A Practice of Ethics for Global Politics: Ethical Reflexivity 0415746906, 9780415746908

Table of contents :
A Practice of Ethics for Global Politics- Front Cover
A Practice of Ethics for Global Politics
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction To ‘work on our limits’ through ‘permanent critique’
Organization of the book
Notes
Chapter 1: Aristotelian reflexivity
Aristotle’s phronesis and phronimos: agency, agents and critical rationality
Emotion, rhetoric, and critical rationality in Aristotle’s account of ethics
Friendliness and friendship in a practice of ethics
Questions of politics and metaphysics
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 2: Giddens’ reflexive modernity, Arendt’s inner dialogue, and Foucault’s ‘critical ontology’ of ourselves
Reflexive scholars of ‘modernity’
The contours of ethical reflexivity as practice
A practice of ethical reflexivity: some conclusions
Notes
Chapter 3: The global phronimos
Agency and agents in the organizations of world politics
Dispositions, attitudes, and skills of the global phronimos
Some ideal-type global phronimos
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 4: Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda
Agency and complexity in Rwanda
Moving beyond the event: agencies and narratives in post-genocide Rwanda
Ethically reflexive (phronetic) leadership in the International Committee of the Red Cross
Institutionalized ethical reflexivity at the ICRC?
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 5: ‘An ethical train wreck’?: Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. War on Terror
Defining and practicing torture: the pure of heart
The public response I: ‘An ethical train wreck’ or a legal train wreck?
The public response II: torture just doesn’t work
The public response III: ‘No one sat down’
The phronimos of ethical reflexivity? If you’re not ‘being a pain in the ass’ then ‘you’re doing it wrong’
Conclusion: slowing down time
Notes
Chapter 6: The silences of private judgment: Drone practices, criticism at home and abroad, and the failure to respond
A ‘remote control’ foreign policy
Dennis Blair: Obama’s ‘wishful thinking’
The game changers: drones confronted in and from Pakistan
Counting drones, living drones
U.S. (non-)response
Conclusion: on transparency, difference and dialogue
Notes
Conclusion: Some closing thoughts on behalf of authorial reflexivity
Dangers and limits of ethical reflexivity
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

‘Amoureux deftly enriches the intellectual terrain on ethical reflexivity not merely as scholarly thought, but as a practice for politics. This book is an absolute must read for anyone who wants to understand how identity, subjectivity, and agency are foundational to contemporary thinking on ethics and morality in global politics.’ —Elizabeth Dauphinee, Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto, Canada ‘The strength of Jack Amoureux’s important book lies in its combination of a sophisticated account of Aristotelian reflexivity and the figure of the global ethical agent (phronimos) with a close, micro-political, reading of hard cases emerging from the Rwanda genocide and the War on Terror. The author does not simply preach ethical reflexivity, he practices what he preaches.’ —Chris Brown, Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics, UK ‘International Relations desperately needs a book like this, with a general malaise and cynicism emerging after the disastrous 2000s. Jack Amoureux breaks through this fog, charting a path for scholars to recognize not only their reflexive roles in the construction of global politics but how to additionally analyze the dilemmas and practices of global politics in their work. This book is just as much an inspiration as a theoretical contribution.’ —Brent J. Steele, Professor of Political Science, University of Utah, USA

A Practice of Ethics for Global Politics

What kind of ethics in world politics is possible if there is no foundation for moral knowledge or global reality is at least complex and contingent? Furthermore, how can an ethics grapple with difference, a persistent and confounding feature for global politics? This book responds to the call for a bold and creative approach to ethics that avoids assuming or aspiring to universality, and instead prioritizes difference, complexity and uncertainty by turning to reflexivity, not as method or methodology, but as a practice of ethics for politics. This practice, ‘ethical reflexivity’, offers individuals, organizations and communities tools to recognize, interrogate and potentially change the stories they tell about politics—about constraints, notions of responsibility and visions of desirability. The benefits and limits of ethical reflexivity are investigated by the author, who engages writing on critique, rhetoric, affect and relationality, and carefully considers dominant and alternative framings of difficult issues in International Relations (IR)—the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the US policies of ‘enhanced interrogation’ and drone strikes. This path-breaking study provokes new possibilities for agency and action and contributes to a growing literature in IR on reflexivity by uniquely elaborating its promise as an ethics for politics, and by drawing on thinkers less utilized in discussions of reflexivity, such as Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and Aristotle. This book will appeal to scholars and upper-level graduates in several subfields of IR, including international/global ethics, IR theory, global governance, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, foreign policy analysis and US foreign policy. Jack L. Amoureux is a Teacher-Scholar Postdoctoral Fellow at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He previously taught at American University in Washington, DC.

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A Practice of Ethics for Global Politics Ethical reflexivity Jack L. Amoureux

A Practice of Ethics for Global Politics Ethical reflexivity

Jack L. Amoureux

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Jack L. Amoureux The right of Jack L. Amoureux to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Amoureux, Jack L. A practice of ethics for global politics : ethical reflexivity / Jack L. Amoureux. pages cm. — (New international relations) 1. International relations—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. World politics. 3. Ethics. I. Title. JZ1306.A44 2016 172′.4—dc23 2015016007 ISBN: 978-0-415-74690-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-79738-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

In memory of my brother Robby. Dedicated to my grandparents.

Contents

Acknowledgments Foreword

Introduction: To ‘work on our limits’ through ‘permanent critique’

xiv xv

1

1 Aristotelian reflexivity

26

2 Giddens’ reflexive modernity, Arendt’s inner dialogue, and Foucault’s ‘critical ontology’ of ourselves

55

3 The global phronimos

105

4 Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda

142

5 ‘An ethical train wreck’? Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror

173

6 The silences of private judgment: drone practices, criticism at home and abroad, and the failure to respond

199

Conclusion: Some closing thoughts on behalf of authorial reflexivity Bibliography Index

225 236 261

Acknowledgments

Very few of our endeavors, it seems, are entirely solitary, including this project and the proposal it outlines. Over the last several years I have benefitted from mentors, friends and colleagues through a number of conversations, conference presentations and joint projects. This book began its life as a dissertation at Brown University. The members of my committee, James Der Derian, Thomas Biersteker, Sharon Krause, and Nick Onuf, provided a lot of advice and challenging feedback, but, most importantly, they did not discourage me from taking on an unusual idea. James Der Derian also ensured that I had access to the visitors he brought to campus. Over coffee, tea, crepes, beer, etc., there were tremendously helpful conversations with Cindy Weber, Lene Hansen, Natalie Bormann, and Dan Deudney. Later, as the manuscript developed, I also benefitted from discussions with Chris Brown, William Connolly, Neta Crawford, Jennifer Culbert, Elizabeth Dauphinee, Jenny Edkins, Toni Erskine, Frances Harbour, Laura Sjoberg, Wesley Widmaier, and Lauren Wilcox. There are a few people who deserve special mention, friends and colleagues, who have patiently and even enthusiastically provided close feedback and emotional support on this project as it took shape and morphed from an unwieldy mass of ideas to something that is hopefully a little more refined and polished, including Brent Steele, Harry Gould, Eric Heinze, Jeremy Youde, Huss Banai, and Molly Wallace. My experience of the discipline of International Relations would not be the same without this motley crew. I also wish to thank Stephanie Witt, Ross Burkhart, Les Alm, Dan Levin, and Richard Kennedy for their support during my time at Boise State University, and Rod Hall and Al Damico for nurturing my intellectual defiance at the University of Iowa. John Rogers and Ali Cochan provided valuable editing and translating, respectively. I’d also like to thank the support of my home institution, Wake Forest University. Finally, my family deserves very special mention for their love and support, including my parents, Robert and Sandra, and my siblings, Robby, Michelle, Brice, and Andy, and, especially, my partner, Angela, and our children, Ocean, Theron, and Jane.

Foreword

Scarcely a day passes when there is not some reference to the role of ethics in international politics. In the weeks before I started to write this foreword, in June 2015, there were constant references to the ethical responsibility of the European states towards the large number of migrants who had died endeavouring to cross the Mediterranean in an attempt to escape from the ongoing turmoil in a range of countries across North Africa and the Middle East. The Economist, for example, was highly critical of the European response to this humanitarian disaster (Europe’s Boat People 2015). For example, the argument made in 2014 by the British government among others—that the maritime assistance being given by the European Union to migrants leaving Africa for Europe in unseaworthy boats must be terminated because the policy simply encouraged further migrants to make the dangerous crossing—was called ‘morally repugnant’. Indeed, The Economist insisted that the overall European response reflected ‘a breakdown of ethics’. For other commentators, however, the very idea of ethical international politics is an oxymoron. It is argued that the outside world is too complex and too dangerous to allow ethics to interfere with the task of ensuring the security of the state and promoting the interests of the nation. This position is often associated with political realism, but there is also a similar, albeit more refined, position identified by Michael Walzer (1973) as ‘the problem of dirty hands’. According to this position, there will inevitably be occasions, although only in extremis, when it is essential to pursue policies that cannot be justified on ethical grounds. There is, for example, the almost certainly apocryphal suggestion that Churchill had advance warning of the German attack on Coventry in World War II but that he made no attempt to safeguard the inhabitants of the city because to do so would reveal that British cryptologists were able to decipher German military messages. In more recent times, since the onset of the War on Terror, this line of argument, drawing on the ‘dirty hands’ thesis, has been advanced on a regular basis to justify the use of torture. Although political theorists have devoted a great deal of attention to the problem of dirty hands, in practice, governments almost always deny that their policies are unethical. Nevertheless, when the UK New Labour government came into office in 1997, Robin Cook, the incoming Foreign Secretary, declared that his

xvi Foreword mission was to make Britain a force for good in the world and that he intended to ensure that there would be in the future an ethical dimension to foreign policy. The press ridiculed him, and many commentators argued that it would be impossible for him to maintain this policy on a consistent basis. By contrast, the Conservative opposition claimed that there had always been an ethical dimension to Britain’s foreign policy. Douglas Hurd, a former Foreign Secretary, was later to reflect (Flanagan 2010) that ‘If you look at Palmerston, Salisbury, all the great debates of the Victorian era are about ethics: is what Britain doing right or wrong?’ It is clear, however, in retrospect, that Cook was unequivocally sincere in his desire to pursue an ethical line and when New Labour made the fatal decision to support the US intervention in Iraq in 2003, Cook resigned his position as Foreign Secretary in protest. In this important new book, Jack Amoureux eschews the very idea of ‘dirty hands’ and starts from the premise that international politics must have an ethical basis. However he is equally clear that the policies designed to secure ethical international politics cannot rest on a set of unchanging and universal principles— the position adopted by many who write in this field. Amoureux’s starting point is that such principles simply cannot contend with the complexity and contingency that necessarily characterize international politics. But Amoureux takes the argument further and accepts that complexity and contingency are not characteristics that are somehow unique to international politics—they are also features of everyday life. From this perspective, therefore, it is inappropriate to assume that there is something unique about international ethics that distinguishes it from everyday ethics. Instead, it is necessary to identify a common starting point and Amoureux finds it in Aristotle’s approach to ethics that presupposes that life is complex and contingent and that for this reason abstract principles represent an unsatisfactory basis for establishing an ethical policy. From an Aristotelian perspective, to pursue an ethical policy it is essential before acting to reflect upon the particular circumstances that one is confronted with and to empathize with the views of others affected by these circumstances and then, after taking appropriate action, to observe and reflect upon the consequences of the action to ensure that these consequences are compatible with one’s ethical goals. So ethical behaviour cannot be the result of an application of universal rules, but instead it involves constantly reassessing the consequences of one’s own action and making appropriate modifications of one’s behaviour so as to bring this behaviour into alignment with one’s ethical position. Amoureux argues, therefore, that Aristotle’s ethical stance has a number of common links with the idea of reflexivity that emerged in the social sciences during the course of the twentieth century. The world that we live in is not a given but is constantly being constructed and reconstructed—or constituted and reconstituted—by our own actions and so we all have a potential degree of agency in this process. The whistleblower and the heckler are both exercising this sense of agency and it follows that ethical international politics is something that potentially involves everyone. Amoureux draws on the writing of both Arendt and Foucault to enrich this line of thought, arguing further that ethical goals must themselves be made

Foreword  xvii responsive to our introspective and self-critical interrogations, then applies the idea of ethical reflexivity to three case studies where individuals as well as national decision makers had the potential to change the outcome. It is a rare book in the field of international relations where one is left questioning one’s own stance rather than the stance of others. Richard Little Emeritus Professor University of Bristol, UK

Introduction To ‘work on our limits’ through ‘permanent critique’

What kind of ethics in world politics is possible if there is no foundation for moral knowledge, or, at the very least, if this global reality is complex? Furthermore, how can a practice of ethics satisfactorily deal with difference, a persistent and confounding feature of global politics for any normative or empirical theory of International Relations (IR)? The literature in international and global ethics struggles with these questions, but often turns to well-known traditions of moral thought and ethics for answers, such as pragmatism, thinner versions of cosmopolitanism or communicative avenues toward consensus or understanding, all of which assume or aspire to some degree of universality (Erskine 2008; Frost 1996; Johnstone 2011; Linklater 1998; Shapcott 2001; Sutch 2001; Walzer 1994). Poststructural accounts of ethics have criticized these efforts for their failure to avoid exclusion, their unrealistic assumption of shared values (or their possibility), their tendency to reinforce the status quo and their failure to come to terms with the enduring difficulties and aporias of ethics (Zehfuss 2005), but have been somewhat hesitant to fully work out their own positive projects.1 In response, I propose the practice of ‘ethical reflexivity’, as a kind of turning back on the self, to respond to these questions and shortcomings. In doing so, I seek to make two contributions to the field of IR. Ethical reflexivity is, first, developed as a practice of ethics that foregrounds difference, complexity, contingency and uncertainty while it also is intended to inspire creative and bold action in global politics, including both selftransformation and the transformation of one’s relationships with others. My aim is to build a practice of ethical agency that can generate action in the face of perplexing ethical dilemmas without resorting to the universalization of thought that has historically led to so many undesirable consequences. James Der Derian sets out this challenge: The historical relativity of values has always been with us, in spite of the diligent efforts of philosophers, priests, and politicians to keep it at bay with first principles, transcendental morals, and patriotic absolutes. The human task, and all too often a tragic one at that, is how to shape an ethical response in the face of relativism. (Der Derian 2001, p. 35)

2 Introduction The difficulty of this task is compounded by the multiplicity of differences across and within political communities as well as the distinct cultures and normative aspirations of organizations from which individuals deliberate and act. While not all will agree with the necessity of reflexivity from a nonfoundationalist or relativist stance, a view of the world as socially complex and contingent can also sustain reflexivity. Aristotle (1984), for example, pointed to the importance of context for judgment and action in politics and ethics. It is only from within specific situations and in view of particulars that wise decisions can be made. We cannot know abstractly or in advance with specificity.2 And, as Hannah Arendt reminds us, acting upon the world exceeds means-ends calculations, as means continuously unfold into other means.3 Our action is thus unbounded, and it results in unintended and unforeseen consequences. Agents, Arendt wrote, act into a medium where every reaction becomes a chain reaction and where every process is the cause of new processes. Since action acts upon beings who are capable of their own actions, reaction, apart from being a response, is always a new action that strikes out on its own and affects others. (Arendt 1998, p. 190) This complexity presents the question of how both scholars and the agents of world politics can claim agency and assume responsibility for their actions in an elusive and uncertain environment. More profoundly, it is a challenge to how individuals, groups and societies makes sense of and narrate themselves in this world as they confront specific problems. If ethical dilemmas are perplexing, if we have an array of options where none is obviously right, perhaps we need to look less to institutions, norms and rules, as we tend to do now, and more to judgment. For too long scholars and practitioners have been held hostage by an inside/ outside perspective (Walker 1993) that deals with difference, in part, by searching for a common community that always seems just on the horizon. ‘Responsibility to protect’ is perhaps the most recent example of the normative glue that promises to bind together an international society whose members are obligated to ensure that all states are well positioned to follow basic humanitarian norms (Bellamy 2009). I aim to offer a radically different approach. By thinking less in terms of grand visions of community and more in the everyday and micropolitical challenges of having to make a decision wherever that may be, I hope to avoid some of the pitfalls that threaten the irrelevance of international and global political theory. Indeed, by using the term ‘global politics’ I do not mean to propose a practice of ethics for everyone, everywhere, or that practices of ethics in world politics ought to be architectonic in design and international or global in scope. Ethical reflexivity is a practice for global politics because it does not take the corporate state as the only relevant actor and because it can materialize in view of a wide array of issues and questions that have been associated with international, global or world politics.4 Many actors are important agents in world politics, including, inter alia, states, international organizations (IOs), non-governmental

Introduction  3 organizations (NGOs), corporations, private militaries, other forms of communities, and individuals. Neither is ethical reflexivity universally valid or true, contrary to one use of ‘global ethics’; instead, it is a potential ethical practice that can be taken up by any number and kind of actors and must be assessed by whether it is desirable and useful as it takes shape. Whereas universalism has settled on the project to secure or stabilize ourselves and our world, ethical reflexivity prioritizes context and self-transformation but without giving up on the possibility that enduring and emergent strands of thought could be important ethical resources across and within various borders, relationalities, and temporalities. To suggest, then, that there are no secure or sure foundations for ethics but that we locate some temporary bases on which to act is perhaps a ‘post-foundationalism’ that, as Patrick Hayden (2013) avers, moves beyond an unsatisfactory binary. Second, I seek to address and ameliorate some gaps in the reflexivity literature. Reflexivity, as a term and a concept, has generally been invoked in IR literature as a scholarly practice, rather than a practice of ethics for politics. A number of scholars have posed reflexivity as acknowledging and responding to the fluidity of scholarly context and its activities, a stance that has been situated against positivism’s shortcoming in supposing a subject/object separation between scholars and those whom they observe (Ackerly and True 2008; Ish-Shalom 2011; Lapid 1989; Lynch 2008; Neufeld 1995; Sjolander and Cox 1994; Smith 2004; Steele 2010b; Tickner 2006). While there have been some helpful reflexive strategies, both communal and individual, that have emerged out of this literature, especially feminist IR (Sylvester 2013b), reflexivity is still widely invoked in prefaces, conclusions and as passing asides in IR as if we all understand what it means and what it is doing for us as a concept and a guide.5 Or, it is assumed that non-positivist epistemological approaches that posit knowledge as socially and politically constructed are ‘inherently reflexive’ in that theorizing is reflected upon by those who engage in it (Cox and Sjolander 1994, p. 5). It’s difficult to endorse this triumphalism, however, when IR theorists of all epistemological and theoretical stripes tend to reify and encase their favored concepts and ideas in a protective cocoon, as Daniel Levine (2012) and Elizabeth Dauphinee (2010) point out. Some IR theorists, such as Stefano Guzzini, have sought some critical distance through reflexivity as a sociological analysis so that we extend theorizing and empirical observation to ourselves, as scholars. Interpretation occurs, after all, at more than one level: We have to think about the two levels of action involved in a scientific explanation—the level of action proper and the level of observation. In both instances we interpret, at one time making sense within the life-world of the actor, and at another time making sense within the language shared by the community of observers. We interpret an already interpreted world. (Guzzini 2000, p. 162) This analysis lends itself to a Bourdeiusian approach to reflexivity, which has also been engaged by Matthew Eagleton-Pierce (2009) and Inanna Hamati-Ataya

4 Introduction (2012b), among others. These levels can be thought of as ‘fields’—the scholarly and the political—that contain actors and their ‘habitus’. Here, there is a distribution of recognition and other social resources through rules, social status, and socialization.6 There can also be shared understandings of shared experiences, as Guzzini illustrates with American IR scholars’ post-Cold War historical context that gave impetus to IR constructivist theorizing. I do not seek to dismiss the importance of this work, but, tracking IR theorizing itself, it has tended to leave out agency in both the empirical and normative senses—specifically, the thinking and acting agent who is capable of critical rationality and aesthetic judgments. A logic of critical rationality, analytically, stands in contradistinction to the instrumental, social and imperfect rationalities that tend to be the focus of IR theory.7 We can empirically locate the logic of critical rationality in the reflexive agent’s dialectic interrogation of thought and action and advance its incidence as part of a practice of ethics.8 Agents of many kinds can take themselves as objects to be worked on for the purpose of reorienting their own thought and action in a practice of the self. As a potential response to contingency, uncertainty, complexity and difference in this world of thinking, speaking and acting, reflexivity can be a compelling candidate for a practice of ethics, among not just scholars but political actors as well. In other words, reflexivity as a concept or practice need not be confined to a sociology of knowledge in which scholars are made the object of inquiry by other scholars for the purpose of ‘objectivating’ their activities, nor should its ethical promise be restricted to scholar-agents. Reflexivity is at the core of the ethical practice I propose, and it generally refers to a process or mode of being that is critically self-referential or, as Morris Rosenberg puts it, ‘an entity acting back upon itself’ (1990, p. 3). Judith Butler refers to a ‘reflexive being’ as ‘one who can and does take him or herself as an object of reflection’ (2005, p. 14). And George Mead describes reflexivity as ‘individuals becom[ing] objects to themselves’ (1934, p. 148). One’s response ‘becomes a part of his conduct, where he not only hears himself but responds to himself, talks and replies to himself’ (p. 148). Hannah Arendt describes an internal dialogue between ‘me and myself’ where one thinks about what one is doing and morally evaluates it (1978a, 1994). Anthony Giddens proposes that human actors have ‘the capacity to understand what they do while they do it’ (1984, p. xxii). They can, but do not always, ‘maintain a continuing “theoretical understanding” of the grounds of their activity’ (p. 5). Reflexivity can be conceived as a practice when it is self-consciously exercised as part of one’s agentic repertoire; in this practice, thought and action are engaged dialectically, each assessed and modified in view of the other. Reflexivity is, in a way, a metapractice because it is a mode of engaging other social practices as well as one’s identity. Through reflexivity, Giddens explains, ‘thought and action are constantly refracted back upon one another . . . [S]ocial practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character’ (1990, p. 38). Yet, reflexivity can also be a form of judgment that is specific to everyday

Introduction  5 decisions even while one relates them to other examples, broader historical and social patterns and differences, trends and divergences, and homogeneities and heterogeneities. Thus, I am especially interested in thinking about and elaborating the capacities of reflexivity. These capacities are not unaffected by the social, but, as William Connolly has so persuasively argued, appreciating the contingency of identity (elements of which are more or less obdurate) ‘is also to set up the possibility that some of these entrenchments [corporeal habits, feelings and dispositions] might be recomposed modestly through artfully devised tactics of the self and its collective sibling, micropolitics’ (1991, pp. xvi–xvii). Neither is this self unitary and coherent: a fractured and incoherent self turns out to be an advantage to reflexive interrogations of ourselves and our actions. To take up this task, I draw especially on Hannah Arendt’s notions of ‘thinking’, ‘willing’, and ‘judging’. A key claim of this book is that reflexivity can be leveraged and magnified as a practice of ethics. In a variation on Anthony Giddens, thought and action are engaged via ‘discursive consciousness’ where ‘collective knowledge’ (Giddens 1990, p. 38), in their overlapping and dispersed forms, can be elaborated, evaluated and reformulated. That there are a variety of textual (or narrative and symbolic) resources for the plural self to engage makes this task possible. In situating thought and practice dialectically, the self enhances responsiveness to an everchanging social world—identifying unintended consequences and locating power flows so that identities, values, beliefs, norms, and other forms of knowledge can be revised or reaffirmed. This approach neither dismisses nor unjustifiably privileges thought; rather, it can be a form of responsibility because the content, implications and desirability of thought are never self-evident nor neutral. As Butler explains, ‘Even if morality supplies a set of norms that produce a subject in his or her intelligibility, it also remains a set of norms and rules that a subject must negotiate in a living and reflective way’ (2005, p. 10). In other words, thought must be actively and situationally interpreted and articulated on an everyday basis. It involves an awareness of the self and a mobilization of the self’s agency, what Rosenberg (1990) refers to as ‘cognitive reflexivity’ and ‘reflexive agency’. Reflexivity, I will argue, is thus micropolitical and a form of scrupulous and insatiable critical inquiry punctured by the need to take action. There are various ways to articulate the attractiveness of grappling with ethical questions through searching, critical, and continuous ethical judgment. From Aristotle, I explore the priority of particulars for ethical reasoning and the cultivation of our rational, affective and rhetorical capacities and dispositions as agents who are formed over time. From Arendt, I underscore the complexity that ensues when agencies interact and yet the multiplicity of identity and voices available to critical dialogue—internally and externally—as the instantiation of politics. Arendt’s discussion of ‘thoughtfulness’ as a conversation between ‘me and myself’ illustrates how a dialectic and dialogic engagement can loosen one’s attachments to dominant thinking, habits and rules to pave the way for ‘new’ thinking and feeling about particulars, in a way that builds on some of Aristotle’s work. And from Foucault, I invoke the idea that there are attitudes and tactics to apply to

6 Introduction the self in the self’s relationality that aim at continuous criticism and transformation and, paradoxically, positive projects and assertions of freedom. All of these positions, I think, grapple with a certain sense of Derridean undecidability where every political and social situation has multiple ethical demands, none of which is unassailable. To speak of responsibility to the other abstractly and universally, as we have seen with the principle or norm of responsibility to protect,9 is to neglect the question of ‘which other’, and to only speak of the ‘responsibility to protect humans’ is to ignore that it is also a ‘responsibility to attack them’ (Bulley 2010, pp. 452–453).10 Aristotle, Arendt and Foucault all struggle with the specificity, complexity, and inseparability of ethics and politics. The agent who practices ethical reflexivity moves dialectically between thought and action, reflecting on each in view of the occasion’s particular features; evaluating how thought, action and interaction have unfolded and might unfold; and aware of the contingency and uncertainty of knowledge. This exercise in critical rationality can bring into view the unintended consequences of politics and stimulate the desire to modify thought and action. This dialectic is ‘open’ (and not ‘negative’ or ‘closed’) in the sense that agents, and not objective conditions, initiate change and construct knowledge through considered judgments. In other words, I conceptualize dialectic reasoning as a constitutive capacity of agency rather than a Hegelian or Marxist dialectic of history as the synthesis of contradictory material or ideational forces. Outcomes of such reasoning and affect are not the foregone conclusions of operations of logic, but are instead what results when agents comparatively frame, feel, and struggle with their circumstances and how they see them. Ethical reflexivity is a dialogic practice in that it is also responsive to difference. When we consider how our actions have elicited protest and even violence, a practice of ethics must necessarily grapple with the limits of our knowledge and our ability to know and understand one another. Yet, dialogic projects have encountered some problems that I seek to address. For one, to hear or to understand others always requires the self to interpret those utterances and thus Arendt’s embrace of Kant’s notion of ‘enlarged mentality’ through which the self represents others’ perspectives to the self is useful for foregrounding and working on these interpretive acts. The ability to try to do so is crucial to reflexivity’s internal dialogue. At the same time, this dialogue will be suspect if we do not, as Butler (2005, p. 18) urges, seek to ‘hear beyond what we are able to hear’ so that we avoid the pitfalls of assimilationist empathy.11 Dialogic ethics in or applied to IR have tended to ignore the inevitability that we all bring a basic story to the interaction and that some have a privileged speaking position.12 So, unlike other accounts of ethics that prescribe dialogue, I do not depend on ideal or fair speech conditions for ethics to take place. Such conditions are not likely to occur in the near future, if ever.13 Thus, a practice of ethics must consider, in view of power relations, tactics that might enact being heard, and not just the demand that we hear, even while we recognize that this interaction will always be messy and imperfect. In part, I draw on Aristotle’s empirical insights about how effective rhetoric can align with ethical rhetoric to address this challenge.

