Description
Why do some political actors experience existential rupture in response to institutional or identity crises, while others remain relatively stable? This paper reframes ontological (in)security as a differentiated, relational condition rather than a holistic state. Drawing on attachment theory and object-relations approaches, it argues that political actors sustain multiple emotionally meaningful attachments – to institutions, alliances, myths, leaders, … –which vary in stability, centrality, and substitutability. Ontological (in)security thus depends less on the mere presence of disruption than on the emotional quality of these attachments: whether they function as secure, anxious, avoidant, or disorganised bonds. Building on psychoanalytic scholarship in International Relations, the paper shifts focus from defensive reactions to the sustaining role of attachment and care. It develops a framework of relational dispositions that explains why some ruptures are absorbed with minimal disorientation while others provoke profound insecurity. Various illustrative cases demonstrate the analytical value of this perspective. The framework contributes to ontological security studies by mapping the affective architecture of political life, revealing how security and insecurity emerge through the layered structure of emotional attachments that make the political world feel stable or threatening.
