Reading Martin Wight's "Why Is There No International Theory?" as History

Reading Martin Wight's "Why Is There No International Theory?" as HistoryAuthor(s): Cynthia WeberSource: Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1998), pp. 451-469Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40644924 .

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Alternatives 23 (1998), 451-469

Reading Martin Wight's "Why Is There No International

Theory? " as History

Cynthia Weber*

Hedley Bull once commented of Martin Wight's influential essay "Why Is There No International Theory?" to the effect that "while that work is steeped in history it is not itself history."1 It is my con- tention that Bull's statement - seemingly made in defense of the theoretical importance of Wight's text - was and remains incorrect. In contrast to Bull, I make the case for reading Wight's essay both as a significant historical moment in the field of international relations and - more importantly - as a textual inscription of the field as history. My thesis is that history is both the temporal and linguistic scene in which Wight's representation of international relations occurs. For Wight, a temporal reality is the presence behind his representations of international theory to the point that accurate representations of international theory may be expressed only in the temporal discourse of historical interpretation.2

Read as a historical moment, the foundational significance of Wight's essay for the discipline of international relations is difficult to miss.3 Wight's provocation that there is no international theory has made his essay an important stage upon which subsequent interpretations of international theory have been played out.4 Interpret- ing Wight's essay has become something of a cottage industry. The essay's bold and definitive statements have proven to be irresistible to many international-relations scholars, whether they take Wight's claims on in their writings, in their graduate seminars, or in their un- dergraduate lectures. It seems that few international-relations graduate students educated in English-speaking universities fail to have at least passing familiarity with Wight's essay.5 The essay "has almost

*Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., 47907-1363

451



452 Reading Wight's ''Why Is There No International Theory?" as History

iconic status in IR so that in reading it one is reading the discipline itself."6 Therefore, questions concerning how to read Wight's essay and what various interpretations of this essay do continue to fuel debates concerning the field.

Reading Wight's essay as history implies something else: exam- ining how Wight's essay itself linguistically employs temporal strategies in its characterization of political theory and international theory to the point that, for Wight, international theory is equated with historical interpretation. This goes further than simply asking, for example, what Wight really meant by "historical interpretation," "pro- gressivism," or "conservatism." The challenge here is not to uncover the true meaning of historical terms employed in Wight's essay. Rather, the challenge is to investigate how Wight's essay makes use of history or, put differently, how temporality functions in the essay. How does the disciplinary discourse of history become the only discourse in which the discipline of international relations can be expressed? Furthermore, how are the meanings Wight's essay constructs of political theory and international theory effects of specific temporal strategies, and what are the implications of these temporal strategies for international-relations theory as well as for political theory?

Our neglect of temporal strategies occurs in ironic contrast to our fascination with spatial strategies, both generally in the field and specifically in interpretations of Wight's essay. Although a vast array of international theorists are busily questioning the spatial strategies that construct Wight's political theory/international theory distinction,7 most overlook the temporal strategies Wight's essay employs to enable this distinction. Wight treats time as a neutral medium in which these distinctions are written. Perhaps this is because international relations has so long insisted on tracing its origins to the geo- metrically informed writings of Thomas Hobbes, whose debts to space and language are now being explored.8 But temporal strategies as well as spatial strategies participate in making linguistic distinctions, a point most theorists must ignore because their own spatial interpretations of Wight's essay work by privileging a specific interpretation of temporality (as progressive, nonprogressive, dialectical, or even eschatological) and then reading Wight's essay through this temporal position.9 Even many poststructuralists have yet to interrogate the temporal aspects of Wight's essay. In this respect, they are much like postmodernists in general. As Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth notes, "Time is often the missing link in discussions of postmodernism, which cycle through endlessly reflective spatial and static models without ever revealing the disappearance of history [dialec- tics, teleology, transcendence, and 'putative neutrality of historical time'] and the practical reformation this implies."10



Cynthia Weber 453

If there is so much neglect of temporality and its connections to language, then what merits my investigation of the temporal strategies in and surrounding Wight's essay? The answer concerns the very definition of the field of international relations. What international theory can or cannot be is expressed through language, and temporal strategies as well as spatial strategies participate in the linguistic construction of international theory. If I am correct that history is the linguistic and temporal scene in which Wight's representation of international relations occurs, then questioning spatial moves that construct the field while simulanteously leaving temporal moves unquestioned does not go far enough in opening up the field of international relations to alternative interpretations. As Luce Irigaray once noted, "if we continue to speak the same language to each other, we will reproduce the same story."11 Following Irigaray, I argue that if we continue to speak the same language of international theory, we will reproduce the same history in and of the field. The con- sequence of this is to continue to abide by Wight's political theory/international theory, domestic politics/international politics dichotomies, temporally if not spatially.

