On order and conflict: International relations and the ‘communicative turn’1

Mathias Albert, Oliver Kessler and Stephan Stetter

Please do not quote or cite without permission

Abstract: This article starts from the observation that while communication is a widely used catch-phrase

in current IR theorising, the very concept of ‘communication’ is still mainly treated in terms of simple

sender-receiver models which do not sufficiently elaborate how the insights of the ‘communicative turn’

can be made fruitful for IR-theorising. The argument is developed in three steps. First, particularly

drawing on the work of Karl W. Deutsch – those pockets in IR theory, namely conflict studies and

theories of ‘communicative action’, are identified in which ‘communication’ plays a considerable

theoretical role. Second, it is claimed that placing ‘communication’ at the centre of any theory of IR

requires to take full account of the theoretical consequences of the ‘linguistic turn’. To develop this

argument requires an examination of the often implicit notion of ‘communication’ in contemporary uses

of speech act theory and symbolic interactionism in current IR theory. Such a move necessarily leads to

the diagnosis that all social systems and orders of exchange, including international relations, are

communicatively constituted. Finally, such a view allows to reconfigure the central problems of ‘order’

and ‘conflict’ in IR theory in an innovative fashion: while the problem of order can be restated not as the

problem of establishing regularities and patterns but as a problem of disconnecting communications, the

problem of conflict can be restated not as a problem of a disruption of communication but as a problem of

continuing conflict communication.

IR and communication: a missing link?

1
We would like to thank Costas Constantinou, Oliver Richmond and Alison Watson for their helpful and

intriguing comments on an earlier draft of this article.

1
Communication is everywhere and everything seems to be communication: while the

project of this Special Issue in general as well as the present contribution in particular

demonstrate that communication forms an integral and probably even constitutive part

of a global(ised) world, it is striking that the concept of ‘communication’ notoriously

marks a blank space in most contemporary theories of international relations. This is not

to claim that communication would not play a role in IR theorising. Quite to the

contrary, most theoretical accounts of international relations centrally deal with the

communicative exercises of the cross-border flow of information; many contributions

deal with the phenomenon of the evolution of a global communicative infrastructure;

and in an abstract sense, the ‘inter-national’ itself could be seen as forming a

communicatively constructed realm in that it rests on the exchange of material and

ideational units which are always communicatively coded in the sense that they have a

social meaning in and for the international system. However, arguably no theory of

international relations since the works of Karl W. Deutsch – with the exemption of

those pockets of post-cybernetic theorising which still work loosely in that tradition –

takes communication as the central conceptual notion on the basis of which a theory is

developed.

The basic assumption underlying this contribution is that much of the silence between

IR theory on the one hand and the study of global communication in areas as diverse as

cultural studies, media studies, social anthropology or sociology, which are addressed

by many of the other contributions to this volume, on the other, results from this

relegation of communication as a concept to the margins of most IR theories. The aim

in the following is to think through some of the possibilities as well their consequences

2
when trying to take up IR theory where Deutsch left it and reconstruct it as a theory

centrally incorporating a concept of communication. In trying to do so, it will in a first

step illustrate this marginality of communication in IR theorising by pointing out the

two research contexts which arguably still have preserved an important, explicit

conceptual role for communication: building on a brief rehearsal of the way in which

communication was in fact the central notion underlying theory-building in Deutsch’s

work, we will argue that the one of these two contexts is to be found in parts of the field

of conflict studies which conceptualise conflicts primarily as a result of communication

disruptions (or indeed communicative breakdown); the second research context can be

found in newer constructivist writings of an even more direct IR orientation which have

tried to take up the Habermasian idea of ‘communicative action’ in order to understand

the interrelation of actors in the international system. While both of these research

contexts form valuable building blocs for bringing back communication to the core of

IR theory, we also argue that both remain deficient in that they both either assign

communication to actors in terms of simple sender-receiver models long outdated in

communication studies (in the case of conflict studies),2 or indeed place too much of a

burden on the notion of communication through its embedding in a framework of a

philosophy of universal pragmatics (in the case of the import of Habermasian ideas to

IR).

2
See further below for our conceptualisation of communication; basically, a notion of communication not

conceiving of communication as something ‘exchanged’ between pre-existing entities (‘sender’ and

‘receiver’) emphasises that as a social artefact communication should be understood as the unity of the

difference between information, uttering, and understanding; see Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 145-47.

3
The following second step then develops the conceptual argument of this contribution.

The main claim here is that placing ‘communication’ at the centre of any theory of IR

requires to take full account of the theoretical consequences stemming from the

linguistic turn, and that such a move necessarily leads to the diagnosis that all social

systems and orders of exchange, including international relations, are communicatively

constituted. To develop this argument requires an examination of the often implicit

notion of ‘communication’ in contemporary uses of speech act theory and symbolic

interactionism in IR theory, most notably in the works of Friedrich Kratochwil and

Alexander Wendt. We particularly seek to critically assess Wendt’s and Kratochwil’s

contributions in terms of their relation to a ‘communicative turn’.

The third step of our argument will then demonstrate how such a reconfiguration of IR

predicated upon the communicative turn in fact leads to quite radically different

perspectives on central problems of the discipline, notably those of international order

and conflict. While the problem of order needs to be restated from a problem of

establishing regularities and patterns to a problem of disconnecting communication, the

problem of conflict needs to be restated not as a problem of a disruption of

communication but as a problem of continuing conflict communication. After

illustrating the analytical consequences of such a theoretical perspective, a final section

will then seek to provide some thoughts regarding the possible advantages and

drawbacks of adopting a ‘communicative turn’ for IR theory.

4
IR and communication: Deutsch and beyond

Communication and the ‘Nerves of Government’

It would of course be too short-fetched to describe Karl W. Deutsch as an international

theorist of communication alone.3 His many contributions particularly on nationalism

and social integration beyond the nation-state (‘security communities’) all build on his

work on communication theory, but are not strictly communication-centred in the sense

that his main work on The Nerves of Government is.4 In this book, however, Deutsch

provides an ‘interim report’5 on what he sees as a fundamental restructuring not only of

international relations and thinking about military affairs, but in fact of political theory

in a much broader sense, a restructuring which follows directly from taking the notion

of communication serious and rebuilding political thought by thinking of social systems

as cybernetic, communicatively constituted systems. Central to the Nerves of

Government is the introduction of the concepts of communication and information into

a systems theory of politics. In contrast to earlier systems theories in politics and IR, i.e.

particularly the contributions of Easton or Kaplan, Deutsch is thus able to identify the

issues of steering and learning as the core analytical questions for the analysis of

3
See Dieter Senghaas, ‘Politik mit wachen Sinnen betreiben. Eine Erinnerung an Karl W. Deutsch (1912-

1992), in WZB-Vorlesungen 4, Politik mit wachen Sinnen betreiben: Zur Erinnerung an Karl W.

Deutsch, with contributions by Volker Hauff, Dieter Senghass, and Charles L. Taylor (Berlin: WZB,

2002), p. 17.
4
Karl W. Deutsch, The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (New

York: The Free Press, 3rd ed., 1969 (orig. 1963)).

5
Ibid., p. xxv.

5
political/social systems and as questions of communication.6 Building on a highly

critical reading of 1950s/early 1960s game theory and subsequent versions of deterrence

theory, Deutsch draws on cybernetic theory in order to conceptualise the political

system as an advanced social system. ‘Advanced’ here refers to the fact that while every

social system consists of interrelated forms of communication and information, only

advanced systems attain the capability to achieve operational autonomy, steer

themselves, learn, and to ‘consciously’ change their own goals. In a very lose

functionalist sense, Deutsch reads the political system as the communicative system

which provides society with a capacity to steer itself and to learn and also to be

responsible for societal goal-attainment by providing collectively binding decisions.

The political system thus plays the role of and provides an ‘intelligence function’ within

society.

While The Nerves of Government has given important impulses for the further

development of cybernetic and systems thoughts across a broad range of studies in the

social sciences, both in its ambition as well as in the way it develops its argument it is

not explicitly a book about international relations. However, even beyond the general

sense in which systems-theoretic and cybernetic reformulations of social and political

theory necessarily impact on the understanding of international relations, it is even

within The Nerves of Government, as Deutsch’s central theoretical text on

communication, that he provides two very far-reaching arguments which go to the core
6
The argument on Karl W. Deutsch here in part draws on the more systematic reading of the Nerves of

Government provided in Mathias Albert and Jochen Walter, ‘Karl W. Deutsch – The “Nerves of

Government’”’, in Dirk Baecker (ed.) Schlüsselwerke der Systemtheorie (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2005)

pp. 95-106.

