Theorizing Anxiety in International Relations

Theorizing Anxiety in International Relations

Bahar Rumelili, Koç University

Anxiety occupies a prominent place in diverse traditions of political, social, and psychological thought that we as scholars of international relations need to delve deeply into. When properly theorized, it can provide a unique vantage point to situate the historically specific circumstances of contemporary international order, broaden our understanding of techniques of government in foreign and domestic policy, and socio-psychological bases of individual and mass mobilization and agency. Several theoretical research programs in our field – on ontological security studies, emotions, and psycho-analysis- have already established a strong basis for a closer and more holistic engagement with the social as well as psychological dynamics and processes implicated in anxiety.   In that sense, a fuller theorization of anxiety promises to connect and thereby further develop disparate research programs exploring similar international phenomena.

Among the multiple theoretical traditions on anxiety, I find existentialist conceptions of anxiety to be the most relevant for contemporary concerns related to rising international uncertainty, populist, nativist, and fundamentalist reactions both at the state and group levels. Mainly, in existentialist conceptions, anxiety is an integral human condition, and not an abnormal state of mind. Rooted in the awareness of mortality –that we know that we will ultimately cease to be but not when or how-it is what distinguishes humans from animals. In that sense it is fundamentally linked to uncertainty and unknowability of the future, and limits of human capacity to know the future. In existentialist formulations, anxiety is also not simply one among multiple possible emotional states. According to Heidegger, it is a fundamental mood, the ground of other ways of affectively experiencing the world, including fear, guilt, or shame.

In existentialist thought, there is a strong basis for defining anxiety as distinct from and as constitutive of fear. The distinction from fear provides a vantage point to analyze the distinct implications of increasing hard uncertainty for international politics, in the form of increased frequency of unanticipated developments, as opposed to known threats and risks.  Whereas fear is projected externally toward specific threats and concrete objects, Kierkegaard states that the object of anxiety is ‘nothing’ and in anxiety, we experience ‘the infinity of possibility’, like the dizzy feeling one gets from staring into an abyss. Heidegger reiterates that in the face of which we fear (…) is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world, while in the face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within-the-world.’

Although distinct from fear, existentialist conceptions emphasize that anxiety is often disguised as and evaded through fear. According to (Tillich 2000:39), anxiety leads the individual into establishing objects of fear because only fear has an object that can be faced, attacked, and endured. A good example clarifying the relationship between anxiety and fear is provided by Paul Tillich. Anxiety about death, according to Tillich, stems from the prospect of non-being, the unknowability of what comes after death. Fear of death is directed toward the anticipated events of being killed by illness, by accident, by murder, etc. Although the ultimate cause of one’s death can never be known, fear is directed toward possible causes, and leads the individual to seek various protective measures, such as leading a healthy lifestyle, wearing a seatbelt, or carrying a gun. Tillich also underlines that apart from the prospect of death, anxiety is also occasioned by the prospects of meaninglessness and condemnation. Meaninglessness is the loss of an ultimate concern, of a meaning that gives meaning to existence’, and the anxiety occasioned by the prospect of meaninglessness, according to Tillich, drives individuals toward a search for certitude in systems of meaning, which are supported by tradition and authority. Anxiety about condemnation, on the other hand, stems from the ambiguity between good and evil, and finds its expression in the search for unambiguous moral standards.  Hence, in addition to fear, anxiety is evaded through systems of meaning and morality.

In addition, existentialist conceptions emphasize that anxiety is different from fear also in the reactions it elicits. Whereas fear repels, it motivates fleeing from the threatening object, anxiety is ambiguous in that it both attracts and repels (Haynes 2015). According to Kierkegaard, anxiety offers ‘the selfish infinity of possibility’ which ‘ensnaringly disquiets with its sweet anxiousness’ (1980: 61). Whereas anxiety drives attachment to objects of fear, the certainty of meaning and morality offered by tradition and religion, in existentialist conceptions, anxiety also carries a revelatory potential. For Heidegger, anxiety reveals the insignificance of the familiar where individuality and distinctiveness tends to get lost- and thereby charts a path towards meaningful existence, what Heidegger refers to as authenticity and Being-free for one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being.

These three premises of existentialist conceptions of anxiety –anxiety is distinct from fear; it is often converted into and evaded through objects of fear, tradition, and authority; and its simultaneous revelatory potential for authenticity-, I think draws out a theoretical framework where we can make sense of the significance as well as the potential implications of anxiety in international relations. First anxiety –in its distinction from fear- invites us to broaden our conception of uncertainty to take into account hard uncertainty and how hard uncertainty structures IR differently. Second, the premise that anxiety is commonly disguised as and evaded through fear provides a basis for integrating anxiety into IR as a constitutive condition of the relentless competition for power and the survival motive. It also supports securitization theory, by leading us to see production of fear as a technique of government. Thirdly, the premise that anxiety is contained also through politics of certainty highlights the particular characteristics of nationalist and religious ideologies and authoritarianism that serve the containment of anxiety.  Finally, the revelatory potential of anxiety, anxiety as a springboard for authenticity and charting a meaningful existence raises the question of whether anxiety can similarly be a springboard for radical and emancipatory agency in IR.