ABSTRACT
IR scholars tend to treat states like “somewhat-persons”, capable of some of the functions that human persons are capable of, but not others. IR theory today accepts that states have identities, but not personalities; they can experience fear, anger, anxiety, humiliation and pride, but none of the other emotions that human persons can; and they are capable of collective cognition, but not of collective neuroticism. Indeed, it would appear that IR scholars dedicate an extraordinary amount of time to studying an entity that they believe to be nothing more or less than a metaphor for something that is, by all accounts, beyond definition. This chapter revisits the state personhood thesis, arguing that states are both constitutive of, and constituted by, their individual members and that they are, for this reason, irreducible and autonomous entities with their own interpersonal and intrapersonal architecture. A review of the volumes of literature that have been produced by scholars working within the affective, ontological security, and relationalist streams of IR theory helps build the argument that states are more than identities and that we urgently need a more holistic approach to studying states.