6
of understanding international relations as a fundamentally communicative exercise. As

hinted at already, Deutsch extensively criticises deterrence theory built on game theory:

‘Despite its dubious foundations, the theory perhaps answered a psychological need,

since it embraced a relatively comforting picture of a static world, and of largely

unchanged political habits’.7 However, Deutsch’s fierce critique of deterrence theory

has far more fundamental implication beyond that body of theory and arguably directly

aims at the heart of the realist understanding of a ‘balance’ of power as an ordering

principle in international politics. Deutsch demonstrates that social systems and

particularly the political system as communicative systems are characterised by

changing goals as a result of feedback loops and learning. Hence, they can not be

modelled as tending towards equilibria, as is the core assumption of any balance-of-

power logic. It seems quite remarkable that Deutsch in this sense actually criticises a

core assumption of realist thought on a systems level almost two decades before within

realism it is first articulated on that level by Kenneth Waltz.8 As we will argue at length,

this focus in our analysis on systemic features of social orders, such as the international

order, without the assumption of any stable materialistic or ideational internal structures

of these orders, justifies the strong connection in this article between ‘communication’

as a central research topic, on the one hand, and a (radical) constructivist theoretical

agenda, on the other. However, this linkage between communication and constructivism

on the basic conceptual level should not be read as a rejection of some central

theoretical tenets of other research traditions. Thus, it is in particular the study of

systemic thinking in (neo-) realist thought, which offers some fruitful insights for

7
Deutsch, Nerves of Government, p. 72.
8
See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979).

7
communication theoretical reflections on the international order and international

conflict. However, due to the focus of this article on communication, these interesting

linkages are not studied here in greater detail.

The reformulation of the political system as a learning system also leads to a direct

reformulation of the concept of power with strong repercussions for thinking about

power in IR until today. Deutsch moves away from an understanding of power as a

capability of a state immediately enabling action and redefines it as an ‘ability to afford

not to learn’.9 This definition paves the way for a number of reformulations of power as

a social concept in IR. Defining power as an ‘ability to afford not to learn’ reflects upon

its basic social contextuality and relationality which is later prominently taken up in

Susan Strange’s notion of ‘structural power’ and still partially to be found in Joseph

Nye’s idea of ‘soft power’.10

While thus Deutsch’s introduction of communication as a central concept for

understanding not only political systems in general, but also the international political

system in particular – as also further evidenced by his works on nationalism and

integration11 – led to and enabled many restatements of core concepts in IR theory, i.e.

9
Ibid., p. 102.
10
Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1996); Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only

Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

11
See, most prominently: Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1953); and Karl W. Deutsch, Political Community at the International Level

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953).

8
most notably the understanding of international relations as a non-equilibrium system

and the understanding of power as a social and relational concept, the basic

communicative foundation of these conceptual turns were gradually ‘unlearned’ in the

system of international relations studies. This does not mean that communication would

not play an important role as an object of analysis in IR and IR theories. Yet arguably

neither the contemporary realist-‘mainstream’ theories, nor constructivist theories

explicitly build on a concept of communication. While further below we will illustrate

how particularly constructivist thought, through its adoption of central tenets of the

‘linguistic turn’, at least implicitly has accepted communication as a theoretical core

concept, it seems worthwhile to first inspect the two pockets within the discipline of IR

which arguably still preserve a central conceptual place for a notion of communication,

namely some parts of conflict analysis as well as theoretical approaches build on the

Habermasian notion of ‘communicative action’.

Communication in conflict studies

In conflict theory, communication has traditionally occupied a prominent place both in

theoretical as well as in empirical analyses. This probably has to do with the strong

focus on the processes and practices of conflict emergence and conflict development,

which have been the main cornerstones of conflict analysis since the conflict theories by

Ralf Dahrendorf and Lewis Coser.12 This focus on dynamic features has rendered

conflict studies from the outset more sceptical vis-à-vis more static and equilibrium-

oriented theoretical assumptions which dominate in other disciplines – and be it for the

12
Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (Stanford, CA: Stanford University

Press, 1959); Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956).

9
underlying normative interest in conflict transformation.13 While conflict theories differ

in their assessment of whether conflicts are the result of specific underlying latent

structures14 or spontaneous, more or less presuppositionless events (see the following

section), they share the assumption that in order to become a facet of social life at all, a

conflict crucially depends on a continuous (discursive) processing of difference.15

Interestingly, this focus on processes and practices also underpins conceptualisations of

peace in IR which draw from peace and conflict studies.16

In IR proper, this focus on communication and processes of conflict development is not

limited to a single theoretical perspective but underlies a wide range of epistemological

approaches, ranging from post-structuralist writings and social constructivist approaches

to actor-centred and positivist analyses. Thus, game-theoretical approaches to conflict

analysis, such as for example Anne E. Sartori’s study of the Korean war, draw from the

analysis of repeated interaction (and communication) between two parties in order to

show how communication ‘fails’ whenever a conflict emerges.17 The focus on the

linkage between conflict and communication is then also central to postmodern theories

13
Dieter Senghaas, Frieden machen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997).
14
Martin Efinger, Volker Rittberger and Michael Zürn, Internationale Regime in den Ost-West

Beziehungen: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der friedlichen Behandlung internationaler Konflikte.

(Frankfurt: Haag und Herchen, 1988).

15
See Hans-Joachim Giegel (ed.), Konflikt in modernen Gesellschaften (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), p.

17.
16
Emanuel Adler, ‘Condition(s) of Peace’, Review of International Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 165-91.
17
Anne E. Sartori, ‘The Might of the Pen: A Reputational Theory of Communication in International

Disputes’, International Organization, 56 (2002), pp. 121-149.

10
of IR, in which the focus on hegemonic discourses renders this theoretical branch

particularly sensitive to the study of conflicts. Thus, postmodern approaches focus on

the centrality of differences in identity constructions and notions of ‘discursive power’

in societal relations and are, therefore, well inclined to observe the discursive processes

which underpin antagonistic self-other distinctions,18 violence and conflict.19 Finally,

conflict communication is central to the securitisation literature in IR, which focuses on

those political speech-acts which justify the institutionalisation of emergency policies in

international relations, thereby arguing that security and conflict are discursively

constructed in political discourse rather than a structural feature of the international

system per se, as neo-realist theories would hold.20

Arguably the main reason for this centrality of communication in conflict studies within

and beyond IR is the predominant focus in the literature on ‘problematic’ conflicts, i.e.

entrenched, violent conflicts. Such violent conflicts are characterised by the occurrence

of diametrically opposed ‘understandings’ on the side of the conflict parties on what the

conflict is about and what ought to be done in order to overcome it. In order to make
18
Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, ‘The Other in European Self-Definition: An Addendum to

the Literature on International Society’, Review of International Studies, 17 (1991), pp. 327-48.

Thomas Diez, ‘Europe's Other and the Return of Geopolitics’, Cambridge Review of International

Affairs, 17 (2004), pp. 319-55.On identity in conflict theory see also Tuomas Forsberg, ‘Explaining

Territorial Disputes: From Power Politics to Normative Reasons’, Journal of Peace Research, 33

(1996), pp. 433-49.

19
Viviene Jabri, Discourse on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1996).

20
Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap deWilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO:

Lynne Rienner, 1998).

11
sense of this duplication of (conflict) realities, conflict studies have to problematise the

factors which lead specific subjects (i.e. conflict parties) to identify the same object (i.e.

a disputed conflict issue) differently. This directs attention towards the discursive

processes through which conflicts emerge and are maintained over time, independently

of whether these approaches regard conflict interaction to be rational or not. From this

perspective, conflicts are then often regarded as a pathological deformation of

communication, a communication breakdown or a distortion of communication.21 The

problem of conflict resolution then becomes the problem of overcoming different

interpretations through establishing equality, (reasoned) consensus or negotiation

processes, i.e. structured practices of communication22, which allow conflict parties to

get rid of those factors which prevent them from seeing things similarly23 - or in

Deutschian terms, to learn through communication of how to overcome them.