I propose an alternative reading of Wight's essay, one that en- ables us both to explore and to escape the spatial and temporal di- chotomizations his essay seemingly reifies. My alternative reading of Wight's essay is not grounded in the larger body of writings that Wight authored - nor should it be. My intention is to dislodge Wight's essay from its seemingly secure contextual foundation and to read it as it is so often read in international-relations seminars - as a lone essay that sets the boundaries around what the discipline can be.

My reading proceeds in three parts. First, it examines Wight's homology "politics is to international politics as political theory is to historical interpretation" as a way of introducing what Wight's essay says about these terms and their relationships. Next, it moves on to examine what Wight's essay does- - how it functions. This leads me to rewrite Wight's original homology as "politics is to international politics as space is to time." Finally, my reading investigates how language is implicated in Wight's discussions of space, time, and international relations. It asks two questions: "Where are the moments in Wight's attempted representation of international relations (both in terms of what his essay says and does) that exceed his presumably representational motivations (i.e., to present the reality behind international theory)?"; and "What do these moments tell us about what international relations theory can be?"

My conclusion is that Wight's essay is exemplary of international relations, not because his representations of it are correct but because there are extrarepresentational moments in Wight's essay (what



454 Reading Wight's "Why Is There No International Theory?" as History

we might call performative moments) that escape the representational terms in which Wight's essay inscribes the field of international relations. It is in these extrarepresentational moments of Wight's essay that we find alternative interpretations of what international relations can be. To open up Wight's essay - and the discipline of international relations - to these alternative interpretations requires a critique of history, temporality, and language as they function in Wight's essay.

Why Is There No International Theory?

Politics is to international politics as political theory is to historical interpretation. This is the summary statement of Wight's argument - a concise homology containing four terms and a number of compli- cated relationships. To make sense of it requires some unpacking, and this is not as clear-cut as this homology suggests. For while Wight provides us with the definition of each term in this equation, the meaning of terms is derived more from their relationships with other terms than from isolated definitions. On this first interpretative pass through Wight's homology, I focus on the definitions of and relationships among terms to which Wight's essay explicitly draws attention. In the next section, I will reinterpret Wight's homology by ex- amining what underlying assumptions make the homology function.

Wight's essay begins by providing two definitions - one of political theory and one of international theory. Political theory, "a phrase that in general requires no explanation . . . denotes speculation about the state."12 In contrast, international theory does require explanation, and Wight defines it as "a tradition of speculation about relations between states" (p. 17). That international theory is "a tradition imagined as the twin of speculation about the state to which the name 'political theory' is appropriated" is a problem for Wight, for, as he continues, "international theory in this sense does not, at first sight, exist" (p. 17). Wight's essay takes as its task to discover a type of international theory that does exist. What would such a theory be like? Wight arrives at his answer by asking a number of questions regarding international and political theory, their relationship to one another, and their relationships to international and domestic politics, respectively.

International theory's nonexistence may be a simple matter of a lack of texts. Wight pursues this line of thought in his attempt to trace a tradition of writing that might collectively be called international theory. He observes of these writings that "it is difficult to say



Cynthia Weber 455

that any of them has the status of a political classic" (p. 17). Wight laments that "there is no succession of first-rank books about the states-system and diplomacy like the succession of political classics from Bodin to Mill" (p. 18). This prompts Wight to ask if there was any international theory before 1914, the date often cited as the birth of this modern discipline (p. 18). Two answers emerge.

The first is that "speculation about the society of states . . . was formerly comprehended under International Law" (p. 18). But Wight finds the fit between international law and international politics to be unsatisfactory, for "international law seems to follow an in- verse movement to that of international politics. When diplomacy is violent and unscrupulous, international law soars into the regions of natural law; when diplomacy acquires a certain habit of co-operation, international law crawls in the mud of legal positivism" (p. 29). Dis- satisfied with international law as an adequate form of international theory, Wight asks where else international theory is found. He offers four kinds of writing: the irenists, the Machiavellians, the writings of political philosophers, philosophers, and historians that occasionally touch on international politics, and the speeches, despatches, memoirs and essays of statesmen (sic) and diplomats" (pp. 19-20). He concludes that "international theory, or what there is of it, is scattered, unsystematic, and mostly inaccessible to the lay- man" (p. 20).

This is in stark contrast to political theory, whose tradition of writing is the standard against which Wight's essay measures the writings of international theory. "It has become natural," Wight notes, "to think of international politics as the untidy fringe of domestic politics . . . , and to see international theory in the manner of the political theory textbooks, as an additional chapter which can be omit- ted by all save the interested student" (p. 21). "Few political thinkers have made it their business to study the states-system, the diplomatic community itself" (p. 22).

