Description
Status politics, which refers to political contestations about a state’s standing in international hierarchies, is affective. Anxieties and associated emotions drive status ambitions of states. The existing accounts of emotions in status debates, however, fail to theorise and illustrate the significant role anxiety plays in the ways in which state elites narrate and perform their status ambitions. This analysis will conceptualise status anxiety through the conceptual framework provided by the recent Lacanian interventions in ontological security theory (OST). In this endeavour, firstly, a new understanding of status in relation to ‘subjectivity’, not only identity (the approach solely dominates the status literature), will be proposed. This will allow the introduction of anxiety stemming from uncertainty about not having a stable identity. This theorisation will lead to significant revisions to the existing accounts in status theorising in International Relations. Firstly, status-seeking is not about the pursuit of recognition of one’s identity by the ‘superior other’ but a desire for completeness to tackle existential anxiety. Secondly, emotions are the driving force of status ambitions of states. Finally, desired status is a fantasy, a joy that will never be achieved.