Conflict resolution thus always is about the alignment of perceptions between ‘two or

more parties who […] believe they have incompatible goals’.24 The termination of a

conflict then requires to either change those structures (hegemony, distribution of

21
See Sartori, ‘The Might of the Pen’, p. 129.
22
Thomas Risse, ‘”Let’s Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics’, International Organization,

54 (2000), pp. 1-39.

23
See the analysis on the emergence of cooperation between Israel and the PLO in the early Oslo-process

in Sven Behrendt, ‘Die israelisch-palästinensischen Geheimverhandlungen von Oslo 1993: Ein

konstruktivistischer Interpretationsversuch’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 7 (2000), pp. 79-

107.
24
Louis Kriesberg, The Sociology of Social Conflicts (Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), p. 17.

Our emphasis.

12
resources etc.), which underpin the conflict or to reveal to conflict parties through

mediation and third-party involvement how consensus can be achieved – which is, of

course, in itself often a hegemonic practice.25 In both cases, conflict communication is

understood in terms of simple sender-receiver models. On the one hand, those

approaches focusing on (latent) conflict structures or conflict issues as the main reason

for the outbreak of a conflict, perceive the information (the conflict) as a tangible object

as if it had a corresponding reality beyond conflict communication. On the other hand,

the conflict resolution literature views conflicts as a problem of inter-subjective

readings, as if conflict parties precede the conflict rather than being the product of

conflict communication (see also further below).

Communicative action

A second site at which communication has a central status in IR – but that ultimately

does not focus on communication itself qua communication – are theoretical approaches

based on Habermas’s notion of ‘communicative action’. Differentiating between

technical, practical and communicative forms of knowledge, communicative action is

defined as a form of interaction in which actors agree over the very definition of both

the concrete social situation and the applicable norms at hand. In other words,

‘communicative action’ is ‘oriented to achieving, sustaining and reviewing consensus’26

between different actors. Seen from this perspective, Habermas provided a genuinely

dialogical approach in which rationality is defined in procedural terms as the use of

25
Oliver P. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
26
Jürgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action Vol.1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society

(Cambridge: Polity, 1986), p. 17.

13
knowledge in language. Starting from the basis of universal pragmatism27 this led

Habermas to reconstruct universally valid conditions of the possibility of achieving a

reasoned consensus. 28

Within IR, Habermas’s ideas stimulated a wide ranging debate which gained its current

contours to a large extent from discussions within the German IR community.29 It has

often been noted that since ‘communicative action’ is being directed at the definition of

a situation in which alternatives are constituted,30 it is fundamentally different from

those forms of strategic interaction within a given situation which are usually

27
It should be noted that Habermas’ universal pragmatism is in fact a rather defensive stance as he

particularly develops it against the discourse ethics of Karl-Otto Apel who argues that the a priori of the

communicative community in fact points not merely to the universal, but to the transcendental position of

language as the condition of the possibility of knowledge (and science); see extensively Karl-Otto Apel,

Transformation der Philosophie, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973).

28
At this point, we are fully aware that we exclude the very intense and interesting debate in political

theory. Consequently, our discussion is necessarily limited as the repercussions of his political theory for

IR cannot be explored in detail. For a discussion between post-structuralists and Habermasians see

Thomas Diez and Jill Steans, ‘A useful dialogue? Habermas and International Relations’, Review of

International Studies, 31 (2005), pp. 141-54.

29
For an early contribution outside the German context see in particular Richard K. Ashley, ‘Political

Realism and Human Interests’, International Studies Quarterly, 25 (1981), pp. 204-36. A good overview

can be found in Richard Devetak, ‘Critical Theory’, in Scott Burchhill et al. (eds.), Theories of

International Relations (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 155-80. Extensive references of the German debate

can be found in both Risse, ‘Let’s Argue’ and Harald Müller, ‘Arguing, Bargaining and All That:

Communicative Action, Rationalist Theory and the Logic of Appropriateness in International Relations’,

European Journal of International Relations, 10 (2004), pp. 395-435.

30
See in particular Risse, ‘Let’s Argue’ and Müller ‚ ‘Arguing, Bargaining and All That’.

14
emphasised by rational choice approaches. Interestingly enough, the debate between

Habermasians, on the one side, and rational choice theorists, on the other, centered

exactly around the question to what extent communicative action necessitates a

constructivist framework or whether the world of signalling and cheap talk might not

suffice to explain its basic dynamics. Without embarking on the deeper epistemological

and ontological differences between these positions, it seems to us that much confusion

in this debate could have been avoided by taking communication as the central point of

inquiry and to ask to what extent different theoretical approaches imply different

concepts of communication rather than focusing on different logics of actions. Seen

from this perspective, it is thus interesting to note that the debate in IR on

‘communicative action’ mainly occurred under the heading of ‘action’ rather than

‘communication’.

Harald Müller, for example, referred to ‘communicative action’ in order to address

conceptual shortcomings within regime theory.31 He identified a logical inconsistency

within regime theory: on the one hand, regime theory aims to identify rational criteria

for a basic disposition of states to cooperate. On the other hand, however, from this

basis no assertion about factual cooperation could be derived.32 His theoretical work

centres around the question of how to fill this logical gap. Communicative action was

employed empirically to analyse negotiations between states in an attempt to find out

whether processes of arguing could be detected here. In contrast to strategic calculation

31
Harald Müller, ‘Internationale Beziehungen als Kommunikatives Handeln’, Zeitschrift für

Internationale Beziehungen 1 (1994), pp. 15-44.

32
Harald Müller, ‘Internationale Beziehungen’, p. 18.

15
of bargaining and motives of power, threat and promises, arguing could be described as

a coordination of actions based on mutual (complex) learning where only the power of

the better argument prevails33, thus at least implicitly taking up some of the central

ideas from Deutsch as outlined above. As Harald Müller and Nicole Deitelhoff have

rightly admitted, communicative action is thus analysed as a particular type of action

while Habermas is primarily interested in the rationality of action. While Habermas

focuses on the factual consequences of counterfactual valid expectations, Müller

examines the motives of actors with a falsifiable research design.

Thomas Risse’s use of communicative action is slightly different. Risse is close to the

aforementioned authors in that he uses the concept of communicative action to advance

our understanding of how actors ‘develop a common knowledge concerning both a

definition of the situation and an agreement about the underlying “rules of the game”

that enable them to engage in strategic bargaining in the first place’34; yet the

background of his inquiries is not regime theory per se but a wider global governance

problématique. He is concerned with the role of ideas and institutional change based on

his life-cycle theory of norms. This different background then affects the different

theoretical positions: while Müller works on the basis of the distinction between a logic

of consequences and a logic of appropriateness, Risse sees arguing as a particular logic

33
Nicole Deitelhoff and Harald Müller, ‘Theoretical Paradise – Empirically Lost? Arguing with

Habermas’, Review of International Studies, 31 (2005), pp. 167-79.

34
Risse, ‘Let’s Argue’, p. 2.

16
of social action distinct from and prior to both the logic of consequences in strategic

bargaining and the logic of appropriateness in rule-guided behaviour.35

Hence, communication in theories of ‘communicative action’ takes one of the following

three forms: firstly, communication occurs as a process of bargaining which obeys the

logic of the market. According to this view, communication is best described in terms of

game and contract theories in which communication is understood as ‘information

exchange’. Secondly, arguments can be used strategically to persuade or convince

others, a form of communication that can be described as ‘rhetorical action’. The

rhetorical use of communication is then described by an asymmetry: while we expect

others to change their beliefs, we are not willing to change our preferences. Finally,

only if this asymmetry is transformed into a symmetry of mutual persuasion, in which

only the power of the better argument prevails, can we talk about arguing proper.36 This

situation can for example be found in radically new situations like the end of the Cold

War – thus, whenever old convictions have to be adjusted to an entirely new setting and,

consequently, new norms constitute the rules of the game. Somewhat related to the

interest of sociological institutionalism on the role of norms, Risse uses communicative

action in order to understand where these norms come from.

To summarise, communicative action provides an interesting avenue for examining the

‘social construction’ of reality. But in spite of the fact that communicative action carries

communication in its title, this section has argued that communication is rather framed

35
Ibid., p. 8.
36
Ibid., p. 8-10.

17
in an action-theoretical framework: action is theoretically prior to and constitutive for

communication. Communication is thus a kind of action endowed with a télos of

consensus making and as soon as consent is reached, communication will come to an

end. Maybe this is due to the focus on negotiations and not on communication per se.

