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What kind of person is the state? The pilgrim as a processual metaphor beyond the Leviathan

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Abstract

Based on the debates on metaphors in IR and on the debate about Wendt’s claim that ‘States are persons, too’ (1999/2004), this paper discusses what kind of person we can imagine when we talk about states and other actors of world politics. Following approaches like Jackson’s (2004) suggestion of ‘personation’, Kustermans’ (2011) argument for states as citizens, Luoma-aho’s (2009, 2012) critique of the political theology of the divine state, and Drulak’s (2006) take on the metaphors of motion in the EU discourse, the paper draws on religious semantics to introduce the pilgrim as a new processual metaphor for actors. The metaphor of the homo viator is brought into the debates of constructivism to qualify the homo sociologicus for Aristotelian constructivism in contrast to the legacy of the homo economicus and the Leviathan. The EU serves as a test of the analytical validity of the pilgrimage metaphor.

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  1. European Studies German Line, Babes-Bolyai-University, str. Em. de Martonne nr. 1, Cluj-Napoca, RO-400090, Romania

    Mariano Barbato

  2. Universität Passau, Dr. Hans-Kapfinger-Str. 14, Passau, D-94030, Germany

    Mariano Barbato

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Barbato, M. What kind of person is the state? The pilgrim as a processual metaphor beyond the Leviathan. J Int Relat Dev 19, 558–582 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2014.25

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