlier drafts of my research. Also I would like to thank Feng Liang Lin, Shu-fen Lin and John Smith for helpful discussions. The usual disclaimer applies. This article is dedicated to Colin Hay and Jutta Weldes with deep gratitude.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Shih-Yu Chou is a worker who takes inspiration from the October Revolution and the Cuban Revolution. She acquired her doctorate in politics from Sheffield University in March 2012. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher between August 2016 and July 2017.

Notes

1 This research draws upon Wittgenstein’s (1961, 2001) philosophy to explicate that our understanding of the world (including international politics) is mediated by language. The relationship between logic, language and the world has been a central theme of his writings. The conventional division of his writings into the “early” philosophy and the “later” philosophy has been questioned in recent research. An exploration of the continuity between his early and later philosophy merits a separate article. Here we have space only for a very brief recapitulation on his approach to language. The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus will hereafter be cited within the text as TLP; Notebooks: 1914–1916, NB.

According to TLP, “The totality of propositions is language” (TLP 4.001). A proposition is “a model of reality as we imagine it” (4.01). More specifically, a proposition which conveys meaning “is not a blend of words.—(Just as a theme in music is not a blend of notes)” (3.141). Rather, “A proposition is articulate” (3.141). It is made up of elementary propositions. An elementary proposition, in turn, “consists of names. It is a nexus, a concatenation of names” (4.22). But names are not a mere set of words. There is a specific relationship among them, and “only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning” (3.3).

A question immediately arises. What sorts of things are propositions supposed to be? It is useful to consider an interesting sentence devised by Noam Chomsky—Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. As this example suggests, a conglomerate of words may be semantically meaningless. No one in her right mind would see this sentence as a model of reality. Words have to stand to one another in a particular way to acquire and convey meaning. This applies to names, the smallest components of language. Likewise, elementary propositions have to stand in relation to one another to form a proposition. They convey meaning only within a relational whole. Put differently, Wittgenstein conceives of propositions, elementary propositions and names as a cluster of relations while underlining the irreducible complexity of their interconnections. They mutually constitute one another and exist only in relation to one another. It is in this context that a proposition is articulate. The same can be said of language—an expression of the whole of which propositions are part.

It is worth noting that Wittgenstein categorically states that “the analysis of propositions must bring us to elementary propositions which consist of names in immediate combination” (TLP 4.221). While a proposition is analysable to elementary propositions which are made up of interrelated names, TLP 4.221 should not be taken to mean that we can understand how language works simply by breaking it down into smallest units. As set out above, language is conceived of as a totality, not as a catalogue of names or a mechanical agglomeration of things. Since the connection between names is made rather than innate, there is a human-agent element in this process. Wittgenstein, thus, insists that we should “raise the question how such [immediate] combination into propositions comes about” (4.221).

Wittgenstein firmly believes that everyday language is logically structured. In his words, “all the propositions of our everyday language … are in perfect logical order” (TLP 5.5563). He unequivocally proclaims that “man possesses the ability to construct languages capable of expressing every sense” (4.002). This distinct ability, however, by no means allows people to construct language out of thin air, because language and context are virtually inseparable. Wittgenstein indicates that “the tacit conventions on which the understanding of everyday language depends are enormously complicated” (4.002). In other words, everyday language does not work in a context free of concrete historical circumstances and linguistic and non-linguistic practices. Rather, it inevitably starts with inherited elements and assumed premises which help people to make sense of a situation in which they find themselves.

It is intriguing to ask what sorts of things can be constructed? We can reasonably assume that a proposition which overlaps with a dominant representation of the world is likely to strike us as being obviously true. As Wittgenstein presciently observes that

one name is representative of one thing, another of another thing, and they themselves are connected; in this way the whole images the situation—like a tableau vivant. The logical connection [between names] must, of course, be one that is possible as between the things that the names are representatives of, and this will always be the case if the names really are representatives of the things. N.B. that connection is not a relation but only the holding of a relation. (NB 26; emphasis in the original)

Wittgenstein additionally claims that “in this way, the proposition represents the situation—as it were off its own bat” (NB 26). These passages put the main thrust of his approach to language into sharp relief. The distinction between possibility and actuality is a significant one which must be borne in mind. What a proposition represents is a possible state of affairs that may or may not exist in the real world. Wittgenstein writes that “the proposition must contain (and in this way show) the possibility of its truth. But not more than the possibility” (NB 16; emphasis in the original). In short, a proposition, consisting of representing names which make a non-existent connection between things, may appear to be real and transparent. Phrased differently, Wittgenstein’s (1961, 2001) early philosophy provides a useful way to think about the linking of propositions whereby a representation of the world can be made. Such a representation may generate the social effects with which constructivists, political theorists, students of international relations concern themselves.

2 See Arnauld and Nicole (1850), Priest (2000), Toulmin (1958), Walton (2008). Doty (1996) provides an excellent analysis of presuppositions of US foreign policy discourses.

3 Weldes's monograph (1999) is a seminal text on the construction of national interests through the processes of articulation and interpellation (Althusser 1971; Hall 1985, 1986; Laclau and Mouffe 2001).

4 For a discussion of the relevance of a chain of hypothetical propositions to the critical constructivist conception of national interests, see Chou (2012).

5 See CAB 128/30/CM 54 (56), July 27, 1956.

6 See CAB 128/30/CM 59 (56), August 14, 1956.

7 See CAB 128/30/CM 59 (56), August 14, 1956; emphasis added.

8 See CAB 128/30/CM 17 (56), February 28, 1956.

9 See CAB 128/30/CM 31 (56), April 26, 1956.

10 See CAB 128/30/CM 35 (56), May 10, 1956.

11 Discourse embedded in social relations and material structures produces ideological effects. The former is irreducible to mental events (Laffey and Weldes 1997).

12 See CAB 128/30/CM 54 (56), July 27, 1956.

13 See 557 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1956) 1612–13.

14 See CAB 128/30/CM 59 (56), August 14, 1956.

15 See CAB 128/30/CM 62 (56), August 28, 1956.

16 See CAB 128/30/CM 62 (56), August 28, 1956; emphasis in the original.

17 See CAB 128/30/CM 62 (56), August 28, 1956.

18 See CAB 128/30/CM 62 (56), August 28, 1956.

19 See CAB 128/30/CM 62 (56), August 28, 1956.

20 See CAB 128/30/CM 59 (56), August 14, 1956.

21 See CAB 128/30/CM 61 (56), August 23, 1956.

22 See CAB 128/30/CM 62 (56), August 28, 1956.

23 See CAB 128/30/CM 67 (56), September 26, 1956.

24 See 416 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1945) 786.