While communications can in principle go on forever, negotiations have to be

terminated at one point. The ‘independent variable’, if we put it that way, is not

communication in itself, but consensus (or, within the IR context, the cooperative

dynamics in negotiations).

IR and communication: embracing the linguistic turn

With the introduction of the linguistic turn to IR theory during the discipline’s ‘Third

Debate’,37 the discipline was confronted with an entirely novel conceptual vocabulary.

Notions such as intersubjectivity, conventions, discourse, speech act, rhetorical action

and communicative action have altered the conceptual apparatus through which IR tries

to make sense of reality. What these terms have in common is to advance the idea that

truth claims cannot be answered by nature itself. Justification, falsification and the

validation of our inquiries are social processes that occur in specific social contexts. If

this context changes, if the meanings of words change, the conditions under which truth

claims can be stated and validated change. But the basic problem is not a re-invention of

a sceptic position that there is no final or ultimate rule or foundation on which we could

build our theories. Rather, with the linguistic turn, we have to realise that language

provides the only antifoundational foundation of our knowledge because meaning of

37
See Yosef Lapid, ‘The Third Debate: On the Prospects of IR Theory in a Post-Positivist Era’,

International Studies Quarterly, 33 (1989), pp. 235-54.

18
words and actions are communicatively defined. This insight marks a radical break with

the presumption of positivist theories of science. Truth is not a matter of a

correspondence between a proposition and a fact through which we can test theories

against an externally given reality, but it is a matter of convention and consensus.

Science is not simply a monologue of reason, a neutral application of logical laws,

statistical tests, but a language game.

In other words, while Kant and others introduced the role of the observer for

determining the conditions for establishing truth claims, Wittgenstein argued that

meaning, necessity, truth etc. result from processes irreducible to individual observers.

Yet these questions can only be addressed by acknowledging the existence of two

different and independent observers (often called Ego and Alter). Thus, concepts such

as inter-subjectivity or convention already point to some underlying notion of

communication embedded in IR theorising informed by the linguistic turn – yet these

notions arguably hide behind the ‘broader’ notion of ‘language’. Thus, for example,

inter-subjectivity would barely make sense if communication were absent. At this point,

it is not necessary to engage in a detailed analysis of Wittgenstein’s or Heidegger’s

ideas about meaning, language, rules and life world in order to extract some conclusions

for how a communicative turn in IR should look like. For the purpose of this

contribution, it seems more appropriate to start from the analysis of how constructivists

in IR have conceptualised this link between language, meaning and context and how

they have (not) addressed communication, and to ask in a second step what this could

mean for embracing the communicative turn. As argued above, this focus on

constructivist research in IR does not suggest that other research traditions, such as in

19
particular systemic approaches in positivist IR-research are negligible for the study of

international order and international conflict from a communication theoretical

perspective. However, for the purpose of this article, namely the determination of the

linkage between ‘communication’ and international relations, it is paramount to focus in

the first place on those theoretical approaches in IR which, firstly, have reserved a

central place for ‘communication’ on a theoretical level and, secondly, at least to some

degree, question the usefulness of (actor-centred) sender-receiver models of

communication, which dominate in positivist research traditions.

Already a cursory look at the literature shows that although scholars often refer to

communication, the very notion of communication is hardly problematised. Kratochwil,

for example, strongly emphasises the need for a common and inter-subjectively

constituted understanding of ‘rules’ in international politics. In his Rules, Norms, and

Decisions38, he takes the rule governed character of human activity as the vantage point

in order to show that rules always need to be interpreted. These interpretations depend

on the system of mutual expectations between actors and thus cannot be reduced to

individual expectations. But if rules need to be interpreted, how can a rule tell us what

to do? Is the meaning of the rule what we make of it? To escape this sceptical pitfall,

Kratochwil uses Wittgenstein’s linguistic turn: ‘For Wittgenstein, the paradox dissolves

as soon as we leave the atomistic world of the single speaker and take more seriously

the notion that language is an intersubjective practice. As a practice, a rule not only tells

me how to proceed in a situation that I might never have faced before, it is also

38
Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal

Reasoning in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

20
governed by certain conventions of the community of which I am part.’39 He thereby

rejects the solipsistic programme of logical positivism which tries to reduce meaning to

semantic truth conditions. He rather emphasises the pragmatic dimension of speech and

thus the context in which it occurs. Thus, ‘”meaning” is also communicated by

pragmatic understandings which we invoke to decode a message […] nobody could

claim to have understood if one mistook “is Jim there?” on the phone as a genuine

question instead of a request. If one simply answers “yes” and hangs up, one has

certainly not understood. Apparently, communication about practical problems does not

simply concern semantic issues.’40

This pragmatic approach to the usage of words provides the basis for Kratochwil’s

considerations on speech acts, constitutional rules and norms. As he argues, ‘both,

international actors and the international system are constituted by norms. […] the

actions of the participants are meaningfully oriented towards each other and such

meanings presuppose intersubjective understandings which are the preconditions and

thus antecedent to, any optimising behaviour in which any actor might engage. ‘41 Yet,

by focusing on the distinction between constitutive and regulative rules, Kratochwil

after all does not base his arguments on communication but on the role of institutions.42

Institutional rules both enable and constrain actors at the same time. Although these

rules have no material counterpart, meaningful action without them would not be

39
Friedrich Kratochwil, ‘How Do Norms Matter’, in Michael Byers (ed.) The Role of Law in

International Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 52.

40
Ibid, p. 52.
41
Ibid, p. 56.
42
Ibid.

21
possible. By focusing on the distinction between constitutive and regulative rules,

Kratochwil emphasises the role of language in the emergence and change of institutions

such as property rights, contract and sovereignty, all of which mediate expectations.

How this pragmatic dimension of speech is linked to models of communication and its

symbolic orders is, however, not addressed in greater detail. This argument helps to

understand why the communicative turn has only half-heartedly been addressed in IR.

However, speech acts are always a form of communication and every speech act

requires an utterance – a locution – which has meaning only in a given context. In this

sense, ‘How to do things with words’, as Austin has put it,43 could be rephrased as ‘how

to act while communicating’.

It is instructive to juxtapose Kratochwil’s approach to Wendt’s Social Theory of

International Politics44 as Wendt’s usage of symbolic interactionism provides another

linguistic turn-inspired reading of world politics. Thus, a possible access point for a

‘communicative turn’ could be located in Wendt’s first encounter argument which

basically deals with the question of whether epistemology is representational or

relational. In order to provide the soil for his rump materialism, he seeks to show that

‘the main problem with the relational theory of reference is that it cannot account for the

resistance of the world to certain representations, and thus for representational failures

of misinterpretations.’45 Then he continues with the following example:

43
John Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962).
44
Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1999).
45
Ibid., p. 56

22
 In 1519 Montezuma faced the same epistemological problem facing social scientists today: how to

refer to people, in his case, who called themselves Spaniards. Many representations were

conceivable, and no doubt, the one he chose – that they were gods – drew on the discursive

material available to him. So why was he killed and his empire destroyed by an army hundreds of

times smaller than his own? The realist answer is that Montezuma adopted his alternative

representations of what the Spanish were, he might have prevented this outcome because that

representation would have corresponded more to reality.46

For Wendt, this shows that beliefs are determined by both discourse and nature.

Meaning is not only constituted by its use, as Kratochwil would claim, but regulated by

a mind-independent, extra-linguistic world. A more prominent theoretical position of

communication would of course have to raise the question of how the mental and the

material world find their entry into communication and to which realm communication

itself belongs to. Wendt argues that ‘realism entails a correspondence theory of truth

which means that theories are true or false in virtue of their relationship to states of the

world’47 on the other hand, he points out that ‘realists agree with Quine, Kuhn, and

Lakatos, that all observation is theory-laden. Theory to some extent constructs its own

facts.’48 The promise if not even the task of a communicative turn is to clarify whether

and under which circumstances this distinction of mind and matter, of ideas and

interests, can be sustained. Yet more interesting for the present argument is that Wendt

uses the first encounter argument in his explanation of collective identity constructions.

Here, he draws on the symbolic interactionism of G. H. Mead to advance the idea that

46
Ibid.
47
Ibid., p.58.
48
Ibid, p. 58.

23
identities are not naturally given but rather socially constructed. Particular identities and

cultures depend on how self and other are differentiated from each other.