But is this enough to say international theory does not exist? Not for Wight, for he goes on to reject the possibility of applying political theory to explanations of international politics. He argues this would restrict explanations of international politics - relations among states - within a language that is meant to express what occurs within states. Only questions such as how international politics could or could not achieve a world state or how national interests of states necessarily lead to international wars by analogy to domestic theories concerning a state of nature would be permissible (pp. 21-22). That these types of questions do describe a range of international theory is a problem for Wight, not a solution.




Wight's rejection of this solution implies that international theory is distinct from political theory. Yet at the same time, Wight's essay implies that international theory - if it is to exist - must do so as the twin of political theory. How does Wight's essay resolve this ap- parent contradiction? Wight's essay plays on two distinctions between political theory and international theory - content and function. In the first case, Wight's essay suggests that international theory must remain distinct from political theory. It must not be subsumed within political theory because political theory and international theory have different stories to tell. Political theory tells the story of the quest for the good life within states while international theory tells the story of the survival of states, in the states system (p. 33). In this sense, political theory and international theory should not be twins. They should not have the same content.

But in terms of function, international theory can exist only if it becomes a twin of political theory. For, Wight implies, it is theory's function of reflecting political reality that makes it exist. Political theory exists because it accurately reflects domestic political processes, not because it has an abundance of classic texts. International theory, in contrast, does not exist because it does not reflect international political processes. What international theory must do in order to exist in Wight's terms is to become the twin of political theory not by em- ulating the content of political theory - the story it tells - but by em- ulating the function of political theory - the telling of a story about politics that accurately reflects things as they are. To do this, international theory must accurately describe what occurs among states.

What Wight's homology expresses, then, are the relationships he proposes between theories, their contents, and their functions. What Wight's homology describes is an international theory that is "imagined as the twin" of political theory because it has the same relationship to its subject of study - international politics - that political theory has to domestic politics. Both types of theories remain distinct in their contents, just as domestic politics and international politics are distinct. But they have the same function - to describe things as they are. For Wight, the type of theory that describes things as they are in international politics is historical interpretation, for historical interpretation makes it its "business to study the states-system, the diplomatic community itself11 (p. 22).

Why Is There Only International History?

Whereas Wight's homology - politics is to international politics as political theory is to historical interpretation - establishes a number



Cynthia Weber 457

of relationships and dichotomies, my homology - politics is to international politics as space is to time - expresses the underlying assumptions that make Wight's homology function. My argument is that Wight's homology relies upon spatial and temporal assumptions about the character of domestic politics and international politics and the corresponding theories that are to explain them. These assumptions construct the dichotomies domestic politics/international politics and political theory/international theory. In this section, I analyze how both space and time function in Wight's homology to construct specific definitions of and relationships among terms.

Space and time are terms that are easier to grasp when thinking about the questions they raise than about their precise definitions. Space raises, questions of location, among others - "where?" questions; whereas time raises questions concerning the passage of existence or events - "when?" questions. My purpose is not to seek answers to questions of "where?" and "when?" but to destabilize these questions so that I may investigate the organizational processes that construct specific meanings and uses of space and time. This entails asking further questions about Wight's essay: How do specific notions of "where" and "when" get constructed? What meanings are given to these notions of "where" and "when"? And how are understandings of space and time organized?

"Where" Wight's essay begins is by establishing political theory as a master referent - as the location against which international theory is measured. Political theory, as Wight describes it, seems to have been selected as Wight's point of departure because of its fixity, both definitionally and spatially. Definitionally, political theory "needs no explanation" (p. 17). Its meaning is self-evident and stationary because what it describes - domestic politics - is stationary. Domestic politics is stationary because it has been spatially fixed within a boundary known as the state. Spatially, then, Wight's essay locates domestic politics and political theory within a specific frame - the bounded space of the state - that allows them to function as points of reference in two respects.

First, domestic politics is the point of reference for political theory. For, Wight's essay claims, political theory refers to and transparently describes domestic politics - life within the state. Second, political theory is a referent for international theory both in terms of content and function, and in both of these respects international theory is found to be lacking. When compared with political theory in terms of content, international theory is the "untidy fringe" of political theory (p. 21). Spatially, it is just outside the realm of political theory. Regarding function, political theory is the firstborn twin that




international theory always tries to copy. This function is the same as that of political theory - transparently to reflect politics as it is.

International politics differs markedly from domestic politics in its spatial organization. It does not refer to an enclosed space, for there is nothing to enclose - no global citizenry, for example. In- stead of being composed of one bounded space (the state), international politics consists of many bounded spaces (states) that resist en- closure into any one body and that, if enclosed, would radically alter the character of international politics.13 As Wight's essay describes it, international politics is made up of states and spaces between states.14

It is these spatial distinctions between domestic politics and international politics and between political theory and international theory that are regularly commented on by international relations theorists.15 Many theorists would readily agree that, as Wight's essay describes it, political theory is made possible thanks to a spatial discourse, and international theory - in these spatial terms - does not exist. For international theory to exist, according to Wight's essay, it must describe things as they are. It must reflect what happens among states. And this, Wight's essay argues, is better accomplished by a temporal discourse than by a spatial one.

