Description
How do individuals navigate critical situations international politics and mitigate the anxieties they elicit in everyday life? Giddensian literature on ontological security would suggest that (collective) internalised routines and narratives provide a sense of certainty and stability that enable individuals to “go on” with everyday life. This article adopts a Kleinian psychoanalytical approach to show that when faced with anxiety about their internalised narratives being ruptured, individuals do not necessarily fall into “chaos”, as Giddens suggests. Rather, they rely on psychodynamic defence mechanisms such as denial and idealisation to protect their sense of Self and, by extension, maintain a sense of ontological security. The article builds on direct engagement with citizens and investigates everyday practices to cope with anxiety in relation to international politics through the analysis of individuals’ reactions to political cartoons from participants of 18 focus groups in three European countries. This provides a deeper understanding of individuals’ everyday defence mechanisms in response to critical situations at the international level that disrupt their understanding of collective narratives of being and belonging. The article thereby advances our theoretical and empirical knowledge of how international politics can affect individuals' everyday life and sense of self as well as shape political behaviour and attitudes.