Ego and Alter as two independent actors meet for the first time and do not share any

form of common knowledge or shared ideas. But:

they bring two kinds of baggage, material in the form of bodies and associated needs, and

representational in the form of some a priori ideas about who they are. Through further interaction,

they ascribe each other rules and functions […] on the basis on their representation of Self and

Other, Alter and Ego each construct a ‘definition of the situation’. The accuracy of these

definitions is not important in explaining action (though it is in explaining outcomes): it is a core

tenet of interactionism that people act towards objects, including other actors, on the basis of the

meaning those objects have for them, and these meanings stem form how the situation is

understood.49

From a communicative turn perspective, it is thus of immanent importance how this

interaction is framed. It is obvious that such interaction includes communication about

the self-observation and self-definition of Ego and Alter. Otherwise it would not be

possible to relate their respective understandings to a specific social situation. What

Wendt tacitly assumes is that actors can communicate effectively on the basis of a

common symbolic order and a shared language. He assumes that there is an intention of

actors to actually have an interest in understanding each other as a result of their goal-

seeking nature. It is in their own interest if they want to accomplish their tasks and

49
Ibid, p. 330.

24
achieve their goals.50 Here, he uses the example of aliens who land on planet earth.

Despite a rather scary first encounter, both parties could draw from a common signaling

system which allows to convey meaning by communication. The model Wendt seems to

have in mind is, however, one of a classic sender-receiver model of communication.

The sender communicates to the receiver and the communication is treated like a box

that his handed from Ego to Alter where Alter understands what Ego has given him. As

within the context of communicative action, the concept of interaction is theoretically

prior to communication which assumes that communication can be understood in the

vocabulary and framework of an interaction. What the discussion in this section shows,

however, is that language and inter-subjectivity take on the form of collective singulars.

It seems that despite of the frequently raised claim that constructivists seek to privilege

process over substance, language and inter-subjectivity are not framed in terms of

process but in terms of ‘things’ with a substance. It is exactly the promise of a

communicative turn to provide a remedy for process-oriented IR theory in this respect.51

Thus, if one starts from a simple sender-receiver model of communication, the very

term ‘intersubjectivity’ takes on a very positivist meaning as it directs attention to the

realm between two pre-existing individuals or actors – Montezuma and the Spanish.

Indeed, it seems that ‘intersubjectivity’ is not a concept strong enough to resist a certain

positivist bias as the ‘communicative turn’ becomes nothing more than the study of how

these two individuals communicate. What is analysed here, however, is how

50
Ibid., p. 330. Wendt already encountered this problem in ‘Anarchy is what States Make of It: The

Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, 46 (1992), p. 391-425.

51
See Yosef Lapid, ‘Rethinking the Political’, in Mathias Albert, David Jacobson and Yosef Lapid (eds.),

Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking International Relations Theory (Minnesota: University of

Minnesota Press, 2001).

25
communication occurs, not what it does, i.e. its performative dimension. At this point,

the discussion by Wendt shows that this question is closely linked to the question of

what constitutes a scientific explanation. Thus, can communication be explained by

taking an outside view and observe ‘behaviour?’ By testing communicative action

against some pre-given reality? Or are even other conceptual minefields involved? In

order to address these arduous issues, it seems necessary for a communicative turn

perspective to emphasise a theoretical position according to which communication

should not be understood in terms of action, whether as speech acts or interactionism,

but that action should be understood as a form of communication.

Taking the communicative turn serious leads to the proposition that society consists not

of inter-action between individuals, but of communication only, thereby justifying our

plea for a (radical) constructivist perspective on international order and conflict. The

self-referential structure of communication then leads to the emergence of both actors

and interaction. Starting from such a position also challenges the idea that norms could

somehow ‘integrate’ heterogeneous actors. As has been shown in the discussion of

Kratochwil, norms cannot be assumed to provide the foundation of social order. Norms

have no reality apart from or outside of communication, they have no validity in and for

themselves, but only as far as somebody refers to them communicatively. Norms thus

have the status of a communicative reality.52

Such a basic reconfiguration of conceptual and analytical assumptions in the context of

a communicative turn necessarily alters the coordinate system of IR theorising. Thus, if

52
See Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, p. 168.

26
the validity of norms which underpin any kind of international order – or, for that

matter, international society – is the result of a communicative process, then not only

cohesion but also instability, variation and deviation are part of any social order.

The communicative turn in IR: on order and conflict

The problem of order revisited

When embracing key propositions of the linguistic turn, which have been outlined in the

previous section, issues of crucial importance to IR, such as the problem of

international order and international conflict, can be reconstructed from new

conceptual perspectives. In a nutshell, this section argues that the problem of order

needs to be restated from a problem of establishing regularities and patterns to a

problem of disrupting communication, whereas the problem of conflict needs to be

restated not as a problem of a disruption of communication but as a problem of

continuing conflict communication. This reformulation of key issues of relevance to IR

promises, firstly, to overcome some underlying normative biases in IR with regard to

order and conflict. Secondly, it brings IR in closer contact with the more general

discussion on order and conflict in the social sciences thereby providing a corrective to

a more narrow disciplinary perspective that tends to overestimate the concrete political

manifestations of order and conflict at the international level at the expense of the

structural characteristics which relate to order and conflict in all societal spheres. As

argued above, we approach this issue from a constructivist perspective. By drawing in

particular from modern systems theory we aim to show how a radical constructivist

approach to ‘communication’ can be made fruitful to the study of central issues of

interest to IR, such as order and conflict. As has been shown elsewhere, this does not

27
turn a blind eye to the possible points of encounter between radical constructivist

readings of international relations, on the one hand, and other research contexts, such as

in particular systemic approaches in the tradition of Kaplan, Singer and Waltz.53

When addressing social orders, as for example the international order, a useful starting

point is to focus on those dynamics which lead to the emergence of social orders in the

first place. This challenges a common trend in the literature to focus on specific

empirical problems which need to be solved and on the basis of which a specific order

emerges – for example a coordination problem, the problem of how to achieve a

reasoned consensus or how to ensure a balance of power. Instead, when building on the

communication theoretical argument outlined above, the main reason for the emergence

of any social order – including political orders – lies in the problem of so-called ‘double

contingency’, i.e. an initial encounter between Alter and Ego prior to the establishment

of a specific order and the fact that Alter and Ego are always black boxes to each other

which are not able to calculate the reaction of the other (and in turn their own reaction

and so on). Double contingency as a self-referential circle then means that ‘on the one

hand, ego’s gratifications are contingent on his selections among available alternatives.

But in turn, alter’s reaction will be contingent on ego’s selection and will result from a

complementary selection of alter’s part’.54 Rather than assuming that there is a specific

53
Jochen Walter, ‘Politik als System? Systembegriffe und Systemmetaphern in der Politikwissenschaft

und den Internationalen Beziehungen’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 12 (2005), pp. 275-

300.
54
Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils, Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1951), p. 16, cited in Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen

Theorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984), p. 148.

28
reason for a first encounter between Alter and Ego, it seems more appropriate to argue

that in most cases this encounter is a contingent and arbitrary event. However, due to its

self-referential properties every instance of double contingency also carries the

possibility of ‘structure-building meaning’,55 since the question emerges whether a

specific action which Alter and Ego experience can form the basis of future

communications which orient themselves on the basis of the expectation of expectations

(Erwartungserwartungen) which have arisen in this very moment of inception. The fact

that Alter and Ego remain black boxes for each other underscores this argument since

otherwise there would be no need for insecurity absorption through expectations, but

rather a fixed status of structures independent from communication. However, the fact

that communication can potentially always be rejected or accepted renders all theories

of static orders theoretically unconvincing.

Of course, a single encounter between Alter and Ego does not in itself constitute a

social order. Nevertheless it is the precondition for the emergence of any social order, a

beginning which is not dependent on any social context (which would itself already be a

social order) but only requires an initial encounter between Alter and Ego which might

or might not lead to the emergence of a social order. A social order then depends on the

connectivity between different communications which observe themselves as belonging

to a shared social sphere, i.e. are based on specific expectational patterns about the

acceptance of communications. While the motives and intentions of Alter and Ego

always remain unobservable to each other, once they base their expectations on the

55
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, p. 154. All translations from German originals in this article were made by

the authors. See also Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems.