Certainly, spatial and temporal organizations are not easily sepa- rated. Indeed, how we think about time is linked to how we think about space. For example, as Wight's essay implies, different temporal possibilities exist for politics within states and politics among states. The state, in this respect, can be thought of as a temporal container.16 Within this container occurs domestic politics, which is, as Wight's essay argues, a progressive struggle toward the good life. The good life can be achieved in a domestic setting because the state forms a boundary around a political community - a citizenry - on whose behalf common standards of goodness, truth, beauty, and justice are striven for. This specific, enclosed spatial arrangement makes possible a specific temporal arrangement. Time in domestic politics - on the inside of the state - is organized as progressing toward a specific goal, the good life. This organization of time is linear.

Outside of the state, however, time is organized differently because space is organized differently. Instead of having one single temporal container - one state - international politics is populated by many temporal containers - many states. Each state has its own particular standards of goodness, truth, beauty, and justice grounded by its own domestic political community. Given this, no single story of progress can be told by international theory because there is no one community - no international citizenry, for example - on whose behalf it can be narrated. A global community could be created by



Cynthia Weber 459

forming a world government that would spatially and temporally unify all states. Then one world government could follow a linear progression toward the good life on behalf of its global citizenry. Barring this modified international spatial arrangement, international politics will not be progressive or linear. Instead, it will be cyclical, marked by the "recurrence and repetition" of war, diplomacy, and a general struggle for survival.17 This, according to Wight's essay, is the fixed character of international politics.

Therefore, while domestic politics is stabilized via a spatial discourse that encloses it within a state, international politics - which by Wight's definition is necessarily outside the bounds of this spatial arrangement - is stabilized via a temporal discourse that endlessly re- peats a general pattern of the struggle for survival. Space fixes the character of the inside. Time fixes the character of the outside. Poli- tics is to international politics as space is to time.

The same holds true for the other side of Wight's homology, political theory and historical interpretation. If political theory and international theory are both to describe politics as they really are, then political theory must describe what occurs within a bounded domestic space, the state. The space of the state is unchanging, whereas its narrative of progress - while moving - is unidirectional. Domestic politics, then, fixes the story that political theory can tell. International theory must tell the story of what occurs between fixed spaces, between states. To do this accurately, it must relate the temporal story of the struggle for survival among states. The spatially stabilized discourse of political theory cannot tell this story; what is re- quired is a temporally stabilized discourse, a narrative of time that can capture the nonprogressive nature of international events. This discourse, Wight's essay suggests, is the discourse of historical interpretation. From ancient times when international theory reflected what was going on in international political life, it did so through a historical discourse. Even Thucydides was a historian, Wight reminds us.18 There is only international history.19

Language, Theory, and History

Exposing the temporal and spatial strategies at work in Wight's essay is an informative exercise. It offers us another way to think about the domestic/international divide that so much international-relations theory assumes. Yet if my argument is that language employs spatial and temporal strategies in order to make the distinctions that give it meaning, then stopping at this point may leave us with the often-




asked question: But where do we go from here? Are there alternatives to the spatial/temporal traps that Wight's essay and those about it so often find themselves in? And, if so, what difference might these alternatives offer to understandings of international-relations theory? I raise these questions because they lead us to a reconsideration of language in general and of the language of international relations in particular.

Among the most important laments of Wight's essay is that there is no language of international theory.20 This concern goes beyond Wight's argument that international theory has no classics, only scattered texts. For, as Wight argues, what international theory might exist "sings a kind of descant over against the movement of diplomacy."21 This is in stark contrast to political theory, which "is in a di- rect relation with political activity."22

The problem for Wight, then, is not that international theory does not exist. Rather, there is no international theory in the fields of international relations or international law that describes what actually happens among sovereign nation-states. And this is a problem for Wight because of his understanding of language. Language is representation for Wight because, as Wight's essay implies, the function of language is to describe things as they really are.23 The language of international theory ought to make present the realities of international politics.

The language of political theory does make present the realities of domestic politics, according to Wight. Thanks to its spatial strategy of containing a state and/or society, political theory can focus on the pursuit of the good life within this enclosed space. The boundary around the state or society creates a political community that can judge standards of beauty, truth, justice, and goodness. This relationship between a political community as the interpretative center of truth and the good life as the truth to be pursued is not easily dis- turbed within political theory as it is described by Wight. Even the potentially destabilizing question, "the good life for whom?" does not upset this linguistic system of guaranteed meaning. For although a political community may be constructed through a series of racial, class, and gender exclusions, it remains the answer to this question.