Introduction  7 Affect, I argue, also has a role to play in a practice of ethical reflexivity. Reflexivity is not merely a rational evaluation as if we were simply tallying the costs and benefits of the alternatives before us. For one, such a stance puts too much faith in reason. Turning to Aristotle is particularly interesting because, while he was concerned with an excess of passion, for his ethical agent (phronimos) emotion (pathos) serves to engage concern, aids the ability to perceive and judge the features of the situation, works in tandem with imagination to articulate various alternatives for action and contributes to the formation of character alongside experience.14 Aristotle views emotion not just as a supplement to ethical judgment but as necessary for it, and not just any emotion but that which is appropriate to the situation. While Aristotle sometimes mentions beauty (kalon) in these discussions, for both Foucault and Arendt, aesthetic evaluations play a stronger role and I position their relevance for ethical reflexivity’s judgments about that which is desirable. I argue that a searching practice of ethics can be sustained with certain attitudes and dispositions that can be related to reworkings of modernity. Foucault, Arendt and Giddens all develop reflexivity as springing from modernity and as a selfcritical response to it. Questions of knowledge have dominated modern thought and have continued into late modernity and/or postmodernity.15 In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant (1929) makes the well-known epistemological critique. As Howard Williams and Ken Booth explain, Kant ‘believes that we cannot possibly know things as they would exist independently of our perception of them’ (1999, p. 73). Our knowledge is based on limited human understanding through appearances and experiences (phenomenal rather than noumenal). Though Kant is arguably overly optimistic about the potential for reason to order the noumenal world (the moral ordering of our behavior) and to escape our ‘bondage’ and ‘immaturity’ (Kant 2007), his sense of epistemological limits and his reflections on the ‘Enlightenment’ also inspired Foucault to entertain the question, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ What Foucault found significant in this essay is that Kant reflects on the present in relation to the past and the future, as well as his position and agency in it; he acknowledges both the historical continuity and historical difference of the moment that is ‘today’ (1984c, p. 38). From this reflexive stance Kant interpreted the Enlightenment as ‘the moment when humanity is going to put its own reason to use, without subjecting itself to any authority’ (p. 38). Foucault finds in Kant the reflexive exercise of considering ‘modernity’ as an ‘attitude’ and reason as belonging to critical thinking. This is not a faith in rationalism; misplaced comfort in knowledge gives the Enlightenment a bad name—it is its danger rather than its potential. Foucault’s interpretation rejects the Enlightenment ‘blackmail’ of being either for it or against it as some cohesive whole or as an uncovering of the ‘essential kernel’ of rationality (p. 45). Reflexivity, instead, turns the Enlightenment back on itself as responding to our historical situation. Foucault’s commentary in this essay has strong parallels to his later work on ethics, as I will discuss in Chapter 2. Foucault is distinctly against ethics as the application of a universal morality (where he thought great dangers lie), and

8 Introduction instead imagined ethics as work on the self wherein we push up against the limits of acting and being. Though Foucault argues that power is pervasive, and disciplinary power in particular perniciously works on our ‘subjectivity’ through a variety of normalizing discourses,16 it makes sense that Foucault would find promise in an ethical approach that historicizes the self and envisions ‘becoming’ as a way to challenge disciplinary forces. Indeed, he notes in this essay that, though there has been growth in our capabilities via modernity, there has not been commensurate growth in the autonomy of individuals. Foucault seeks to answer the question, how can this growth in capabilities (evident, for example, in today’s surveillance societies) be ‘disconnected from the intensification of power relations’? (1984c, pp. 47–48). Foucault gestures toward a possible answer in the form of an attitude of ‘modernity’ as a ‘philosophical ethos’ that is a ‘permanent critique of our historical era’, or a ‘historico-critical attitude’ (pp. 42, 46). Foucault draws on Baudelaire, who develops modernity as: (1) a voluntary choice to seize what is ‘heroic’ about the present; (2) a desire to at once understand the world in which one lives (its reality) and to imagine it otherwise, so that it can be transformed rather than destroyed; and (3) a relationship with oneself of asceticism achieved through self-production and reinvention (1984c, pp. 39–42). This Foucauldian ethos consists in investigating and challenging a static subjectivity, or a subjectivity that is more a product of social discipline than our own interpretations and experimentations. What we might embrace is a ‘limitattitude’—being at the frontier of what is possible, and recognizing that what is possible is not restricted to what presently exists, as it may yet be unimaginable to us. The Enlightenment attitude of critique is in this sense a ‘practical critique’ that seeks to identify what is historically arbitrary and contingent. This exercise, or task, is ‘archaeological’ in that it ‘will seek to treat the instances of discourse that articulate what we think, say, and do as so many historical events’ and ‘genealogical’ in that it ‘will separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think’. Together, these methodologies make possible the ‘undefined work of freedom’ (Foucault 1984c, pp. 45–46). We might ask: ‘How are we constituted as subjects of our own knowledge? How are we constituted as subjects who exercise or submit to power relations? How are we constituted as moral subjects of our own actions?’ (pp. 48–49). Foucault describes the attitude of modernity as ‘experimental’. Through experimentation we discover what is possible and desirable, recognizing that we cannot ever possess ‘complete and definitive knowledge’ (pp. 46–47). In sum, the attitude of the practice of ethics that I develop embraces what Foucault describes as a ‘critical ontology of ourselves’ wherein we seek to identify our self-imposed limits of being and acting (Foucault 1984c, p. 50). This ‘critical ontology of ourselves’ allows us to interrogate our subjectivities in farreaching ways and envision fundamental transformation of the self, given both the shortcomings and possibilities of knowledge. The practice of ethics I advance features a ‘critical rationality’ for our everyday acts of interpretation that make up the ‘outcomes’ of global politics. In their agency, ethically reflexive actors

Introduction  9 of global politics would employ creative and critical strategies, in wonder of the world (adding Arendt), to investigate and experiment with alternative ways of thinking and acting in response to ethical challenges. I discuss Anthony Giddens, Hannah Arendt and Aristotle, in addition to Michel Foucault, to describe how reflexivity, as a process, can couple with this attitude to be an ethics for global politics. This practice, ethical reflexivity, addresses the contingency of our historical situation by refracting thought and action dialectically, dialogically and affectively as we reflect and work on our subjectivity. While scholars may push the limits of thought or act as public intellectuals who perform and facilitate deep societal self-critique,17 we should not fail to see that the actors of global politics whom we study also have agency and are capable of reflexivity. We might ask: How can reflexivity inform a way of doing ethics and how can it be advanced as an everyday practice? Ethical reflexivity’s focus on remaking ourselves, rather than remaking others and mastering the world around us, endeavors to avoid the dangers of imposing a uniform practice of global ethics and neglecting power. We investigate and evaluate ourselves as historical and disciplined subjects. Still, our identities are relational and we are vulnerable to one another in ways that induce suffering, pleasure, anger, and joy. Butler (2004b) cites this vulnerability (our own vulnerability to others and the vulnerability of others to us) as an ethical resource for challenging and rethinking who is considered human (and thus whose lives are recognized).18 I inquire into what it means to ethically treat difference in global politics through a practice of the self, to acknowledge and act upon the ways that we define ourselves in relation to and often against others, and to respond to a history of inter- and intrasocietal vulnerability, misunderstanding, and violence. To summarize, I develop ethical reflexivity as the dialectic, dialogic, and affective navigation of thought and action coupled with a critical ontology of the self, wherein we investigate our subjectivity and the potential for its transformation as a response to difference, relationship, and epistemological uncertainty. What does it mean for ethics and ethical agency to think and act in this world? ‘Ethical reflexivity’ is my response to this perplexing question, but it is a contingent answer that is itself subject to critical evaluation and revision. It is more than trite and ambiguous exhortation to ‘reflection’. It is a practice or a way of life for agents to try on and try out, with specific attitudes, dispositions, processes and tactics. It may be put to use in ways that we deem satisfactory, or employed as a legitimating device by those who have an agenda other than attention to difference and contingency. To acknowledge these possibilities at the outset is to engage in the form of reflexivity I advocate and to flag these possible shortcomings and dangers. Indeed, in the way that all thought is expressed, dispersed, interpreted and redeployed by agents who think and act upon the world in the pursuit of change, but then fossilized as a status quo to be defended (channeling E.H. Carr), the practice of ‘ethical reflexivity’ may cease to have the radical purchase I advocate. Ethical reflexivity as a practice and disposition must be reaffirmed, redescribed, and redeployed, especially by agents who are less invested in the status quo and/ or are able to free themselves from the tethers of their own subjectivities just

10 Introduction enough to start down the path of self-critique. In its searching approach and in its attention to difference, ethical reflexivity has its own normative biases that must themselves be appraised as this framework for thought and action is tested through practice. I articulate and confront this problem of ethics and agency from within a particular social and political context: this context sets the stage for my ideas and the ways in which I draw on the ideas of others. I turn to this context both to paint a picture of the challenge before us as I see it, and to gesture toward emergent possibilities for ethical reflexivity among the actors of global politics as well as the pitfalls that can sideline such a practice. Belonging to a generation that often thirsted for more principled action from the United States in international politics in the post-Cold War and post-Rwanda world, the moral certainty that accompanied the post-9/11 ‘War on Terror’ was not what I and many of my peers had in mind. Instead, the George W. Bush administration exhibited a self-assured moral rightness in its urgency to identify enemies and go to war in a marriage of American power and values. This urgency accompanied and was enabled by a binary view of the world as good and evil. The costs of this approach included a failure to articulate and investigate alternative interpretations of the situation and thus alternative courses of action; inattentiveness to the context of events (the historical as well as the interpretive context of the actions taken by the terrorists of 9/11)19; and little consideration among U.S. policymakers and the media of what others, even Afghans and Iraqis, might think and want. The Bush administration instead painted a simplistic picture of ‘evil’ enemies who sought to annihilate American lives and values, and thus ‘God’, ‘history’, and ‘the right’ were on the side of the United States in its righteous ‘crusade’ against terrorism (Bazinet 2001).20 Debate merely forestalled right action; individuals and other countries alike, in the words of President Bush, were either ‘with us’ or ‘with the terrorists’ (Bush 2001). It would be a mistake, however, to only diagnose the Bush administration and a cadre of neoconservative thinkers and practitioners with a lack of reflexivity, among other potential deficiencies. This moral certainty and disregard for nonAmericans extended beyond the Bush administration, to liberal human rights activists, and beyond the months immediately following 9/11, even to much of the opposition to the wars that developed. In the 2006 national elections the Democratic Party rested much of its electoral case on ending the war in Iraq, and on November 7, 2006 Democratic Party candidates garnered enough votes to wrest control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from the Republican Party. On this day and the days that followed, Democrats, many activists and commentators declared this election a ‘referendum’ on the Iraq War (Stolberg 2006).21 Democrats claimed that the American people had tasked them with responsibly and swiftly ending the war in Iraq. A public debate ensued about how to get out of Iraq and the Bush administration went on the defensive, accusing critics of the war of abandoning Iraq to terrorism and civil war. Given the righteous indignation that characterized the Democratic Party’s criticisms of Bush’s foreign policies, one might expect that this public debate and deliberation led by the Democratic Party would instead prominently feature

Introduction  11 a searching and critical discourse about why and how to withdraw. Additionally, one might imagine that for such a debate to be meaningful, Iraqi voices, views, and sentiments would be elicited and highlighted. After all, the Bush administration was criticized for its failure to carefully consider other viewpoints and for rushing to war without gathering more information for critical assessment. Instead, much of the rhetoric featured in the 2005–2006 debate and the period between the mid-term congressional election and the presidential election of 2008 neglected such notions or treated them superficially; it also excluded the people whose future was being debated. Many Democrats, both leadership and rank and file, simply asserted that we were ‘babysitting a civil war’ and that the Iraqis would ‘stand up’ and therefore we should ‘stand down’ rather than lose more U.S. troops to a lost cause. In a New York Times op-ed, Senator John Kerry (2006) attributed the ‘terrible things’ happening in Iraq to the U.S. failure to ‘get tough with the Iraqis’. Iraqis, Kerry wrote, were simply not willing to do the work for democracy: ‘We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can’t bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq’s leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises democracy requires.’ And, Iraqis ‘refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences’, stubbornness not worth the sacrifice of even one American soldier’s life. The solution, Kerry opined, was to establish a deadline for forming a government and a schedule for imminent withdrawal, a logical conclusion from the fact that, ‘So far, Iraqi leaders have only responded to deadlines’ (Kerry 2006).22 As early as 2005, when George W. Bush came under increasing pressure to outline a timetable for withdrawal or at least a plan for extricating U.S. forces from Iraq, the president also deployed this rhetoric of Iraqi incapacity together with a ‘strategy for victory’ (Sanger and Schmitt 2005). He posed Iraqis’ maturation as the linchpin of success, stating that ‘as the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down’ (Block and Liasson 2005).23 The danger, according to the Bush administration, was that, left alone, the Iraqis would engage in civil war and spread violence and instability to the rest of the region.24 This narrative was one of imminent, but not certain, Iraqi responsibility and thus the need to guide their growth. The narratives of irresponsibility and immaturity continued through 2007 and 2008. Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, responding to a media question about the consequences of withdrawal, explained: This is a civil war that’s going on. And as long as we’re willing to fight it, then the Iraqi people are not going to have to. He [President Bush] refers to these hundreds of thousands of Iraqi security forces, but only about half actually show up on any given day ready to fight for their country. That’s not acceptable. That’s not a sufficient investment on their part to sacrifice the lives of our young men and women over there. (Russert 2007a) Republicans who had also been critical of the war, though fewer in number, commonly described the conflict in terms of ‘ancient hatreds’, the lack of Iraqi

12 Introduction ‘political will’ to get along, and Iraqi ingratitude. Iraqis, they noted, had failed to meet their obligations (Russert 2007b; Steves 2006).25 During the 2008 presidential primaries, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton took up the phrase ‘babysitting a civil war’ as that which would be avoided through withdrawal (The Washington Post Editorial Board 2008).26 Hillary Clinton, in a campaign video explaining her stance on the Iraq War, declared that if president, she would ‘make it very clear to the Iraqis that unless they do the political work they are going to be on their own’. Framing her plan in terms of reward and punishment, she emphasized that she would ‘put tremendous pressure on the Iraqis’ and put them on notice that they risk the United States’ ‘aid’ and ‘support’.27 Other Democrats rallied around this messaging. As late as August of 2008, when Iraq’s prime minister seemed to have successfully prodded the Bush administration to concede to a date for withdrawal as part of the negotiations around the status of forces agreement, Barack Obama was still using the language of ‘pressing’ Iraqis into responsibility through a ‘timetable’ (Abramowitz 2008).28 This discourse portrayed Iraqis as deficient moral agents in the ways it distributed valid knowledge away from them. In the U.S. public debate about the war in Iraq, those who argued against withdrawal or drawdown pointed to the knowledge of commanders ‘on the ground’. Bush articulated this view early and often: ‘These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington’ (Block and Liasson 2005). Critics often responded by pointing to the same type of knowledge, but recasting the message of these knowledge purveyors. John Kerry replied: ‘Our own generals are telling the president that our presence in large numbers is part of the problem, and that you have to begin to reduce that. The president did not acknowledge that today, but gave us the same talk about simply staying as long as it takes to get them to stand up’ (Abramowitz 2008). While Democratic representative John Murtha disputed the assertion that only the knowledge of U.S. military commanders was legitimate, he explicitly foreclosed Iraqi knowledge in his 2005 argument that the Iraq War should end: We’re caught in the middle of a civil war right now. The military has completed its mission; it’s done its duty. It’s up to the Iraqis to settle this themselves. We can’t let them decide how long we stay. And this is not a decision made by the military commanders, either. These decisions are made by the United States Congress and the president of the United States. We sent them to war and we can only speak for them. The military commanders talk to me all the time privately. And what they say privately is not what they’re saying publicly. (Block and Liasson 2005) Though a minority discourse, Murtha’s portrait of valid knowledge as political knowledge locates judgment and decision-making power entirely in the legislature and the president. At times this discourse served those who entreated the

Introduction  13 powerful to make the decision to end the war (through the ‘purse strings’); at other times it served the Bush administration’s arguments for remaining in Iraq when they could point to congressional authorization of the war as impetus for completing the mission. Less often, war opponents coupled this discourse with polling numbers of Iraqis that summarized widespread opposition to the war and the desire for the U.S.-led coalition to leave.29 Yet, the significance of this sentiment was often ignored and unexplored by politicians and the media. Moreover, even when various congresspersons and administration officials made trips to Iraq, they almost exclusively relied on and reported their conversations with U.S. troops, officers and commanders; they rarely reported conversations with Iraqi political leaders or the Iraqi public.30 Regardless of whether one supported ending the war or not, a problem with these narratives was that they placed blame and responsibility squarely on Iraqis for the continued violence, and positioned the United States as morally superior and as the only actor with relevant knowledge and the maturity of sound ethical judgment. Iraqis were not good judges of their needs, stubbornly refused U.S. benevolence, failed to learn or were simply not recognized as agents at all. If Iraqis were not capable agents, the United States could act as it wished and only consult itself in the process. In the debate there was a failure to investigate the features of the situation and to imagine and consider various alternatives for action, including not just whether there would be a military withdrawal, but how that withdrawal should proceed, and, more broadly, what kind of relationship the United States should have with Iraq and other countries in the region. As in the lead-up to the war, there was a rush to conclusion and decision without meaningful conversation with those who had the most at stake, the Iraqis. The United States avoided critically assessing themselves and their actions, including the role they played in creating this situation in the first place, and thus how this experience could refashion the self toward greater responsibility and attention to difference in international politics. These political narratives neglected the moral status and agency of others and they echoed colonial and imperial narratives of superiority, inferiority and the benevolence of civilizing and developing missions. Of course, one might protest that even polemical and unreflective partisan or ideological tracts could cite Iraqi opinion, nod to alternative interpretations as strawmen and make arguments about the historical context that invoke metaphors that suit their argument. Ethical reflexivity not only features self-critique through the dialectic, diachronic and affective assessment and modification of thought and action; ethical reflexivity as a practice, in my account, is dispositional or attitudinal as well. When the applicability of universal values or judgments is assumed and not investigated, when speakers fail to critically engage the past consequences of action in view of challenging and changing thought, when the voice of the other is neither interpreted nor heard, when the interdependency of our representational practices is not recognized, ethical reflexivity is not present. Joe Biden’s proposal for regionally decentralizing Iraq was creative and thoughtful, for example, but Biden fails to think through the possible unintended consequences and disregards whether and how Iraqis might critically engage his plan (Biden 2006).

14 Introduction One could protest at the use of this example from U.S. foreign policy as premised on unrealistic expectations—that any political leaders, let alone those of a superpower, would ever practice ethical reflexivity because of the need to win elections or achieve state security. Yet, even in U.S. foreign policy there have been some attempts at an ethical agency that resonates with some elements of ethical reflexivity, and we also might consider how political opponents, activists and individuals may or may not take up ethical reflexivity in ways that challenge its non-exercise by leaders in the limelight. While Barack Obama, as a presidential candidate, failed to show sensitivity to difference by portraying Iraq as irresponsible and immature in his argument for ending the Iraq War, as president he has struggled with difference in ways that were, at times, more acutely attuned to the moral status of others and to cultural differences. When, for example, several Qurans were removed from a detention center in Afghanistan and discarded and burned on the Bagram airbase, Obama responded by apologizing to Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, and the Afghan people through a phone call and formal letter. Calling the burning ‘inadvertent’, Obama expressed ‘deep regret’ and assured Karzai that he would take measures to ensure that it did not happen again and that those responsible for the burning would be held to account. This apology was coupled with apologies from other high-ranking U.S. government and NATO officials, including the NATO commanding general John R. Allen, who also ordered an investigation and all coalition service members to complete training in ‘the proper handling of religious materials’ in order to better respect the ‘noble’ people of Afghanistan (Rahimi and Rubin 2012). U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta offered his apology and Peter Lavoy, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, declared, ‘We as a military, did not meet our obligations to the Muslim community’ (Borger 2012). A spokesperson from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Jay Carney, issued these words: ‘We apologize to the Afghan people and disapprove of such conduct in the strongest possible terms. This was a deeply unfortunate incident that does not reflect the great respect our military has for the religious practices of the Afghan people’ (McDonald 2012). These apologies were significant, for one, in their acknowledgment of different communities with distinct religious values and cultural practices that should be affirmed, even in the midst of the exigencies of military operations. U.S. officials characterized their failures from the evaluative standpoint of those who had been offended, in terms of disregard for a text regarded as sacred not only in its message, but in its materiality as well. Others, of course, disagreed with the apology and trivialized the incident or bemoaned how it made the United States look weak.31 From this perspective the intensity of the Afghan outrage was incomprehensible. Borrowing from Butler’s (2004a) assessment of post-9/11 policies, it was if to understand others’ reactions was to excuse them. Obama and his administration, in contrast, took note of the reactions and messages from Afghanistan when the Quran had previously been ill treated by U.S. forces and Guantanamo interrogators. Obama’s response in this particular incident was also consistent with a broader attitude of humility. As one journalist noted in the midst

Introduction  15 of Republican criticism of the presidential apology, ‘Obama has sought to bring [a more humble tone] to American foreign policy after the swaggering approach of his predecessor, George W. Bush’ along with policy changes, such as ending interrogation policies that were labelled ‘torture’ by the International Committee of the Red Cross, in an effort to repair relations with the “Islamic world”’ (Wilson 2012). Still, Obama has been less successful in changing war-time policies and his administration dramatically increased the use of drones in several countries, showing a persistent unwillingness to first acknowledge and then discuss drone policies and procedures. In addition, the Obama administration has prosecuted potential ‘whistleblowers’ at an unprecedented rate who have released or facilitated the release of information about U.S. foreign policy. There was also reciprocity between the United States and Afghanistan in the exchanges that followed the Quran-burning incident. Though Karzai’s security adviser noted that protest was an understandable response to the treatment of the Quran, Karzai responded to the apology and the violence against NATO troops by entreating Afghans to ‘not resort to violence’ while protesting (Kelly and Shayler 2012). And Afghanistan’s defence minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, apologized to Leon Panetta, the U.S. Defense Secretary, for the killing of Americans following the burning. These actions are crucial steps for deepening the bonds that propel and are propelled by the desire to meet one another’s needs and to take actions that benefit another. As Aristotle wrote (1984, 1991), when friends are able to communicate their needs and when they are heard and responded to, friendship is deepened, even between those who are very different from one another. Political friendships may be expedient, but they are more enduring when friends address matters of justice, and what is just for one may differ from what is just for the other. Noting that to apologize is a tradition of both the Christian and Islamic faiths, The Christian Science Monitor drew on the multiplicity of U.S. identity to offer the hope that the process of apologizing and forgiving, if the apology was judged as sincere, would offer ‘an opportunity for both faiths to better understand each other’s religious desire for personal contrition and mercy’ (The Monitor’s Editorial Board 2012). Nevertheless, to hold up this incident and the response to it as reflecting and furthering friendship should not be mistaken for the view that respect and regard for difference are deep or will be enduring. Aristotle’s discussion of friendship was often a discussion of friendliness, as an active and continuous affect and not just a relationship status. Political friendships especially benefit from small gestures because these instances of friendliness can constitute a reciprocated feeling that begets attentiveness to others and their needs. The contextual view of the United States–Afghanistan relationship is one that was and continues to be strained by perceptions that each party has not attended to the other’s needs and desires. Afghans have especially felt that their culture and religion are disregarded and even looked down upon. President Karzai had long asked coalition forces to cease night raids that are insulting to families and communities. And the military presence itself has often been felt as an occupation, even by those Afghans who had concerns about their security as NATO and U.S. forces began to wind down their presence heading into 2013. Finally, Obama helped to undermine his own

16 Introduction apology somewhat when, after the criticism of the Republican primary contenders, he responded to a reporter’s questions about the effects of the apology. In what might be described as an apprehensive demeanor, Obama explained why he apologized: ‘The reason that it was important is that it save [sic] lives and to make sure that our troops who are there right now are not placed in further danger . . . It calmed things down . . . My criteria in any decision I make . . . is what is best going to protect our folks and make sure that they can accomplish their mission’ (Nightline 2012). It is also important to distinguish between ‘ethical reflexivity’ and ‘strategic reflexivity’, the latter alluded to by Obama’s instrumental characterization of the Quran-burning apology (perhaps for domestic consumption). Strategic reflexivity is more concerned with how to achieve a predetermined objective than with scrutinizing goals and normative guideposts. It is the form of reflexivity we find in Robert McNamara’s reconsideration of American foreign policy (Morris 2003) when he called for empathy in order to understand the goals and desires of the enemy relative to the objectives the United States sought to achieve. Less than a month after the Quran-burning incident, a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan left his military base and killed sixteen Afghan civilians, among whom nine were children (Shah and Bowley 2012). Like the Quran incident that preceded it, U.S. leaders once again found themselves apologizing, but unlike previous presidential apologies during and prior to Obama’s administration, this response was unique in the way that it elevated the moral worth of Afghans.32 President Obama made this statement: The United States takes this as seriously as if it was our own citizens, and our own children, who were murdered. We’re heartbroken over the loss of innocent life. The killing of innocent civilians is outrageous and it’s unacceptable. It’s not who we are as a country, and it does not represent our military. (Sidner 2012) This statement was particularly remarkable because a sitting president gave equal moral regard to a foreign people, equating them to American citizens, and invoking one of the deepest and most intimate relationships many Americans have (other than the relationship with their spouse/partner)—that of parent and child, situating Afghan children as just as precious as American children. The apology’s exceptional quality was noticed. An Afghan social scientist, Haseeb Humayoon, reported that, ‘The statement coming from President Obama, saying the killing of Afghan children felt the same as if they were American children, was reported widely by the local press. Previously you would have a bland apology’ (Nordland 2012). Obama’s response, I would like to suggest, is part of a recent, albeit checkered, pattern of presidential discourse that has prioritized recognition of difference and the evaluation of alternative courses of action through the consideration of past actions and their consequences, beginning with Obama’s Cairo speech of 2009 through his address to the United Nations’ General Assembly in September of

Introduction  17 2012 (Obama 2009, 2012b). Narratives also compete in domestic and global discursive space. Because some individuals in the U.S. government and much of the media emphasized a narrative in which these individual acts and the policies that made them possible were viewed as exceptional and singular, opportunities for critical reflection on broader policies, strategies and tactics in Afghanistan were nevertheless limited. One U.S. official acknowledged the similarity with other recent events that included the Quran burning and U.S. marines caught on video urinating on the dead bodies of Afghans, but worried that ‘all these incidents, taken together, play into the Taliban’s account of how we treat the Afghan religion and people. And while we all know that’s a false account—think how many the Taliban have killed, and never once taken responsibility—it’s a very hard perception to combat’ (Sanger 2012). Here, the concern is not the behavior of the United States and whether it should be altered in light of the agencies of others; instead, the focus of these comments is on how Afghan perception could or could not be aligned with reality, a reality that, only with the rare exception, could be characterized by the speaker as honorable and righteous U.S. conduct. This reflection on past conduct falls short of reckoning with the totality of the self’s action, how that action has reflected specific normative and historical assessments (thought), has elicited certain responses and, in turn, how both thought and action might be revised. Finally, this U.S. foreign policy discourse is limited by a political culture that has long insisted on universal values (as a form of ‘American exceptionalism’). While Obama has gone to great lengths to recognize difference and the agency of others, he has insisted (often in the same speeches), and not investigated, that certain values are universal; the effect is often to foreclose conversation on the deepest tensions within and between the U.S. Self and Others. Instead of the critical, dialectic and dialogic rationality of reflexivity and the cultivation of affective dispositions that support reflexivity, such as philia and humility (along with others that I will detail in Chapter 4, such as wonder and curiosity, imagination, a diachronic orientation, multiplicity of the self and a willingness to take personal risks), many have instead retreated to the moral certainty of the familiar, confident in the rightness of their judgment and their judgment alone, refusing to reflect on those elements of thought that they and those around them routinely invoke. Others yet have reacted to post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy by turning away altogether from ethical discourse and frameworks for guiding action. Simon Blackburn summarizes the historical record, ‘Moral certainties, and the causes and crusades mounted in their name, are dangerous things. The history of human moralizing is as grey and dismal, patchy and strained as any other part of human history’ (1998, p. 2). This is a position that some IR scholars have taken in light of yet another failed (liberal) moral project. Indeed, we have witnessed a renewed interest in realism after 9/11, inspired in particular by re-readings of classical realists and political interventions in public discourse by realist scholars on the war in Iraq and, later, the nature of the continuing conflict in Afghanistan.33 It was E.H. Carr (1981 [1939]), after all, who issued a devastating critique of ‘utopian’ moral projects and advocated realism as a strategy to expose the ways in which ‘interests’ can be cloaked in ‘morality’. Popular arguments against the Iraq

18 Introduction War also turned to realist narratives (though not exclusively), with arguments that a war in Iraq would not advance the security of the United States, was an unwise use of military resources, and would potentially disrupt the balance in the Middle East (opening the door, for example, to greater Iranian influence). Scholars from other schools of thought have embraced the role of the scholar as public intellectual who critiques from the sidelines or becomes involved in political and social movements that challenge privileged interests (Tickner 2006). They have offered their own critiques of post-9/11 policies, some invoking the just war tradition (Crawford 2003).34 A third position is found among those IR scholars who wish to remain apart from politics, whether because they believe their research and advice would be co-opted or because they wish to maintain a critical distance, and thus independence, from the halls of power. Yet, ethical and moral arguments remain ubiquitous and even IR theories that have sought to divorce themselves from all normative assumptions and commitments (e.g., neoliberalism and neorealism) nevertheless evince ethical or moral scripts as well as distinct views of ethical agency. In their widely discussed argument that U.S. foreign policy is too attentive to Israeli foreign policy objectives, neorealist scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (2006, 2007) were unusually candid in this regard, offering both strategic and ethical reasons for scaling back U.S. support of Israel’s interests. Beyond specific policies, realists value the order and security of a states system based on sovereignty that ultimately protects communities, which have a morally privileged status. As Morgenthau urged (1978), a state’s obligation is to ensure the survival and flourishing of its citizens, for only individuals can sacrifice themselves for morality. To advance reflexivity as agency requires that IR scholars recognize and acknowledge their theories’ normative assumptions and aims. A comprehensive account of reflexivity as a form of ethical agency that extends through global politics and its study cannot ignore power and strategic action; both have and will have a continuous presence. Carr’s compelling portrait of ‘sound’ political thought, in his words, is based on elements of both utopia and reality. Where utopianism has become a hollow and intolerable sham, which serves merely as a disguise for the interests of the privileged, the realist performs an indispensable service in unmasking it. But pure realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society impossible. (Carr 1981, p. 93) Rather than an explanatory theory, Carr saw realism as more of an approach—as a useful corrective for any moral vision of international society, to make international society possible (realistic) without stripping political thought of its ability to formulate and pursue worthy social goals. Realism can be brought to bear to purge international society of the ‘self-interest and hypocrisy’ that develop when a normative vision takes ‘concrete political form’ (p. 93).35 Realism, for Carr, is an attitude of skepticism and a device for unearthing the motives of world actors in

Introduction  19 order that their intents might be made transparent, so that a vision of international order may be worked toward that is not built on false hope, mistaken assumptions, or abuses of power. Practices of ethics appropriate to global politics, including those practices that emanate from IR theories, need reflexivity to draw out how thought has been appropriated, when it has limited utility, and how it has resulted in undesirable outcomes. Without this reflexivity theories and thought take on a defensive stance. Ethical and moral projects become ossified and are instrumentally deployed by those who wish to maintain and undergird the status quo. In other words, reflexivity is itself a form of power; it is a practice of the self that generates new ways of thinking and living. Thought, whether found in practices of international ethics or theories of world politics, benefits from and is reinvigorated by the critical lens of reflexivity because it helps to draw out when thought no longer usefully or desirably serves action, which involves, above all else, human judgment. A dialectical approach treats knowledge as contingent and thus unstable. There is thus a further proposition here about ontological instability. Alker et al. (1989: 135–6) explain: A dialectical world outlook views both human existence and knowledge about that existence as unstable (contradictory and changing), holistically interrelated (undergoing processes of opposition and integration), and primarily composed through the working out of internal (identity-maintaining or identity-modifying) relationships of subjects, their actions, and the contexts of their occurrence. Instead of a search for moral and empirical facts, as scholars and agents of international and global politics we might aim for knowledge as well-reasoned conjectures that withstand scrutiny and are held contingently—to other ethico-empirical conjectures, to agency, politics, and ethical judgments. Ethical reflexivity itself contributes to ontological change—to surprising and unexpected self-transformation and that which it enables. I seek to present an alternative to the moral certainty of political projects that have turned so many theorists toward the triptych of empiricism, power, and interests. Instead, I seek to highlight and advance reflexive ethical agency suited for a world of difference and vulnerability and realized through individuals’ interpretive and affective powers. Ethical reflexivity is a powerful practice of international and global politics because it equips individuals, organizations and communities with the attitudes and tactics to recognize, interrogate and potentially change the stories they tell—about the constraints of politics, the possibilities of relationality and responsibility, and visions of desirability. In sum, it is a more perspicacious, competent, and creative ethical agency.

