Description
In this paper, I study how boredom emerges in, builds up through and influences the course of international politics. Based primarily on Heidegger’s theorization of boredom as a fundamental mood inherent to human existence, I conceptualize boredom as a negative affective condition associated with the discomfort with feeling determined by and stuck in time, a sense of lost subjectivity, and the perceived deprivation of capacity for purposeful action. The crisis of agency signaled by this mood calls for a solution to mitigate its felt ramifications, which inclines actors toward transgressive behavior. Informed by this theoretical framework, I demonstrate that a globally traceable mood of boredom has been growing and discuss the subversive implications of the widespread attunement to boredom for the liberal international order (LIO).
Diplomatic norms and practices typically originate from inscrutable antiquated European customs that mean little, if anything, to contemporary representatives of states and international institutions. These repetitious and highly procedural methods commonly seem pointless, as the world abounds with deadlocks in negotiations, political stalemates, and frozen conflicts, many of which involve decades of restless waiting and standstill. International organizations grapple with accusations of political impotence and irrelevance with their unwieldy bodies wrapped up in the mesh of their own rules and bureaucracies, incapable of rising to the needs and challenges of the day. Let alone resolving ongoing impasses, the largest international organization, the United Nations, has become another source thereof with its fruitless resolutions, barricaded budgets, and obsolete structural hierarchies. The global economic system and international law further snarl up world politics’ tangle with their stringent rules, anachronistic standards, unavailing methods, and bodies with overlapping jurisdictions. In this context, I argue that political elites’ growing boredom with the convoluted and ineffectual ways in which things (do not) work may prompt acts of transgression against the LIO.
