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The Transitional Justice and Foreign Policy Nexus: The Inefficient Causation of State Ontological Security-Seeking

Malksoo, Maria (2019) The Transitional Justice and Foreign Policy Nexus: The Inefficient Causation of State Ontological Security-Seeking. International Studies Review, 21 (3). pp. 373-397. ISSN 1521-9488. E-ISSN 1468-2486. (doi:10.1093/isr/viy006) (KAR id:65569)

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Abstract

How does an approach towards transitional justice produce preconditions for a country’s international action, enabling certain policies and practices in the immediate neighborhood and international society at large? This article unpacks ontological security-seeking as a generic social mechanism in international politics which allows to productively conceptualize the connection between a state’s transitional justice and foreign policies. Going beyond the dichotomy of transitional justice compliance and non-compliance by gauging the role of states’ subjective sense of self in driving their behavior, I develop an analytical framework to explain how state ontological security-seeking relates to major transitions and consequent state identity disjuncture, the ensuing politics of truth and justice-seeking, and its international resonance in framing and executing particular foreign policies. I offer a typology of the international consequences of states’ transitional justice politics, distinguishing between reflective and mnemonical security-oriented approaches, spawning cooperative and conflictual foreign policy behavior, respectively. The empirical purchase of the purported nexus is illustrated with the example of post-Soviet Russia’s limited politics of accountability towards the repressions of its antecedent regime and its increasingly self-assertive and confrontational stance in contemporary international politics.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1093/isr/viy006
Uncontrolled keywords: transitional justice; foreign policy; inefficient causation; ontological security; Russia
Subjects: J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
J Political Science > JX International law
J Political Science > JZ International relations
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Politics and International Relations
Depositing User: Maria Malksoo
Date Deposited: 05 Jan 2018 07:57 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Jan 2024 08:29 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/65569 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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