Organization of the book This book can be read in a variety of ways. The major conceptual infrastructure of the practice of ethical reflexivity is developed through a discussion of Aristotle in Chapter 1 and of Arendt, Giddens, and Foucault in Chapter 2. At the end of

20 Introduction Chapter 2 I summarize the major features of ethical reflexivity’s practice, and in Chapter 3 I elaborate the attitudes, dispositions, skills and tactics of one who practices ethical reflexivity (the global phronimos) with ideal-type examples of how ethical reflexivity might take form in view of unequal but fluctuating power relations, and social and organizational forces, pressures, and incentives. Thus, those interested in the more concrete expression of ethical reflexivity that I have imagined might first skip to the last third of Chapter 2 and to Chapter 3. In Chapters 1 and 2 the reader will find that I elaborate ethical reflexivity as the dialectic, dialogic, and affective navigation of thought and action coupled with a critical ontology of the self, wherein we investigate our subjectivity and the potential for its transformation as a response to difference, relationship, and epistemological uncertainty. As a practice of ethics for global politics, ethical reflexivity features an Aristotelian-based agent who engages in a practical but critical and affective form of ethical reasoning, imagining and intuition; this is my interpretation of Aristotle’s phronesis. I explain how rhetoric and emotions, especially friendliness, aid the critical rationality of ethical reflexivity, even under unequal conditions of speech. To impart ethical reflexivity with the robustness to orient our ethical judgments in ways that respond to the uncertainty, contingency, and complexity of knowledge; the self/other aspects of identity and policy narratives; normalizing and dominant discourses; and bureaucratic dynamics and cultures, I turn to Hannah Arendt, Anthony Giddens, and Michel Foucault. Together, these authors locate reflexivity in modernity or late modernity and gesture toward reflexivity’s promise and potential for responding to its challenges. The task that I take up is to give an account of reflexivity as a suitable and enduring ethics and propose the form that reflexivity might take. In Chapter 2 I elaborate ethical reflexivity as an attitude and a dialectic, dialogic, and affective process for magnifying and leveraging the tension between thought and action, punctured only by decisions to act. This practice strengthens ethical agency as attending to the self and to the intersection of agencies in everyday politics. As an attitude it opens outward in its responsiveness to critique and the pursuit of self-transformation. In Chapter 3 I discuss agency and responsibility in an organizational and social context and formulate more specific attitudes, dispositions, and tactics through which reflexivity can gain traction and take form in the global phronimos. Affect, intuition and mutual feeling join and aid critical rationality so that we may articulate and confront ethical challenges, appraise and challenge subjectivities and avoid value reification. Ethically reflexive agents (phronimos) are less likely to have their ‘moral imaginations’ co-opted by the organization because they are able to draw on and articulate various moral resources in addition to critically reflecting upon the principles and purposes of the organization. One implication of such a practice is that national, international, transnational or other identities, policies and decisions can be continuously interrogated and potentially recrafted, not by reified ‘states’, ‘IOs’ and ‘NGOs’, but by the individuals who represent their institutions through the interpretation of meaning and context. They are most capable of building and exercising ethical agency in international and global

Introduction  21 politics. Instead of a process for the whole of global politics, I position ‘ethical reflexivity’ as a practice that can be taken up by any agent. As such, it is available to all actors of international politics but not required of any of them (avoiding exclusionary and state-centric ethical practices). The prospects for its organizational embeddedness, however, are limited due to ethical reflexivity’s far-reaching interrogation of thought and action couplings, and the tendency of those who seek to protect the organization to co-opt and dampen radical ideas and reject or downplay contradictions and perplexities. In the second half of the book I treat this proposal to empirical consideration through the lens of three ethical challenges in international and global politics over the last two decades. These cases can be read in any order; each provides a partial but compelling view of the benefits of ethical reflexivity and the ways in which we might locate some emergent strands of its practice. I undertake a study of self-understandings and possibilities for ethical agency, along with their organizational and social contexts. To examine the humanitarian impulse of the 1990s as prominently featured in certain historical narratives that neglect ethical agency, I investigate the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Next, I tackle a major ethical issue that arose with the War on Terror in the beginning of the twenty-first century as U.S. policymakers articulated and practiced a policy of ‘enhanced interrogation’ that others believed was torture, examining both internal and external reactions to this policy. Finally, I take on the case of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or ‘drones’), investigating how drone practices have been evaluated both at home and abroad, and the silence of the U.S. government despite the potential for drones to radically alter the physical and ethical dimensions of global violence. These case studies serve four purposes. First, I use these cases to identify the self-understandings of ethical agency among individuals in organizations and societies, and demonstrate that the everyday exercise of agency by individuals, even while structurally embedded, matters for interpreting the outcomes and patterns of world politics. Second, through these cases the practice of ethical reflexivity is empirically fleshed out and I show how each case uniquely contributes to investigating and understanding the specific features of ethical reflexivity. Third, I inquire into whether certain characteristics of organizational culture promote ethical reflexivity while others inhibit it. Fourth, by drawing out the ways in which ethical agency either failed or succeeded we can imagine what a practice of ethical reflexivity would look like and the benefits and challenges of its exercise. Inspired by Aristotle, Foucault, and Arendt, I endeavor to sketch a vision of world politics that relies less on norms, rules, and law for deriving an ethics, and turns more sharply to continuous self-examination, critique, and judgment. One reason for yet another examination of the genocide in Rwanda is that it is uniformly framed as a moral failure, as stemming from the unwillingness to respond to genocide by those who were capable of doing so, such as the United Nations, the United States, or the ‘international community’. A focus on practices of ethics from a micropolitical perspective, however, presents a different view. Rather than seeing the genocide and the lack of a collective response as an ‘event’, disaggregating ‘Rwanda’ refuses to see ethical agency as belonging to only

22 Introduction certain actors (IOs and powerful states). Instead, I provide a more holistic picture of the response by investigating how various agents acted and reacted as the genocide unfolded, especially Rwandans and individuals within the International Committee of the Red Cross. Through this analytic view I investigate whether at least some agents acted with ‘ethical reflexivity’, whether organizational cultures and their collective narratives of self-understanding accommodated or inhibited ethical reflexivity, and whether ethically reflexive agents (or global phronimos) were more capable of making critical judgments dialectically, dialogically, and affectively even when faced with organizational dysfunctions, coercive social narratives, and violence. This chapter highlights the collective and individual aspects of ethical reflexivity, and it gestures toward how Rwanda continues to be portrayed and characterized in ways that do not appear to resonate with many Rwandans and that overly simplify this post-genocide and post-civil war society. In Chapter 5 I extend my analysis to the case of ‘enhanced interrogation’ in the United States during the War on Terror, asking to what extent the internal debate among policymakers and practitioners featured at least some agents who examined the issue with ‘critical rationality’ and acted on their ethical judgments. Though this case elicited widespread public debate via media outlets, particularly after the leak of photographs from Abu Ghraib, I find that both the public debate and the internal governmental debate focused less on the question of whether torture was ethical and more on whether torture as ‘enhanced interrogation’ was legal and efficacious. For the most part, among policymakers, interrogators, and pundits, legal and instrumental evaluations substituted for ethical evaluations in a struggle between different interpretations of domestic and international law. Even internal dissent largely fit this dominant framing. Where a dialectic and diachronic critical rationality was engaged, individuals limited their dissent to internal channels and were unable to take on the risk associated with a practice of ethical reflexivity. I close this chapter by pointing to the benefits of a wide range of ethical resources, and the costs of legal and strategic reasoning without ethical reasoning. Finally, in Chapter 6 I consider an emerging security practice that seemingly presents many difficult ethical questions, but has, thus far, been largely neglected as an ethical dilemma by U.S. policymakers and the media. Even though critical voices from abroad (at the level of the state, IO, NGO, community, and individual) have protested drones on both ethical and legal grounds, and one key administration official was likely ousted from the Obama administration as the result of his dissent (former director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair), the drone program was only recently publicly (or officially) acknowledged, and there is a dearth of dialogue and deliberation with those who are most profoundly affected by drones. While this case serves to demonstrate how the practice of ethical reflexivity has been absent, how internal legal evaluation has substituted for ethical evaluation, and as a ‘counterfactual’ to illustrate what ethical reflexivity might look like, the chapter’s unique added value to the book is that it demonstrates how ethical consideration benefits from and even requires public debate, affective engagement, and a certain kind of conversation. In this case we see how some individuals and

Introduction  23 groups employed tactics that momentarily leveled the discursive playing field to at least publicly narrate and draw attention to how drones have affected individuals and communities in ways that might be ethically problematic. It remains to be seen whether these discursive challenges can inform altered policies and decisions. The drones chapter is also important for considering whether the technology of modernity poses unique obstacles and demands for a practice of ethics. Does ethical reflexivity have its limits? It seems likely given cognitive and political dynamics and difficulties. Yet, because ethical reflexivity as practice is informed by humility and uncertainty balanced by a hopeful disposition, ethical reflexivity aims to be both realistic and critically aspirational, a modification of E.H. Carr’s realist-utopian dialectic. In the conclusion I consider some of the potential challenges and drawbacks to ‘ethical reflexivity’, including the shrinking of distance between deliberation, action and reaction in a hyperdigital and virtual world (Der Derian 2001). A significant challenge of scope also presents itself when we consider how widely ‘ethical reflexivity’ must be shared to have an impact. Another danger is that ‘ethical reflexivity’ could become a legitimating device for those agents who do not actually buy in to its introspective and transformational logic. Thus, social actors (including academics) must appraise how well and with what intentions actors refer to and engage dialogue, critical rationality, and the affect of care and friendship in politics, including, but not limited to, formulating and enacting foreign/international/global policies and actions. I defend ‘ethical reflexivity’ in light of these dangers and challenges.

Notes   1 William Connolly is a notable exception (though not explicitly directed at global politics) and I engage with arguments found primarily in Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (1991) and A World of Becoming (2011).   2 Even the ‘theoretical’, for Aristotle, can only be discerned in outline form.   3 This view of action is taken up by Amoureux and Steele (2014) with regard to the Just War tradition.   4 While it is common to use the term ‘international politics’ loosely, to include actors other than states and political matters that cannot be described as exclusive to the relations between states, I try to not fall back on this term and prefer to add ‘global’ or ‘world’ politics to my discussions in order to avoid reifying our subject matter as international only. I do, however, use the terms ‘International Relations’ and ‘IR’ to refer to the discipline that studies international, global and world politics because these terms are associated with a recognizable body of scholarship that I seek to engage here.   5 See the contributors to Amoureux and Steele (2016) for efforts to map out the ways in which reflexivity is invoked in IR as well as some innovative applications.   6 Hamati-Ataya (2012b, p. 633) seeks to ‘reconstitute the praxical meaning that informs IR scholars’ position-takings in relation to their position in the game and what the game and its stakes mean from that position’.   7 Loosely characteristic of rationalist, constructivist, and psychological approaches, respectively.   8 As Anthony Lang (2007) has noted, accounts of agency can be both ‘explanatory’ and ‘evaluative’, as modeled by Aristotle.

24 Introduction   9 See Ward Thomas (2001) for an argument that distinguishes a principle from a norm, but whether responsibility to protect falls into one category or another (see Bellamy 2012) makes no difference to my argument that, on its own, it doesn’t guarantee or even make more likely a satisfactory political outcome. 10 Dan Bulley (2010) briefly and vaguely concludes in favor of a debate-centered politics. 11 For critiques of assimilatory communication, see Shapcott (2001) and Todorov (1999). 12 Chris Brown drew my attention to the need to underscore the presence of a ‘basic story’ that we always start with, even if our goal is to potentially alter that story. 13 Habermas (1984), for example, requires a ‘common lifeworld’ for communicative rationality that generates ethical judgments. That such a lifeworld exists is debated. Examples that have been offered, such as the European Union (Risse 2000), indicate a possible limit to the scope of Habermasian discourse ethics if it depends on a fairly thick common identity and common institutions. Appropriations of Habermas in IR, however, do not always reflect the full range of Habermasian discourse ethics. There are several types of discourse, not all of which are equally amenable to universal consensus, including a distinction between moral and ethical discourse. And, for the international demos Habermas moved more toward a standard of fair bargaining as a more relaxed and appropriate form of cosmopolitanism (Bohman and Rehg 2014). 14 If, that is, it is an emotion appropriate to the situation and properly engaged. Aristotle is especially concerned with emotional moderation and the conditions under which some emotions, such as anger, are beneficial or harmful for ethical decision making. 15 Here, I gloss over any distinct differences between these bodies of thought and/or epochs of time. Instead, I stress continuity in the motivating questions and dominant theme—that of epistemology and questions of action when knowledge does not have a foundation or its foundation is obstructed from view. 16 Power is not just the juridical power of the state. See Foucault (1977a). 17 Hans Morgenthau is an exemplar in this regard. 18 See especially Chapter 1 of Undoing Gender (Butler, 2004b). 19 See Kristol and Kagan (1996). For a cultural example of this moral clarity on the War on Terrorism, see Bennett (2002). For detailed accounts of the decision making in the lead-up to the war and during the war, see Ricks (2006) and Woodward (2004). 20 Suskind (2004) writes of the faith-based style of management and decision making exhibited by President Bush, combined with intolerance for questioning and dissent. This created an atmosphere in the White House in which there was ‘a disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners’. 21 This referendum discourse was heard before the vote as well; it was even agreed to by President Bush (World News with Charles Gibson 2006). 22 All of this discourse about Iraqi recalcitrance may have had an effect on public opinion, with 57 percent of Americans polled by a USA TODAY/Gallup poll in September of 2007 agreeing that the ‘the Iraqi government isn’t capable of reaching political benchmarks’ and 54 percent agreeing that ‘the government isn’t sincerely pursuing them’ (Page 2007). 23 Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, often spoke of incentivizing Iraqis toward greater responsibility. 24 This ‘danger of civil war’ rhetoric was increasingly turned to as Democrats and the media began to declare that there was already a civil war in Iraq rather than just ‘sectarian violence’.

Introduction  25 25 In what can only be described as a bizarre lawn-cutting metaphor, Florida’s representative Rich Keller, a Republican, compared Iraqis to ungrateful neighbors who kill you and your family for mowing their overgrown lawn (Zeleny 2007). In addition, the bipartisan ‘Iraq Study Group’ also engaged in a discourse of getting tough with Iraqis in their proposal to withhold aid or threaten withdrawal if Iraqis did not meet certain ‘milestones’ for political reconciliation (Baker and Hamilton 2006, pp. 59–61). 26 Obama declared: ‘We’re not going to babysit a civil war’ on The Today Show on January 11, 2007 (Rogak 2008). 27 The video clip was accessed on www.hillaryclinton.com on 10 January 2008. 28 John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, attributed this development to the military success of the ‘surge’ (Abramowitz 2008). 29 These public opinion numbers were in the press more in 2006, leading up to the U.S. congressional mid-term elections. Polls taken in Iraq featured widespread dissatisfaction with the occupation much sooner among Iraqis with apparent majorities in every region of Iraq, with the exception of Kurdish regions, registering their desire for military forces to immediately withdraw. One poll reported that 71 percent of Iraqis preferred withdrawal within 1 year (Paley 2006). 30 It appears that conversations with the latter simply did not occur. 31 Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney all made various statements on this theme (Borger 2012; US Election 2012). 32 There have been other recent and notable presidential apologies. George W. Bush apologized for the abuse at Abu Ghraib and for a U.S. soldier who used a Quran for target practice. Bill Clinton apologized for bombing China’s embassy in Belgrade. 33 Many realists signed on to a letter criticizing the grounds for war in Iraq as well as its conduct in 2004. A group of realist scholars forming a ‘Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy’ urged Barack Obama to ‘refocus on al Qaeda and avoid an open-ended statebuilding mission in Afghanistan’ in a September 2009 letter (Smith 2009). For another example, see Mearsheimer (2009). 34 For an interpretation that supported the wars of the War on Terror, see Elshtain (2002). 35 Dunne (1998) argues that, rather than a classical realist, Carr is more properly considered a co-founder of the English School because he hoped for some kind of international society that will succeed, in part, by virtue of acknowledging the reality of power that can prompt actors in international politics to cloak their revisionist interests in the language of morality.

1 Aristotelian reflexivity

Aristotle’s theorization of ethical reasoning (phronesis) and the characteristics of the person who practices phronesis (the phronimos) serves as inspiration for key pieces of the practice of ‘ethical reflexivity’ that I develop for global politics. Aristotle is particularly instructive for developing reflexivity’s logic of critical rationality, which returns the focus to the ethical agent, whom practice- and process-based approaches to international ethics often neglect. I draw on Aristotle to argue that a practice of ethics should be useful and context-based via the dynamic navigation of thought and action where the phronimos employs critical and practical reasoning, affect, and imagination in deliberation and judgment about concrete occasions for action in view of ‘particulars’ and ‘universals’. Aristotle can also help us think about the skills and dispositions of agents that enable and promote ethical reflexivity. Practices (and actions in general) have agents. Even if we cannot say that all action is voluntary, for example, choice is still involved in ‘mixed’ actions, as Aristotle noted; we make decisions that initiate or contribute to sequences of events. Furthermore, our actions are connected to previous actions that have formed ‘dispositions’ or ‘habits’ over time. Aristotle mainly discussed disposition/habit (nomos or hexis) when referring to the ethical virtues, but also underscored the importance of experience in ethical reasoning for developing and fine-tuning phronesis. The continuity of phronesis, over the course of a ‘complete life’, imparts on this activity the regularity of a practice through self-cultivation, processes and tactics. Like Aristotle, we can think, then, about ethical reflexivity as continuous activity, in terms of both disposition and practice. As I argued in the introductory chapter, difference presents one of the greatest challenges for a practice of ethics in world politics, but responses have generally sought to identify norms and rules that are held in common. Rather than an intersubjective framework for the relationality of international and global politics that grants endurance via the thickness (or thinness) of social bonds and the largely unconscious behavior they give rise to, I favor a more self-conscious and active ethics that treats seriously the instability, variability, and heterogeneity of our interactions. Aristotle’s notions of virtue, deliberation, judgment, friendliness, and friendship are building blocks for an ethics that enacts ethical status to others in their particularity. Aristotle discusses ethical virtues and affective dispositions as

Aristotelian reflexivity  27 attending to our relations with others, and he ascribes significance to their variable qualities and kinds. Drawing on Aristotle, friendliness and friendship, in particular, can be presented as social frames through which we might support a practice of ethical reflexivity that thoughtfully treats difference throughout the various exchanges and activities of social life. Friendliness and friendship risk liking first and liking more and they must be sustained, but they bring pleasure, usefulness, and regard (even of the most virtuous kind) to our lives. Friendliness as affect draws attention to how an other-regarding disposition involves active consideration of the needs and desires of others, but even the lowest forms of friendship have helpful contributions to ethics. We attend to the justice of exchanges, for example, within all friendships, and closer friendships can withstand and even be sustained, in part, by pointing out one another’s errors. This affective disposition, I argue, is crucial for engaging the desire and willingness for mutual projects of care in global politics, but it is also important to the rhetoric of day-to-day political and social interaction. I also bring together Aristotle’s theorization of public discourse in On Rhetoric with his theorization of ethics in Nicomachean Ethics to tackle the intersection of individual and collective agencies in international and global politics. Here, the considered, interrogated and contextual judgments of the reflexive ethical agent should be intended to persuade and must, in turn, be judged as persuasive by others when we consider the ways in which speakers make effective ethical arguments that have traction as possible frames of understanding.1 Aristotle’s consideration of the speaker–audience dynamic is useful for situating a practice of ethics that posits the primacy of speech and in the context of unequal situations of speech, especially for small-scale interactions. Finally, I indicate in this chapter where I part ways with Aristotle, placing less emphasis on his metaphysics and his discussions of political institutions. My treatment of Aristotle should perhaps be briefly situated relative to other uses in the literature of International Relations (IR). Mark Kauppi and Paul Viotti (1992) wrote in the early 1990s that IR scholars have turned to Aristotle and have been indirectly influenced by him in a few different ways: ‘through his conceptual and empirical approach to political phenomena, his detailed examination of different types of state constitutions and the causes of instability, and his writings on economics’ (pp. 75–76). This statement characterizes applications of Aristotle to the field of Political Science more generally, but we’ve also seen over the last two decades greater focus on Aristotle’s vision of good life in the polis and its potential application to the international (Brown et al. 2002), including as an expression of the ‘emancipatory interest’ (Alker 1996). Even critical theorists have drawn on Aristotle as an alternative assessment of international life (Shapcott 2004), especially in terms of whether IR theories have made positive contributions to an Aristotelian vision of a (global) polis (Neufeld 1995). And IR scholars have investigated the extent to which Aristotle’s empirical framework is more amenable to an interpretivist epistemology and social constructivist ontology (Onuf 2013). We might question just how much Aristotle was concerned with relations between political communities and thus

28  Aristotelian reflexivity the relevance of his ideas for IR when it comes to the polis (Brown et al. 2002), or whether his metaphysics lends itself to this or that school of thought, but we can also (or instead) turn to Aristotle for his thinking about ethical agency, which perhaps bypasses some of these trickier questions. Along these lines, there have been some investigations of virtue and virtues in IR literature, but this work tends to theorize certain virtues as associated with or in service of an international society (Gaskarth 2012) or the practice of just war (Davis 1992), which is opposite to the direction I’m headed in (and potentially encounters problems from within Aristotle’s thought itself). In contrast, Chris Brown resituates the rules of just war as potentially (but not necessarily) ‘an aid to judgment—nothing more’ (2013, pp. 44–45), and stresses elsewhere (2012) that Aristotle’s purchase for the ‘practice turn’ in IR hinges more on the importance of active reasoning and experience than ‘habitual knowledge’.2 Anthony Lang (2004, 2007) has also moved in the direction of Aristotle’s view of judgment by situating the latter’s influence on Hans Morgenthau, who turned away from a purely self-interested and fear-based account of agency, to an agency that, when well cultivated among statespersons, can recognize that just as they have ‘interests and needs’ so too do other state representatives. This Aristotelian presence is manifest as more than a form of ethical reasoning that prioritizes context; it also folds in Aristotle’s affect of friendliness via an awareness of the limits of universal moral principles.3 Diplomacy, on this account, is a struggle to follow ethical standards even while individual and community tendencies and characteristics (e.g., pursuit of power, cultural differences, unpredictability of action) make this a difficult task that must be attended to with some amount of empathy and mutual respect of different interests and goals (Lang 2007, pp. 31–32). Because Aristotle’s account of agency is both ‘explanatory’ and ‘evaluative’, it differs from constructivist accounts of agency entangled in an agency-structure analysis that do not have much to contribute to how we might evaluate the activity of international politics, including foreign policy, as the activities of agents (Lang 2007, p. 21). Lang’s is a compelling realist rendition of Aristotle, yet it has some (realist) modifications that don’t mesh as well with Aristotle, such as Morgenthau’s emphasis on ‘self-interested goals’ (Lang 2007, p. 33). From Lang’s (2004) inspection of Morgenthau’s lectures on Aristotle we learn that Morgenthau was critical of Aristotle for neglecting power. While Aristotle’s conceptualization and discussion of power are not as sophisticated as we now find in the IR literature, Aristotle was aware of power differences which attend to social, political and familial status as well as roles that we assume or have access to (such as speaker and audience). Aristotle also found significant just how much we can be said to have control over our actions, relative to others having control over us, and relative to the intervention of external forces on both the conditions of choices and the consequences of choices. Whether or not we agree with Aristotle’s analysis of hierarchy and power (particularly his evaluation of their naturalness), Morgenthau is perhaps unfair in accusing Aristotle of dismissing power. Also, Aristotle’s concern with the self and even with the cultivation of the self in terms of an aesthetics

Aristotelian reflexivity  29 of character and choice moves beyond the realist notion of interests as that which is salient for ethics and politics. Aristotle’s notion of agency is also important for its attempt to balance the contingency of action with the purposefulness of thought. Negotiating thought and action well, especially in light of the variability of universals relative to particulars and the unpredictability of action, can be a skill or competency that is cultivated within the self (Amoureux and Steele 2014). It is also not enough to say that Aristotle’s concern with ethics is not exactly politics. While I do not focus on constitutions and legislation directly, phronesis, affect, and the ethical virtues play a direct role, we’ll see, in the rhetoric of the public sphere (Rowland and Womack 1985; Triadafilopoulos 1999), and in political leadership, which can move a good regime (categorized abstractly) down the path of a bad regime (in practice). In this chapter I provide significant detail on Aristotle’s approach to ethics, both because of the promise I find in Aristotle for elaborating a reflexive ethicopolitical practice, and because Aristotle’s views provide a kind of baseline for (mostly) Western accounts of judgment in that he agrees and disagrees with Plato on key issues that are debated today and he is engaged by the remaining authors I discuss both directly and indirectly with regard to certain themes, issues and arguments. By the end of the next chapter (Chapter 2) I retain and modify the Aristotelian reflexivity detailed in the pages that follow.

Aristotle’s phronesis and phronimos: agency, agents and critical rationality Aristotle’s contextual and practical approach to ethics is at odds with much of political theory today (including much of international political theory), which tends to theorize through logical abstraction.4 I would like to suggest that Aristotle may be appropriate for an approach to international and global politics that has instead dispensed with the bifurcation of the normative and analytical, and prioritizes uncertainty, contingency and complexity. Aristotle brings the ethical and political together in the form of practical philosophy. Ethics is practical in that it is concerned with how to act on particular occasions, marked by specific empirical features (Aristotle 1984, p. 1142a); ethics, in other words, should be useful for addressing everyday problems we come across in the world. As Martha Nussbaum (1994, p. 58f) writes, ethical arguments for Aristotle ‘must be chrēsimoi, “useful,” [and] have an ophelos, “helpful contribution”’ to life. Such an approach differs from ideal/non-ideal theorizing that envisions some state of affairs, often structural, as that to be worked toward and assesses action with regard to which actions advance it (e.g., a Rawlsian world of democracies and ‘decent peoples’); in this way, ideal theorizing informs non-ideal theorizing (Rawls 1996, 1999, 2001, pp. 13, 64–65). Instead, in an Aristotelian approach agents attend to ethics by inquiring into how they might act in view of the features of specific situations, here and now. This argument may seem uncontroversial since ethics is commonly conceptualized as that which is helpful for guiding action and resolving dilemmas in many spheres of action, including the political, professional and religious. But for

30  Aristotelian reflexivity Aristotle, ethics is also about judgment and its critical and affective rationality. Ethics is not reducible to abstract theorizing about morality, nor is praxis the mere application of a universal theory of morality or conventional rules. Instead, ethics is contextual judgment about things that vary in which both reason and feeling participate; the relevant details are discerned from within specific situations and made sense of through reason and through a well-developed sense of pleasure, pain, honor, dishonor, and other affective responses. Any elements of thought that guide action (such as values, beliefs, rules or what Aristotle terms ‘universals’) are employed only in view of particulars and are even evaluated against them.5 Aristotle elaborates a practice for making and acting upon judgments that he designates as phronesis. Phronesis, sometimes translated as ‘practical wisdom’ or ‘prudence’, is an intellectual virtue and ‘a prudent man is thought to be one who is able to deliberate well concerning what is good and expedient for himself’ and for ‘living well [in general]’ (Aristotle 1984, 1140a25–29). Thus prudence is a kind of master virtue. Those with prudence can discern and interpret which universals and which ethical virtues are relevant and where they are at the ‘mean’ relative to the particulars of situations and persons (1106a). The mean is not an arithmetic average; rather it is between deficiency and excess (both of which destroy the virtue) and it is proportionate to the individual and context. Aristotle uses the example of food—a proper diet for a seasoned athlete like Milo, who is reputed to have carried a 4-year-old heifer through the Olympia stadium and consumed the whole of it that night, is quite different from that of a novice athlete. Still, arriving at the mean, even with contextual considerations in mind, is difficult. We might try to employ various tactics that circle around the mean and move back and forth across the mean (as detailed in Book 2 of Nicomachean Ethics) and this process is aided by experience, but locating the right virtue, in the right amount and for the right time, will remain an imprecise and contested activity. Thus, more than a capacity, phronesis and its various strategies and tactics entail the continuous activity of deliberation, action and reaction. Ethical action, which concerns what is good for persons, does not correspond to scientific knowledge. ‘Scientific knowledge’ rests on the ‘belief of universal and necessary things’; universals are things that are said of many things (Cohen 2009) and ‘necessary things’ are things we cannot affect and that do not vary. Aristotle writes that ‘what is scientifically known is demonstrable, while art and prudence are things which may or may not be’ (1984, 1140b–1141a).6 In other words, ethics deals in variance and specifics, things that we cannot predict and matters that cannot be resolved through normative statements of general application. Indeed, it would be pointless to deliberate about things that are always the same, like the sunrise, or things that we cannot affect, like natural disasters.7 Aristotle goes on to stipulate that, in dealing with this variance we must be attentive to the particulars of each situation: ‘Now prudence is not limited to what is universal but must know also the particulars; for it is practical, and action is concerned with particulars’ (1984, 1141b). Here Aristotle points out that the person who knows that ‘light meats’ are healthy (the universal) but not that chicken is a light, healthy meat from experience (the particular) does not possess knowledge that can be acted upon. It is important to note that this example is not trivial for Aristotle

Aristotelian reflexivity  31 and the Greeks more generally. As Michel Foucault concluded in his study of Greek sexual ethics, food was far more important than pleasure and food was not seen as an art as in cooking, but as ‘a matter of choosing’, given various considerations, such as climate, season, humidity and food’s dryness (Foucault 1997b, p. 259). Aristotle rejects abstract and universal principles for guiding action because they do not satisfactorily deal with complexity and contingency. Richard Kraut (2009) summarizes Aristotle on this point: ‘What must be done on any particular occasion by a virtuous agent depends on the circumstances, and these vary so much from one occasion to another that there is no possibility of stating a series of rules, however complicated, that collectively solve every practical problem’. Richard Ruderman (1997) adds that phronesis is often concerned with choosing from ‘multiple ends’ in each situation (e.g., security and freedom). And Arash Abizadeh, in a similar reading of Aristotle, notes the ‘indeterminacy’ of laws and rules (written and unwritten nomos) when an agent makes ethical choices about concrete situations. Abizadeh summarizes the reasons that this is so: In part, this inexactness arises from the fact that (1) abstract rules developed ex ante cannot cover every particular contingency that may arise in the future, (2) What is good unconditionally (haplôs) may not necessarily be good for me (or good for this or that person or people), (3) Abstract rules, sound as they may be in general, turn out sometimes to be inapplicable in particular cases. (Abizedah 2002, p. 269f)8 Future contingencies, the specifics of particular situations, and variation in what is good for persons and peoples are all reasons that we cannot rely on general and abstract statements, rules, theories, and values (all of which Aristotle would refer to as ‘universals’). Instead, we should identify the relevant features of a situation, and when we draw on universals, such as rules, they should be interpreted for their application and only invoked when they have been evaluated against the situation for their usefulness. Universals—their designation and interpretation—are ultimately contingent on judgment. It is in view of particulars, then, that we see and decide how and whether universals are relevant; universals can only ever be guides, and provisional ones at most. Or, as Daniel Devereux (1986) recounts, universals err. Rules guiding the treatment of patients exhibiting certain symptoms, for example, may be too general and thus uninformative, or they may be detailed but unable to deal with complicating factors (Devereux 1986, p. 495). In the case of the 2003 war in Iraq, we have seen how universals might err; declaring ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’ as universal goods and generalizing from the Persian Gulf War were arguably insufficient guides for ethical action given the political and social instability and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths that ensued in the next decade, a possibility that should have been more seriously entertained by the George W. Bush administration. In contrast, an Aristotelian account of deliberation draws on both particulars and universals to aim at a satisfactory or appropriate outcome. 9 The United States might have asked, for example, whether declaring their intent to

32  Aristotelian reflexivity spread democracy across the Middle East via the threat of war might elicit a negative response and, in turn, what that might mean for action. Yet, as Judith Butler (2004a) has pointed out with reference to the attacks of September 11, 2001, this contextual reasoning must also look back to assess how others have reacted to U.S. actions in the past. Furthermore, Aristotle underscores throughout his discussion of phronesis that situations for action vary so much that agents inevitably experience uncertainty. This uncertainty should be met with caution and modesty at all levels of thinking about right action (Aristotle 1984, 1094b, 1104a). Aristotle proposes: Let us agree on that other matter, namely, that all statements concerning matters of action should be made sketchily and not with precision, for, as we said at first, our demands of statements should be in accordance with the subjectmatter of those statements; in matters concerning action and expediency, as in those of health, there is no uniformity. And if such is the universal statement, a statement concerning particulars will be even less precise; for these do not come under any art or precept, but those who are to act must always consider what is proper to the occasion, as in medical art and in navigation. (Aristotle 1984, 1104a) Throughout his work on ethics and politics Aristotle reiterates the imprecision and vagueness of the answers we might give to questions both theoretical and practical, even as we find value in the search for what is appropriate and good. And although we have meaningful choices, they are not unmitigated. In Book Three of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (1984, 1111a23–24) treats at length how our actions are not always voluntary (‘that whose [moving] principle is the agent who knows the particulars on which the action depends’) but ‘mixed’—involving conditions and pressures from others that are out of our control, alternative courses of action that are not entirely good in situations that greatly vary, in ignorance of the consequences of our actions, and deceived by our perceptions (Aristotle 1984, 1110a–1111a, 1114b). Nevertheless, we still make choices which, to varying degrees, are blameworthy or praiseworthy. We can be held responsible, in particular, when our ignorance was about something we could have easily learned, or out of laziness (Aristotle 1984, 1113b–1114a). We can even say that we should deliberate about things that can be brought about indirectly—by our friends, for example, because we can be the moving force of a friend (Aristotle 1984, 1112b27–30). And we are responsible for the formation of our affective responses as habits or dispositions; we can be blameworthy for ‘living without restraint’ and thus ‘responsible for having become men of such a kind, e.g., unjust or intemperate’ (Aristotle 1984, 1114a4–6). We see here the extent to which Aristotle brought an attitude of humility to the uncertainty and complexity of thought and action even while he expected agents to be accountable and to eagerly avoid mediocre and bad outcomes in their pursuit of a life of excellence. Aristotle identified those who have experience making sound decisions as better able to engage in phronesis (though because it is an intellectual virtue, teaching (theoria) is also involved). They (phronimos) are more practiced in employing

Aristotelian reflexivity  33 ‘perception’ and ‘sensation’ that make particulars apparent and they have encountered and deliberated about many different situations. Aristotle thus declares: ‘Prudence is concerned with particulars, which become familiar from experience; but a young man is not experienced, for experience requires much time’ (1984, 1094b–1095a, 1141a, 1142a). Developmentally, he rules out the reasoning and thinking of youth, but also the elderly who are feeble and unable to match words with deeds. Aristotle, in other words, views the ‘deliberating agent’ as the key component of ethical judgment, especially an agent who demonstrates situational appreciation by ‘look[ing] to what suits the occasion’ and who has also shown himself to judge well (1984, 1103b) and act on those judgments. Nevertheless, experience alone is not enough to ensure sound judgment. Aristotle devotes a great deal of attention to thinking about what makes good deliberation and what goes along with it. It is through perception (aesthēsis) and deliberation (bouleusis) that we identify the salient ethical features of the situation. In addition to logic or reasoning (logos), character (êthos), emotion (pathos) and even imagination (phantasia) help us draw out the various choices we might make.10 We also see that the ethical agent should give the greatest weight to particulars even if s/he is experienced and proven in ethical judgment. Rules or universals, whether derived deductively or from experience, are not prior to perception; they cannot be firmly grasped outside of concrete situations. Deliberation also has a ‘rightness’, Aristotle argues, when it ‘brings about a good’, is ‘beneficial’ or is ‘expedient in relation to an end’ (1984, 1142b). Objects of action, then, cannot be just any end or goal that a person might aim for, exemplified by instrumental rationality or what Aristotle terms ‘shrewdness’; nor should action aim for that which is ‘bad’, making such action ‘unscrupulous’; and particulars always have greater weight than universals in these decisions. Agents thus ascertain what is good, and thus what to aim for, but they do so in the form of specific ethical judgments. One might object that Aristotle’s task in The Nicomachean Ethics is theorizing the good (as a task of philosophy) and offering phronesis as deliberation only about the appropriate means to achieve the end of the already-known good for each situation. In this account the end (as the good) is not subject to the farreaching critique and revision of thought that I have in mind for reflexivity’s logic of critical rationality. Aristotle’s theorization of ethics is indeed often labeled ‘teleological’ because Aristotle inquires into human’s (or, man’s) telos as a guide for action, concluding that it is to live a complete life of ‘activity of the soul according to virtue’; just as the function of a lyre player is to play the lyre well, man’s function is to pursue goods, especially the highest good, with excellence (1098b). Aristotle offers evidence that this is so, noting that human activity is commonly directed toward achieving some good (1984, 1097b). Aristotle notes that men often describe the highest good as a kind of eudaimonia, often translated as happiness, living and acting well, or human flourishing (1984, 1140a, 1095a, 1098b). Eudaimonia is the highest good because it is ‘complete’ and is always chosen ‘for its own sake and never for the sake of something else’ (1984, 1097a–1097b). Ethics, then, determines action appropriate for eudaimonia and the many lesser goods that may aid in our efforts to live well and flourish.

