Jason Halkins

Order in Pouliot Pouliot argues – through the practices of diplomats - that practices paradoxically reinforces the hierarchical relations amongst states which is also the premise that allows for the process of negotiation (9). He contends that this hierarchy is an outcome of “practical mastery” as “practice entails an inherent politics of competence” (55). Thus, “social stratification is a by-product of practice” (Pouliot, 257). However, one of the intriguing questions raised by Pouliot in his conclusion was that if international order is self-inducing, “why do subordinates partake in their own domination?” (255). Pouliot answered by stating that practicality more than anything else sustains the existing order for both dominating and subordinating states (263). These concerns may simply be for the sake of existing in the organization or in order to be able to interact in the international community (Pouliot, 263). On this note, I would like to bring in Goffman’s argument that human actions are essentially actors on a social stage, constantly emitting some sort of performance. (15). Thus, the diplomat has to produce a performance such that the audiences – the other diplomats – will be able to find it “temporarily acceptable” (Goffman, 9). Unfortunately, as Pouliot puts it at the end of his book, that the most skilled diplomats are those who are best able to “act in sync with their sense of place (and that of others)” (271). However, this inevitably reinforce the existing “pecking order” (Pouliot, 271). Nevertheless, it is in the interest of states to send a skilled diplomat in order to advance their interests. By doing so, states are accepting their hierarchical position – whether subordinate or not - in the international order. Another reason for the maintenance of such order can also be found in Mitzen’s application of Giddens’ concept of ontological security. Mitzen argued that while certain actions between states reproduce hostilities towards each other, it allows states to have a “degree of cognitive mastery” over the situation. Therefore, it allows the state to be able to dish out their next course of action (358). By extension, this idea can be applied to the sustenance of international order as well. States that are being dominated may therefore choose to remain in that position because it provides them with certainty in devising negotiating methods in the international community. Since practices reproduce order, changing these practices could potentially change the international order as well. Nevertheless, these practices tend to be unreflective. In other words, the diplomats may go about with their practices of negotiations without even consciously thinking about the process of it. These unreflective practices are “manifestations” of habit which are constituted only in the background (Hopf, 548). For change to occur, the diplomat has to be conscious of the practices that he is adopting. Yet, these unreflective practices will only be “foregrounded and made explicit” in the face of divergent practices (Bourdieu in Hopf, 543). Even so, any divergent practices has “to be deemed competent by the community in order to stick (Pouliot, 58). It then appears much easier to abide by the rules of the game, and sustaining the order rather than attempting to initiate some form of change, and end up generating uncertainty for both the organization as well as the state that the diplomat is representing.