The struggle for recognition in international politics : Security, identity, and the quest for power.

What motivates states to pursue risky and aggressive foreign policies?

More specifically, why do great powers pursue power beyond the levels needed for physical security?

I argue that the primary motivation of states is to secure the recognition of their identities and that anarchy is better characterized as a struggle for recognition.

A secure identity is essential for state survival because the state requires a stable identity in order to be an actor in international politics.

Yet, regardless of a state's private aspiration for a particular identity, its social meaning depends on whether or not other states recognize it as such.

When a state is recognized, its identity is brought into existence, its meaning stabilized, and its status as a political actor secured.

In other words, if a state's own self-understanding is not recognized by the other state(s) in the system, then the stability of its identity - indeed its very survival as a political actor - is called into question and its continued existence put in jeopardy.

In short, not only physical but also social survival is at stake in international politics.

I argue that the process through which states attempt to secure an identity is wrought with insecurity because state identity is formed through social interaction, and therefore is dependent upon the unpredictable responses of other states.

In response to the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not another state will recognize it, states ground their identities in the material world.

Accordingly, the accumulation of material capability is a strategy that great powers pursue in order to obtain recognition and stabilize the insecurity associated with the social formation of their identities as great powers.

By grounding identity in the material world, a great power is able to experience its social status as a brute fact, rather than as the fragile effect of an ongoing practice of social construction.