Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The popular association of states with human-like attributes like intentionality and subjectivity has had significant consequences for conceptions of state agency in IR theory. For instance, states have long been theorised as having legal and/or moral personality in IR. Additionally, the idea of states as such persons has sustained the levels-of-analysis idea in IR; a theoretical starting-point for which the real properties of particular states are rather insignificant. The problem with anthropocentric analogies for the state is that the state is not a person or like a person, and IR theory does not have an alternative account for conceptualising the state. Drawing on Realist philosophy of science and social science, the paper will posit that the state is real, and is not a person or fiction. Particular emphasis will be placed on analysing the causal powers particular to the state as a social structure, as distinct from the causal powers of its leaders and its citizens. Bob Jessop?s strategic-relational state theory will be employed to substantiate metatheoretical claims of the argument. I will propose that by unveiling the causal complexes particular to the state as a social structure, IR theory will be better able to distinguish in between human agents who act in the name of the state, and conditions for that action set by the independent causal powers of the state. The paper will crucially argue that the state itself is in fact not an agent, because it does not have human attributes. The paper concludes with an example of how this theory works in the context of a decision-making process on ?ethical? foreign policies.