ABSTRACT
Drawing on insights from Kohutian psychoanalytic theory, “Revisiting State Personhood and World Politics” has presented a theory of state personality that considers narcissism as vital to the construction of a well-adjusted self, and as an important foundation for social bonds. Previous chapters discussed the defenses that states, like South Africa, adopt to navigate the constraints and frustrations of social reality. Criticism, disappointments and self-judgments limit the state’s capacity to actualize its ideal self, and a fuller understanding of the concept of ego defenses helps us better understand how states respond to these, and why. Whereas the emphasis in earlier chapters has been on narcissism as a non-pathological aspect of personhood, this chapter asks whether there are grounds for taking a theory of state pathology further, and if so, what such a theory might look like.