29
continuation of the specific social situation an ‘emergent order of social systems’56 is

established and it is in that sense that ‘all distinct orders only emerge on the basis of the

problem of double contingency’.57

Two problems emerge in this context: First, in order to gain an identity as a distinct

social order, this order has to differentiate itself from other (actual) social orders, i.e. it

has to ensure that there is a connectivity between those communications which observe

themselves as belonging to the same social order, while distinguishing themselves from

all other communications. Second, within the social order mechanisms must be

established which ensure that the horizon of all potential communications within this

social order does not undermine the regular operations of the specific social order, i.e.

ensuring that the order’s fragile stability becomes actualised again and again through

communications which confirm the specific identity of this order. Luhmann refers in

this context to the ‘abysmal status of all structure creations’.58

It is precisely this problem of the inherent fragility of every social order which is the

basis of the argument of this article that the problem of social order must be restated as

a problem of disrupting communications. Thus, insecurity absorption and the creation of

expectations within a specific social order depend on the drawing of distinctions, the

marking of a border which separates a specific order from other social orders/spheres.

56
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, p. 157.
57
Ibid., p. 151.
58
Ibid., p. 159.

30
Moreover, a specific social order must also respond to the ‘problem of iterability’,59

namely to prevent the emergence of connecting communications within the social order

which could endanger the continuation of the order’s operations. Such border

demarcations between different social orders are, however, not fixed distinctions but are

constantly reproduced by communication and are, therefore, necessarily fragile. All

social orders have, thus, to fulfil two central functions. Firstly, they need to establish

and sustain a specific actualised order at the expense of other orders that could

potentially be conceived of. This argument is of particular relevance to IR, in which it is

a prominent exercise to attribute a fixed status to the international order (such as an

order based on interests, balance of power, centrality of states, sovereignty etc.) as if

there were no horizon of other potential orders.60 Secondly, a social order needs to

distinguish itself from other social orders in its environment. This process of

demarcation of a specific social order is, however, only possible through processes of

communication. This argument directs attention towards the question of how a social

order ensures its differentiation from other (actualised) social orders over time. This

problem can, from a communication theoretical perspective, be reformulated as the

problem of how single communications are able to observe themselves (and be

observed) as belonging to a distinct social order. In other words, how do

communications ‘know’ that they belong to the international order and how do second

order observers (e.g. IR scholars) know what an instance of communication within the

59
Urs Stäheli, Sinnzusammenbrüche: Eine dekonstruktive Lektüre von Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie

(Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2000), p. 105.

60
This underlines our argument of a need to determine the communication theoretical dynamics of all

social orders before embarking on the analysis of distinct social orders, such as inter alia the international

system.

31
international order actually is, in contrast to communication in intimate relationships,

sports or law? Thus, in both cases the emergence of a social order appears as a problem

of disrupting communication. On the one hand, the actualisation of a specific

communication which triggers the emergence of a specific social order depends on

‘neglecting’ other potential (structure-building) communications which only form the

totalising horizon of this actualised communication. As Luhmann puts it ‘every

actualisation of sense potentialises all other possibilities’.61 On the other hand,

communication within an established social order needs to isolate this order from

communications which do belong to the environment of this order.

Seen from that perspective, every communication has order-building capacities since it

favours one possible communication (the actualised communication) over all sense-

making potentialities. What matters at this stage is that these actualisations (i.e.

selections of specific sense-making communications) are always contingent choices

since other communications had been theoretically possible. A communication thus

marks a disruption of the horizon of all possible communications insofar as it transfers

the unlikelihood of any given communication (which of course has at this stage not

been communicated) into a contingent choice for an actualised communication. In post-

structuralist terms, the ‘violence of the discourse’ thus emerges at the very moment in

which a single communication lays the foundations of a social order.62 This

communication then already is a disruption of communication since it blocks the

actualisation of other sense-making communications. This argument about the

61
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, p. 142.
62
Stäheli, Sinnzusammenbrüche, p. 118.

32
disruptive features of order shifts the focus to the founding paradox of each social order.

Thus, social orders depend on invisibilising the very moment of their inception in order

to camouflage the contingency of their creation. This invisibilisation is ensured on the

basis of the ‘power of the discourse’ within an actualised social order which obscures

those potential communications which could have formed the basis of other social

orders. It would, of course, be too simplistic to attribute any ideational properties to

these disrupting dynamics in the inception of a social order. Thus, as already the

previous section has argued, communication cannot be understood on the basis of

simple sender-receiver models which assume that there is a transmission of information

between two sides and which therefore tend to conceive of information in material

terms. In contrast, our model of communication starts from the assumption that

communications are presuppositionless social events which do not require more than an

encounter (and mutual observation) between Alter and Ego and that communication can

not be attributed to either side but rather is a social artefact which defies the logic of

inter-subjectivity.

It is, however, not merely the moment of inception of a social order but also its

continued existence which underlines our argument that social orders depend on the

disruption of communication rather than merely the establishment of regularities and

patterns. ‘A single [communicative] event does not have meaning’63 and order only

emerges if different communications observe themselves as similar and at the same time

as distinct from their environment. This understanding of order maintenance crucially

differs from those approaches which argue that a given social order, such as for example

63
Ibid., p. 106.

33
the international order, is different from its environment since its ‘internal units’ operate

on the basis of shared principles such as interests (e.g. self-interest or altruistic

interests), specific ideologies (e.g. culture, values, religion, nationalism etc.) or other

concrete properties exchanged within the order. In contrast, a communication theoretical

starting point shifts the spotlight on the specific features which allow a specific order to

disjoin its internal operations from those of its environment, thereby providing a

different reading of international relations than common in most ‘classical’ IR theories

which have to take the existence of at least some guiding principles of this order for

granted. Order creation is thus always a contingent and unlikely (but nevertheless real)

process of drawing a border between a social order and its environment, thereby

disrupting the ‘free flow’ of communications in (world) society at large. Order

maintenance thus creates ‘interdependency-disruptions’ between communications in

different social orders. The question then is how communications are able to ‘recognise’

that they belong to a distinct social order, such as the international order, and not to

other orders, say a financial market, a private interaction in a train or a conference

debate on an academic paper. In other words, the question arises which mechanisms

ensure the acceptance of communication as belonging to a distinct social order, thereby

in turn structuring expectations about the on-going existence of this order. This is where

systems theory points to the generalised media of communication (e.g. power in the

political system, money in the economic system, love in intimate relations etc.) as such

‘enablers’ of order maintenance.64 These generalised media of communication do thus

64
This definition of media of communication in systems theory, old and new, must be distinguished from

the usage of this term in the communication theoretical tradition of media theory in the work of Harold

Innis, Marshall McLuhan and others. While both approaches build on the ‘communicative turn’ in the

34
also provide a mechanism to manage the aforementioned problem of double

contingency, namely that Alter and Ego are not able to understand the motives of the

respective other but nevertheless build up specific expectations which ensure that

communications are observed as belonging to this distinct social sphere, e.g. the

expectation that communication in the political system orients itself on the

communication of ‘power’.65

At this stage, the underlying power of the discourse becomes visible. Thus, the problem

of connectivity of communications within a specific social order requires that within an

order certain actualities and re-inscriptions are more likely to be accepted than others.

The maintenance of order hence becomes the problem of disrupting communications

social sciences, modern systems theory defines ‘media of communication’ in terms of specific sense-

making forms which ensure a relationship between different elements. The most general medium, from

this perspective, is sense, while generalised media of communication, such as power or wealth, constitute

different social systems. Communication theory in the tradition of Innis et al., in contrast, defines media

of communication as technical devices that structure not only the mere exchange of information, but also

shape specific social structures. In modern system theory, this ‘technical’ side of communication is

usually referred to as ‘media of distribution’ (Verbreitungsmedien). The fact that also in modern systems

theory such media of distribution occupy a central role in accounting for major societal changes (e.g. the

linkage between the emergence of book printing and a functionally differentiated society) provides an

indication for the fruitfulness of a closer comparative reading of modern systems and other

communication theories for the understanding of distinct social settings, such as the international system,

international hegemony and international conflict. See also Harold Innis, Empire and Communications

(Toronto and Buffalo: Toronto University Press, 1972) and Marshall McLuhan 1964, Understanding

Media (New York: New American Library).

65
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, p. 156. See also Niklas Luhmann, Die Poltik der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt:

Suhrkamp, 2000).