34  Aristotelian reflexivity We see in several translations of The Nicomachean Ethics, such as those by Apostle, Rackham and Ross (Ruderman 1997, p. 416), a means-centered phronesis in view of their interpretations of Aristotle’s discussion of the highest good.11 Apostle’s translation, for example, says the following: ‘Now we deliberate not about the ends but about the means to ends’ (Aristotle 1984, 1112b). David Wiggins (1975/1976) argues that this interpretation is troubled and asserts that the phrase pros to telos should be exegetically rendered as ‘what is towards the end’ rather than ‘means to an end’.12 Closely examining Ethics, Wiggins persuasively argues that Aristotle does not distinguish x that brings about y from x that, either in part or in total, constitutes y.13 Aristotle, Wiggins concludes, ‘is trying to treat deliberation about means and deliberation about constituents in the same way’ (1975/1976, p. 33). Thus the deliberation of phronesis also encompasses that which we aim for and the broader ideas that guide our action (‘universals’ and ‘ends’ for Aristotle). A man deliberates about what kind of life he wants to lead, or deliberates in a determinate context about which of several possible courses of action would conform most closely to some ideal he holds for himself, or deliberates about what would constitute eudaimonia here and now, or (less solemnly) deliberates about what would count as the achievement of the not yet completely specific goal which he has already set himself in the given situation. (Wiggins 1975/1976, p. 38, emphasis added) When we consider means as possible constituents of ends, the deliberation of phronesis (even in view of an end) also proceeds with continuous reference to both the means and the end in view of one another because our specifications are vague at the start and require continuous updating as action unfolds and we judge its implications. Indeed, activity done well, or with excellence, is not so much a concrete end as it is an orientation to life. We should also remember that Aristotle offered his account of goods and of the highest good in a spirit of modesty and humility. Aristotle reminds his readers that precision should be sought ‘only as much as the subject-matter allows and as much as is proper to the inquiry’ (1984, 1098b). Aristotle explicitly offers his thoughts for our consideration and evaluates his own thinking against the opinions of others from the beginning to the end of The Nicomachean Ethics, even while he notes where he disagrees with common opinion, offering arguments for doing so. He discusses the notion of the (highest) good by citing common beliefs using the qualifying phrase translated as ‘is thought’ (1984, 1094a). Aristotle also makes it clear that he wishes to sketch the good ‘in outline’ and notes that we should be ‘content’ to do so because: Noble and just things, with which politics is concerned, have so many differences and fluctuations that they are thought to exist only by custom and not by nature. Good things, too, have such fluctuations because harm has come from them to many individuals; for some men even perished because of wealth, others because of bravery. (Aristotle 1984 1094b)

Aristotelian reflexivity  35 We see in Aristotle an appreciation for the contingency of deliberating about the good. We might draw on what is commonly thought of as a starting point as long as we keep in mind that the good and our estimations of the good fluctuate as the context changes and as deliberation occurs, as the examples of wealth and bravery evince. An Aristotelian critical rationality also envisions agents who dynamically interrogate thought and action, potentially modifying each in view of the other. John Beiner (1983, p. 73) elaborates this dynamic capability of the phronimos: Phronesis moves back and forth, from universal to particular, and from particular to universal. It allows mastery of ethical predicaments without dependence upon a set of rules or codified principles to tell us when the particular is an instantiation of the universal (our conception of what is good in general), when it is an exception to the ethical norms we already live by, and when it calls for revision of our conception of the good. Rules can be, as Nussbaum (1990, p. 68) notes, ‘summaries or rules of thumb, highly useful for a variety of purposes, but valid only to the extent to which they correctly describe good concrete judgments, and to be assessed, ultimately, against these’. It is apparent, as reviewed above, that many authors find in Aristotle an emphasis on the importance of context for interpreting universals such as goods and the highest good, but others perceptively gesture toward the generative and transformational relationship between universals and particulars that Aristotle envisions and it is this capacity that I am especially interested in for elaborating ethical reflexivity. For Aristotle it is from particulars that we invoke, arrive at, and perhaps even alter universals. This critical form of rationality can make thought subject to revision in light of experience and dialectic reflection (not just applied and interpreted for specific occasions).14 What is possible, desirable and worthwhile is not obvious and, on this reading of Aristotle, can change over time as problems, doubts, new ideas, others’ interpretations, and different situations provide the material with which to evaluate the thought that orients our action. My interpretation of Aristotle gives the deliberation of phronesis significant scope, such that thought (as the good, the highest good, values, the aims of action, etc.) is assessed and revised as it is invoked and in light of its adequacy for informing ethical action.15 Furthermore, Aristotle is clear that thought, on its own, always remains vague (in outline form) until it can be formulated and conceptualized for specific occasions. Norms, values, and theories of social life, in the Aristotelian account, are not reliable in the abstract and they are not free from error. When we bring this capacity of critical rationality to theories of IR certain concerns may arise, but also new possibilities. Ethical judgment as phronesis would entail, for example, a general skepticism that norms, such as human rights, and conceptual categories, such as security, are sufficient guides for action. It is occasions for action in world politics in their specificity that theories are meant to serve and meaningfully summarize. And, phronetic judgment treats thought as both a normative and empirical resource but also as subject to revision and abandonment

36  Aristotelian reflexivity in light of our capacity to critically evaluate experience. Such an approach might entail restylizing distinct theories of politics as looser and overlapping traditions of thought. What counts as ‘knowledge’, then, would not depend on some of the criteria we normally associate with science and scientific paradigms (particularly those that have been associated with Popper and Lakatos). Aristotle’s focus on the ethical agent (phronimos) as intelligently, critically, and perceptively responding to particular situations is not a quaint feature of ‘virtue ethics’ where character, once forged, determines whether one is or is not a sound decision maker. Rather, Aristotle believed that a person who as a matter of course makes good decisions is more practiced in discerning the particulars, interpreting and adapting universals, and critiquing and revising the ends of action themselves, including universals and other elements of thought. It is only through this continuous activity of deliberating and judging well that men become and are virtuous; and virtue characterizes activity with excellence, not a state of being.16 Inspired by Aristotle’s account, then, the ‘disposition’ of the phronimos can be summarized as one of humility in the face of the complexity and contingency of ethical judgment; an eagerness to advance and elicit various alternatives for particular situations; a willingness to call upon and probe universals while recognizing their limitations as guides for action and always open to realizing their ephemeral lifespan; and a readiness to take action upon deliberation, but a willingness to deliberate more slowly when there is greater uncertainty. From Aristotle’s account of phronesis we can also extrapolate critical rationality as a practice of ethical agency in which the phronimos would ask and answer certain questions, of two different orders. First-order questions concern the moral and ethical resources a deliberating agent can draw upon in conjunction with his or her imaginative and creative capacities for navigating a particular situation. Drawing from ‘thought’, and in view of particulars, one might ask: Which features of this situation, here and now, are relevant for making an ethical decision? Which moral and ethical resources are at hand for addressing these particulars? Is y or z, as a value, belief, norm or rule (‘universal’), the best guide for action, here and now, for this particular situation? From a stance of uncertainty, contingency and complexity, what kinds of action might we take in view of these particulars and universals and what kinds of consequences might follow? Second-order questions are those that evaluate thought in light of experience. One might ask: Was y, as a value, belief, norm, or rule, a satisfactory guide for action in situation a, b, and c? Was y appropriate for some situations, and not others?

Aristotelian reflexivity  37 Has y ever been a satisfactory ethical resource? Does it resonate with our ethical sensibilities? Has its presence in our ethical deliberation resulted in consequences, over the short term and the long term, that we find pleasing? To illustrate the different facets of ethical deliberation I have parsed these questions, but the ethical agent who exercises phronesis and exhibits a disposition of humility concerning ethical knowledge and action will likely engage multiple first- and second-order questions at once. When deliberating about the best action for a particular situation, ethical agents may wish to review a certain ‘universal’ from the critical perspective of second-order questions as part of the process of determining whether it might be helpful for the situation at hand. I wish to caution, however, that this Aristotelian account of critical rationality does not ensure self-autonomy and complete control of one’s environment through agency. Theorizing agency (also see Chapter 3) is important because there is much about the social world, including the thought and action of other agents, which is beyond the control of any one person or group. Furthermore, we often act on others with consequences that are unintended and unforeseen. Empires have fallen and well-meaning humanitarian action has resulted in greater suffering because of this contingency and fallibility of thought and action (Andreas 2008; Johnson 2007; Lebow 2007, pp. 387–388; Lischer 2006). Politics itself may be impossible without some ways of coping with the unpredictability and irreversibility of action. As Hannah Arendt has put it, ‘our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover’ (Arendt 2000b, p. 181). Critical rationality is imperfect in this regard, but can contribute to a practice that seeks to investigate possible outcomes and thus the reasons specific courses of action may or may not be desirable. In the remainder of the chapter I look to Aristotle to further develop ethical reflexivity in two ways. First, I turn to his writing on emotion and feeling to articulate how affect is necessary for and enhances critical rationality. Second, I argue that friendliness and friendship, when they form part of ethical reflexivity’s disposition and practice, promote the ethical agent’s ability to engage in ethical reasoning in view of the challenge of difference and relationality in international and global politics.

Emotion, rhetoric, and critical rationality in Aristotle’s account of ethics Western philosophy has often been criticized for its myopic obsession with logical reasoning as that human activity that produces ethical and moral conclusions. Likewise, the field of IR has moved away from accounts of agency that investigate the more internal dynamics of agency such as motive, intent, thinking and affect. In contrast, Aristotle views logical reasoning (apodeixis) as only one part of ethical judgment. He argues that reasoning (logos), emotion (pathos), and character (ethos) are together constitutive of phronesis (Abizadeh 2002, p. 267). The deliberating agent, the phronimos, employs these faculties to make conclusions

38  Aristotelian reflexivity about action from within particular situations. For the agent, emotion serves to engage ethical concern, aids the ability to perceive and judge the features of the situation, works in tandem with imagination to articulate various alternatives for action, contributes to the formation of character and the practice of virtue alongside experience, and is integral to the rhetoric of politics. Aristotle views emotion not just as a supplement to ethical judgment, but as necessary for it. Thus, an important question is whether and how emotion relates to reflexivity’s critical rationality and dialogue. I draw on Aristotle’s rich thinking about emotion to articulate how it can serve as a resource for the practice of ethical reflexivity. This is not to say that phronesis is a solitary activity; rather, its debate and deliberation are necessarily social even while we recognize and investigate the creative and critical contributions of various agents.17 To care and to act Emotion engages us, in the first place, in caring about the ethical aspects of action and broader social relations. Sharon Krause (2008) elaborates this role for emotion when she explains that our affective capacity enables us to take an interest in persons and causes, including the ethical and moral projects that concern them. Aristotle alludes to the same when he describes emotion as important to virtuous action because ‘thinking by itself moves nothing’; there must also be desire (orexis) or wishing that arises out of the coincidence of emotion and reasoning (quoted by Sokolon 2006, p. 21). Emotion, then, motivates ethical action, as Aristotle illustrates through his discussion of various states of affect, from acting on behalf of those whom we care about to helping others in ways that are responsive to their needs. Aristotle also closely identifies emotion with judgment and choice: ‘The emotions [pathē] are those things through which, by undergoing change, people come to differ in their judgments and which are accompanied by pain and pleasure, for example, anger, pity, fear, and other such things and their opposites’ (Aristotle 1991, 1378a). Emotion, for Aristotle, also has a sociological aspect; this dimension of emotion can enrich the practices and relationships of global politics if affective responses are subjected to critical rationality. According to Aristotle, emotions arise under various social conditions that depend on the relationships in question and how selves and others view them. Anger is a likely response, for example, among those who are belittled, but this anger intensifies when the belittlement occurs before ‘those with whom they are rivals, those they admire, those by whom they wish to be admired, or [those] before whom they are embarrassed or [those] who are embarrassed before them’ (Aristotle 1991, 1379b). Anger may also be triggered when one does good to another but it is not reciprocated, when a friend does not benefit or speak well of other friends, and even when others display a lack of sensitivity toward one who is in need. These actions are all forms of belittlement and are intimately connected to the quality of social relations and the expectations these relations entail. It’s worth noting that a significant body of IR literature (particularly forms of realism and constructivism) theorizes social recognition and social prestige, but

Aristotelian reflexivity  39 the emotional dimension (beyond fear and shame) is often neglected. Aristotle provides guidance on managing and even cultivating emotions for social relations that are relevant for practices of global ethics more broadly and ethical reflexivity in particular. Aristotle prompts us, for example, to ask whether our angry reactions and the intensity of our anger are appropriate to the situation, what kinds of action anger is likely to generate in particular situations, and what kinds of emotions might be elicited from others when we act with our own affectively inflected actions. Aristotle is concerned both with whether an emotion is in excess or deficiency for the particular occasion, and whether the emotion is itself contextually appropriate. With regard to the latter we might consider, for example, whether anger or calmness/gentleness is productive and desirable in a particular situation and in view of past actions and interactions. Reason and emotion, then, intersect in the ways we might think about and scrutinize the affective dimensions of our thought and actions, which always involve social relationships. To perceive and to imagine Emotion also plays a prominent role in perception—in gathering ethically relevant information about particular situations and identifying possible ethical responses. Excellence in perception contributes, in this way, to excellence in deliberation. As Aristotle argues in The Politics, the ‘passionate element’ of the human soul enables one to ‘deliberate in a finer fashion concerning particulars’ (Aristotle 1996, 1286a21–2). Both Nussbaum (1990) and Abizadeh (2002) agree with Aristotle that emotions aid in painting a picture of the particular ethical landscape as we see it and in drawing out a range of alternatives. This account of emotion is not thoroughly physiological; emotion is at least somewhat accessible through cognition and carried by experience.18 Similar to the way that Connolly (2011) views agency as susceptible to techniques that work on the self, Aristotle writes about emotion in its physiological manifestations but also advocates that the agent manage and even remold emotion in certain ways. 19 Sokolon points out that, according to Aristotle, the deliberating agent might even cultivate emotion for a particular occasion (2006, p. 5). A person’s emotional capacities are also inscribed in experience which can be consciously reflected upon and made sense of in different ways. Abizadeh explains that ‘the emotional makeup and character of the person can be said to be something like a repository or memory of the wisdom of past experience (empeiria), which the agent may consult during the course of practical deliberation’ (2002, p. 287). Our particular emotional reactions, then, can arise and become cognitively embedded through experience (e.g., how we have responded emotionally to similar situations in the past and how we have evaluated these responses) and this continuous emotional and cognitive work, in conjunction with action, constitutes virtue when it responds appropriately to the ethical situations at hand.20 When emotions have been associated over time with achieving that which we see as good, they can be relied upon as resources for future occasions. Abizadeh’s conclusion seems to capture Aristotle’s view, that ‘consulting “how I feel” about

40  Aristotelian reflexivity taking a course of action may provide me with important insight about its ethical validity if my character and emotions are virtuously formed’ (2002, p. 287). Thus, even emotions like anger and fear can be beneficially directed as part of the virtue of courage (Sokolon 2006, p. 5). And when it is appropriate to tamp down anger the ethical agent summons calmness (or gentleness). Emotion, on this account, aids our perception of the problem and our sense of the potential solutions as a cultivated aptitude. Finally, emotion is a faculty that, in addition to triggering engagement and aiding perception, can be a means for imaginatively and creatively responding to ethical questions. In the words of Nussbaum: Being responsibly committed to the world of value before her, the perceiving agent can be counted on to investigate and scrutinize the nature of each item and each situation, to respond to what is there before her with full sensitivity and imaginative vigor, not to fall short of what is there to be seen and felt because of evasiveness, scientific abstractness, or a love of simplification. (Nussbaum 1990, p. 84) Aristotle consistently points to emotion, reason, and character as conduits for the formation and social expression of ideas. We articulate and vet these ideas through rhetoric, but they also form ‘in the mind’ from our affective and rational activity and in reference to the specific situations of action.21 This process is a dynamic one in which emotion as a response and as a tool helps us to be inspired rather than overwhelmed in the face of ethical complexity, contingency and uncertainty. A fuller range of options is available to us, as deliberating agents, when imagination and other cultivated affects are brought to bear. Rhetoric and affect in ethical judgment For Aristotle, the art of rhetoric, as being able to see that which is persuasive, and the persuasion, deliberation, and debate that comprise rhetoric, are perhaps the most important social activities that communities undertake; through them various arguments can be presented and vetted to produce a ‘specific judgment’ for the situation at hand.22 It is from rhetoric and the reaction of the audience that the means of persuasion are made apparent and persuasion occurs, though the process need not arrive at consensus and cannot claim more than provisional conclusions (Triadafilopoulos 1999, pp. 746, 750). Rhetorical activity is important because, like ethics, it concerns things that vary or that may change (Aristotle 1991, 1357a). Aristotle devotes attention to how good and effective rhetoric that occurs in the course of deliberation and debate appeals to the emotions of the audience and engages their concern, even while the speaker attempts to channel their emotional responses in certain directions (1356a).23 Hearers are persuaded ‘when they are led to feel emotion [pathos] by the speech; for we do not give the same judgment when grieved and rejoicing or when being friendly and hostile’. For Aristotle, this process may or may not be manipulative and is accompanied

Aristotelian reflexivity  41 by the audience’s estimation of the speaker’s character as well as the speaker’s ability to reason well. Whether emotion serves ethical debate in a salutary way depends on both the speaker and audience; both have relevant qualities and duties. The speaker has an obligation to ‘select the most appropriate language, style, and means of persuasion’, which ‘demand[s] tact, discrimination, sympathy, sensitivity, and all the other qualities of practical wisdom’ (Beiner 1983, p. 87). The audience should take seriously its role as judge of the speaker and of the arguments that are laid out, discriminating well among the latter. Furthermore, the speaker and audience member should engage the right emotion in the right way for the right time and the right place.24 Good anger, for example, motivates action on behalf of those with whom we are in social relationship when that action is appropriate and helpful and after deliberation about the right course of action. Excess anger can obstruct reason, precipitate rash action, or be wrongly directed. Consistent with Aristotle’s account of phronesis and virtue, emotion is more likely to be directed toward ethical action when it is at a mean (rather than at any extreme), when it is coupled with deliberation, when it is appropriate for the context, and when its bearer has properly habituated emotion to ethical judgment over time (Sokolon 2006, pp. 21–22). To be persuasive a speaker must go beyond logical demonstration to secure the trust of the audience by cultivating a reputation as phronimos, saying what one thinks, and bearing the good will (eunoia) to give the best advice when one knows what it is. Good will, in particular, is an aspect of well-formed pathos (Aristotle 1991, 1378a). In turn, the audience should be virtuously formed in that they value good ethical reasoning and can be persuaded by it (Abizadeh 2002, p. 293).25 Abizadeh (2002, pp. 294–295) suggests, however, that Aristotle thought it more important for the speaker to be virtuous and appropriately wield reason and affect in rhetorical discourse because the speaker has more power than the audience and because whether the speaker is virtuous affects the quality of arguments offered. In sum, both the speaker and audience awaken and inform ethical engagement and motivate action through affective and rational forms of persuasion (pisteis), yet Aristotle is aware that not all are equally powerful in this political and social exchange and that power takes different form according to one’s role, reputation, and rhetorical and ethical competencies. For global politics we might also underscore the importance of the emotional and rational dimensions of persuasion for dialogue. To persuade others requires discourse that appeals to that which they care about, and thus to know and understand others to the extent possible. Doing so also opens the speaker to being persuaded in turn. Self and Other transformation is precluded when understanding is only strategic; others will judge our sincerity, looking to and beyond rhetoric. This kind of attention to difference in rhetoric serves credibility and the maintenance of ethical selves, even if the terms of dialogue are not free from power relations. Important considerations arise, and in Chapter 6 we will see how technologies in global politics such as unmanned aerial vehicles (or ‘drones’) hyperrationalize decision making and take persons out of rhetorical exchange altogether, thus precluding politics, let alone debate and deliberation. The ways in which the Obama

42  Aristotelian reflexivity administration has attempted to resolve the issue of prisoners (or ‘detainees’) at Guantanamo (Chapter 5) also erases the voices of the prisoners themselves in a process that could possibly otherwise be more attentive both to their needs and those of the United States. Both cases point to the indeterminacy of ethical rules (international humanitarian law) and thus the necessity to think about ethics as contextual, but also (as I argue in Chapter 3) the need to accommodate or judge less harshly some rhetorical strategies (such as heckling) that serve being heard and thus momentarily shrink the public access gap. In sum, we must be attentive to emotion in constructing a practice of ethics because it is through affect that our concern for ethical action is engaged in the first place, and it is part and parcel of critical rationality and rhetoric. Aristotle portrays emotion as participating in reason just as reason participates in emotion. Emotion, when properly connected to the context, contributes to perception and imagination as the ethical agent makes sense of particular situations, articulates avenues of action that emotionally resonate but also survive (and emerge from) deliberation and debate. Critical reasoning and affect, however, do not guarantee or determine ethical action (Abizadeh 2002, p. 282; Sokolon 2006, p. 28). Rather, Aristotle is concerned with the holistic formation of individuals that best prepares them to think and act well; they should have the dispositions and abilities, gained through experience, to critically and affectively engage ethical questions and act on their judgments.

Friendliness and friendship in a practice of ethics Next, I turn to Aristotle’s thoughts on friendliness and friendship as forms of relational affect important to phronesis and instructive for thinking about the social resources that the agents of global politics need to address the challenge of difference for a practice of ethics. Here, I want to resist assuming or relying upon a (universal) global community or culture as providing the social bond that enables communication, cooperation and mutual action; often, the existence of community is dubious or too thin for plausible conclusions about ethics or morality. Instead, I seek to bring into view specific tactics through which difference is engaged rather than defined away, and relations are formed. In Aristotle’s work, friendliness and friendship are affective dispositions, active and mutual feelings, and objects of ethical attention themselves. Aristotle’s theorization of friendship is relevant for a practice of global ethics that satisfactorily responds to difference in the ways that it, first, contributes to a disposition for ethical reflexivity and, second, assists critical rationality. At first blush this may seem unlikely since Aristotle notes that similarity between persons (e.g., in status) makes friendship (in its higher form) more likely and enduring. Nevertheless, Aristotle still maintains that friendship between those who are dissimilar is possible, and pointing out the errors of our friends requires that some difference in perspective be brought to bear on the situation. As a disposition, friendliness and the friendships that are formed by it contribute to a recognition and response to difference in social relations, potentially without erasure or assimilation because

Aristotelian reflexivity  43 one recognizes that others have divergent needs and desires.26 And critical rationality itself benefits most from a variety of perspectives, along with the trust, dialogue and affection of cultivated friendships. Evaluating thought relative to action and action relative to thought in global politics involves the effort to understand ourselves in relation to others. We aim to identify all the reasons, emotions, and passions that have informed our action and how and why others have reacted to us in the ways they have.27 Finally, I want to emphasize that Aristotle’s discussion of friendship also illuminates how a practice of ethics that recognizes and regards others involves making the self an object of ethical scrutiny and an aesthetic project of virtue. Friendliness is an emotion (pathos), which, when felt in particular situations, favorably disposes us towards others; this feeling can itself generate friendship, as can good will and concord.28 Friendliness is found in ethical deliberation when a person wishes well for another and seeks to attend to that person’s needs and desires through action (Aristotle 1991, 1380b–1381a). Friendliness provides a mutual benefit in that the person doing good and the person receiving the benefit both experience a kind of pleasure. As a mutual feeling, friendship marks those social relations in which one ‘loves and is loved in return’ (1381a). Love, as a more enduring feeling, supports a social bond that elevates consideration of the welfare of others in everyday affairs, and is also more likely to endure beyond the occasional slight. Friendship seems to promote a general friendliness that often takes form as a type of network; we are generally friendly to the friends of our friends (1381a). We are also friendly to those whom we wish to be our friends, those whom we admire (as brave or just), and those ‘by whom [we] wish to be emulated and not envied’ (1381a–1381b). Thus friendship can be aspirational. Stronger forms of philia equate to the love of close and intimate relations such as spouses and kin. According to Aristotle there are three types or ‘species’ of friendship, for philia takes different forms and has different intensities (Aristotle 1984, 1156a). The first two types of friendship, useful friendships and pleasurable friendships, are those in which the other person is liked for some attribute that confers benefit to oneself. This exchange is mutual and proportionate, to the things exchanged and to status. In a useful friendship some good is attained by each, and in a friendship of pleasure some kind of pleasure is felt by each, such as the pleasure of each other’s company (1156a). The most intensely shared form of friendship is a virtuous one in which friends are valued for who they are and benefits are dispensed to the other with their needs and desires in mind (1156a). This is the noblest form of friendship because it is maintained in view of the good of the other and because the other is well liked. Despite the importance of all friendships, Aristotle nevertheless seems to prefer virtuous friendships as more desirable; they have greater endurance, tend to survive occasional slights and slander, promote the good of many when they are abundant, and are enjoyable to those who are in them. Though one cannot maintain all friendships as ‘perfect’ in the sense of being virtuous, it is desirable to have many friends (even of lesser intensity) and to be a virtuous friend as much as possible (Aristotle 1984, 1158a).29

44  Aristotelian reflexivity While useful and pleasurable friendships are thus inferior in this way, Aristotle complicated the basic friendship hierarchy he set out. Though more intense forms of friendship often involve greater generosity, even a virtuous friendship generates self-benefit; to endure, the partnership necessitates that each give, so each will also receive. Likewise, even useful and pleasurable friendships require generosity and trust, as well as sacrifice for another. A useful friendship can be ‘legal’ or ‘ethical’. A legal friendship might be based on commercial interests and have a form similar to a contract, but trust is still necessary because the benefit of one is usually dispensed prior to the benefit of the other. In an ethical but useful friendship, one friend gives to another with the unarticulated expectation that it will be reciprocated (1162b–1163a). Nevertheless, many pleasures of friendship are indivisible in that they are only enjoyed together, and cannot then be strictly characterized as market-like exchanges. Aristotle extensively details the social importance of friendship and friendliness, explaining its benefits and its obligations. Friendship, inclusive of its three types, is a good ‘chosen for its own sake’ or an end in itself (1984, 1159a) but one also needs friends, whether we are speaking of an individual or a country. Even the wealthy and the powerful enjoy the company, pleasure and approval of others. Friends come to our aid, especially in times of need or crisis, and the good will and benefit of friendship are reciprocated (1155b). Friendship is also a kind of social glue; friendship holds a state together and keeps states in good relation with one another (1155a). Contrary to the primary focus of contemporary political theory, Aristotle frames friendship as more important than justice and as a precursor to it. Justice cannot exist without friendship and friends are just to one another. The other-regarding qualities of friendship might beget justice because friends are attentive to one another. Aristotle also makes a distinction between the equity of friendship and the equality of justice. We can see how friendship is particularly important for ethics in that equity is that which is judged to serve the particular needs of specific persons and situations, whereas justice is a broader condition of equality aimed at through such institutions as the law, which cannot attend to the specificity of our relationships and their everyday questions and interactions.30 And attending to our friends also attends to the artful cultivation of the virtuous self. A good and noble man is also a ‘self-lover’ in that ‘he will both help himself to do what is noble and be beneficial to others’ (1984, 1169a). Thus Aristotle encourages us to engage in activity to cultivate and nourish friendships, such as exhibiting good will and concord, acting virtuously, being equitable with others, and simply associating with one another. While friendship has many benefits and is an integral part of the social and political fabric, friendship also carries with it obligations and opportunities for distinction that are important for friendship’s maintenance and that mark virtuous and ethical conduct. Aristotle writes that it seems ‘that being liked is better than being honored and that friendship is chosen for its own sake. On the other hand, friendship is thought to depend on liking more than on being liked’ (Aristotle 1984, 1159a). It is necessary and praiseworthy, then, that at least one person take the risk of liking first and liking more. In all types of friendships one’s friends