What matters to someone with a representational view of language is that there is some community of judgment to which such interpretative questions can be referred. Certainly, the "true" interpretation of the good life will be debated. But even this does not disrupt this linguistic system, because the assumption underlying these debates is that there is a true interpretation of the good life, regardless of whether or not it has been articulated. The burden of political



Cynthia Weber 461

theory, accordingly, is to reflect these debates about the good life, all the while never questioning that there is a truthful notion of the good life, that a political community - acting judiciously - may arrive at it, and that political theory is a progressive narrative because the search for the true meaning of the good life is itself progressive. In this way, political theory fulfils the dictates of representation. With these assumptions unquestioned, political theory may be said to make present the realities of domestic politics.

This is not at all the way the language of international theory is structured. Spatially, it is not contained, nor does it describe what occurs within an enclosed space. International theory is about relations between states. It is a language of relations. As described in Wight's essay, international relations lack a body - a community of judgment that can bring interpretations to rest. Thus, it is inappropriate to transfer the language of political theory to international theory. As Wight argues, international relations are not about the pursuit of the good life, but about survival. To explain international relations in terms of political theory would not, therefore, be to have theory reflect things as they are. Describing this problem using a spatial metaphor, Wight argues that "international theory ... is constantly bursting the bounds of the language in which we try to handle it," whether this is the language of political theory or of international law.24

Wight gets out of this quandary, as I discussed in the previous section, by transforming the language of international relations from one of space to one of time. The language of international theory cannot be spatially guaranteed. This is why Wight rejects political theory as a language for international theory. And the language of international law does not reflect what actually happens in international relations. Therefore, this language is inappropriate since it fails to meet the requirements of representation. Only the language of historical interpretation - the language of diplomatic historians - according to Wight, reflects things as they really are in international politics.

Diplomatic historians perform the same function for international politics as political theorists do for domestic politics - each is an interpretative center of judgment. What authorizes each is "things as they really are," which for political theorists is politics within the state and for diplomatic historians is international politics. Wight makes the latter point by arguing, "For history, international relations are the only sure standards of movement; the only foundation for a map."25 In other words, international politics ground the discipline of history. Pushed to its extreme as it is in Wight's homology, international politics becomes international diplomacy, and international theory becomes diplomatic history.



462 Reading Wight's "Why Is There No International Theory?'' as History

The twists and turns that Wight's essay goes through to establish these connections are necessitated by Wight's representational understanding of language. Theory must make present and refer to a reality that underlies it. In the case of international politics, where its presence defies spatial moves of containment, then international politics must be transferred from a spatial domain to a temporal one. For the realties of international politics must be made present some- how. There must be a language that can account for them. Concern- ing international politics, this language, for Wight, can only be a temporal language, the language of history.

Yet if we think about the relationship between theory and language in ways which challenge representational assumptions - in ways that do not require firm foundations or presumably neutral, transparent accounts of reality - then our understandings of international theory, political theory, and the dichotomous way in which Wight's essay seemingly encourages us to think about their relationship are dramatically transformed. We might begin by questioning if language - especially the language of historical interpretation - is a neutral medium in which reality can be made present and transparently conveyed. If not, would this transform how we think about the representative function of language? If so, this suggests that we investigate what else language does. For example, does language have functions other than simply representing things as they really are?

History, like political theory, is a term that Wight's essay treats as self-evident. It seems to require no explanation, and none is offered. Albeit formally undefined, history does have a clear meaning in Wight's essay. History is a temporal and linguistic scene in which representation occurs. In this sense, history is indebted to a construction of temporality as empty, neutral, and homogeneous. Time is but the domain in which existence and events pass, and history is a medium that neutrally records this passage.26 That history (linear or cyclical) and time (empty, neutral, and homogeneous) are themselves selective representations of temporality is a theoretical wrinkle that cannot be entertained in Wight's essay because of the role history plays in Wight's essay.27

History - specifically international history - functions in Wight's essay just as political theory does - as a foundational referent, a self- evident signified that gives meaning to other terms and is meaning- ful in and of itself. It is not an oversight, then, that Wight's essay fails to define history. History as a foundational term needs no definition. The function of the term history in Wight's essay is to give meaning to the troubling term international theory. It is because international history tells the story of international events as they are that international



Cynthia Weber 463

theory exists. But it exists only on two conditions - that the pre- sumed transparent, representational function of history remains un- examined and that international theory is identical to international history. It is my position that these conditions should be challenged, in the first instance because of the failures of representation and in the second because of how Wight's understanding of international history unduly restricts what international theory can be.

