The social construction of Responsible States
An analysis of the notion of responsibility between and within States through an approach of social constructivism in exploring governance and globalization
After Cold war, good governance has emerged as the dominant ideological frame for conceiving global interactions. At the practical level, this has led to the introduction of economic, political, social and even cultural standards for regulating State's behaviour. In this frame, stateness is nowadays conceived in terms of compliance with such norms, rather than in terms of capacity of exerting control over territories or of assuring essential services to citizens. In other words, responsibility has emerged as a norm, or standard of behaviour: on the one side, relations among States are demanded to be oriented by such a principle; on the other side, responsibility has become a norm to be respected within States, vis-à-vis individuals and national actors.
This project aims at shedding light over the process of social construction of the Responsible State. By assuming that «as the prescriptions for sovereign recognition change, so does the meaning of sovereignty» (Biersteker & Weber 1996), responsibility will be considered as a register for exerting sovereignty, rather than as an alternative to it. The social construction of such a register of sovereignty will be analyzed by considering the genealogy of some of its core values - reliability, effectiveness, accountability and empowerment - along the wider the process of State formation and transformation, in which globalization is just one event (Bayart 2005) . Since when, in which terms and to what extent State's behaviour has to be reliable, effective, accountable and empowered in order to be considered responsible? What actors and which relations do ease the affirmation of such principles at the global level? What are the practical implications of these values over power relations among and within States?
An approach of global politics will help to sketch some hypotheses on the multi scalarity of such a process, which concretely shows the relevance of narrative strategies for exerting hard power, and the continuity between symbolic patterns and material incentives and sanctions.
Principal researchers: Anna Caffarena and Irene Bono
This project aims at shedding light over the process of social construction of the Responsible State. By assuming that «as the prescriptions for sovereign recognition change, so does the meaning of sovereignty» (Biersteker & Weber 1996), responsibility will be considered as a register for exerting sovereignty, rather than as an alternative to it. The social construction of such a register of sovereignty will be analyzed by considering the genealogy of some of its core values - reliability, effectiveness, accountability and empowerment - along the wider the process of State formation and transformation, in which globalization is just one event (Bayart 2005) . Since when, in which terms and to what extent State's behaviour has to be reliable, effective, accountable and empowered in order to be considered responsible? What actors and which relations do ease the affirmation of such principles at the global level? What are the practical implications of these values over power relations among and within States?
An approach of global politics will help to sketch some hypotheses on the multi scalarity of such a process, which concretely shows the relevance of narrative strategies for exerting hard power, and the continuity between symbolic patterns and material incentives and sanctions.
Principal researchers: Anna Caffarena and Irene Bono