Aristotelian reflexivity  45 should feel liked, respected and treated well, whether through exchange of benefit or through honor and respect (1158b). It is because of this willingness to like and to love that friendships are possible, even in ‘the highest degree’, including between those considered to be unequal or not alike (1159b).31 Thus, affection and its endurance are considered social virtues (1159b). In this regard, even virtuous political friendship is possible when the recognition of different needs and desires is extended in the spirit of providing that which benefits and is good for the other party. Virtuous friendships are marked by the love of the other just as the other is (Aristotle 1984, 1163b). Yet, all types of friendships feature recognition as a kind of equity in that all parties feel respected and treated well in their exchanges and interactions (1158b). Friends are, in other words, ‘eager to treat each other well’ (1162b). In political friendships we likewise find exchange that suits the needs of the various parties, and political friends also need not be equal or similar to one another. But because political friendships are less stable, they especially benefit from smaller gestures of friendliness. We are more likely, Aristotle thinks, to be friendly to others who have previously benefitted us or with whom it is pleasant be around and pass the time (1991, 1381a). We are also friendly to those who forgive our missteps and are not excessively critical (1381b), even while we have the courage to point out our friends’ errors and the humility to receive their criticism in turn.32 These acts can create the good will that may be necessary for agents to articulate their needs and desires with the hope that others are earnestly listening and may respond. Aristotle also makes it clear that good will and concord are often possible in politics. Good will, concord, and friendliness can be extended towards anyone, including strangers, within the moment (Aristotle 1984, 1166b–1167a).33 Generosity may spontaneously arise when one develops virtuous character that includes the disposition of friendliness—to open oneself to seeing and hearing others in their particularity. Furthermore, Aristotle identifies the receiver, not the giver, as that party which measures the worth of what they receive from a friend (1164a), implying that one is subject to others’ estimations of how they have been treated. The receiver, in turn, should return what s/he can, ‘for friendship calls for what is possible’ (1163b, 1164b). Those who have much give what they have in excess to those in need, while those in need who cannot return a service might honor the giver and render ‘as much service as [they] can’. Perhaps this quality of friendship would be difficult for states to achieve, given the trust, respect, affection, empathy and time necessary for it (Aristotle 1984, 1156b), yet this quality of friendship enables relationships between those in dissimilar circumstances and accords greater recognition and endurance than an alliance viewed as contingent solely on its usefulness. Doing well to others through a disposition of friendliness that is sensitive to the needs, desires and actions of the self and other marks one contribution to a practice of ethics. The second pertains to how friendliness and friendship provide an aid to ethical judgment as phronesis. Aristotle repeatedly underscores the complexity and difficulty of ethical judgment. Friends alert one another to possible

46  Aristotelian reflexivity errors in thinking, judgment and action; they think together in contemplation about important ethical questions; they seek to improve each other’s character rather than hastily break off their friendship; and all of this helps us to make better decisions where feelings and actions are enacted in proportion or at the ‘mean’ (Aristotle 1984, 1155a, 1165b–1166b). Friends may and perhaps should constructively criticize one another, rather than rubber stamp their respective policies and actions. Yet, criticism has little basis and little chance for success absent the good will, trust, and mutual understanding built through friendly gestures. The transatlantic friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom, for example, provides the basis for the debate and deliberation of critical rationality as long as their leaders and representatives engage the friendship in ways that contribute to ethical discussions, and not just strategic calculations or blind loyalty. In these ways friendship and friendliness assist the critical rationality of phronesis. In sum, from observations about the everyday activities of his social world, Aristotle viewed the interaction and feeling of friendship and friendliness as especially productive of ethical action and as valued ends in themselves even in the face of obvious disparities in wealth and status. We might have all the wealth in the world, Aristotle declares, but without friends we have little to do with this fortune, nothing to share, and no one to live with in the enjoyment of pleasures and aid (Aristotle 1984, 1158a). Those who serve only themselves cannot attract friends because friendliness involves generosity. Thus, tyrants have few friends, Aristotle thought, because they maintain power by serving themselves, and by serving themselves they spurn friendship.34 Friendship is found in associations of all types, but tyrannies fall far short of the pleasures, benefit and nobility of more intense and abundant friendships, including political friendships. Good friendships come about when persons are able to articulate their needs and desires, and are able to hear and respond to the needs and desires of others. In this way, Aristotle argues, those who are unequal on certain dimensions can still be friends, or at least be friendly. Aristotle’s understanding of friendliness and friendship is compatible with a practice of ethics that prioritizes a self-critical orientation. Aristotle presents selflove and concern with the self’s character as interdependent with good relations with others. It is only when one loves oneself and cultivates that which is lovable that friendship with others is possible and will flourish (Aristotle 1984, 1166b). Perhaps friends help us to become someone we love. A ‘self-lover’ in the noblest of senses is not one who simply advances his or her own interests, but one who cultivates his or her character as noble by attending to both the desires and needs of him/herself and others, along with others, through sympathy, forgiveness, and sacrifice (Aristotle 1984, 1169a; Beiner 1983, pp. 75-76). This regard for others and for the self is not zero-sum; to Aristotle, character and the activities it generates bring pleasure and notice. Friendship bridges virtue and happiness. Lorraine Smith Pangle (2002, p. 7) frames this well: Acting for the sake of what is noble means having primary regard not for the beneficiary’s good but for one’s own virtue or the good of one’s soul, whereas acting for a friend seems to be self-forgetting. And yet spontaneous

Aristotelian reflexivity  47 acts of friendship tend to be more pleasant than impersonal acts of virtue for the doer as well as for the recipient. Aristotle’s discussion of friendship, surrounded as it is by two discussions of pleasure, encourages the hope that in the realm of friendship, one may find all the nobility of virtuous action at its best without the ultimate sacrifice of happiness. IR scholarship generally poses a binary of self-regarding and other-regarding behavior—one either acts on behalf of oneself, which advances one’s own utility, interest, or happiness (realists and liberals), or one acts to the benefit of others and thus disregards the self altogether (Levinasian poststructuralists). This difference in motivation has often been framed as a stark contrast between self-interest (or national interest) and justice. Aristotle suggests that regard for the self and other are intertwined, and necessarily so for ethics.35 Thus, states and other agents of global politics benefit and recognize themselves and others through the gestures and practices of friendliness and friendship, with the former crucial for the latter. In view of the many ways in which difference is present and problematic in world politics, in a practice of international or global ethics difference and its complexities should remain front and center. Aristotle’s disposition of friendliness can facilitate the recognition and accommodation of difference valued in both poststructural and realist-pluralist ethics, while still building the trust and respect that make cooperation and relationship possible (not assumed) along the lines of liberal and constructivist ethics. This is not to say that the whole of IR will or would embrace an Aristotelian approach to ethics; rather, I seek to illustrate the potential range of Aristotle’s relevance in two regards—to both non-foundational and socially complex epistemological frameworks, and to ethical concerns about difference and community found across IR theories. Certainly, there is IR scholarship that does not fit these parameters, but just as Aristotle’s body of work has inspired a diverse cast of philosophers and scholars, an account of reflexivity that draws on Aristotle has the advantage of resonating with the concerns of a wide range of IR theories and political perspectives. Through his continuous concern with the contingency and specificity of ethics, Aristotle offers a unique view on the contribution of affect and relationship to ethical judgment. Friendliness and friendship, along with the other emotions Aristotle catalogues, come together for ethical agency as resources for responding to difference and the contingent circumstances of social and political life (that which varies and is contextual and imprecise), but this can only occur through an active and dynamic agency. The agent must assess what kinds of friendship are suitable to the situation and between the parties, as well as identify what good these friendships might achieve. It may also be the case, as we have previously reviewed, that some other emotion, and not friendliness, is more appropriate to the situation, such as anger, gentleness, or generosity, as long as they are felt and made sense of in conjunction with the critical rationality of phronesis. Aristotle cautions that even love can be in excess when it results in partiality that is not appropriate to circumstance. And yet, many feelings and actions at the mean involve taking risks by, for example, liking first and liking more. The potential benefits include not

48  Aristotelian reflexivity just the nobility of virtue (or activity with excellence), but also pleasure, good will and trust, mutual good feeling, and enhanced ethical deliberation.

Questions of politics and metaphysics Aristotle’s work has been separately published as teachings on ethics and teachings on politics, but there is a great deal of continuity and overlap between them (Klosko 2012). Ethics is a part of politics, and yet politics concerns institutions that, while they are relevant to ethics, do not determine its practice. Both law and governance structures matter, and Aristotle suggests that the state has educative and regulative functions. The state can ‘make’ its citizens virtuous and can issue laws. The state itself can be well or poorly designed. Yet, as I have noted in this chapter, Aristotle argues that the details of matters of ethics and ethical decision making have a great deal of ambiguity that cannot be addressed through law. Which virtues, how much, when and where, are matters addressed by judgment. Whether there are virtues in the first place, and that they should be practiced at the ‘mean’, are also up for debate. And in enacting the mean Aristotle provides some practical advice (in Book 3) for encircling the mean in view of its ambiguity, the variability of circumstances, and individual strengths and weaknesses of character. To see the importance of leadership and decision making we need go no further than Aristotle’s warning that even the best regimes, on paper, can become the worst in practice if political leaders (and perhaps citizens) neglect the everyday activity of ethics.36 Some may object to my interpretation of Aristotle by insisting that it is precluded by Aristotle’s metaphysics.37 I follow Kant and Foucault in arguing that a metaphysics is neither instructive nor necessary for modern thought. Not only is it difficult to ground our knowledge in something that is not seen or shared (e.g., a divine source or substances consisting of form and matter), but those who study the social and political world are hard-pressed to provide stringent evidence for ‘objective knowledge’ (Bernstein et al. 2000). We must then ask where we go in light of the uncertainties and contingencies of a social world that lacks a metaphysical foundation for knowledge. However, I disagree with Kant’s contention that an alternative foundation for knowledge is available by replacing metaphysics with a reason that produces universal moral judgments. Jürgen Habermas (1984) makes a similar move toward universal reason in his elaboration of a theory of communicative rationality. Rather, I follow Michel Foucault in replacing metaphysics (as an inquiry into being and how being is possible) with a focus on becoming. This frame of ‘becoming’ widens the scope of available action by looking inward, into ourselves as historical beings, and outward in view of our relationality. Historicizing ourselves helps to make apparent how we might then become. Thus, I elaborate ethical reflexivity in Foucauldian terms as a ‘critical ontology of ourselves’ (the state, community, individual, etc.). This difference with Aristotle, however, is not insurmountable. If naturalism is, in part, trying to figure out our human capacities and potentialities, I don’t

Aristotelian reflexivity  49 find that purpose objectionable, as long as we are open to and work on folding them into reflexivity and thus potentially transformed or artfully rendered.38 I do not wish to take our capacities as objectively true or deeply entrenched. Because Aristotle focuses in his account of ethics more on how our lives take shape, on the specificity of ethical judgment (as does Hannah Arendt), and as the cultivation of the self (as does Michel Foucault), a metaphysical foundation is not necessary to borrow from his account. Whereas Kant turns to a rule-based and deontological method of moral judgment, Foucault returns to a particularistic method, a practice more akin to Aristotle than to analytical philosophy.

Conclusion In this chapter I have provided an account of how Aristotle’s writing on ethics can inform a practice of ethical reflexivity for global politics. Aristotle’s work does so, first, by presenting a practice of ethics as a form of critical reasoning (phronesis) that is oriented towards a complex world of variation and difference; knowledge about this world, about selves, and about others is contingent and fallible, and each situation for action is unique in its particulars and its historical context. A suitable practice of ethics is thus, for Aristotle, attentive to agents and agency. Successful ethical agents (phronimos), as a matter of course, perceptively read the salient features of particular situations in view of values, norms and beliefs (‘universals’), while they also judge which universals apply and how they will be interpreted, where the weight is on the particulars over the universals. Aristotle implies that the ethical agent can only engage thought and action critically and dialectically. For Aristotle, a lived specification of various goods, and perhaps even the highest good, is interpreted and revised through an everyday ethical agency. Our critical, ethical capacities are uneven; those who practice phronesis well, not only in dialogue with others but also in deliberation with the self, are in tune with and engage emotions in ways that illuminate and probe the particulars of ethically perplexing situations. These appeals to the emotions engage the affective desires of others, contribute to the formation of affect itself, and engage the will (boulesis) to make choices and act in the first place. Aside from the ways in which emotion and reason work together in ethical judgment, emotional experience can also be evaluated. Thus, Abizadeh (2002, p. 289) notes that, ‘this reflexivity about one’s emotions is an important part of being an ethical being’. To sketch a picture of ethical reflexivity for IR that does not fall to an excessive faith in reason (Toulmin 1990) benefits from Aristotle’s nuanced picture of how affect pervades one’s perceptions, choices, relationships, and self-work, which also contributes to the potential of IR’s ‘relational turn’ (Bleiker and Hutchinson 2008; Crawford 2000). Aristotle’s observations about political communities’ coexistence are instructive for global politics where a practice of ethics must meaningfully contribute to the challenges of a world that features communities with ‘foreign policies’, notions of ‘self’ and ‘other’, and projects of global governance such as international law, and international and non-governmental organization, but also the

50  Aristotelian reflexivity micropolitical experiences not often recognized by the primary conceptual categories of IR. Ethical reflexivity is inspired by an Aristotelian perspective on ethics that does not rely on formulating, learning and implementing general rules; rather, ethics is a practice of constant interrogation into what it means to live well in our various associations and interactions in the context of specific situations. Deliberation, debate, friendship, anger, and empathy, among other actions and feelings, enhance the critical rationality of phronesis and the project of becoming a virtuous self (living a life of excellence). Aristotle’s emphasis on friendliness and friendship as mutual feeling holds distinct promise for a practice of global ethics that can be sensitive to difference by responding to our needs and agencies. Care of the self and care for others, in this regard, are intertwined. Still, we might ask whether Aristotle’s account of phronesis and philia satisfies the poststructural critique of identity and language. Does it have potential to respond to the harms of imperfect recognition, mutual vulnerability, and the conjunction of power and knowledge? Certainly, Aristotle is opposed to universalized moralities, similar to those today that prompt some poststructuralists to declare themselves ‘against ethics’. The poststructural pitfall, however, is perhaps to be against all ethics (Campbell and Shapiro 1999). The poststructural paradox is that we owe a debt to alterity but any action on behalf of this debt will always be insufficient, thus potentially freezing any ethical projects. For John Wall (2005, p. 324), this paradox is a tragedy rather than a reason to abandon ethics: The moral will is not just accidentally but inherently tragic because it can never fully escape its own narrative limitations . . . The tragedy of human moral life is that moral wisdom requires a self-critical awareness of an always inconclusive and self-excessive kind. And if we accept that to describe the other is to inevitably do violence to the other and be vulnerable to one another, we may, as a consequence, ‘reduce otherness to an empty and blanket abstraction’ rather than look to its specificity and particularity (p. 327). Seizing on the potential of Aristotle’s phronesis to confront this paradox as well as Paul Ricoeur’s related account of ‘critical phronesis’, Wall argues for a ‘poetic phronesis’ that involves ‘negotiating this unstable cycle or tension between selfnarration and responsibility toward others’ through continuous consideration of how we can strive to fulfill responsibility through the transformation of the self (p. 322). For Ricoeur and Wall, this project of continual self-transformation is motivated by the Aristotelian ‘desire to live well with and for others in just institutions’ (Ricoeur 1992, pp. 158–159, 162; Wall 2005, p. 322). Nussbaum can be situated alongside Wall in the argument that phronesis entails attention to the ‘concreteness of others’ stories’; Nussbaum (1990, p. 162) looks to literature, while Wall (2005) looks to the expression of ‘subtle and singular narrative complexities’ in a variety of mediums. Some literature in IR, both constructivist and poststructural, has indeed theorized and investigated linkages between identity and many kinds of texts—not just political texts, but also cultural and social texts (Hansen 2006; Neumann 1999). Just as identity narratives and policies are linked through everyday discourse that

Aristotelian reflexivity  51 consists of so many decisions to use and modify cultural and social discourses, so too can we speak of ethical agency as everyday decisions about what one should do by critically drawing on these same discursive social and cultural resources; in doing so we can articulate reinterpretations that push the bounds of intelligibility and responsibility and thus result in that which could not be imagined before. The practice of ethical reflexivity can draw from Aristotle some concrete procedures and dispositions for coping with our inevitable imperfections and failings without giving up on ethics. And critical rationality itself is a resource for a practice of ethics through which self-transformation is possible; thought and action are reinterpreted in the context of deliberation, judgment, and relationship, thus remaking ourselves as personal, relational, and political. In the next chapter I further elaborate reflexivity as a practice of ethics by investigating the thought of Hannah Arendt, Anthony Giddens and Michel Foucault, including the intertextuality that occurs with Aristotle, and thus how we might modify some of Aristotle’s views.

Notes   1 On the latter point Richard Ned Lebow (2007, p. 381) makes a similar argument about the speaker in the rhetorical persuasion of Greek thought.   2 Nicholas Onuf (2013) instead moves from Aristotelian judgment to agents’ use of rules that have worked well as summaries of the ‘mean’. When they don’t work, rules can be abandoned.   3 See also Williams (2005) on a realism of limits via Morgenthau, and Onuf (2009) for an Aristotelian check on Kantian notions of hospitality.   4 Known as ‘analytical political theory’. Exceptions in international political theory, not at all dominant, include pragmatic, historical, and classical approaches.   5 Perhaps some of the dissatisfaction with political theory, including international political theory, is that it offers few tools for praxis. Instead, we see theorizing that seeks normative justifications for existing political institutions and practices, offers different interpretations of universal values or argues for an ideal condition of justice. Pragmatic and practical approaches to international political theory are becoming more frequent. In Political Science see the contributors to Schram and Caterino (2006). Even traditions associated with a contextual approach, such as the just war tradition with its roots in casuistry (or case-based ethics), have moved toward analytical political theory. In the case of just war, a series of rules are presented to be checked off in a list-like fashion to legitimize the use of force. See, for example, Elshtain (2002).   6 The translation of Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics that I use renders phronesis as ‘prudence’. I use the two terms interchangeably.   7 Aristotle writes that ‘we deliberate about things (a) which are possible or occur for the most part, (b) whose outcome is not clear, and (c) in which there is something indeterminate’. We do not deliberate, on the other hand, about things that are eternal, such as the universe, things that are mechanical in their occurrence, like the sunrise, and things that result from ‘luck’, like discovering treasure (1984, 1105a). Also, ‘Now no one deliberates about things which cannot vary, nor about those which he cannot himself do. Hence since scientific demonstration is acquired by means of demonstration, and since there can be no demonstration of things whose principles may vary, prudence cannot be scientific knowledge or art’ (Aristotle 1984, 1140a). Also, see Aristotle (1984, 1112a–1112b).

52  Aristotelian reflexivity   8 Abizadeh draws on the following passages of Aristotle for this summary: Aristotle (1984, 1094b), Aristotle (1991, 1374a–1374b).   9 When the particular and ultimate are in conflict it is the particular that is ‘authoritative’ (Devereux 1986, p. 498). 10 ‘The relevant features of the situation may not all jump to the eye. To see what they are, to prompt the imagination to play upon the question and let it activate in reflection and thought-experiment whatever concerns and passions it should activate, may require a high order of situational appreciation, or as Aristotle would say perception (aesthēsis)’, (Wiggins 1975/1976, p. 43). 11 Alasdair MacIntyre (1984) similarly interprets phronesis as a deliberative search for the means to apply historical truths about the good for particular persons in particular situations. This position partially accords with his communitarian framework in which ‘truth’ is determined by tradition, but MacIntyre specifically prefers a restylized ancient Greek tradition over modernity’s Enlightenment tradition because it would help to solve some of the latter’s problems. 12 Wiggins argues that this exegetical move makes Book III consistent with Aristotle’s elaboration of practical reasoning found in Book VI. 13 Many scholars of Aristotle seem to accept Wiggins’ argument in this regard. 14 It is important to note, however, that for Aristotle the term dialectic is characterized as the opposite of rhetoric in order to contrast the philosophical form of speech (dialegesthai) from the political form of speech (rhétoriké). The context is disagreement between Ancient Greek philosophers about the nature of speech and the social role of the philosopher (in light of Socrates’ death). For Aristotle (1991, p. 79) rhetoric is political persuasion addressed to a multitude, whereas dialect is conversation between two. Aristotle favors political persuasion. 15 Ruderman (1997) agrees with Wiggins’ translation of pros to telos, but comes to a more conservative conclusion about its implications. He argues that ‘the person of phronesis would combine flexibility in respecting different experiences, histories, and locations with a clear grasp of the ends of human nature’. Ruderman believes that Aristotle thinks that we can know the ‘good simply’ or the ‘best regime simply’ and that a good politics has unchangeable laws and ends. Phronesis is thus reasoning about ends that are ‘political’ and ‘limited’ to decide ‘the relative importance of (potentially conflicting) ends, and even about the full implications of an end perhaps only dimly perceived at the start’ (pp. 415–416). Devereux seems to disagree with Wiggins’ position, however (1986, p. 497 fn41). 16 Achieving the ‘highest good’ is not a state of mind for Aristotle; rather, it is activity and it is activity done well. 17 Similarly, Aristotle viewed the pursuit of justice as social, in contrast to Plato’s view of justice as an internal condition (Aristotle 1984, 1130a). 18 Sokolon (2006, p. 11) characterizes Aristotle’s emotions as ‘complex, physiological/ cognitive functions that involve judgments of the subjects’ environment’. 19 Nussbaum characterizes emotions as ‘composites of belief and feeling’ (1990, p. 78). 20 Interestingly, Nussbaum also brings a critical lens to emotion. She seeks to make the case that, for Aristotle, emotions assist in making judgments but emotions can also be changed upon reflection. In part, this susceptibility of emotion to revision is important because ‘many, if not all, of the passions rest upon beliefs that do not spring up naturally (if any beliefs do this), but are formed by society. They are, in fact, part and parcel of the fabric of social convention: they should be criticized as the rest of that fabric is criticized’ (Nussbaum 1990, p. 38f). Krause (2008) provides a noteworthy alternative to

Aristotelian reflexivity  53 Nussbaum’s view, namely that emotions cannot be separated from rationality and thus are less amenable to rational manipulation. 21 Aristotle discusses ‘enthymeme’ as arguments found in speech that are not necessarily universally valid, but still important for public deliberation (1991, 1355a, fn. 23). 22 Aristotle (1984, 1991) describes rhetoric as related both to politics and ethics, both in Rhetoric and Ethics. 23 Inspired by Aristotle, Nussbaum articulates a philosophical position that ‘while committed to logical reasoning, and to marks of good reasoning such as clarity, consistency, rigor, and breadth of scope, will often need to search for techniques that are more complicated and indirect, more psychologically engaging, than those of conventional deductive or dialectical argument. It must find ways to delve into the pupil’s inner world, using gripping examples, techniques of narrative, appeals to memory and imagination’ (Nussbaum 1994, p. 35). 24 Aristotle is certainly concerned with the negative aspects of passion. As Abizadeh explains, ‘Aristotle’s critique of democracy rests on his fears about demagoguery, a regime led by popular leaders who, by appealing to the people’s passions, are capable of ingratiating themselves with a majority thereby led to tyrannize a helpless minority—even to the detriment of the majority itself.’ Law is too indeterminate to deal with this danger and thus deliberation and the consideration of proper emotion in deliberation are crucial (2002, p. 268). 25 Because widespread virtue is difficult, Aristotle favored aristocracy, but of the perverted forms of government he found democracy’s deviation of mob rule to be the least harmful because power is more dispersed and citizens tend to treat each other equally and equitably in friendship (Aristotle 1984, 1160b–1161a). 26 On assimilation in self–other relations, see Shapcott (2001). 27 This interpretation has overlap with Judith Butler’s (2004a) discussion of responsibility as responsiveness to the ways in which others have reacted to our actions and the critical evaluation that subsequently might take place. 28 My interpretation of Aristotelian friendship and its applicability to global ethics is distinct from the role of friendship in Alexander Wendt’s work. Whereas Wendt (1999) is interested in a distribution of friendship that, if widespread enough, is a property of the ideational structure that socializes other states, I describe friendship as an affect that can be felt and wielded by the agents of one or more states as part of a practice of ethics. To be significant for world politics, friendship need not be a structural property. 29 This so because: ‘It is impossible to be a friend to many men in a perfect friendship . . . for love is like an excess . . . But it is possible to satisfy many persons by means of what is useful or pleasurable, for there are many such who seek the useful or the pleasurable, and the services required take little time.’ The downside of such relationships is that they are more easily dissolved. 30 For Aristotle, the law is insufficient for ethics because it cannot anticipate every situation and it cannot account for context. 31 Though Aristotle stresses the possibility of friendship among those who are not equals in some parts of Nicomachean Ethics, he also says that superiors and inferiors are not easily friends with one another. Such a view is consistent with the importance of rank in Aristotle’s time but is perhaps less important for contemporary international politics. Still, power and wealth are important considerations when we discuss friendship between states and people because it is often thought that power and wealth coincide with greater privilege, consideration and leadership in world affairs.

54  Aristotelian reflexivity 32 Being predisposed to forgive is a sign of ‘right judgment of an equitable man’ (Aristotle 1984, 1143a). 33 Aristotle describes good will as a thing in itself but also as ‘the beginning of friendship’ or ‘untilled friendship’. 34 A tyranny is a perversion of the kingdom. 35 Chris Brown, Terry Nardin and Nicholas Rengger make the ‘more speculative reading’ of Aristotle by entertaining the idea that Aristotle may have imagined that there could be ‘a cosmo-polis, a world community’. At the very least, Aristotle was critical of the glorification of war and conquest because political communities ‘have the responsibility to act in accordance with the welfare of other humans, not just other citizens’ (2002, pp. 26–27, drawing on Aristotle’s Politics (1996), 1324b–1333b). 36 While Aristotle favored kingdoms as an ideal, for example, with bad leadership they become tyrannies, the worst regime in practice. 37 Aristotle views metaphysics as ‘the study of being qua being’. This is the study of beings in so far as they are beings (Cohen 2009). 38 See William Connolly (2002) for a related vision of self-work as ‘neuropolitics’.

2 Giddens’ reflexive modernity, Arendt’s inner dialogue, and Foucault’s ‘critical ontology’ of ourselves

In this chapter I further develop ‘ethical reflexivity’ as a practice of ethics by discussing Anthony Giddens, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. I situate these authors as writing on reflexivity as, first, partly constitutive of modernity—the idea that we have largely dispensed with tradition and faced the prospect of uncertain, complex or impossible truths. Second, incipient in their writing is the idea that reflexivity can itself take shape as a practice for grappling with the very transformations and instabilities that a reflexive modernity has entailed. Resisting the easiness of slipping into coping strategies to assuage ‘Cartesian anxiety’, Arendt and Foucault in particular approached the contingencies and paradoxes of politics and ethics by embracing reflexivity as an instance of self-conscious empowerment. While modernity initiated widespread reflexive dynamics, inflected by power, reflexivity could also be a powerful resource and even an ethics for confronting (but not resolving) the consequences and anxieties of being able to describe our actions as connected to thought. I articulate this practice of ‘ethical reflexivity’ in this and the following chapter as a bundle of processes, capacities, attitudes, dispositions and tactics that enact agency in the context of political conditions we find here and now. Reflexivity as a practice of ethics, I will argue, takes shape as agents work on their subjectivities and intersubjectivities by refracting and reinvigorating thought and action. As a form of critical rationality, thought and action can be dialectically, dialogically and affectively engaged for both corrosive and creative effects. For Giddens, reflexivity at the site of the agent is most relevant for working through crises in identity and accommodating unintended consequences. Arendt also tended to associate the political relevance of reflexivity’s ‘thinking’ with crisis (which finds expression in being able to say, ‘No’), and thus Arendt turned to the reflexive capacities of ‘thinking’, ‘willing’ and ‘judging’ to more fully elaborate her vision of politics and its overlap with ethics. Arendt’s discussion of ‘thinking’ as a conversation between ‘me and myself’ illustrates how a dialectic and dialogic engagement among a variety of political actors (not just philosophers) can loosen one’s attachments to dominant thinking, habits and rules to pave the way for ‘new’ thinking about particulars. ‘Willing’ and ‘judging’ pertain to action and assessing the trajectories and divergences of various temporalities. However, Arendt’s explications pose some challenges that must be worked

56  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault through, including her turn to Kant’s notion of ‘enlarged mentality’ in which one can think from the perspectives of others. While Arendt’s vision of political action is often characterized as agonistic (Honig 1993), Foucault’s critical assessment of the self at the nexus of power and knowledge sets the stage for thinking about how we are historically and socially situated in ways that Aristotle did not quite grasp. Genealogical and archaeological tactics and a certain orientation to history and the historical self thus need to be added to the capacities, processes, and dispositions that we can pull from Aristotle and Arendt. Foucault biased in favor of transformation of the self as a wedge that could potentially alter power relations in favor of more and different possibilities for life, particularly when politics and ethics are viewed in micropolitical terms as diffuse and decentered. Foucault’s study of the history of sexuality, as well as his thoughts on friendship as political and relational, further elaborate the genealogical aspect of critique that accompanies a commitment to probing possibilities for becoming and acting. Foucault’s continuous project of reflexivity pushes the limits of thought and action through a ‘critical ontology’ of ourselves engaged as ‘permanent’ critique of the self by the self that is attentive to both the care of the self and to relational possibilities. Affectively, certain attitudes and dispositions spur and aid this ethico-political project (which I turn to in the next chapter). This approach to ethics acknowledges and embraces the ever-present contingency and complexity of our time by situating ethics as an approach to life rather than an end for life. The focus of this chapter is on the ontology of reflexivity as an ethics. I situate reflexivity as a practice for both scholarship and politics, rather than a way to acquire knowledge (Jackson 2010), or explain scholarship, scholarly activities, and scholars’ subjectivity/identity (Hamati-Ataya 2012b). Yet, as we will see with Arendt, Foucault and Giddens, reflexivity as practice is not far removed from scholarly reflexivity as an active ‘positionality’ (Ackerly and True 2008; Lynch 2008). After all, reflexivity needs agency—an actor or actors (individual or collective) who enact and sustain reflexivity1—and several scholars have thought about how they can practice reflexivity in more enduring ways. As Guzzini (2000) reminds us, interpretation happens at multiple levels. One implication is that actors other than scholars are also capable of reflexivity. Giddens, Arendt and Foucault all assumed a reflexive position relative to modernity and—beyond the extant literature in the field of International Relations (IR)—envisioned reflexivity as a sociopolitical but also individualized practice with profound implications. In sum, I present ethical reflexivity as the dialectic, dialogic, and affective navigation of thought and action coupled with a critical ontology of the self, wherein we investigate our subjectivity and the potential for its transformation as a response to difference, relationship, and epistemological uncertainty.

