Interpreting Order: The Problem of Public Imagination in International Relations.

This paper seeks to problematize and expand upon the concept of “order” in international relations by considering the contingent relationship between historical meaning and agency in international society. It argues that the concept of order, commonly understood as a certain set or pattern of relations specific to the “goals of social life” (Bull, 1977) in world politics, remains under-theorized. Neither the conventional conceptualizations of order as a set of enforceable norms and standards, nor the more reflexive and critical meditations on the centrality of “social forces” and global power configurations, it is argued, adequately explain the very subjective and normative foundations of any particular order in world politics. This glaring oversight is in large part due to the lack of engagement with the varied contours of historical meaning and memory that condition human thoughts and relations in world politics. In other words, order is very much implicated in the problem of public imagination which arises from the conflicting and often exclusionary cultural narratives that remain the perennial facts of human society. By neglecting the public understanding of international history, therefore, both conventional and critical conceptions of order not only perpetuate longstanding cultural divisions, but also represent the failure of international theory to address questions of historical meaning that in turn lead to an interpretive vacuum at the level of states and individuals. By looking at the contingent, yet ever-present, interpretations of historical meaning and memory, this paper aims to formulate an alternative conception of order rooted in the problem of public imagination. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]