Representation is its own best critic, for "it always conveys more than it intends; and it is never totalising"28 Because representation is not totalizing - because it can never neutrally reflect the whole of things as they really are - representational constructs never succeed in having the last word. Representational strategies, then, always fail to finally stabilize meanings because there is always some meaning that escapes representation. In its attempt - and failure - to fix meaning, representation unwittingly conveys itself a representation. Understanding language in representative terms is a convenient - and powerful - interpretation upon which much knowledge is constructed. However, it is just that - an interpretation, not a truth.

If a representational understanding of language is but one interpretation of language and is not true in and of itself, then language in and of itself is not logically representational. The will to representation so often attributed to language collapses, and with it melt away the constricted terms in which Wight's essay prescribes the function of international theory.

Once the representational assumption about language is ex- posed as a construct rather than a truth, there is no reason for international theory to remain identical with the language of historical interpretation. Wight's identification of international theory with international history was a way of giving international theory access to a representational language. But if language itself is not logically or solely representational, then there is no need to insist that the language of international relations be a temporal language, the language of history.

In the absence of this understanding of representation, is there a language of international theory? If so, how does it function? Most theorists agree that international theory does not easily conform to the spatial arrangements of political theory. And - if one departs from a representational position - international theory need not abide by a temporal discourse. What remains? This question returns us to a general consideration of the function of language. If language need not be representational or merely representational, what does this mean in practice? If representational accounts of international theory, for example, always end up conveying more than they




seemingly intend to convey, what else do they convey? What do these supplementary aspects of representational language suggest about international theory? What, in these supplementary moments, does a language of international theory look like?

The difficulty for international theorists will not be to answer these questions. Instead, the difficulty has been to get to a place - free from the assumptions of Wight's homology, its uses of space and time, and its debts to representation - where these questions could be posed in the first place. Paradoxically, Wight's essay itself provides an answer.

One illustration is a performative reading of Wight's attempt to represent international theory. Performativity concerns "the ways that identities are constructed iteratively through complex citational processes" - how, in this case, the identity of international theory is the rhetorical effect of Wight's linguistic and temporal strategies.29 Performativity is not interested in what someone or something is in itself, as representation is. The intention of performativity theory is not to make reality present through a neutrally inscribed medium like language or history. Rather, from the perspective of performativity, presence is an effect of (often linguistic) practice, not the other way around. On this reading, Wight was right when he could find no "body" in international theory or international politics. "Bodies," or ontologies, are the effects of practices, practices such as Wight's inscription of international theory as historical interpretation or his inscription of international politics as distinct from domestic politic.

If performativity theory does not make realities present or describe things as they really are, what is the purpose of performativity? In the place of "representation" - or (re) presenting presence - performativity draws attention to how "presence" is constructed even when, as in the case of international theory, it has no "body." It does so by ironically mining, imitating, or acting out situations or relationships rather than describing them "as they really are." This ironic miming has two effects. First, it draws attention to what is missing ("presence" or stable identities). Second, it focuses attention on how these missing "bodies" are "presented." Performativity theory is one example of theory in practice or theory as practice, and the practice that performativity most often draws upon is parody. But performativity theory does not understand parody in the usual way. Instead of viewing parody as an ironic imitation of an original, performative miming or imitating "does not assume that there is an original which such parodie identities imitate. Indeed, the parody is of the very notion of an original."30



Cynthia Weber 465

It is instructive to reread Wight's essay performatively because performativity theory does not respect the temporal and spatial assumptions Wight's essay prescribes for political theory or international theory. Temporally, performativity is nonprogressive, for it posits no goal to be achieved. Nor is it repetitive in the terms Wight's essay describes, for each performative moment is distinct from all others. It is the difference rather than the mere repetition of an act that bears notice.

Spatially, performativity breaks out of one of the underlying assumptions of representation - that there is a clear distinction between things as they really are and theoretical narratives meant to describe them. Subject/ object, author/reader dichotomies do not hold up in performativity theory for two reasons. First, the interpretative act of theorizing or recounting things as they are is understood as a form of political practice. This has enormous implications for our modern notion of history. "The value of neutrality . . . silently taken for granted" by modern historical narratives can now be re- placed by a "focus on precisely those questions of value and propor- tion that historical thinking defers."31 Put differently, the politics that is occluded by a neutrally inscribed notion of history can be re- turned to our understandings of the international. Second and re- latedly, performativity disseminates and decenters meanings so that no meaning can be accurately represented in dichotomous terms. In this sense, performativity might be understood as a "cultural jamming" of representation itself. For within the very act of representation, performative moments undermine and threaten the very function of representational logics - both because they emphasize extrarepresentational moments within representation and because, in so doing, they expose the "presence" of representation (in Wight's example, international theory and the discipline of international relations) as either "absence" or "a series under construction."

