1 Theorising Agency in International Relations In Hobbes's Wake ...
1 Theorising Agency in International Relations In Hobbes's Wake ...
1 Theorising Agency in International Relations In Hobbes's Wake ...
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with<strong>in</strong> and beyond the text, it is <strong>in</strong>stead to embrace its ambiguousness as a start<strong>in</strong>g po<strong>in</strong>t. The Leviathan<br />
operates as the central signifier at work <strong>in</strong> his political treatise; that much Schmitt would not disagree<br />
with, albeit <strong>in</strong> a different language. To cont<strong>in</strong>ue to usher <strong>in</strong> here the l<strong>in</strong>guistic term<strong>in</strong>ology, his is an<br />
effort to map out the field of significations, or ‘signified’, conjured by the signifier. The attitude I<br />
propose, however, is, rather than rather than seek to exhaust its significations, is to appraise how it<br />
operates as an open-ended signifier. This ambiguousness and polysemy are an <strong>in</strong>tegral part of its<br />
constitution as, and this is the core of argument, the master signifier of the symbolic order itself (terms I<br />
am about to expla<strong>in</strong>). As such it cannot be p<strong>in</strong>ned down to one signification nor <strong>in</strong>deed rid of its<br />
ambiguousness. Rather, its ability to condense as many mean<strong>in</strong>gs as possible is central to its function<strong>in</strong>g<br />
as the master signifier that underp<strong>in</strong>s the possibility of signification itself. To develop this argument,<br />
however, I first require <strong>in</strong>troduc<strong>in</strong>g Lacan’s broader categories of the symbolic and the primacy of the<br />
signifier, <strong>in</strong> order to show the Leviathan constitutes <strong>in</strong> fact the symbol, or signifier, designat<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
political order at large, whether at the national or <strong>in</strong>ternational level.<br />
<strong>In</strong>troduc<strong>in</strong>g Jacques Lacan<br />
From the Symbol to The Symbolic<br />
‘The symbolic’ <strong>in</strong> Lacanian term<strong>in</strong>ology designates the political order at large. What, then, is dist<strong>in</strong>ctive<br />
about this understand<strong>in</strong>g of the social, and why is it pert<strong>in</strong>ent to <strong>in</strong>terpret<strong>in</strong>g Hobbes? Three key<br />
features are helpful to contextualiz<strong>in</strong>g this notion of the symbolic <strong>in</strong> Lacan’s body of thought, namely, its<br />
language-based, cl<strong>in</strong>ical, and developmental dimensions.<br />
First, for Lacan the def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g characteristic of humans as political animals is speech. The ability to<br />
speak is all at once the basis of all social and political life, and what makes <strong>in</strong>dividual identity, <strong>in</strong>deed all<br />
life as a political animal, possible. Language thus stands at the centre of his theoriz<strong>in</strong>g because it is the<br />
foundation of the social order itself. Here he is uncannily close to Hobbes (1946, 18) when he writes that<br />
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