Description
Building on Wendt’s claim that states can be treated as persons, this paper revisits state personhood through Ontological Security Theory (OST), reconceptualising it as a dynamic performance of identity rather than a stable condition. It develops a framework of five performative patterns: Harmonizer, Guardian, Seeker, Chain and Shifter, as a process-based framework for tracing how states narrate and adapt their identities, contributing to efforts to refine OST as a more empirically grounded, relational account of state identity. Drawing on forty-six elite interviews with policymakers, scholars and industry practitioners, the study examines Japan’s ontological security and alliance politics in outer space through dual-use technologies: Active Debris Removal (ADR) and Space Situational Awareness (SSA). ADR advances responsible innovation, while SSA embeds Japan in U.S. defence architecture, deepening alliance dependence, and constitutional dilemmas in security policy. These performances demonstrate how Japan’s identity is enacted through recurring patterns of continuity, responsibility, recognition, dependence, and adaptation. They reveal that Japan’s identity is sustained not through autonomy, but through the continual negotiation of stability and self-understanding in relation to others. Moving beyond gestures toward relationality in OST, this paper develops a patterned account of performativity in identity formation and anchors it within the state personhood debate.