A performative theory of international relations, then, would not concern itself with representing things as they really are. Rather, it would strive to account for how international identities - like sovereign nation-states, for example - are the performative effects of international practices.32 In this regard, it would be as attentive to so- called theoretical representations of international politics as it would be to so-called practices of international politics. In addition, a performative theory of international relations - because it jams representation - would not so much describe international politics as ironically mime them, repeatedly act them out in a textual form, each time with a difference that matters.

What would such a theory of international relations look like? It would look precisely like the international theory Wight's essay




describes before his essay equates international theory with historical interpretation. If, for Wight, international politics is about in-between spaces, then international theory as so many scattered, unsystematic texts simply imitates the appearance of international politics - highlighting the "bodilessness" of both international politics and international theory. This is why, for example, international theory is but an additional chapter in a political theory text or among the marginal writings of famous political philosophers. This is also why international theory is so difficult for Wight to pin down. Like international politics, it appears as a "realm of recurrence and repetition," yet no repeat performative moment abides by the cyclical temporality Wight's essay attributes to international politics. Instead, international theory as a form of performativity theory abides by a temporality of the present or the event, with the event coded as interpretation.33 On this reading, international theory is but a collage of interpretations rather than a linear or cyclical series of representations.34 International theory, in other words, is a mess, and it cannot be confined within the bounds of representation either spatially or temporally.35 Read performatively, Wight's essay no longer fixes the identity of international theory through an equation with diplomatic history. Rather, the essay strikingly calls attention to the absence of any stable body of international theory or history, making us all the more aware of the constructions of these bodies of knowledge.

Wight's essay - like any representation - ends up conveying more than it presumably means to. In its attempt rigidly to prescribe a representation of international theory as international history, it also provides international theorists with a glimpse of a performative international theory - a theory that neither excludes a politicized version of historical interpretation from international theory nor re- duces international theory to a neutrally inscribed version of historical interpretation. In this sense, Wight proves to be his own best critic. For it is Wight who - presumably without meaning to - provides a way out of his own restrictive homology.

Notes

This article was presented at the Cambrian Lecture Series at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Thanks to members of the audience for their helpful comments. Thanks also - and especially - to Francois Debrix and Julie Web- ber, and to Tim Dunne, Jenny Edkins, Roger Epp, David Martin, Jamie Mor- gan, Nick Wheeler, Colin Wight, Howard Williams, and Marysia Zalewski.

1. Hedley Bull, "Martin Wight and the Theory of International Rela- tions," in Martin Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions, Gabriele



Cynthia Weber 467

Wight and Brian Porter, eds. (London: Leicester University Press, 1991), p. xxi. Wight's original article appeared in Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight, eds., Diplomatic Investigations (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966), pp. 17-34.

2. On this point, I am paraphrasing Jonathan Culler's argument about the representational disposition of philosophy. Culler writes, "Reality is the presence behind representations, what accurate representations are representations of, and philosophy is above all a theory of representation." In terms of what Wight's essay says about theory, it is "above all a theory of representation." One of the crucial points of my rereading of Wight's essay is to demon- strate that in terms of what Wight's essay does, it exceeds the limitations of representation. See Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 152.

3. Arguing that Wight's essay has foundational signficance for the field of international relations is not the same as saying that Wight's argument was wholely unique. Indeed, as one reviewer pointed out, "The view that diplomatic history offered the only route to clear explanation was so old-hat by the time [Wight wrote] as to be risible" and that it might be more appro- priate to view Wight's essay as "intrinsic to the effort to confer academic au- thority on a particularly narrow line of English thought about international relations." What makes Wight's essay foundational is how international relations scholars return to it as a limiting discourse on what the field can be.

4. How seriously to take this claim is a subject of debate. Chris Brown argues that "Wight's denial of international theory has not been taken seriously by his followers, nor was it intended to be." See Chris Brown, Interna- tional Theory Today (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), p. 6. Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight wrote of this essay that "its title was intended to be provocative." See preface in Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight, eds., Diplomatic Investigations (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966), p. 13.

5. À host of British and North American textbooks discuss Wight's essay, including James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfalzgraff, Jr., eds., Contending Theories of International Relations: A Comprehensive Survey, 3d ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1990); and Steve Smith, "The Self-images of a Discipline: A Genealogy of International Relations Theory," in Ken Booth and Steve Smith, eds., International Relations Theory Today (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity, 1995), pp. 1-37.

6. Roger Epp, written comments to the author, December 1996. 7. Particularly R. B. J. Walker, Inside /Outside: International Relations as Po-

litical Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 8. Ibid., Francois Debrix, "Destabilising Leviathan: A Critical Re-reading

of the Order/Anarchy Debate in IR Theory with/against a Postmodern- (ized) Hobbes," unpublished MS presented at the 1995 Midwest Political Sci- ence Association meeting, Chicago, April 1995; and Frederick Dolan, "Hobbes and/or North: The Rhetoric of American National Security," in Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, eds., Ideology and Power in the Age of Lenin in Ruins (New York: St. Martin's, 1991), pp. 191-209.