35
and creating expectations which ensure that specific ordering principles – which have a

somewhat hegemonic status – structure the acceptance or rejection of all possible

communication offers which an order encounters. However, since order maintenance

always includes the stabilisation of an order’s fragile identity, orders are necessarily

built on fundaments of instability and therefore require a (successful) disruption of

communication – i.e. preventing communications which reject the social order or which

belong to a different social order. To summarise, since not only a specific order but also

an order’s environment is constituted by communication, the problem of order needs to

be restated as a problem of disrupting communication, since ‘the meaning of

communication lies in its embedding into a social system and its connection to other

communications’.66 Disruption is thus inherent in every single operation of any social

order since order maintenance needs ‘to the widest extent possible prevent unexpected

connections’ of communications within the specific order.67 The likelihood of continued

connectivity between communications increases if the reach of possible communicative

options is successfully reduced, i.e. if certain communications become (structurally) dis-

preferred. In other words, order maintenance depends on the establishment of strict

borders between different social orders as well as between a specific order and its

potential alternatives.

With a view to the international order, these arguments allow to direct attention towards

the disruptive moments in both the emergence and the maintenance of the international

order. Thus, the fragile identity of the international order depends on communications

66
Stäheli, Sinnzusammenbrüche, p. 111.
67
Ibid., p. 117.

36
within this order which have to constantly ensure that this order can be distinguished

from its potential alternatives as well as from its actual environment. We will come

back to this in the concluding remarks of this article.

The problem of conflict revisited

We have already referred to the inherent conflictive features of all social orders since

double contingency depends on the mutual uncertainty of whether communication is

accepted or rejected, and this is also true for firmly established social orders. This is

also the reason for the common-place argument in conflict studies that conflicts are a

ubiquitous social phenomenon that can emerge in every social setting. Thus, conflicts

emerge whenever a communication offer is rejected, with this rejection already being a

connective communicative act. The differentiation of a social conflict, i.e. its temporal,

social and topical reach is then already a question of conflict maintenance. Conflict

inception, in contrast, takes places every time a rejection is communicated,

contradiction is uttered.68 This argument already points to some crucial analogies to the

arguments of the previous section. Thus, conflicts are neither a pathological state nor a

breakdown of social relations. Instead, conflicts are a specific type of social order which

adheres to the same dynamics regarding its inception and maintenance as all other social

orders. The literature on specific conflicts often tends to belittle the independent status

of conflict as a social order by directly linking a conflict to its social environment, e.g.

when talking about international conflicts, religious conflicts or ethnic conflicts in

68
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, pp. 488-550. See also Stephan Stetter (ed.) Territorial Conflicts in World

Society: Modern Systems Theory, International Relations and Conflict Studies (London: Routledge, 2007,

forthcoming).

37
which research often focuses on the topical environment of a conflict order (e.g. the

structural features of the international order or the interests of actors) rather than the

structural features of conflict orders. This is, of course, not to argue that in any way we

conceptualise conflicts as independent ‘actors’ since this would merely shift our

criticism of sender-receiver models of communication from the level of conflict parties

to the level of conflict development. Instead, we argue that a conflict is a distinct social

system which is constituted and sustained by communication between Alter and Ego

and which therefore ought to be studied as a social order in its own right.

Consequently, conflicts are often associated with the disruption of communication,

thereby reflecting the assumptions held on rational, consensus-seeking mechanisms

which are blocked in a conflict’s differentiation but which shine through as the

underlying objective of conflict resolution.69 This argument, however, underestimates

the structural features of conflicts and the fact that conflict topics and conflict actors are

constituted by conflict development, rather than the other way around. This follows

Coser who has shown that conflict structures result from the process of conflict

development, thereby rejecting the popular argument that there are latent conflicts in

which specific actor-constellations, historical stages, cultures or issues are inherently

conflictive.70 Focusing on conflicts as specific social orders allows to relate the key

arguments of the previous section to conflict communication. Thus, conflicts are

presuppositionless events and their inception only requires the aforementioned problem
69
See Sartori, ‘The Might of the Pen’.
70
See Lewis A. Coser, Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1967), as well

as the argument in Heinz Messmer, Der soziale Konflikt: Kommunikative Emergenz und systemische

Reproduktion (Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius, 2003), p. 27.

38
constellation of double contingency. However, in contrast to other social orders which

are based on the expectation of both Alter and Ego that communication offers are

accepted - which does of course not mean that empirically every communication must

be accepted - a conflict emerges every time a communication offer is rejected.

However, the maintenance and stabilisation of a conflict requires more than an

empirical move of two or three rejections – a social situation referred to as ‘conflict

episodes’.71 Thus, the stabilisation of a conflict order necessitates the emergence of the

expectation on the side of Alter and Ego that communications are repeatedly rejected. It

is only in this case that conflicts consolidate their status as a social order which is

distinct from its environment. Empirically, one can then distinguish between four stages

of conflict communication, depending on the degree to which communication between

Alter and Ego is based on the securitisation of the relationship, on the one hand, and the

degree to which the societal environment becomes captured by the conflict, on the

other. These four stages are the aforementioned conflict episodes, issue conflicts,

identity conflicts and subordination conflicts.72

The focus on social conflict is of course not alien to IR, a discipline which addresses

international conflicts on several dimensions such as the systemic conflictive properties

of the international system, conflicts in North-South relations, inter-ethnic relations,

‘old’ and ‘new’ wars, and securitisation dynamics. Moreover, the literature on security

communities, regional integration and global governance is at least implicitly driven by

71
Messmer, Der soziale Konflik, pp. 109-46.
72
Thomas Diez, Stephan Stetter and Mathias Albert, ‘The European Union and Border Conflicts: The

Transformative Power of Integration’, International Organization, 60 (2006), pp. 563-93. See also

Messmer, Der soziale Konflikt.

39
the attempt to account for mechanisms in international politics which render the

actualisation of international conflicts less likely. Yet, this treatment of conflicts has

two major shortcomings. Firstly, as already alluded to, such a focus on specific (actual

or potential) conflict settings tends to underestimate the theoretical insight that conflicts

are (highly integrated) orders in their own right. Secondly, conflicts are regarded here as

a problem of discontinuing communication. This explains the focus in much IR

literature on alliances, international and functional organisations as well as security

communities which all have the objective to overcome a security dilemma by ensuring

cooperation between actors. Moreover, this focus on discontinuing communication also

underlies large parts of the conflict resolution literature which aims to identify the

Habermasian ‘common ground’ between conflict parties, assuming that under

favourable circumstances communication over time leads to trust between conflict

parties, understanding of the respective perspective of the other and an interest in the

achievement of consensus. From an empirical perspective, we do not dispute the

relevance of such social structures and conventions for conflict resolution. However, we

caution against juxtaposing these mechanisms to an allegedly anarchical

communication-breakdown in social conflicts. In sum, conflicts are thus indeed often

regarded as a problematic and disruptive factor of social relations that needs to be

overcome through increased and structured communication – or ‘communicative action’

as we have argued further above.

The communication theoretical perspective adopted in this article, however, allows to

restate the problem of conflict (in international relations) as a problem of continuing

conflict communication. Thus, conflicts are highly integrated social orders which need

40
to ensure the continuation of conflict communication, namely the expectation that

communications are rejected. A conflict order thus has to be based on two main features

in order to ensure a continuation of conflict communication. Firstly, the acceptance of

communications must be structurally dis-preferred within the conflict order. Secondly,

the conflict has to fortify the border to its societal environment. The latter point is

particularly problematic since the environment of a social conflict consists of various

social orders (economic, political, legal orders) which are all based on the structural

expectation that communication offers are accepted. Conflicts are thus based on the

powerful but nevertheless fragile ‘self-reproduction on the basis of unstable elements’73

and this is why the problem of conflict can be reformulated as a problem of continuing

communications rather than the assumption that ‘communication through words and

other costless signals is more likely when the speaker and the listener have interests in

common’.74

Moreover, conflicts depend on this expectational structure of rejection in order to ensure

their stability. It is to this extent that conflicts have a tendency to ‘dine its host

systems’75 since otherwise the structures of political, economic and other social orders

quickly overshadow conflict communication. This dominance of conflict orders over

their environment is then primarily ensured through the ability of conflict

communication to render the identities of Alter and Ego a central feature of conflict

communication, thereby giving birth to the emergence of specific conflict actors and
73
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, p. 503.
74
Sartori, ‘The Might of the Pen’, p. 125.
75
André Kieserling, Kommunikation unter Anwesenden: Studien über Interaktionssysteme (Frankfurt:

Suhrkamp), p. 282.