Reflexive scholars of ‘modernity’ To investigate Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Anthony Giddens as theorists of reflexivity I begin with their own reflexive stances. All three authors

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  57 pursued reflexivity in the context of modernity in order to locate and expand its incidence, even as an avenue of reform. As engaged authors they sought to pause in the liminal space between past and present, and between present and future, to investigate possible agencies. Yet, they also viewed themselves as working within certain constraints that may or may not be made more pliable or outdated, depending on the agencies of others, the contingencies and complexities of political action, and our own efforts to refashion our identities or subjectivities. This analysis varies for each author, but the common thread is that they all assumed a reflexive stance, situated against epistemological uncertainty, as they sought to elaborate a wider and more robust reflexivity. Moreover, documenting the reflexive positions they assumed foreshadows the reflexive practices they elaborated. The problems of knowledge, power, and ethics associated with modernity, for one, loomed large, providing the permissive conditions for reflexivity and reasons for its further instantiation. Michel Foucault: ‘“Today” as difference in history’ Although Michel Foucault did not wield the term ‘reflexivity’ with any regularity in his writing and speaking, Foucault assumed a reflexive stance in his scholarship and politics and, I will later argue, we can read from Foucault a coherent practice of reflexivity that may be suitable for ethics. A theme tying all three authors together is authorial reflexivity, but if reflexivity is to be a standard of scholarship, Foucault set the bar high. In a key text (1984c) that Foucault often returned to (e.g., 2007), he situated his own reflexivity for his time by looking back at another author’s reflexive exercise in the context of another time. Addressing Immanuel Kant’s (2007) essay, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ (Was ist Aufklärung?), in an essay by the same name, Foucault observed that: this little text is located in a sense at the crossroads of critical reflection on history. It is a reflection by Kant on the contemporary status of his own enterprise. No doubt it is not the first time that a philosopher has given his reasons for undertaking his work at a particular moment. But it seems to me that it is the first time that a philosopher has connected in this way, closely and from the inside, the significance of his work with respect to knowledge, a reflection on history and a particular analysis of the specific moment at which he is writing and because of which he is writing. It is in the reflection on ‘today’ as difference in history and as motive for a particular philosophical task that the novelty of this text appears to me to lie. (Foucault 1984c, p. 38, emphasis added) Foucault saw Kant as recognizing his capacity for reflexivity, a reflexivity that sprung from the seeds of human agency, contextualized spatially and temporally, and relevant to questions of knowledge. From this reflexive stance Kant interpreted the Enlightenment as autonomous critique and reason, but Foucault was more interested in how Kant’s text belongs to and sets out a project of

58  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault critique that refers to his own time—the present—as something to be worked upon, and as a project made possible only in view of the past—as a ‘history of the present’. Foucault found it notable that at a time when the ‘Enlightenment’ was coming to an end as a movement, exemplified by the German newspaper’s question as a possible exercise in closure, Kant sought to engage and restylize the Enlightenment (Aufklärung), designating it as ‘man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage’ and declared this project to be ongoing, still in process (Kant 2007, p. 29). This, for Foucault, was a project of marking today as ‘difference’ from ‘yesterday’ where in this ‘age of Enlightenment’, as Kant put it, man would make use of his reason to release himself from bondage and incompetence. Having faced the failure of metaphysics to find out what we can know, Kant turned to our capacity for reason as a way to engage our perceptions and experiences of the world. Using reason, then, achieves autonomy as following laws that we will for ourselves, and the necessary condition is that of freedom (Kant 2007).2 Foucault differed from Kant on notions of progress and autonomy, but he identified with Kant’s philosophical project to put our capacities to use (including reason)—to see the present as a series of differences to be continuously evaluated and acted upon.3 This, for Foucault, was an attitude of critique, and he thus recast ‘modernity’ as such—as an attitude or a ‘philosophical ethos that could be described as a permanent critique of our historical era’ (1984c, p. 42). Like Kant, Foucault assumed a self-reflexive stance as a philosopher faced with the question of how to grapple with and act in the present but also, more broadly, as ‘beings who are historically determined, to a certain extent, by the Enlightenment’ (p. 43). Foucault’s reflexivity was not necessarily premised on the failure of a scientific procedure that supposed a separation between subject and object, as it is often situated in IR. Rather, it concerned a ‘mode of reflective relation to the present’ (p. 44) that is philosophical to be sure but not just the purview of philosophers, and political in its agonistic potential. The Enlightenment could thus be turned back on itself as critique, and its objects could be any of the institutions, knowledge practices, and technologies associated with the Enlightenment as well as oneself as a ‘complex and difficult elaboration’ (pp. 41, 43). Indeed, Foucault critically engaged questions that implicated Enlightenment ideas and institutions, particularly those that involved the rationalization, regulation, and normalization of behavior through various institutions such as the insane asylum, the education system, and the prison. And he reflexively situated himself in politics, often looking back on and evaluating the political positions and projects he took up, ranging from Marxist political affiliation, to the events of May 1968, to working with prisoners, to the Iranian Revolution, to name a few. Foucault’s reflexivity entailed an orientation to politics that did not rely on stale separations between philosophy and politics, and their hierarchical valuation. As Deleuze noted about their shared stance, A theorizing intellectual, for us, is no longer a subject, a representing or representative consciousness. Those who act and struggle are no longer

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  59 represented, either by a group or union that appropriates the right to stand as their conscience. Who speaks and acts? It is always a multiplicity, even within the person who speaks and acts. (Foucault 1977b, p. 206) For Foucault, this disordered but powerful activity involved rejecting the traditional role of the intellectual and mobilizing power against its pernicious effects, but also a repudiation of the coherency and reducibility of the self. Over the years, Foucault investigated and outlined a variety of tools for this effort, including archaeology, genealogy, parrhesia (‘fearless speech’), and various ‘techniques of the self’. The last of these—techniques of the self—is where Foucault most directly engaged ethics and reflexivity, leading many to posit one or more breaks in the trajectory of his work (Dosse 1997; Edkins 1999, p. 42). The idea of distinct shifts in Foucault is perhaps overwrought. For one, Foucault emphasized throughout later interviews some continuity in his projects, not just differences. First, Foucault provided this summary of his work: My objective for more than twenty-five years has been to sketch out a history of the different ways in our culture that humans develop knowledge about themselves . . . The main point is not to accept this knowledge at face value, but to analyze these so-called sciences as very specific ‘truth games’ related to specific techniques that human beings use to understand themselves. (Foucault 1997g, p. 224) Foucault proceeded to describe four techniques as ‘technologies of production’, ‘technologies of sign systems’, ‘technologies of power’, and ‘technologies of the self’ (p. 225). The last two, technologies of power and the self, comprise in their encounter what Foucault has termed ‘governmentality’. The management of persons and the operations they perform on themselves, such as self-discipline, is found in Foucault’s studies of madness, punishment, and sexuality. Here we see a complex view of power. Historically (and roughly), techniques of power changed from costly, spectacular and discontinuous interventions to economical, insidious and pervasive flows ‘throughout the entire social body’ (1984b, p. 61, 1977a). Yet, alongside this depiction of power Foucault offered notions of counter-power where those upon whom power had been applied could wield these very surveillance technologies, truth-telling practices, and other battlefield tactics against those who had most benefited from them (Foucault 1977a, p. 219, 1984b, pp. 55–62, 158; Steele 2010a) and in favor of other ways of living (Foucault 1997a, 1997e).4 Perhaps, Foucault remarked, he had up to that point emphasized too much ‘the technology of domination and power’ and he had become more interested in the individual and technologies of the self (1997g, p. 225). In other words, reflexivity could be claimed by the self (in struggle) rather than induced in the self on behalf of external ends.

60  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Another overarching project for Foucault consisted in articulating and deploying the tool of genealogy and here we find another way that Foucault fits together the pieces of his work. He wrote that: Three domains of genealogy are possible. First, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; second, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to ethics through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents. (Foucault 1997b, p. 262) Foucault identified all three ‘axes’ as present in Madness and Civilization (1965), truth in The Birth of the Clinic (1973) and The Order of Things (1970), power in Discipline and Punish (1977a), and ethics in The History of Sexuality (1978). What I would like to point out is that genealogical investigation of all three domains might be characterized as forms of reflexivity. To the extent that Foucault exhorted his readers to evaluate and act on themselves from the launching point of archaeological and genealogical studies of different epistemes (epistemic reflexivity), relational subjectivities (political reflexivity), and moral agencies (selfreflexivity), practices of reflexivity could be instantiated. Returning to his essay on the Enlightenment, one can see how Foucault brought all three reflexivities together as ‘historico-critical analysis’—inquiries informed by the conjunction of knowledge, power, and ethics—to investigate how we have arrived at the present and where we may go in the future. We might ask, for example: ‘How are we constituted as subjects of our own knowledge? How are we constituted as subjects who exercise or submit to power relations? How are we constituted as moral subjects of our own actions?’ (Foucault 1984c, pp. 48–49). When we ask and try to answer these questions we potentially open up new understandings and stylizations of the self and we mobilize tactics to work on the self in view of our historical and relational context. Foucault wrote that criticism is ‘a historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, saying’ and through the work of criticism we make possible ‘no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think’ (Foucault 1984c, pp. 45–46). In other words, Foucault sought to investigate and challenge that which is more a product of social discipline than our own interpretations and experimentations.5 We assume responsibility for our reflexive capacities. Though Foucault was considered a more private person with regard to many of the details of his life’s experiences, Foucault’s theorization of ethics as a reflexive practice of the self found two expressions—first, in the form of his own care of the self in the privacy of his intimate relationships and, second and more publicly, in the political avenues that he articulated and forged on concrete issues of the day that defied and challenged given and dominant categories and narratives. He took up issues that resonated with various facets of his life but focused more on

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  61 articulating their political rather than their personal importance. It wasn’t that he denied or hid their relevance to his everyday life, but he more often than not intimated the link or seemed to assume that others could and even should assume their relevance. He was, after all, just as much as many others, engaged in a complex struggle to take hold of his subjectivity and relationality by inquiring within but pushing against the historical and discursive parameters he received and perceived in the multiple worlds he occupied. Considered a ‘public intellectual’, Foucault refused the authority of pronouncing specific strategies or outcomes, preferring instead to provocate by narrating what may be at stake and highlighting the creative thought and action of others. Anthony Giddens: ‘Off the edge of history’ Anthony Giddens has also assumed a reflexive position that takes modernity, and what he termed ‘high’ or ‘late’ modernity, as objects of reflection. While Giddens’s early work, particularly that of ‘structuration theory’, commonly cited by constructivists in IR, is especially abstract in its theorization of social structures and systemic change (Giddens 1984), his later work has engaged concrete issues such as globalization and policy matters such as social welfare and the environment (Giddens 1994, 1999, 2002). Running through this body of work is an abiding concern with reflexive thought and action as closely connected to social configurations. Thus, Giddens’ historical sketches and conceptual frameworks, including that of structuration theory, are best contextualized by how Giddens has oriented himself as scholar and social theorist—by looking back in order to mark out in the present matrices of risk and opportunity, potentially offering new insights for action. Enhanced reflexivity as a historical and social development that to a significant degree defines modernity plays a key role in this regard. And it is in Giddens’ work on modernity and sexuality (1992) that points of contact with Foucault are strongest. ‘Tradition’ and ‘post-tradition’, as well as ‘early modernity’, ‘modernity’, ‘late modernity’ and ‘high modernity’, are all terms variously deployed by Giddens to describe ways of organizing past time and space relative to that of the present and future. Tradition, for example, is chronological repetition where the present is reconstructed in terms of past rituals and ‘formulaic truths’. As a result, social relations, such as family and sexuality, largely remain in stasis, and knowledge is the purview of ‘guardians’ who have the status to interpret the past, present, and future (Giddens 1996, pp. 8, 15–17, 51). Giddens describes modernity, in contrast, as an order that has rejected tradition; it is, in Giddens’ language, ‘post-tradition’ because tradition as a guide to action has been abandoned. Whereas ‘traditional’ orders operate on the inertia of the past, post-traditional formations only have the inertia of emotional attachment to routines. Giddens emphasizes two implications. First, psychological anxiety is more likely when routines are less stable. When tradition has been ‘evacuated’— excavated and exhumed—room is made for alternative understandings of time and space, but at the price of unstable and shifting identity (Giddens 1996, p. 9).

62  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Tradition aided the control of anxiety through emotional investments in collective memories that at least seemed continuous, creating ‘ontological security’. Second, despite this anxiety of ‘late modernity’, reflexivity as a ‘subjective freedom’ has been ‘extended to more and more areas of social life, as traditions lose their authority and people must create their own world’ (Tucker 1998, p. 95). This happens especially through ‘institutional reflexivity’, which belongs to what I have been referring to as ‘reflexive modernity’. Knowledge, thought and action are susceptible to change because routines have been decoupled from stable carriers, namely generational transmission. Modernity has experts as its knowledge carriers but this expertise runs on the engine of critique and contestation. Giddens may underestimate the confidence, certainty and continuity that experts endow on their claims but his point is important and shared by others (Abbinett 2003; Mi. Williams 2001, p. 41)—the institutions and practices of science emphasize careful procedures premised on the strong possibility of fallibility. With the kinds of contested and ‘conditional conclusions’ made about complex social and natural processes, including global warming, we do not simply calculate risks; instead, various scenarios are likely to be generated, ‘whose plausibility will be influenced, among other things, by how many people become convinced of the thesis of global warming and take action on that basis’ (Giddens 1996, p. 11). Giddens presents modernity, in other words, as a social order where there are ‘truths’ or ‘beliefs’ but they are experiential, contingent, and provisional (Giddens 1984). They are also dependent on their incorporation into thought–action couplings, a process that has been ‘regularized’ in modernity because we value and ‘use knowledge about circumstances of social life’ to constitutively reorganize and transform it (Giddens 1991, p. 20). This epistemological model of positivist science is commonly seen as an improvement on tradition because it provides a surer footing for knowledge, yet this enhanced reflexivity also carries with it dangers that include unwieldy, unforeseen and uncertain consequences of modernity’s experimentations. And because of globalization’s ‘indefinite time–space extensions’, the hazards are now global. We are all, in a sense, powerful agents in that our actions can affect distant others in profound ways, but we are also susceptible to the actions of others and are thus compelled to take part in these experiments (Giddens 1996, pp. 10–11). Giddens is focused on climate change and new technologies such as nanotechnology (Giddens 2014), but other examples abound in the IR literature—violence and economic transactions and incentives, for example, penetrate everyday life and are thus difficult to evade. While the Enlightenment thinkers of ‘early modernity’ generally dismissed tradition (in the form of religion and superstition) and saw in science the means of assessing and controlling risks in order that history could be shaped in the pursuit of moral goods such as happiness, ‘high modernity’ is instead more open and contingent for Giddens. There are opportunities for agency, but also tremendous downsides. Where risks have been globalized we may inadvertently start down a path that propels us ‘off the edge of history’ (Giddens 2014). It is, to some extent, the global scope of the risks that makes them acute, but it is also the inherent complexity of action, as we’ll see with Arendt, that makes

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  63 the future ‘opaque to us’. We cannot in advance, Giddens declared, know the outcomes of technological development and innovation. If risks are unavoidable, we must respond appropriately to those risks—‘high system risk’ in the case of globalization. Thinking in terms of opportunities enables the formulation of different frames through which to chart courses of action which entails, of course, being able to locate the basis for our action in thought (Giddens 1984, pp. 3–5). However, Giddens provides a portrait in which a self-conscious and enduring reflexivity at the level of the agent can really only be intermittent because tied to conditions of crisis, but also alternately limited and spurred by psychological drives. In Giddens’ sociological account routines provide a stable ontological footing in the world; reflexivity is, in one respect, involved in monitoring the ‘character of the ongoing flow of social life’ (Giddens 1984, p. 3), and not in ways that are necessarily subversive of patterns of social life. Modernity—especially in its later stages—has compounded ontological anxiety because there are a ‘multiplicity of possibilities which almost every aspect of daily life, when looked at in the appropriate way, offers’ (Giddens 1996, p. 28). While tradition protected against contingency, ‘in a post-traditional order habits are regularly infused with information drawn from abstract systems, with which also they often clash’ (p. 57). Thus we turn to compulsive behavior, as Giddens illustrates with the dynamic of addiction, to cope with choice and the agencies of others, even if unconsciously (pp. 23–28). Routines combat the ever-present specter of meaninglessness and the problem of sustaining or reconstructing identity that is now much less stable (p. 50). Some IR scholars have appropriated Giddens to investigate security as both psychological and social—exploring how insecurity is engendered by the rupture of identity (Mitzen 2006; Steele 2008b). When disjuncture between identity and action is made apparent, reflexivity is stimulated by anxiety to restore continuity. There is thus even a political and strategic opportunity for others in that reflexive tactics, such as reflexive discourse and reflexive imaging, can be deployed as a form of insecuritizing counter-power against another actor, a partial point of overlap with Foucault on reflexivity as a form of strategic power that could have moral benefits (Steele 2008a, 2010a). This context is important for interpreting Giddens’ concept of reflexivity because it shows that, even though Giddens abstractly poses large-scale structure in a co-constitutive relationship with agency, he offers at least some concrete examples of how agencies matter even while we contextualize them in view of psychological processes and history’s longue durée. By pointing to the instabilities of contemporary social orders, whether ‘late’ modernity or globalization, Giddens potentially gives the ‘active person at the center’ (Tucker 1998, p. 2) some prime of place. Giddens’ theorizing, considered together with his direct involvement in policy questions and political discourse, suggests that Giddens might see himself as one such reflexive and social agent—monitoring and rearticulating theoretical bases for action. At the same time, Giddens betrays a pessimism about reflexivity’s potential as a strategy in that he stops short of the specificity that such a practice of any endurance would entail. And it is not clear just how prevalent

64  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Giddens thought a self-conscious reflexivity could be among actors of all kinds. Giddens implies a ‘we’ in his experience of (late-) modernity’s maladies—the negative and profound consequences—but positions himself as a reflexive expert who might illuminate a more sound thought–action coupling and exempts himself from socio-psychological diagnosis (or at least never attempts it). What are the anxieties that Giddens himself feels in such a world? And why is he exempt from the psychological drive to engage in patchwork repair of destabilized identity and its routines? Hannah Arendt: the refusal to be ‘homesick’ in a world of ‘homelessness’ Like Foucault and Giddens, Hannah Arendt theorized a kind of reflexivity in which historical context played a prominent part. The age of modernity was not one of reflexive institutions and global risks, but rather one of extreme and grand political programs that had produced unimaginable ‘political evils’ that were unique events (Barder and McCourt 2010) and yet tied to a general thoughtlessness. In this regard Arendt and Foucault both found their social and political context troubling in view of both a long historical arc and distinctive conglomerates of institutions, attitudes, and identities. Foucault and Arendt shared a desire to turn back on history to denaturalize and make sense of the present without imposing neat and tidy explanatory narratives that overran contingency; doing so would enable us to imagine different ways of doing politics and acting that take form in practices of the self. And both were keenly interested in how our perspectives might be contextualized and diversified by looking to, among others, ancient Greeks and Romans. According to some commentators, Arendt was naïvely liberal for romanticizing and idealizing ancient Greek politics as discourse and participation among equals—emphasizing the plurality and natality of politics that included the potential for dialogue and the ability to think apart from accepted truths and norms— and ignoring how such models of politics were based on exclusionary and imperial policies at home and abroad, respectively. This dismissive interpretation of Arendt is too simple and too easy; Arendt presented a view of possibilities both optimistic and skeptical and thus difficult to reconcile. In her later work on thinking, willing and judgment, for example, Arendt was clearly more reticent about the impact that thinking can have on the world—she wrote that in overcoming the failure to think we can only hope to prevent the most disastrous political and social projects. Thinking can guide us in what not to do in the form of saying, ‘No’. Nevertheless, in thinking we benefit perhaps just as much (if not more) from an internal pluralism as an external pluralism. And our capacity to create and act is a double-edged sword, as Arendt illustrated in her study of totalitarianism. Transformation and creations are not unqualified goods. Thus, in discussing Arendt’s view of reflexivity (in the next section) we are faced with the question of whether it can be the basis for an ongoing practice of ethics, as I propose. For now, I turn to Arendt’s view of history and her place in it—one that is perhaps more autobiographically

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  65 reflexive than the authors we have considered thus far. Giddens, Foucault, and even Aristotle, referenced their place as part of a broader collective, tradition, or attitude, but often in a more depersonalized fashion. The ‘natality’ of political action (rooted in the faculty of ‘willing’) that can generate a new kind of politics does not entirely oppose totalitarianism, according to Arendt; it also makes totalitarianism possible. The novelty of this political movement was enabled by the ability to ‘break with all our traditions’ and begin anew (Arendt, cited in Canovan 2000, p. 27). The paradox of totalitarianism, however, was that it resulted in an assault on this very capacity because totalitarianism’s experimental programs of engineering and control and the certainty they bred attacked individuality, by which Arendt meant the individual’s ability to think and act in unique ways (Canovan 2000, p. 27). Totalitarianism also needed a general apathy and indifference among the population who became unthinking ‘masses’ (Arendt 1966, p. 311). In other words, totalitarianism was engineered by capable political actors and applied to those who incapacitated themselves. Totalitarianism impacted not just those who were targets of oppression and extinction because they were seen as superfluous in a project of domination (i.e., the Jews), but the ideologues of totalitarianism also, who were subsumed by and also submitted to ideology, thus displaying an extraordinary inability to think. Arendt viewed the political consequences of totalitarianism as extreme, in the radical evil that was produced. But totalitarianism itself was made possible by rather ordinary and democratic logic: ‘the politically neutral and indifferent masses could easily be the majority in a democratically ruled country’ and thus democracy as majority feeling, preference or permissive inaction at the expense of parliamentary procedures and constitutions could be disastrous (Arendt 1966, p. 312). This was not a participatory politics as debate and dialogue over matters of real political importance. Instead, loyalty was rendered to leaders who did their best to avoid political projects of any meaning or endurance. About Soviet totalitarianism Arendt wrote, ‘one could follow the party line only if one repeated each morning what Stalin had announced the night before’. This was a ‘concentrated obedience, undivided by any attempt to understand what one was doing’ (1966, p. 324). Arendt’s concern was more about the apathy of the masses in contradistinction to Aristotle’s worry about their (excessive and inappropriate) passion, but one aspect of the result is the same—an elision of meaningful politics. The thoughtlessness of totalitarianism was on full display in the trial of Adolf Eichmann which Arendt covered (as a journalist) for the American magazine, The New Yorker. When Arendt (1964) invoked the phrase ‘banality of evil’ in the book project that followed (Eichmann in Jerusalem), she meant by it ‘the phenomenon of evil deeds, committed on a gigantic scale, which could not be traced to any particularity of wickedness, pathology, or ideological conviction in the doer, whose only personal distinction was a perhaps extraordinary shallowness’ (Arendt 1984, p. 7). Eichmann’s ‘inability to think’ meant that, just as he had accepted the bureaucratic rules, state laws, and direct orders of German officials, he also accepted the prevalent social and procedural rules of the time and space of

66  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault the trial. Thus, Arendt reported that Eichmann coped with the proceedings and the sentence by fulfilling his role and its associated expectations: He functioned in the role of prominent war criminal just as well as he had under the Nazi regime; he had not the slightest difficulty in accepting an entirely different set of rules. He knew that what he had once considered his duty was now called a crime, and he accepted this new code of judgment as though it were nothing but another language rule. (Arendt 1984, p. 7) Following rules, commands, and procedures also enabled Eichmann to claim that he had never directly killed a Jew despite his direct participation in a system that resulted in millions of deaths. Despite this gloomy picture (as social analysis), Arendt was invested in our capacity to think and act in sustainable ways. One the one hand, ‘our unique individuality and our capacity for spontaneous thought and action’ result in unpredictability that can take disastrous form when terror and ideology spawn only to return to crush individuality (Canovan 2000, p. 27). On the other hand, the hope is that ‘man’s resources’ are too great to be forever repressed and that ideologies, commands, rules and procedures could be deprioritized in favor of active, thinking agents: Even though we have lost yardsticks by which to measure, and rules under which to subsume the particular, a being whose essence is beginning may have enough of origin within himself to understand without preconceived categories and to judge without the set of customary rules which is morality. (Arendt 1953, p. 391) Arendt’s unfinished tripartite series, The Life of the Mind, addressed this project of ‘thinking what we are doing’, a project relevant long after the end of the Nazi regime and the death of Stalin. In her preface to The Human Condition Arendt noted how the human condition itself should be reconsidered ‘from the vantage point of our newest experiences and our most recent fears’, among them space travel and automation (1961, pp. 260–274, 1998, p. 5). It was this historical context, with its simultaneous possibilities and pitfalls, that Arendt sketched as reasons for reflexive thinking—for her own as well as that of others. An additional complication for reflexivity is the elusiveness of that to which we give birth in our socially plural condition. Hannah Arendt locates the contingency that arises from action—how it unfolds and takes form in the world—in ways that escape our control and are difficult to predict. Action follows more of a means-means rather than a means-end dynamic because once one strikes out into the world, others react to our actions in ways that upset its goal-oriented trajectory. Our action is unpredictable and irreversible; we cannot take it and its effects back. Arendt’s (1964) study of the Holocaust in Eichmann in Jerusalem is a powerful illustration of unintended consequences and failures to think through

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  67 the various possibilities. In trying to take practical action that would save at least some Jews, for example, Jewish leaders and councils unwittingly aided the deportation and killing of many more Jews, according to Arendt. More broadly, the rise of totalitarianism itself could only be understood as following from a concatenation of complex happenings, perhaps foremost among them the unforeseen consequences of invoking racial and ethnic identities to animate colonial and other imperialist undertakings, but also the idea of progress through science and technological advancements. The result was large-scale destruction and acute crises of knowledge and identity when these unleashed forces eventually came ‘home to roost’. In the world that Arendt experienced, at times deeply alienated and disconnected from a meaningful politics and from social and political recognition, Arendt declared herself ‘homeless’, in exile. Yet Arendt refused to be ‘homesick’ in such a world, in contrast to her portrayal of Rahel Varnhagen (in her first book), a Jewess living in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (Arendt 2000a). In response to pressures to assimilate to European high society as ‘an exception to her race’, Varnhagen resented this pressure but relented to it, choosing to be a ‘parvenue’ rather than a ‘pariah’. For Arendt, the more courageous path, which is also the activity of politics, is to confront the reality of being a pariah and thus in the position to sketch out political alternatives and agendas. Arendt’s depiction of Varnhagen helps to make sense of her early Zionism and the emphasis she placed in her scholarly work on action over both the abstract contemplation of philosophers and the vacuous introspection of Varnhagen’s withdrawal from the world despite her approximately 10,000 letters of written correspondence with political and social (literary) elites. Though the world may have left Arendt (and other Jews), one challenge she took up that was at once political and ethical was to craft spaces and times of thought and action that matter, and to take responsibility for how thought and action unfold into the world. This project of self-reflexivity is not easy, nor is it entirely individual. It is also relational and with considerable risk. A reflexive reflexivity? One could say that Foucault, Giddens, and Arendt all exercised a self-reflexivity by noticing and detailing the context of their thinking, writing, and research. IR scholars, particularly constructivists, have turned to Giddens’ narrative of the ‘double hermeneutic’ as a model of scholarship in which social scientists ‘recognize this unique intersection of expert and everyday discourses and build it into the very fabric of their theories and research’ (Tucker 1998, p. 3; Guzzini 2000; Steele 2007b). Yet, despite theorizing the scholar’s reflexivity, Giddens seemed less reflexive vis-à-vis his scholarship than Foucault and Arendt and hardly attentive to reflexivity as a continuous practice of ethical significance. Reflexivity is not explicitly connected to the self’s agency for Giddens. Reflexivity is instead a dynamic found in the world and made more likely under certain conditions (e.g., ontological insecurity). In his discussions of impending environmental disasters,

68  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault for example, Giddens holds out reflexivity as that which offers an avenue of response but one that is still largely determined by empirical factors that would make it more or less likely. Foucault more actively entertained reflexivity as a practice that could be taken up by any number of actors, even those who acutely experience and feel domination, and Foucault often implied that he belonged among those who might critically examine their subjectivities and make themselves objects of action by referring to ‘we’ and ‘ourselves’. Still, Foucault did not often foreground his personal experiences—even though they had obvious connection to his thinking—as someone who may have experienced modernity’s disciplinary reflexivity with regard to his homosexuality, an attempted suicide, and the question of his sanity (Dosse 1997, p. 147). He did not often discuss his personal experiences directly and yet they were implied no less than by the specific questions he raised and the political projects he took up. More so than Giddens and Foucault, Arendt’s reflexivity was often that of the ‘first person’ in its positionality, or as ‘autobiographical reflexivity’ (Dauphinee 2013; Eagleton-Pierce 2011; Inayatullah 2011). Arendt (1966), for example, relayed how she felt sitting in the courtroom listening to Eichmann, and discussed her study of totalitarianism still ‘in grief and sorrow’. Arendt felt closer to the events not just in her experience of them but also in recounting and representing her reflexivity. She let us in on the conversation she had with herself about how she made sense of her experiences and how she oriented and crafted her research to give it purpose vis-à-vis the cause of sound research as well as the political and individual purposes that it could inform. Arendt explicated and inhabited a reflexive pluralism of the self. In the 1966 edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism Arendt wrote in the ‘Introduction’ about exactly these choices, particularly those of timing, motivation, and social purpose. Noting the end of Nazi Germany, though not yet the death of Stalin, Arendt wrote: This seemed to me the first appropriate moment to look upon contemporary events with the backward-directed glance of the historian and the analytical zeal of the of the political scientist, the first chance to try to tell and to understand what had happened, not yet sine ira et studio, still in grief and sorrow and, hence, with a tendency to lament, but no longer in speechless outrage and impotent horror . . . It was, at any rate, the first possible moment to articulate and to elaborate the questions with which my generation had been forced to live for the better part of its adult life: What happened? Why did it happen? How could it have happened? (Arendt 1966, pp. vii–viii: emphasis in the original)6 If one of totalitarianism’s legacies was a widespread attempt to try to understand ourselves and our actions, Arendt played a key role in self-consciously initiating this political task as a scholar, political actor, and member of a social cohort. This life’s experience and its affect—hers and her generation’s—were important and

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  69 relevant. Arendt framed her project—a form of thinking and acting itself—by referring to its duality for her, as participant and scholarly observer. By foregrounding context Arendt marked out the social purposes of her writing and simultaneously elevated and delimited its objectivity. Arendt could not in her judgment immediately react as a historian and political scientist; she felt paralyzed and could not yet situate her experience meaningfully for others and maybe even to herself. Thus, it was not available to her as an object of scholarly thinking and analysis until later when there was more room within herself for multiple analytical and moral resources to be brought to bear on these questions. Yet, the stakes for her life and the lives of others were simply too great to bequeath these questions to the historians and political scientists of subsequent generations alone, who would be less ‘involved’. And we will see that this plurality of the self and of politics is a hallmark of reflexivity for Arendt. Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Anthony Giddens all, to varying degrees, assumed a reflexive stance as they theorized politics and ethics and as they promoted a wider and ongoing practice of reflexivity therein—that we reflect on history and formulate a critical response to it. They shared an awareness of reflexive human capacity and its historical transformation—that we now have the power to destroy the world—and the goal of doing something about it, to harness these capacities in ways that are responsive to our challenges and that forge new paths of possibility.7 Looming large was the particularly acute problem of knowledge, but also a politically relevant ethics for Foucault and Arendt. Together, the lifetimes of these authors span an entire century. They are not of the same generation, yet there was significant overlap in the events they perceived and experienced as well as their readings of the longer historical arc of ‘modernity’. For Foucault the problem of knowledge as uncertain, unstable and without metaphysical closure could be traced at least back to Kant. Arendt and Giddens focused more on a break with ‘tradition’ and its authority that peaked in the twentieth century. All three more or less shared the view that we are faced with epistemological uncertainty—of fallible, contingent and maybe even impossible truths and beliefs. Not only was Kant unsuccessful in his turn to reason and freedom for concluding moral prescriptions, the terrain has been complicated (or was complicated all along) by the vicissitudes of agency. Arendt described a disconnect between means and ends that occurs as actions elicit reactions from others and reverberate in a world with considerable technological and organizational capacities. The result is unintended and unforeseen consequences that are difficult to anticipate and that threaten to undo us. If we can’t cope with unpredictability and irreversibility we will never be able to recover from even a single act (Arendt 1998). Giddens (2002, 2014) added to the list the forces and flows of globalization that extend the ability of agencies to travel, with perhaps more profound consequences than even Arendt could have imagined. He discussed social capacities that have emerged on a scale that would have been difficult to imagine—‘invading nature’ so that distinctions between ‘social’ and ‘natural’ have been erased (as in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and nanotechnology) with the potential danger that some unintended consequences may be (or become) irreversible, such as climate

70  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault change and new potent diseases. Foucault also perceived a worrisome extension of modernity’s reach—power had become disaggregated, insidious and difficult to detect precisely because it triggered reflexive monitoring that could feed into our subjectivities (the corporeal body and the social body). Modernity’s bureaucracy and technologies have a lot to do with this, but for Foucault every social formation created is dangerous. By invoking the notions of modernity and the Enlightenment, even if reworked by Foucault as an attitude, the question arises as to whether a practice of reflexivity will be guilty of the same criticisms leveled against the ‘age of Reason’, particularly its overconfidence in being able to order or at least understand the world. The major difference, however, is that the authors considered here presented an ontology of complexity, contingency, and difference.8 Instead of progress, reason as critical rationality is a tool to represent and grapple with our ever-present challenges, not just as critique but also as politics. For example, the elusiveness of action that Arendt points to has its upside. It is in the realm of politics that we seek to disclose ourselves and express our freedom and autonomy through words and deeds that rationalize and justify, thereby creating meaning (Owens 2007, p. 5). Here, we can struggle to be responsive to our relationships with one another even in the face of unpredictability. In the words of Villa (2000, p. 11), Arendt ‘celebrates’ the freedom to strike down a new path. This freedom is not compromised by the contingency of the world. Likewise, Foucault locates meaning and joy in the radical ethico-political possibilities that can be forged amidst disciplinary and normalizing pressures. The thread of continuity I wish to emphasize by invoking Giddens, Arendt and Foucault is the call to think through our situation, identities and actions and to claim a measure of agency wherein, as Foucault (1984b, p. 48) puts it, we take on the task of disconnecting ‘the growth of capabilities’ from ‘the intensification of power relations’. Nevertheless, as I will argue in the next section, Arendt and Foucault, more than Giddens, gesture toward a more promising response via self-reflexivity.