9. In their interpretations of Wight's essay, Chris Brown and Robert Jackson are illustrative of this point. Brown reads Wight's essay through linear time; Jackson reads it through dialectical time. Neither Brown nor Jack- son interrogate their own temporal assumptions and their effects on what international theory and the discipline of international relations can be. See




Brown, note 4, and Robert H.Jackson, "Martin Wight, International Theory and the Good Life," Millennium 199, no. 2 (1990): 261-272.

10. Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Cri- sis of Representational Time (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 7 (The material I have placed in brackets is from p. 14). Ermarth continues: "My emphasis on the disappearance of historical thinking does not mean that I advocate overthrowing "history" or rallying to its defence; the state of affairs is far more complex and interesting. . . . The work that un- dermines history also opens up new questions and provides new opportuni- ties in practice. On the postmodern frame, choice is not a question of either/or but a question of emphasis" (pp. 14-15).

1 1 . Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 205-206.

12. Wight, "Why?" p. 17. 13. Wight's later society-of-states argument enabled him to construct an

enclosed space in international politics. It constructed the body that was missing from international politics and from international theory, as the original title of Wight's essay "Why Is There No Body of International Theory?" suggests. Wight's move arguably allows morality back into international politics and international theory because it establishes a community of judgment that can make moral decisions. However, this is not the only way to establish notions of morality and ethics in international relations. On morality and ethics, see, for example, Jim George, "Realist 'Ethics,' International Relations, and Post-modernism: Thinking Beyond the Egoism-Anarchy Thematic," Millen- nium: 24, no. 2 (1995): 195-223. On the original title of Wight's essay, see Der Derian, International Theory, p. 5; and Hedley Bull, note 1, p. xxi.

14. Wight, "Why?" p. 17. 15. See note 5. 16. John Agnew, "Timeless Space and State-centrism: The Geographical

Assumptions of International Relations Theory," in Stephen J. Rosow, Naeem Inayatullah, and Mark Rupert, eds., The Global Economy as Political Space (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994), pp. 87-106.

17. Wight, "Why?" pp. 26 and 33. 18. Ibid., p. 32. 19. On this point, my reading of Wight's essay differs markedly from

that of Chris Brown. Brown takes Wight to mean that international theory and history are and should remain two distinct fields of study. According to Brown, that international theory exists for Wight as "a collection of essen- tially second-rate texts always on the verge of sliding away from theory into historical interpretation" is a problem to be overcome by international theory rather than, as I interpret it, a goal to which international theory should aspire. See Brown, note 4, p. 6.

20. Wight, "Why?" p. 33. 21. Ibid., p. 29. 22. Ibid. 23. Der Derian makes this claim in a slightly different way, arguing that

Wight, like members of the so-called English School, was a philosophical realist in that he "believed theory to reflect 'things as they really are.'" See James Der Derian, introduction to James Der Derian, ed., International Theory: Critical Investigations (New York: New York University Press, 1995), p. 40. On the English School, see Roy E. Jones, "The English School of International Relations: A Case for Closure," Review of International Studies 7 (1981), 1-13.



Cynthia Weber 469

24. Wight, "Why?" p. 33. 25. This is a quote from The Education of Henry Adams (New York: Mod-

ern Library, 1931), p. 442; cited in Wight, "Why?" p. 33. 26. Ermarth points out that it is the neutrality of time that seemingly

makes objective comparisons possible, thus giving support to our investment in a construction of historical temporality. However powerful this representation of temporality is, it is but a representation, not a truth. Ermarth writes: "The medium of historical time is a construct and itself a representation of the first magnitude" (p. 26). Ermarth describes "the modern idea of history" as "the view of time as a neutral, homogeneous medium like the space of pictorial realism in painting; a time where mutually informative measurements can be made between past, present, and future, and where all relationships can be explained in terms of a common horizon" (p. 27). Er- marth, note 10.

27. For a discussion of historical time, see Ermarth, note 10, esp. pp. 19-45.

28. Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (London: Rout- ledge, 1993), p. 2.

29. Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, introduction to Parker and Sedgwich, eds., Performativity and Performance (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 2.

30. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 138.

31. Ermarth, note 10, p. 41. 32. Cynthia Weber, "Performative States," Millennium 27, no. 1 (1998),

77-95. 33. Ermarth goes even further on this point. She argues that "time has

become reader's time, phenomenal time; in a word, time has become a function of position." See Ermarth, note 10, p. 69.

34. Ermarth, note 10, p. 8. 35. Thanks to Marysia Zalewski for this point.



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Reading Martin Wight's "Why Is There No International Theory?" as History

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