41
conflict interests. That is why many social conflicts, including international/interethnic

conflicts, are successful in ‘affecting’ other social orders with the particular modes of

observation inherent in the conflict system, so that conflicts appear as political, national

or ethnic conflicts rather than a social order in its own right. It is in this sense that

Luhmann has referred to conflict systems as ‘parasites’ of society.

However, it would be too limited to attribute a mere negative function to conflicts, a

tendency also inherent in IR in which conflicts are often associated with exploitation,

violence and war.

It is also scholars of conflict theory who cling on to the dream of a conflict-free society, even if

they state otherwise […] However, a theory which does not commend itself as a nice, cooperation-

oriented theory, but is interested in the normalisation of the unlikely has to reach out for a more

comprehensive research question. For this ‘conflict resolution’ then is not the objective but rather a

side-product of the re-production of conflict.76

When walking in the footsteps of conflict theory, it thus becomes important to address

the specific function which conflicts have for society. Luhmann talks in that context of

the function of conflicts as the ‘immune system of society’. This is also of relevance to

our argument that the problem of conflict needs to be restated as a problem of

(ensuring) the continuation of conflict communication. Thus, society has to provide

mechanisms that render the rejection of communication offers always possible. This is,

however, problematic insofar as social orders are based on the general expectation that

communication offers are accepted, thus structurally dis-preferring the inception (and

76
Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, p. 537. See also Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict.

42
maintenance) of a conflict order. Seen from that perspective, conflicts – understood as

the rejection of communication offers – have the function to render social orders more

sensitive to their (potential) breakdown, inter alia by ensuring the openness of each

order to ‘irritations’ or ‘perturbations’ from its environment. In other words, each social

order has to ensure that conflict (and the continuation of conflict communication) is an

inherent part of its internal operations, i.e. ‘without the spectre of conflict, there is no

need to cooperate’.77 However, social orders have at the same time to prevent a conflict

from dominating communicative operations within this specific order, i.e. to prevent the

emergence of conflict as a social order that captures other societal operations, thereby

consolidating its status as a distinct conflict order. While it is true that such a

consolidation of conflict orders tends to go hand in hand with an increasing ability of a

conflict to overshadow regular societal operations and an increased recourse to violence,

we should however be careful not to over-emphasise the disruptive features of conflicts

in general. But this is already a different discussion which presupposes a proper

understanding of conflict emergence and conflict change. On the basis of our argument

in this section we can conclude that any analysis of conflicts first of all requires to

understand conflicts not from the perspective of a conflict’s ‘host’ system but on the

basis of the specific structural features of conflict orders, which are highly integrated

social orders based on the continuation of conflict communication.

Conclusion

77
Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Disaccord in the World Political Economy

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 54.

43
In order not only to illustrate the precursors of, but also the need for and the

consequences of a ‘communicative turn’ in IR theory, this contribution had to cover

quite some ground. In so doing it did, however, not seek to address the many ways in

which forms of communication form part of the subject of many empirical and

theoretical contributions in the discipline of International Relations. Rather, it visited

key areas of theorising in IR in which communication occupies an important conceptual

place and sought to sketch and illustrate the consequences of fully following through the

radicalisation of the linguistic turn in philosophy and its adaptation in IR as a

communicative turn. In a nutshell, this communicative turn follows as a consequence of

the recognition that all kinds of social life, action and interaction as well as all social

orders ultimately rely on resolutions of the problem of double contingency and thus

‘communication’ not in the trivial sense of communication ‘between’ somehow pre-

existent social entities, but communication as the constitutive operation of all forms of

sociality. We thereby consciously move away from actor-centred sender-receiver

models of communication. And it is for that reason that we have focused here on

constructivist writings in IR, while acknowledging that communication and, in

particular, the constitution of social systems, such as the international order, has also

been of relevance to some positivist/realist approaches.

A communicative turn in this sense represents a form of radical constructivism in an

environment in which many versions of constructivism only half-heartedly follow

through the consequences of the linguistic turn and choose to combine various forms of

ontological and epistemological constructivism(s) with various forms of a remaining

rump (or even full-fledged) materialism. We have chosen the contributions of

44
Kratochwil and Wendt to the constructivism debate in IR in order to demonstrate what a

consequential application of a communicative turn entails. We thus needed to go

beyond the remaining dualism in Wendt’s thought on the one hand (with the

presupposition of the material existence of a speaker), and Kratowchil’s explanation of

international order ultimately not based on communication, but on institutions, on the

other. We have sought to demonstrate, in a sense, that taking serious the communicative

turn means that it is communication ‘all the way down’,78 that action and interaction

need to be thought of as communication, and that as such all kinds of social order are

necessarily communicative orders.

Of course, a communicative turn is neither something being ‘applied to’ a pre-given

subject of international relations, nor a mere exercise in IR theory in a narrow

disciplinary sense of the term. Rather, subjecting IR theorising to a communicative turn

means to fully contextualise it in a theory of society where the main question guiding

theorising – if there ever is one – is not about how international order is achieved and

maintained, or how cooperation in an anarchic environment can be attained, but about

how it is in the first place that communications are able to recognise that they belong to

a distinct social order, i.e. the social order of the ‘international’. From that point on,

rather than struggle with questions about the ontological status of ‘actors’, ‘structures’

etc., the main analytical question is which mechanisms ensure the acceptance of

communication as belonging to a distinct social order (and then lead to the structuring

78
Here borrowing from Chris Brown’s application of the saying to IR: ‘Turtles all the Way Down: Anti-

foundationalism, Critical Theory and International Relations’. Millennium: Journal of International

Studies, 23 (1994), pp. 213-36.

45
of expectations about the on-going existence of this order). In such a basically systems

theoretical perspective, international order can then be described as an order

characterised by stabilisation and variation (destabilisation), differentiation, and

evolution – all of which are constituted by communication only.

In order to sketch the theoretical implications and the range of theoretical adaptation

implied by taking serious such a communicative turn, it was necessary to take a

somewhat longer route and engage in a number of basic issues regarding the concept of

communication. Yet it needs to be emphasised again that the main purpose of this

contribution was not to propose the introduction of some ‘alien’ theoretical concept into

the field of IR theorising. Rather, as we have argued in the first part, a ‘communicative

turn’ continues a number of theoretical traditions well-established in IR theory. On the

one hand, it continues IR theorising in the tradition of the works of Karl W. Deutsch in

the sense that it puts communication at the conceptual centre of theorising. On the other

hand, it connects inter alia to – yet theoretically radicalises – work in the field of

conflict studies which use communication as a core analytical concept and to work

which seeks to utilise Habermas’ theory of communicative action for understanding

international politics. From thereon, we argued that a communicative turn requires to

reconceptualise the basic categories of ‘order’ and ‘conflict’ in IR theory. While after a

communicative turn the emergence of order needs to be understood primarily in terms

of disrupting communication – i.e. it is about the question of how an order is stabilised

by rejecting communication as not belonging to its realm as a precondition for the

emergence of order out of all communication –, conflict needs to be understood as a

46
basically communicative process as well, as it is not about the disruption of

communication but about forms of conflict communication.

The present contribution has sought to demonstrate that a ‘communicative turn’ can

build on a number of established theoretical avenues in IR theory, yet, as it continues

the linguistic turn, requires to rethink a number of basic concepts of IR theorising.

Following through on the communicative turn firmly establishes IR theory as a subset

of social theory with no distinct theoretical tools, as all sociality is conceptualised as

being based on communication. However, it needs to be emphasised that this represents

all but a claim to theoretical comprehensiveness. Social theory after the communicative

turn is possibly the ‘purest’ possible theory of society understood as a theory of sociality

since it does not start with idiosyncratic and analytically inaccessible units (e.g. minds),

but with communication as the empirical and logical basis and precondition of sociality.

Yet it is only about society in the sense that it remains an analytical theory which can

and does need to be complemented by forms of normative theorising which can possibly

be observed, yet not generated by social theory after the communicative turn.

47
Notes on contributors

Mathias Albert is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Sociology at the

University of Bielefeld, he can be reached at [email protected]

Oliver Kessler is Lecturer of Political Science at the Faculty of Sociology at the

University of Bielefeld, he can be reached at [email protected]

Stephan Stetter is Lecturer of Political Science at the Faculty of Sociology at the

University of Bielefeld, he can be reached at stephan.stetter @uni-bielefeld.de

48