The contours of ethical reflexivity as practice The practice of reflexivity I develop here, taking inspiration from these different authors, offers a striking contrast to much of the reflexivity literature in IR. Just as theorizations of agency in IR have located its meaning in terms of its structural impact, reflexivity has been similarly portrayed by some—as understanding and maybe even transforming one’s socio-structural context. Critical theory’s reflexivity usually features the lofty teleological aim of human ‘emancipation’ or forming and strengthening the bonds of global community (Alker 1996; Neufeld 1995). Constructivism is often referred to as a ‘reflexive’ theory but, as I have argued, its agency is noteworthy only when agents successfully impact structure conceived in the broadest of terms as norms, rules and roles (Epstein 2012). For Berejikian and Dryzek (2000) reflexivity is ‘constitutive reasoning’ aimed at such social formations as international society. Another constructivist variation on agency imparts on it tremendous importance even though agents remain unaware

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  71 of why they do what they do most of the time (Frost 1996; Onuf 1998b). On these interpretations reflexivity assumes much less regularity and importance than constructivism’s reputation might suggest.9 Several IR scholars have turned to Bourdieu for intellectual resources to theorize reflexivity, applying the concepts of ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ as an alternative to agency and structure (Eagleton-Pierce 2011; Guzzini 2000; Hamati-Ataya 2012b). These theorizations of reflexivity are often fleshed out as sociology of knowledge/ science rather than practices of international/global politics. Knowledge practices correspond to specific ‘fields’, such as academic disciplines, where shared meanings enable shared practices (Guzzini 2000, pp. 165–166).10 Scholars as socially embedded actors are attended to as objects of analysis in yet another analytic task for social science. The danger of casting reflexivity in this sociological form alone is that agency gets lost in the ‘objective structuration of IR’, as seen in Hamati-Ataya’s work (2011, 2012b), where agency is described as a field/habitus complex. The implication is that agency by actors within a field is elided. Thus, Hamati-Ataya concludes that dissident non-Western IR scholars can potentially transform IR theory, and not Western IR scholars, because they constitute a different field/habitus, but only when objective structural conditions are ripe. 11 By turning to Arendt, Foucault, and Giddens, we can see how reflexivity is not limited to the clash of different intersubjective fields. There are other methods for fostering critique and heterogeneity of thought. The self can be made an object to be worked on, not just an object to be explained. As Arendt puts it, to suppose that the Augustinian problem of human nature—questio mihi factus sum (‘a question have I become for myself’)—is comparable to the quest for knowledge of objects that surround us ‘would be like jumping over our own shadows’ (1998, p. 10). Instead, I suggest that reflexivity as a form of agency rather than knowledge is overlooked in IR, even though it has a rich history, as seen in Aristotle in Chapter 1.12 Only as agency can reflexivity be the basis for a practice of ethics for politics. One could, of course, theorize a reflexive practice of ethics by drawing on other traditions of thought. I also do not wish to argue that ‘ethical reflexivity’ is a universally valid practice—its legitimacy depends on whether specific agents take it up and whether it withstands scrutiny as it takes form as praxis. To assert otherwise would be inconsistent with the idea of reflexivity itself. Backing away from the edge? The false promise of reflexive (or institutional) modernity Of the authors considered here, Giddens has perhaps been the most influential in the field of IR. In particular, his ‘structuration theory’ and ‘double hermeneutics’ have formed the backbone of much of constructivist theorizing and constructivists’ reputation as reflexive. Invoking Giddens, Guzzini describes two interacting ‘levels of action’ that set the stage for constructivism as ‘reflexive meta-theory’— the actors of international politics interpret their social world at the level of action, and IR scholars interpret an ‘already interpreted world’ at the level of observation, forming a ‘double hermeneutic’ (2000). The implication is that constructivism

72  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault can attend to the reflexive link between ontology and epistemology if one generalizes the stance of ‘social construction’. The extent to which self-awareness of one’s interpretive powers also attends reflexivity as process varies widely across hermeneutically inclined scholars. Reflexivity is indeed a concept that is central to the ‘structuration theory’ that Giddens sets out. Like IR constructivists who were opposed to structural realism, Giddens positioned his effort against structural sociology’s contention that there are forces that act on us independently of human cognition (Giddens 1984, p. xix). Instead Giddens argued that human actors have ‘the capacity to understand what they do while they do it’ (1984, p. xxii). This is not to say that both social structure and the unconscious are unimportant; that Giddens emphasized the reflexive, recursive and opaque characteristics of thought and action in his structuration theory is indicative of his desire to avoid a determinism/voluntarism dualism. Our actions are informed by shared understandings and routines (as well as the unconscious) but reflexivity as a capacity allows us to reflect upon why we do what we do and potentially modify our thoughts and actions. Thus, we can act in ways that have repercussions for whether the social structure is reproduced or challenged, with the potential for its modification.13 As Onuf (1998b) underscores, agents choose whether to follow or violate rules, and in doing so, rules are either strengthened or weakened. Reflexivity, following Giddens, ‘means that all social norms and routines are fragile’ (Tucker 1998, p. 57). People actively interpret, with some amount of frequency, the social situation and it is these interpretations and the actions that follow from them that contribute to a reconstitution of society. We can conclude that Giddens sees reflexivity as a type of rationality because actors rationalize their action when they understand and articulate it theoretically, though it may be more or less critical. Giddens’ reflexivity is also dialectic in that thought and action are invoked to assess and potentially modify the other. Through reflexivity ‘thought and action are constantly refracted back upon one another . . . social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character’ (Giddens 1990, p. 38). But another aspect of reflexivity is the feedback that happens as consequences of action (including those that are unintended) contribute to the subsequent conditions for action. In Giddens’ characterization of modernity as ‘reflexive’ we see the ways in which reflexivity does not always need to be the aim that agents have in mind as purposeful actors. Theorizing and observing ‘social processes’ feed back into these very social processes (Onuf 1998c, p. 114). This is an institutional reflexivity. In a reflexive modernity, for example, there are a variety of ways in which organizations (including those of the state) continuously and obsessively gather information about their performances and effects by measuring outcomes, to which they then respond.14 Giddens attempted to balance social aspects of ontology and the power of agency. Yet, the psychological aspect of Giddens’ social theory might be problematic for elaborating a more sustained and self-conscious practice of reflexivity as ethics, as mentioned earlier in the chapter. On the one hand, Giddens has most recently argued that we are essentially in an age of enhanced reflexivity

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  73 where there are tremendous opportunities for responding to large-scale existential risks (risks that are in part a product of our ‘invading’ nature and the feedback that entails). On the other hand, we are driven toward the safety of routines and habits that are sustained in largely unconscious and preconscious, though not necessarily non-reflexive, ways: ‘Ordinary day-to-day life . . . involves an ontological security expressing an autonomy of bodily control within predictable routines’ (Giddens 1984, p. 50).15 When the coherency of the reflexive link between thought and action is threatened and desecuritizing anxiety ensues, it is difficult to argue that an opportunity for careful dialectic and dialogic deliberation is available. Repairs to the self can be patchwork and made in haste. The result may be only intermittent opportunity to self-consciously engage in ethical judgment that is more than superficial. For most actors these opportunities are found in times of crisis when chasms between avowed or conventional morality, on the one side, and behavior, on the other side, are most dramatized: ‘Questions often posed about intentions and reasons by philosophers are normally only put by lay actors when there is a “lapse” or fracture in competency which might in fact be an intended one’ or when the behavior is not conventional to the group or culture (Giddens 1984, p. 6). These parameters have been the focus of IR scholars investigating Giddens’ concept of ontological security where ‘critical situations’ that create insecurity are addressed through reflexivity at the discursive level (Huysmans 1998; McSweeney 1999; Mitzen 2006; Steele 2005, 2008b). Steele (2008a) shows, for example, how the U.S. practice of torture as ‘enhanced interrogation’ during the ‘War on Terror’ could be sustained and challenged by reflexive processes and tactics but in a largely reactionary manner. Actors seek to secure their identities by having consistent self-narratives; when inconsistency is effectively publicized, shame ensues (Steele 2008b). Steele’s well-founded pessimism about the ethical potential of reflexivity surfaces in the conclusion to his book-length study of reflexivity as counter-power (2010a) and Mitzen (2006) argues that ontological security can even mean that states are attached to routines that are dangerous and self-defeating, such as security dilemmas. Clearly, there are gradations in the quality of reflexivity and one cannot assume that reflexivity alone makes good ethical practice. Of interest here is the question of whether reflexivity can be an active and deliberative practice, perhaps along the lines of Aristotle’s dynamic engagement with thought and action (as ‘universals’ and ‘particulars’). The alternative is that reflexivity is only a phenomenon of modernity to be noted and documented as either feedback loops or a form of strategic or identity-based action that has limited political purchase, but not as the basis for an ethics. We might ask, then, whether there are other frames of understanding and empirical conditions that facilitate reflexivity and whether they might be leveraged to magnify and extend reflexivity as a practice of ethics. How can reflexivity as agency gain traction and take form? While reflexivity as agency is not entirely absent in the work of IR scholars, there is a widespread tendency to attribute to scholars themselves the capacity for a deeper and sustained reflexivity rather than ‘lay’ persons. Still, we are left to wonder how IR scholars can take on a sustained project of reflexivity

74  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault (Lynch 2008; Neufeld 1995) through an awareness of their interpretive activities but the actors of international/global politics cannot. It seems, moreover, that Giddens locates the potential for change more in the unpredictability of the consequences of action to which actors must then respond, than in the ability of the agent to challenge the boundaries of the thinkable, contrary to Foucault. In speaking of the ‘text’ but also social practices more generally, Giddens notes that ‘in the enactment of social practices . . . the consequences of actions chronically escape their initiators’ intentions’ (Giddens 1990, p. 44). To this statement Arendt and Foucault would likely agree, but Giddens is concerned to recover a subject that has been decentered into oblivion always in terms of social practices and institutions, and thus limits to action are located there: ‘a recovery of the subject . . . involves a grasp of “what cannot be said” (or thought) as practice’ (1990, p. 44). Despite this agential curtailment, I find particularly promising in Giddens the power of the self-narrative for sustaining ourselves as agents. Agency is only meaningful for Giddens if the agent can ‘make a difference’, which is to ‘exercise some sort of power’ (Giddens 1984, p. 14). Part of this power is located in the self-narrative through which the ‘origin’ of one’s action is reflexively constituted (Giddens 1984, p. 51). We saw in the previous section that Giddens was rather concerned with everyday sustainable strategies for reframing and tackling contemporary political challenges that require creative thinking. Giddens, along with Beck and Lash (Beck et al. 1994), is interested in how reflexivity as selfknowledge intersects with the very problems already induced by reflexively infused societies. I think that those who have drawn on Giddens in the IR context, and even Giddens himself at times, have unnecessarily minimized the opportunities to leverage tensions in identity in favor of an enhanced reflexivity as agency rather than applied knowledge. In other words, not as ‘more expertise’ but as a practice of thinking and judgment that is more widespread and suspiciously critical of the promise of any one modality of action, including technology. If Giddens is correct that we monitor ourselves and our context, this reflexive activity in its self-conscious manifestation becomes ever more important with the high stakes and changes of globalization that Giddens most recently set out (2002). At one point Giddens acknowledges that actors can seek to challenge that which is conventional or regularized. Their self-reflexivity, as opposed to its ‘institutional’ form, can be ‘skillful’ if cultivated as such, though Giddens remained vague on this point (Tucker 1998, p. 178). We will see with Arendt and Foucault much more of an emphasis on the plurality of the self that, while it still elicits self-maintenance, provides richer resources for decisions and transformations that can be rooted in a practice of ethics. Thus, I see my interpretation of reflexivity as contributing to, rather than wholly opposing, constructivist and poststructural theorizing of agency and subjectivity. The reflexive self’s faculties: thinking, willing, and judging Turning to Arendt illustrates reflexivity as a more active agency than we see in Giddens. Arendt’s ‘two-in-one’ dialogue, for example, is a valuable resource for

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  75 specifying reflexivity as a process and orientation, and provides a particularly powerful instantiation of ethical agency in the midst of difference. More broadly, Arendt sets out three mental faculties that, one, are themselves reflexive to different degrees and, two, might enable a wider practice of ethical reflexivity relevant to politics itself. What Arendt has to offer to my project, but also to discussions of reflexivity in IR scholarship, is a way to start conceptualizing reflexivity as dependent on certain faculties and as a practice of ethics, moving beyond reflexivity as mere internal reflection, interpretation, self-awareness, or sociological analysis that puts agency even further out of reach. Following Aristotle, Arendt turns to the potential of the individual to cultivate capacities relevant to ethics, but unlike Aristotle, Arendt is more attentive to the social basis of the self.16 Arendt’s agent is not overwhelmed by social structures or pressures; rather, Arendt seeks to guard against this and other possibilities that involve absorption by the world or withdrawal from it. The self that the reflexive mind forms as the object of critical and dialectic evaluation may be individual or collective, but reflexive dialogue always has a ‘solitary’ component that enables a fractured self. Agents may be socialized but they are not therefore unitary and coherent. To be constituted by socializing forces ‘all the way down’ (Epstein 2013; Wendt 1999) would preclude ‘thought’ itself, and thus the ways in which we make subjective the intersubjective (or filter and contest the intersubjective). The plural self, I will argue, is relevant in different ways to politics and philosophy in Arendt’s writings, but it is not the case that thinking only pertains to the philosopher and judgment-with-others as politics. I do not read in Arendt a strict ethics/politics distinction along these lines. For Arendt, thought is inherently destructive of social norms and rules, and the natality of willing enables agents to judge and act without relying solely on inherited and conventional moralities. Thus, Arendt was able to condemn Eichmann. Arendt also does not neglect the tendencies to routine and political demands for the self’s (at least temporary) coherence in the political sphere, but she refuses to generalize and valorize this view of the self. In other words, Arendt’s account of politics, to have force, need not amount to social institutions that facilitate the idyllic exchange of opinions between equals. Instead, she provides a conceptual basis for the parameters of a reflexive self along with some resources for a politics that engages the tension between thought and action as an extension and animation of this pluralism. While the pluralism of all social life and the contingencies it generates raise the stakes of politics, they also enable thoughtful response via specific tactics and engagements. Thus, exploring reflexivity’s potential as ethico-political, as I seek to do, is a promising strand of contemporary Arendtian scholarship. Of the mental faculties Arendt sets out, perhaps ‘thinking’ best captures the basic capacities of self-reflexivity that a practice of political ethics moored to agency would need. Arendt describes ‘thinking’ as the ‘two-in-one’ dialogue of the self, which depends on pluralism, speech, and intermittent solitude. Pluralism is a fundamental attribute of the self that makes reflexivity a possibility:

76  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Even if I were to live entirely by myself I would, as long as I am alive, live in the condition of plurality. I have to put up with myself, and nowhere does this I-with-myself show more clearly than in pure thought, always a dialogue between the two who I am. (Arendt 1990, p. 86) This reflexivity is one of talking to oneself as though two selves (eme emautô). Because we are conscious of ourselves we can engage in a duality of the self for the purpose of a reflective and critical dialogue: It is this duality of myself with myself that makes thinking a true activity, in which I am both the one who asks and the one who answers. Thinking can become dialectical and critical because it goes through this questioning and answering process, through the dialogue of dialegesthai, which actually is a ‘travelling with words,’ a poreuesthai dia tōn logōn, whereby we constantly raise the basic Socratic question: What do you mean when you say . . . ? (Arendt 1978a, p. 185: emphasis in the original) Arendt sees this process as one that takes place continuously over time and as a practice that, with Aristotelian overtones, the self can improve so that the ‘other’ within the self becomes a ‘friend’: ‘Only someone who has had the experience of talking with himself is capable of being a friend, of acquiring another self’ (1990, p. 85). In sum, we are capable of splitting the self as ‘me and myself’ for the purpose of a critical, dialectical and internal conversation. For Arendt, I would like to suggest, this process is only possible if we see a fractured self as possible and beneficial. I have argued that Aristotle is unfairly portrayed at times as positing an oppositional tension between reason and emotion, but Arendt goes beyond their co-participation via reconciliation to argue that internal coherency is not only improbable but also undesirable when we are engaged in this form of contemplation. We can conceive, productively engage, and sustain the self’s pluralism if viewed through the frame of friendship—that via this affective disposition we can represent and entertain the positions of various selves who have a chance to prevail on a provisional basis (subject to continuous thinking). While the self need not be internally coherent and consistent, there is a certain space required for reflexivity where the pluralism of the self can materialize. Even though we cannot wholly exist apart from the social, self-reflexivity benefits from a kind of solitude, away from the company of others and the immediate demand to act. According to Arendt, ‘Thoughts invariably and unavoidably accompany his acts’ and thought ‘improves’ acts, but it is ‘only in thought [that] I realize the dialogue of the two-in-one who I am’ (Arendt 1990, p. 89). To engage in thought is to temporally, spatially and figuratively shift to ‘non-time’ and ‘non-space’, as captured by the aphorism ‘to get lost in thought’, where multiple selves can then take form. The outside world—when it makes demands upon the agent to speak, listen, or act—can disrupt and crowd out reflexive thought. To be fully political

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  77 and thus to act requires the manifestation, however temporary and artificial, of the singular self in the world of appearances (Arendt 1978a, p. 185). Clearly, some social positions, such as the philosopher, are ‘more radically delivered to this plurality’ of the self and its solitary enterprise (Arendt 1990, p. 86), but even in the sphere of politics we are engaged in practices of discursive representation (doxa) through which the self formulates the world as it ‘appears to me’ (dokei moi) (p. 80) and can turn to thinking to conceptualize these appearances (1978a). Arendt takes this a step further in tying the ability to dialogue with oneself to the ability to dialogue with others. The heterogeneity of the self that allows one to have an internal conversation and thus arrive at some provisional conclusions within the self is the same faculty that enables and facilitates political dialogue. And public-political dialogue, in which we take note of the opinions of others, provides one basis for the Kantian exercise of ‘enlarged mentality’ in which we represent those opinions to and within the self: ‘I first talk with others before I talk with myself, examining whatever the joint talk may have been about, and then discover that I can conduct a dialogue not only with others but with myself as well’ (Arendt 1978a, p. 189). Not only can we extend and enrichen this discursive exchange by paying attention to the internal dynamic of communicative exchange, any conversation actually requires this intermittent return inward: ‘In order to think about somebody he must be removed from our senses; so long as we are together with him we don’t think of him—though we may gather impressions that later become food for thought’ (1984, p. 14). Thinking, however, necessarily involves ‘re-presentation, making present what is actually absent’ and thus it is an ‘imagining’ as ‘based on metaphors drawn from vision’s experience’ (Arendt 1978a, p. 76). Arendt is careful here to see in thinking ‘the mind’s unique gift’ without placing excessive faith in its conclusions, for it deals with ‘invisibles’ that cannot be firmly discerned or grasped, and that which we seek to conceptualize is taken from a world of appearances rife with uncertainty and contingency. Thus, thinking can rework but never truly stabilize that which it renders as objects for the thought process. In sum, while Arendt sets apart thinking as located within the self, the ‘Iwith-myself’ is nevertheless bound up with the I-with-others through the self’s movement back and forth between thought and action and as a device for representing the opinions of others to oneself through the Kantian exercise of ‘enlarged mentality’. It is this difference within the self—informed in part by the pluralism of the social—that enables us to make provisional conclusions about how the world appears to us and to represent those conclusions to others. In other words, we are not just in difference and conversation with others, but also in difference and conversation within our selves, and each is important to the other. Neither self nor society is a unitary agent. To further contextualize Arendt’s discussion of dialogue, we can turn more sharply to judgment, a transition marked by Arendt thusly: ‘Judgment deals with particulars, and when the thinking ego moving among generalities emerges from its withdrawal and returns to the world of particular appearances, it turns out that the mind needs a new “gift” to deal with them’ (1978a, p. 215). Judging concerns

78  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault the world of appearances where speech and deeds are prolific. Although it is a faculty separate from thinking, judgment is (with strong echoes of Aristotle) ‘the mysterious endowment of the mind by which the general, always a mental construction, and the particular, always given to sense experience, are brought together’ (Arendt 1978a, p. 69). Or, judgment can work entirely from the particular (up to the universal) when we make a decision without rules (p. 69). Arendt often remarked that speech is a central political activity—it makes the pluralism of the common world that we inhabit meaningful because we can represent ourselves and make arguments, but it also, in retrospect, enables collective and individual stories that make sense of our past experiences after the rawness of the experience is more distant. Oriented to the past, these stories involve judging and are crucial to response—to forgiveness and promising, which Arendt found compelling as strategies for dealing with the uncertainty and irreversibility of the future that would otherwise upend us (Arendt 1998). To acknowledge that our actions unfold into the world in ways that we may not have anticipated and that we cannot take back may induce a devastating hopelessness. While Arendt famously connected promising with specific political foundations (like the American Revolution), it should be remembered that both promising and forgiveness are general strategies that take specific form and are not universally turned to or applied. Forgiveness was inappropriate, Arendt concluded, for Eichmann. And even though we promise as a way of bounding present actions, our promises will inevitably unravel as action strikes out into the world in an unforeseen and unpredictable trajectory, and thus promises (and forgiveness) will be performed anew in response to changing circumstances. Yet, some scholars, such as Kennan Ferguson (1999, pp. 109–110), have questioned just how sensitive to the particulars Arendt was in her discussion of judging. Ferguson points out some of the ways in which Arendt may be said to have abandoned and maligned particularity and narrow political movements, including civil rights activism, which he thinks opposes Bonnie Honig’s (1993) more Nietzschean interpretation of Arendt as an agonistic ‘virtu’. It would difficult to definitively answer Ferguson’s charge. One major difficulty in trying to flesh out Arendt’s view of judging is related to her own mortality. In what was supposed to be a three-volume series entitled The Life of the Mind, cut short by her death, Arendt sought to tackle the topics of Thinking, Willing and Judging, as the volumes were labeled.17 Only the title page of Judging was completed. We find references to judging in the first two volumes as well as in Arendt’s other writings, but what Arendt may have concluded after working through that third volume is unclear. About Arendt and her engagements more broadly, we might note her difficult position. On the one hand, she rejected the notion of ‘truth’ as despotic and dangerous. Judgment and politics are not about truth but about aesthetics—that ‘this is beautiful, this is ugly, this is right, this is wrong’ in the context of specific occasions (Arendt 1978a, p. 69).18 On the other hand, Arendt wished to rein in an ambitious politics that could employ human natality in service of the end of destroying humanity, thus arresting the originality of action. Arendt noted even in

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  79 her first book that, in response to the contingency of action, one need not arrive at nihilism or take up a grand project to eliminate uncertainty once and for all. Whether the ‘silent dialogue’ of thinking or the social dialogue of politics, dialogue has the benefit of drawing out and highlighting multiple perspectives. In its internal form it can also lessen social pressures and work against them. We might ask, then, whether one must appeal to a common sense or to a wider audience in political discourse and argumentation as a criterion of aesthetic judgment along the lines of Kant. We could characterize some of Arendt’s unseemly political positions that may have issued from an affirmative response to this question as an ‘aberration’, as Ferguson allowed, or inconsistent with her wider body of thought. Yet, I would suggest that what was going on for Arendt consisted more of an awareness of the dangers of a politics based on nothing more than contestation and private judgments about truths or interests that do not consider the world we share with others, or alternatively, a retreat from politics altogether in withdrawal and isolation. We must remember that Arendt felt abandoned by politics as a Jew and a stateless person, hence her strong identification with Rahel Varnhagen (Arendt 2000a) and Varnhagen’s tendency to an excessive isolationism and a life lacking in meaning. Nevertheless, Arendt’s early prescription was to not abandon politics. Political projects of value might involve, then, appealing to others in the world we share on behalf of formulating a political response to the condition of Jews. One of the worst things we can do is feel so unseen and left out by politics that we respond to our ‘homelessness’ with ‘worldlessness’—leaving the realm of appearances altogether and getting stuck in thought, as the philosopher is also prone to do. Arendt sees something desirable and noble in an engagement that seeks to communicate with others and thus appeal to others’ and to our own rational and affective capacities. We might do so by assuming a more detached position that is an ‘unnatural’ but ‘deliberate withdrawal from involvement and the partiality of immediate interests as they are given by my position in the world and the part I play in it’ (Arendt 1978a, p. 76). Such a position may be aided empirically by political vicissitudes, by engaging the political means to actively gain some critical distance, and by making argments that could potentially appeal to others (including other selves). Yet it’s hard to imagine that, in the final volume of The Life of the Mind, Arendt would argue that political conclusions must obtain in consensus, that aesthetic judgment (per Kant) is legitimate only when intersubjective, and that one can assume a universal position that stands in for all others. These conditions she seemed more inclined to reject, as indicated by comments critical of the idea, found among Martin Buber and Karl Jaspers,19 that consensus forms a ‘truth’ (Arendt 1984). Whether that’s anti-Kantian or not, it’s also not clear that, as Beiner (1983) concludes, we can substitute Kant for Arendt on aesthetic judgment. One of the main attributes of Kant’s idea of ‘enlarged mentality’, as adapted by Arendt, was not just that it could survey the opinions of real and hypothetical others but that it could use this diversity as a springboard for working them over in the mind and formulating a different and perhaps better perspective not exactly found out there in the world but responsive to the particulars of that moment in history.

80  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault For Arendt, politics and its judgment entail communicability and a common world, but neither unanimity nor permanence. Conclusions and decisions are specific and temporary—they respond to an ever-changing world—but they are not therefore without limits. For one, Arendt excluded from a legitimate politics those who would refuse to share the earth in the most minimal of ways. Jennifer Culbert (2002) has argued that, for Arendt, the seriousness of Eichmann’s crime, as a rejection that we live together on the earth, obliterates the ‘formal condition’ of the possibility of ‘human life as such’, so that: ‘The crime that Eichmann committed was committed against human Being.’ Even if Eichmann failed to think, the actions themselves were so profoundly antipolitical that he could justifiably be excluded from earth itself (why Eichmann should hang). Second, Arendt implied that judging could have two different meanings, one of which better captures the position of those on the margin of society and politics— that of the ‘spectator’. Judgments that we make, even if divergent from those of others, address others in this public-political sphere in part because there is always ‘potential agreement’; thus, judgment might achieve ‘specific validity’ when we are in the presence of others and take them into account (Arendt 2006, p. 217). ‘Enlarged mentality’ refers to this ‘anticipated communication with others’ and consists of trying to take on others’ perspectives (p. 217). It may not be so, but in politics, just as in matters of beauty, ‘we hope that the same pleasure is shared by others’ (Arendt 2006, p. 218, quoting Kant), and we appeal to others in the hope of reaching agreement, thus requiring that we are alert to a plurality of opinions. Arendt could then say that spectators who judge by engaging this tension dialectically are neither solitary nor self-sufficient, even if they employ tactics of withdrawal (though different in kind from the philosopher who does not often see the range of particularity, or characterizes it as ‘noise’ in the search for philosophical truths) to reposition themselves in relation to that which becomes an object of judgment (1978a, p. 94). Maurizio D’Entrèves summarizes two sites of judgment given by Arendt, ‘an early one in which judgment is the faculty of political actors acting in the public realm, and a later one in which it is the privilege of non-participating spectators, primarily poets and historians, who seek to understand the meaning of the past and to reconcile us to what has happened’ (2000, p. 246). Elisabeth Young-Bruehl seems to reject, however, the notion that the spectator is such a narrow set of persons since Arendt, in formulating and commenting on judging, admired not just the U.S. Supreme Court but also the ability of citizens to come together on a jury for impartial deliberation. The Life of the Mind was a ‘treatise on mental good governance’ where the three faculties balance one another (Young-Bruehl 2004, p. 458). Young-Bruehl notes that, ‘in the judging faculty, neither the individual spectator’s “I” nor the opinions of others brought imaginatively into mental view should prevail; judging is a mental interplay of self and imagined others who share the self’s world’ (2004, p. 458). I am more inclined to the view of YoungBruehl, especially because Arendt characterized thinking, willing and judging as ‘faculties’, positioned them in tension with one another and discussed their confluence relative to politics. Arendt, as Young-Bruehl notes, had long intended to

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  81 address thought and action in a more sustained way. Thus, the strict distinction between these faculties in the organization of her final opus is analytical and methodological much more than it is ontological and empirical, and these distinctions are often blurred by Arendt herself. Finally, about judgment we might note that Arendt often situated the past as judgment’s horizon, because this is when we are most attuned to the particulars, whereas willing looks to the future, concerned with ‘projects’ rather than ‘objects’. At the very least, we can be inspired by Arendt in formulating the relevance of a retrospective judgment to a practice of ethics because, from the process of reconciling ourselves to the past through both collective and individual stories, we might find further opportunities to reorient thought and action in the present, even knowing that such reorientations will always be temporary and necessary. Yet, we must be chastened, I believe, by Arendt’s persuasive argument that, ‘remembrance, by which you make present to your mind what actually is absent and past, reveals the meaning in the form of a story’ (1978a, p. 133). This is the stance of the spectator who necessarily is separate from all the objects (including persons) rendered by the story, even if only in the form of a past self. Thus, we should not invest in this process clarity and certainty about whether and how this speech—as stories, analogies and metaphors—is instructive. To ask, as I have, whether our stories about the past can be more forcefully put in dialectic tension with the world of appearances here and now, in that gap between the past and future (to use Arendt’s terms) is to see these stories as potentially relevant but also not to be taken at face value because they are a false ordering of the past to be accompanied by a recognition that things could have unfolded otherwise (Arendt 1961, 1998). It may also be overstated, then, to say that judging, and thinking as well, are concerned solely with the past when our interpretations of the past track the present. Otherwise, thought has no content, only the force of ‘wonder’ (Arendt 1978a). Thinking’s unique challenge is that it tends to abstractions and can get stuck in this ‘non-political’ space of ‘non-time’ and ‘non-space’ (Arendt 1978b), whereas judging and willing deal more directly with the ongoing world of appearances: ‘their objects are particulars with an established home in the appearing world, from which the willing or judging mind removes itself only temporarily and with the intention of a later return’ (Arendt 1978a, p. 92). Their ‘peculiar quiet’ arises from these withdrawal tactics in which one refrains for the moment from acting ‘with the intention of a later return’ (p. 92). The audience of the Greek play (theatai) judged the spectacle, and the actor had to take this audience into account (Arendt 1978a, pp. 92–93). Yet, this does not mean that the audience has forever resigned itself to this position, as has the philosopher (but only for attempting an ‘understanding’ and appraising the ongoing activity or action) (p. 94). The audience does not produce truth, but rather additional perspectives.20 This point about the space ‘between past and future’ becomes apparent when we more directly deal with ‘willing’. The will is ‘the spring of action’ that brings something new into existence (Arendt 1978b, pp. 9–10). It is the natality that each has by simply being born into the world, or the ‘origin’ we have within ourselves.

82  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Willing is that faculty which is most definitively prospective and reflexive. Its concerns are not objects to be made sense of with the benefit of looking back, but projects oriented to the future (Arendt 1978b, p. 196). And it is reflexive because in willing we only have ourselves to look to (p. 196), at least in terms of willing as a faculty. Yet, it seems that if willing is more than willing simply to will: it needs (or action needs) some direction that comes with thinking and judging, from particulars and other thought objects. Arendt sees this awareness in Aristotle’s idea that we might meaningfully choose (proairesis) in matters that are within our power, which is different than being led by either desire or reason (1978b, p. 61). Here, we have one of those moments in which Arendt links the faculties together: ‘Just as thinking prepares the self for the role of spectator, willing fashions it into an “enduring I” that directs all particular acts of volition’ (1978b, p. 195). Still, it’s important to note that Arendt expressed a certain amount of skepticism that thought could guide action in a positive way by telling us something about the absolute good, and thought’s political relevance obtains, Arendt wrote, mainly on occasions of crisis when ‘thinking’ can instruct us in what not to do— the ‘I Nil’ rather than the ‘I Will’. Thought’s instructive potential is also curbed by its inherently destructive quality—it ‘dissolves accepted rules of conduct’ (1984, p. 36). This commentary raises the exegetical challenge of whether Arendt’s account of reflexive thought can inform and sustain a practice of ethics that does not either get stuck in the past or stuck in abstractions. This challenge, I believe, can be met. For one, Arendt’s social and historical context has prime of place for her writing, as discussed earlier, which can add further insight into her diagnoses and prescriptions. The major failings of the twentieth century involved ambitious political projects informed by harmful evolutionary, scientific and racial ideologies. When Arendt analyzed the Eichmann trial she found most disturbing Eichmann’s failure to think rather than any particular evil motive (such as envy or hatred) (Arendt 1978a, pp. 3–4). If he had spurned clichés and ‘stock phrases’ and critically reflected on his social and organizational context, Eichmann presumably would have been less complicit in the Nazi program of deportation turned genocidal extermination. The world would have been much better off had Eichmann and Nazi Germany simply refrained from doing. Arendt viewed the trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem as a missed opportunity in this regard. The prosecution aimed to shame the world by illustrating how so many stood by as Jews were slaughtered and yet also sought to locate as much responsibility as possible in the figure of Eichmann (Arendt 1964, pp. 9–10, 19). The rather unpopular diagnosis that Arendt sought to establish through her reporting and subsequent book was that responsibility was multifarious and had more to do with action facilitated by widespread thoughtlessness than evil motives both within and outside of German society as the Holocaust unfolded. ‘Political evil’ resulted from large-scale projects that sought to harness and engineer human agency to achieve society’s perfection. In this historical context, thought that restrains rather than enables action seems more reassuring. We should inquire, then, into today’s context. In some ways, enamored as we are with the promise of technology to improve and protect our lives, and hopeful

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  83 that ‘good governance’ will take root everywhere, we still take up large-scale political projects that aim at progress, downplay the harms that have accrued or might accrue, and dismiss the possible perspectives of others which make a politics among equals possible. For example, projects to civilize societies and develop economies, democracy promotion, and neoliberal economic policies have justified violence and persistent economic inequality in ways that recall E.H. Carr’s (1981) assertion that the objectives of trade and peace only benefit those desirous of the status quo. And Arendt (1966) has described how imperial projects came ‘home to roost’ in the form of totalitarianism. Thus, many IR scholars engaged in questions of ethics have called for ‘limits’ to action (Williams 2005) and have drawn on Arendt’s notion of ‘boomerang’ effects (Owens 2007). This caution is warranted, but we should acknowledge that decisions are nevertheless made— about whether and how to act (Campbell 1998). It may also be impossible to live in the world with others and avoid harm; we are ‘beside ourselves’ in that we are always susceptible to the desire, touch, and loss of others (Butler 2004b).21 Thus, attention to process, outcomes, and others’ agencies is a continuing challenge and it is not a foregone conclusion that our judgments will direct us to not act, though they may. Yet, if to not act—as Arendt envisioned this injunction—is a kind of generalized reticence such that this reticence creates the space for widespread ‘thinking through’ our situation (so that we are not ‘willing’ all of the time), then Arendt can be reconciled with the practice of ethical reflexivity I endorse. Reticence, it should be noted, is not always put to the best use, politically and ethically, as seen in Arendt’s estimation of Heidegger exhibiting ‘the will not to will’ based on, as Young-Bruehl summarizes Arendt, having ‘given up his foolish hope of influencing the Nazi leadership and, renouncing both willing and the world where willing people gather for action, had returned to his “residence of thinking”’ (2004, p. xvi). Furthermore, we must remember that Arendt repeatedly noted the insufficiency of other guides, such as rules. In a passage with Aristotelian overtones, Arendt stated: Particular questions must receive particular answers; and if the series of crises in which we have lived since the beginning of the century can teach us anything at all, it is, I think, the simple fact that there are no general standards to determine our judgments unfailingly, no general rules under which to subsume the particular cases with any degree of certainty. (Arendt 2003, p. vii) Though erring on the side of restraint may flow from the ontology Arendt sets out in which authorial control of words and deeds is so difficult, when it comes to politics and ethics Arendt elevated the particulars of the situation we are faced with and the need to negotiate them well, thus thinking as destructive of rules has the distinct benefit of enabling and even demanding (though it may be spurned) that we take responsibility for our judgments and actions. For Arendt, the death of metaphysics that Kant announced left a mixed legacy. On the one hand, it enabled us to ‘look on the past with new eyes, unburdened and

84  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault unguided by any traditions’ and it spurned the plausibility that reason was only for the elite few, such as philosophers (Arendt 1978a, pp. 12–13). On the other hand, a reason so unburdened and liberated has not achieved the progress that Kant had hoped for; rather, it has achieved much more terror than we could have feared. I do not think, however, that Arendt gave up on the possibility that thought could be in useful dialectic tension with action (just as Foucault refused Enlightenment’s blackmail), though I interpret Arendt as finding fault with unadulterated thinking and unadulterated action; we may even say that thinking, judging and willing can be put in trialectic tension by human agents. The major difficulty, however, inheres in this tripartite conceptual division; Arendt was sometimes more concerned to analytically assign to each distinctive domains and document their benefits and drawbacks, or strengths and weaknesses, than to seamlessly bring these three faculties together to summarize or suggest human activity. Yes, Arendt held that thinking is interrupted by the call to action. In the presence of others, in social space, we turn away from thinking to act and interact. But it is not the case that we separate ourselves from the social (or intersubjective) when we occupy the realm of thought in Arendt’s view. We engage in tactics and move to places (mentally or physically) that enable critical and dialectic thinking that takes as its object the self and others and works with and on the social. In the internal conversation we present to ourselves the views of others as contributions to the dialogue. Arendt’s use of Kant’s exercise of ‘enlarged mentality’, then, is a kind of ability to interpret and act on the pluralism of the world. In other words, both the pluralism of the self and the pluralism of the world enable and call for self-reflexive thinking. Not only that, but a loss of tradition in the West (and thus the notion of ‘foundation’), exemplified by Machiavelli’s suspicion of the corrupt authority of the Christian Church, meant that to struggle with the pluralism of politics is to continuously confront ‘the elementary problems of human livingtogether’ (Arendt 1961, p. 141). Praxically, political action is that realm where we enact decisions and act anew. In this way, reflexivity as a practice of ethics is only realized when all three faculties (thinking, judging, and willing) are brought together by agents in view of particular situations. It is noteworthy that Arendt referred to Socrates as an exemplar throughout her body of work, using not just the metaphor of ‘stingray’ and ‘gadfly’ for Socrates but also ‘midwife’. A stingray paralyses the self and others to ‘stop and think’, a gadfly stimulates and arouses others to engage in questioning and acting, and a midwife delivered and judged the vitality of the infant by bringing it to the light, thus proclaiming life and death. Similarly, thinking and judgment, along with ‘willing’, pause, destroy, and create (or affirm) that which we think and do. Continuous critique and other ways of living: Foucault’s critical ontology of the self Of the authors surveyed here, Foucault most explicitly articulates reflexivity’s modification of thought and action as a project that has the potential to be more

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  85 continuous than Giddens and Arendt portray, and as a form of agency that both destroys and creates. Like Arendt, Foucault is suspicious of grand projects that outline morality and community. These projects place ‘man’ at the ontological center, having replaced God as all-knowing and all-powerful. Thus, Foucault welcomes efforts to rethink our worlds as relational and discursive. Doing so doesn’t minimize or preclude agency; rather, thinking about the power and process of subjectivity and meaning making opens up avenues for agency without naiveté about what it would mean to restylize ourselves, make the world problematic, and undertake projects of transformation. Foucault, of course, has done a great deal of scholarly (and political) work to frame and analyze power as relational and intimately connected to knowledge and subjectivity. Reflexivity, as seen in Foucault, is how we perform and act on our analytical readings of knowledge and subjectivity and the attitudes that animate and orient this self-interrogative activity. One strategy, then, is what Foucault terms ‘eventualization’ (événementialisation), in which one connects ‘mechanisms of coercion’ to ‘contents of knowledge’ where knowledge both generates ‘effects of power’ and is given validation by its identification with a ‘system of knowledge’ so that a ‘given element of knowledge . . . is allocated to a true, probable, uncertain or false element’ (2007, p. 59). Foucault underscores this power/knowledge nexus with two aims. First, to call into question particular elements of knowledge (savoir) as having a proper place in a system of knowledge (connaissance) (2007, p. 60). We can try to set out, then, how knowledge has power effects through its rational justification and thus make it vulnerable to irrationalization. Some take this aim as all that Foucault seeks to achieve and thus a relativism that amounts to nihilism, as leaving one without any resources whatsoever to engage ethical questions. But Foucault has a second aim as well, to take up the task of knowledge’s potential transformation. Thus, a reflexive practice would entail asking certain questions and employing critical methodologies such as archaeology and genealogy to enable different interpretations of our situations and the imaginings that these historical investigations might spur (Foucault 1984b, 1984c). This process is directly connected to the examination of knowledge/power nexuses because it involves assessing the institutions that arise from and implement the interplay between power and knowledge, such as the penal system, education system, mental health system, practices of sexuality, and so on (Foucault 2007, p. 61), as well as a complex array of heterogeneous and discursive identities and relationships. Genealogies do not reveal an ‘origin’ or ‘beginning’, but rather seek out the traces, multiple beginnings, fissures and discontinuities. It would be a mistake, however, to invest in reflexivity as all that a Foucauldian ethics might entail. The discipline of modernity’s institutions has depended, in part, on a kind of self-reflexivity—that we at least sometimes take note of how our behavior is out of line with the norms, institutions and organizations of society and then correct it. Reflexivity is thus, at the same time, an effect and an instance of power. We are subjects of knowledge, relational fields of power, and ethics. Furthermore, a reflexive discipline that becomes normalized as subjectivity

86  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault is especially insidious—we see certain identities and behaviors as unquestionably desirable. While there might be some psychological benefits (per Giddens) or value (per communitarian arguments) to this state of affairs, the key lack for Foucault is that these effects remain unquestioned and uninterrogated. Perhaps the question for an ethics that places reflexivity at the center of self-conscious activity is whether power will be wielded against me or by me, but always over me. Foucault exhibits, then, an ethical concern—thinking broadly about analytical and political tools (also termed ‘strategics’) that historicize institutions and embedded ways of life (Foucault 2007). Tools of critique enhance our ability to ask difficult questions and imagine different ways of life. Already precarious relationships and institutions are facilitated in their ‘perpetual slippage’; this interplay of thought and action biases toward fragility and mobility. In identifying, then, what has made knowledge and its formations acceptable we can also envision their contingency rather than their inevitability. As Foucault puts it, analysis as ‘eventualization’ takes as its object ‘something whose stability, deep rootedness and foundation is never such that we cannot in one way or another envisage, if not its disappearance, then at least identifying by what and from what its disappearance is possible’ (2007, p. 65). This is a form of reflexivity—assessing formations of thought/action, and their material and ideational bases, for their reimagination. Foucault has been criticized, however, for not providing a justification for this call to a reflexive modernity that biases against tradition, order, stability, and (the security of) identity. Yet, Foucault frames this task in terms of responsibility: ‘it is necessary to take responsibility for this structure in order to better account for its artifices’ (2007, p. 62). Everything is artificial, perhaps, but Foucault was also reacting to what he saw as unwarranted claims to truth and a politics based on these claims. One could provide additional reasons; that, for example, discourse has the capacity and even the perpetual characteristic of exclusion—only some possibilities are ever in play as legitimate. Poststructural theorists have discussed this in terms of binaries that work to stabilize signifiers; signifiers are privileged in relation to inferior signifiers that then become delegitimated (Hansen 2006). Connolly (1991, 2011), for one, describes a politics of identity/difference in which the faith of identity is expressed as good and evil in a way that performs this discursive valuation and distribution—the goodness of one’s identity in relation to the evil of other’s identities. Connolly draws on Foucault and Nietzsche for a sensibility of ethics that recognizes the contingency of social life and, in response, cultivates an ‘ethos of politics’ that strives for agonistic respect of the faith we invest in our identities and the faith others invest in theirs. Perhaps we do not need this claim to linguistic instability as an endless signifiersignifier chain to extrapolate from the ‘deep contingency’ that Foucault supposes, as Connolly (1983) put it. Per Connolly, we might support an attitude that rejects fundamentalism and welcomes the possibility of change and transformation, but base it instead in a more general attitude of epistemological uncertainty. This is the attitude of a modernity that Giddens, Arendt and Foucault have all articulated. This is a generalized modesty about knowledge and about our capacities, and thus foregrounds fallibility, contingency, and complexity, making all claims perpetually

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  87 suspicious and vulnerable to applications of scrutiny. As Foucault wrote, ‘we must not imagine there is a great unsaid or a great unthought . . . which we would have to articulate or think at last’ (Foucault, cited by Connolly 1983, p. 375). Whereas Connolly sketches an agonistic politics of respect amidst contest,22 I focus more on the art of the self that Foucault turns to in his writing on ethics. I want to think about and develop a specific set of tools for performing this work of self-criticism and restylization of living. We might ask, then, what does Foucault mean by ethics as ‘care of the self’ and why was it of significance for Foucault? I underscore three points in the discussion that follows to assist my project of articulating ethical reflexivity. First, ‘care of the self’ could be one form of reflexive ethics and an especially apt set of techniques for modern subjects. Second, relationships and others are nevertheless central to this practice of ethics. Third, Foucault frames this move to the self as, in part, a response to the dominance in Western philosophy of the idea that selfregard is dispensable. As mentioned earlier, some have seen a distinct break in Foucault’s work as a turn to ethics away from power/knowledge. Yet, Foucault framed power, knowledge, and ethics as three related aspects of reflexive inquiry, even if he shifted more toward ethics in his later thinking and historical investigation. Techniques of the self, for example, are ‘frequently linked to the techniques for the direction of others’, such as education and its institutions (1997b, p. 277). To foreground ethics, for Foucault, includes an analysis of knowledge and power from the site of practices of the self, as a form of self-reflexivity. What Foucault refers to as ‘ethics’ summarizes ‘the kind of relationship you ought to have with yourself, rapport à soi . . . and which determines how the individual is supposed to constitute himself as a moral subject of his own actions’ (Foucault 1997b, p. 263). We can both empirically inquire into how this question has been answered via genealogical and discursive analysis and answer it propositionally with a novel practice of the self, though neither is free of power or particular effects. Foucault investigated and referenced the example of the ancient Greeks (and the Romans) who conceptualized an asceticism as making or forming oneself and mastering the self’s appetites in terms of food, sex, and other states of emotion. This historical form of asceticism was not to renounce the (flawed) self, as evident later in Christian asceticism, but to control and dominate the self by exercising moderation. Foucault also noted the historical importance of writing as a technique for forming the self as seen, for example, in comments by Seneca and Epictetus, and different forms of writing with distinct effects (1997d, p. 208). The personal notebooks of hupomnēmata consisted of distilling a code of conduct from the quotations and examples one heard or read and subsequently wrote down for study and meditation. This historical form of writing Foucault contrasted with correspondence which involved reciprocal advice but also begat a reciprocal gaze, lending oneself to examination by another and not just the self (Foucault 1997d, pp. 216–217). Both forms of writing constitute practices of shaping the self. The point of these projects was not to return to an idealized practice of the self, but to suggest the possibility of the self’s restylization by denaturalizing prevalent

88  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault practices of the self and to sketch some alternative lines of thinking and living. Foucault contrasted historical practices with practices of the modern self that aim to arrive at some truth about the generic (universal) self. Yet, there is both variation and strands of continuity over time and space. Foucault did not wish to uniformly replicate the aesthetic Greek (or Greco-Roman) self but his genealogical exercise aimed to underscore aspects of a potentially more desirable ethics as ‘care of the self’ in relation to other possible practices of the self, such as those seen in Christianity and secular modernity. These historical practices of the self, with their differences and their similarities, enabled Foucault (1997b, p. 261) to make a certain point about contemporary practices of ethics: My idea is that it’s not at all necessary to relate ethical problems to scientific knowledge. Among the cultural inventions of mankind there is a treasury of devices, techniques, ideas, procedures, and so on, that cannot exactly be reactivated but at least constitute, or help to constitute, a certain point of view which can be very useful as a tool for analyzing what’s going on now—and to change it. We don’t have to choose between our world and the Greek world. But since we can see very well that some of the main principles of our ethics have been related at a certain moment to an aesthetics of existence, I think that this kind of historical analysis can be useful. I would suggest that abandoning the modern generic self is, more specifically, an opportunity to develop ethics where the object of reflection is care of the self in its particularity as well as one’s relationships with others in their particularity. I think that Foucault would agree that neglect of relationality is a considerable limit to a practice of the self that takes universal reason as its tactic. While Arendt sought to foreground ‘enlarged mentality’ for considering others and their opinions (actual and non-actual), Foucault situated care of the self as a frame of meaning for extending regard to others. This aesthetic rendering of the self is not unlike Aristotle’s notions of an aesthetic (kalon) cultivation of the virtuous self. In pointing to how care of the self potentially enabled the individual to be a ‘moral’ agent from the position of having a certain status or station, whether in the city or home, we can envision how we are in complex social and political relation with others to which thought and action refer and affect (Foucault 1997h, p. 287). And, in the care of the self, one can be attentive to how one is implicated, constrained, and enabled by power relations of different form and intensity. This practice of reflexivity does not seek to recover an authentic self or community, along the lines of Sartre’s ‘true self’, or an ideal rational self. Instead, as Foucault put it, ‘we have to create ourselves as a work of art’ (1997b, p. 262), and evaluate how our selfexaminations can be forms of self-discipline that are unreflective and constrained. This analysis, if it were to be more widely developed, is a possible improvement over an Aristotelian or Arendtian reflexivity. Greek practices are not the only ones that may be marshalled in a genealogical exercise to explore reflexivity’s possible shape (as seen in Arendt’s expansive survey of thinkers in The Life of the Mind, not all of whom are considered

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  89 philosophers). A distinct benefit of genealogy as a process is found in the turningback on the self from a perspective that is radically different but still relatable. This makes the familiar strange but also presents specific resources for transformation by starting down a different path of thinking that has been ‘pulled’ from this textual comparison and its historical journey. Genealogies that prove especially impactful perhaps resonate with a particular perplexity in our condition. For Foucault, one such perplexity was the problem of freedom, and the ability to turn to the care of the self and, from there, view others in ways that we might not have otherwise. This led him to ask whether we, in our relationships with ourselves and others, could find greater autonomy or, at least, be governed ‘less’ or ‘not in that way’? (Foucault 1997b, 2007). Freedom and autonomy are not set apart as teleological ends for Foucault. Instead, they are useful and historical categories for making sense of contextualized conditions for action, and as ontological possibilities for ethics that are defined and given shape through the practices of subjects. As Foucault characterized the Greeks: A man possessed of a splendid ēthos, who could be admired and put forward as an example, was someone who practiced freedom in a certain way. I don’t think that a shift is needed for freedom to be conceived as ēthos; it is immediately problematized as ēthos. But extensive work by the self on the self is required for this practice of freedom to take shape in an ēthos that is good, beautiful, honorable, estimable, memorable, and exemplary. (Foucault 1997h, p. 286) Freedom could thus be situated as a self-reflexive ethos, a lens for reconstructing power, and as inseparable from any ethics. There is a deeply strategic quality to all exercises of power even as part of a self-conscious ethos that takes the self and relations with others as its object of reflection and reflexivity. Herein lies what Foucault refers to as ‘governmentality’, conceptualized as ‘the whole range of practices that constitute, define, organize, and instrumentalize the strategies that individuals in their freedom can use in dealing with each other’ (1997h, p. 300). Power is never neutralized; ethics always implicates a battleground and the technologies that we apply to ourselves and to our relationships (Foucault, cited by Rabinow 1997, p. xvii). Foucault frames the possibility of ethical reflexivity this way, ‘Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection’ (1997h, p. 284). This possibility can be contrasted with an ethics of the modern subject that is based on scientific knowledge of the universal self. Foucault’s project on sexuality tracks this triadic concern with the self as a subject of ethics, power and knowledge. Foucault rejects speaking of ‘sexual behavior’ as either derivative of ‘natural instincts’ or following from laws that delineate permissible and prohibited behavior. Rather, sexual behavior is ‘also the consciousness one has of what one is doing, what one makes of the experience, and the value one attaches to it’ (1996, p. 322). A necessary aspect of reflexivity, for Foucault, is an attentiveness to one’s subjectivity. Thus, when one takes up a

90  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault political project that seeks to critique representations of sexuality, but also articulate sexuality in a certain way, there can be purpose that motivates and gives shape to that activity: ‘It is in this sense that I think the concept of “gay” contributes to a positive (rather than a purely negative) appreciation of the type of consciousness in which affection, love, desire, sexual rapport with people have a positive significance’ (1996, p. 322). This consciousness is not just individual; it is also ‘an awareness of being a member of a particular social group’ even while this ‘collective consciousness’ varies over time and place (1996, p. 323). The subversive quality of this identity-politics lies in how reflexivity can enable living in ways that (at least initially) elude normative categorization and multiply our options. The dominant norm for sexuality in the twentieth century and the Western world has largely been one of heterosexuality as ‘the fusion of lovers’ identities’ and homosexuality as the ‘simple physical encounter’ (1996, p. 326; 1997a, p. 137). To be aware of this hetero-normative and homo-normative distribution of value is to be able to act on it. ‘Attending to oneself . . . is a form of living’ (Foucault 1997i, p. 96), but this particular mode of reflexivity (ethical reflexivity, as I describe it) magnifies rather than narrows possible directions that this living can take and the ways in which we articulate and address difficult decisions. For Foucault (1997a), friendship was one such possibility—a way of life that opens up creative possibilities for altered relationality. While both the politics and scholarship of IR tend to view the possibility of friendship in global politics as unlikely, utopian or unstable (because based on instances of mutual interest or coercion), it is precisely this seeming impossibility that offers radical possibilities for reformulating relationships, a politics that I consider micropolitical because it is diffuse and decentered relative to that which has been stabilized and normalized. In an interview on friendship as a ‘way of life’, Foucault was concerned with challenging dominant notions that gay male sexuality begets relationships based solely on the sexual act. To suggest otherwise threatens the normative with alternative and subversive possibilities—a form of power that challenges practices of the self as a sexual subject and the disciplinary effects of knowledge of oneself as a sexual subject. Foucault explains: One of the concessions one makes to others is not to present homosexuality as anything but a kind of immediate pleasure, of two young men meeting in the street, seducing each other with a look, grabbing each other’s asses and getting each other off in a quarter of an hour. There you have a kind of neat image of homosexuality without any possibility of generating unease, and for two reasons: it responds to a reassuring canon of beauty, and it cancels everything that can be troubling in affection, tenderness, friendship, fidelity, camaraderie, and companionship, things that our rather sanitized society can’t allow a place for without fearing the formation of new alliances and the tying together of unforeseen lines of forces. (Foucault 1997a, p. 136) A worthy project might thus consist of new relationships—gay male friendships—that diversify this homogeneous normativity. What Foucault rejected was

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  91 being restricted to the ‘two readymade formulas of the pure sexual encounter and the lovers’ fusion of identities’ and this requires ‘a homosexual ascesis that would make us work on ourselves and invent—I do not say discover—a manner of being that is still improbable’ (1997a, p. 137). Foucault clearly connects investigations of how we ‘constitute ourselves as moral agents’ (or ‘subjects of ethical actions’) to inquiries and experimentations with how we might reconstitute ourselves as moral subjects of our own actions (1997b, pp. 263–265). One response, then, to Arendt’s proposition that critical and creative thinking is largely confined to times of crisis (though not assured at such times) is the idea that the self can develop techniques for reflexivity. Foucault rejects that we will ever arrive at some satisfactory alternative. Aristotle, Arendt and Giddens locate the impetus for reflexivity in an ontology of complexity and contingency. Our actions and the actions of others feed back into conditions that we can respond to in their particularity. This is the work of politics. Foucault similarly posited peril and opportunity. It makes sense to us as agents to say that we have the freedom to imagine and create, but it is also a freedom that enables, encounters and is shaped by a web of power relations so that we can experience ourselves as subjects in ways that do not and, at times, cannot repel techniques that normalize, regulate, and coerce. To consciously make ourselves objects is to exercise power over ourselves in ways that are more responsive to the power we might have, and the power we successfully claim and struggle for, to restylize our subjectivities. This project entails ‘long practice and daily work’ (Foucault 1997b, p. 262),23 but it is worthwhile because it is a political project in pursuit of what we judge to be desirable, beautiful or good, as well as one that responds to the dangers of this or that project that has already taken form. As Foucault has put it, ‘My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous’. Thus, ‘we always have something to do’ (1997b, p. 256). The endurance of this project is demonstrated by Foucault himself, who supported the Iranian revolution as a society asserting its freedom, but then concluded that those who prevailed in the ensuing struggle actually implemented less freedom. Foucault practiced, then, the continuity of reflexivity needed to spurn the dogmatism of political and social struggles, and accept that unpredictable outcomes may arise from action that may nevertheless be judged and responded to. Many poststructuralists, including Foucault on occasion, have located the impetus for critique as the violence of ‘closure’ that moralities and discourse in general tend toward. I prefer instead Foucault’s notion of ‘danger’ because it is evocative of disadvantages that are more than costs to be calculated into an equation and yet not approaching the absolutes of ‘good and evil’ that resist questioning. Through a critical rationality we dialectically evaluate and generate the resources we might creatively and imaginatively bring to bear as we act on ourselves and others. Yes, the natality of action can lead to disastrous and horrible outcomes, as Arendt reminds us, but ‘political evil’, for Arendt, stemmed from the failure to simply think through what we are doing—the quotidian dangers of thought and action—in an ever-changing and elusive context.24 Mindful, then, of both the promises and dangers of reason, we think and struggle with problems

92  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault without overinvesting faith in the power of rationality. This, for Foucault, is to refuse the blackmail of the Enlightenment of being for or against reason (Foucault 1984c). The false choice, also articulated by Arendt, is that we have to choose between truth and withdrawal from the world. We also see something like this in the rejection of narratives of progress that are associated, for example, with the neoliberal paradigm in which ‘success’ is defined by production and accumulation, and is deemed available to all who subscribe to its prescriptive program (Halberstam 2011). The failure to realize the prosperity capitalism has to offer, then, is to be a ‘failure’. Indicative of just how pervasive this neoliberal logic might be, Cynthia Weber (2014) argues that, similarly, different ways of theorizing international politics fail in the eyes of ‘Disciplinary IR’ because they do not meet the prescribed notions of success that IR has set out through mappings of how to do IR. Taking Jack Halberstam’s notion that ‘queer’ can instead be performed as the prerogative to fail, Weber (2014, p. 11) writes, ‘While [Martin] Wight’s aim is to identify failure so international theories (like queer international theories) can overcome it, Halberstam’s aim is to identify failure so queer theories and queer people can revel in it as a way of undoing disciplines and disciplinization’. This ‘productive negativity’ that Halberstam (2011) celebrates as queer is not therefore nothingness or death. Queerness can be those ways of living deemed ‘failures’ by normative standards, and those directions that were not taken or that, echoing Foucault, have been ‘disqualified’ (Halberstam 2011, pp. 8–9). What I take from Weber and Halberstam for a practice of ethical reflexivity is that embracing failure is to possibly succeed in identifying and publicizing how that which is dominant and normative has its own failures. To take up the alternatives (‘failures’) foregone is to explore how other ways of living are possible and maybe even desirable. Though these alternatives ‘dwell in the murky waters of a counterintuitive, often impossibly dark and negative realm of critique and refusal’, their corrosiveness in the form of ‘failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world’ (Halberstam 2011, pp. 2–3). Ethical reflexivity adopts this kind of irreverent attitude toward the world, and embellishes it as a practice by offering specific processes and tactics for its instantiation and continuity.

A practice of ethical reflexivity: some conclusions In this chapter I have sought to investigate how Giddens, Arendt and Foucault can contribute to a practice of reflexivity that is premised on epistemological uncertainty and our capacity, as agents, to appreciate this claim and thus make provisional judgments subject to perpetual critique. My motivating question is whether we can have a practice of ethics if we cannot locate a foundation for knowledge or, at the very least, if knowledge is complex and contingent. That we cannot definitively know whether we are right or wrong, or that one can be right or wrong, or that something is or is not beautiful, makes justification of our decisions and habits of action difficult and maybe impossible. Some have thus advocated

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  93 that we abandon meta-theoretical and meta-ethical pursuits altogether, albeit with different implications. Yet, we still find ourselves drawn to questions of ethics and responsibility—both for politics and the ways in which we do scholarship. It remains the case that we must make decisions in order to live in the world (or the many worlds we inhabit). To turn to reflexivity as a noteworthy contribution to a practice of ethics is to turn to agency in the context and wilful defiance of subjectivity, recognizing that decisions can be made even if they are provisional and will inevitably fail ourselves and others. Reflexivity, as I have sketched it, biases toward continuous change and transformation because it foregrounds the need for ethical judgment in view of a mysterious, unpredictable, and contingent world that is already, to a large degree, acted upon by various agents. The goal is not to arrive at or approach some truth about our world or about ourselves, though some fallibilists in the liberal tradition, such as John Stuart Mill, might have seen it that way. It is instead, as poststructuralists have put it, to try to take responsibility for the uncertainties and paradoxes of politics. Or, as queer theorists have lauded, to experiment with ways of life that have been maligned and deemed ‘failures’ or ‘dangerous’, to embrace and explore the messiness of desire in our relationality, and to seek to hear beyond what we hear to induce the grievability of others and thus other ways of becoming and being in the world (Butler 2004a, 2004b, 2005; Foucault 1997a, 1997e; Halberstam 2011; Weber 2014). Ethical reflexivity is a bundle of processes, tactics, skills, and dispositions for this project of ethics. Many of these will be sketched in the next chapter. At the close of this chapter I will forgo an extensive summary and instead focus on moving forward a few aspects of the processes of reflexivity that I have sought to draw out of especially Arendt and Foucault. A positive dialectic As a process, ethical reflexivity is dialectic, dialogic, and affective judgment. Judgment is what allows us to navigate thought and action, to mediate between them critically and productively even while we cannot ever reconcile them permanently. Rather, in Arendtian spirit, thought and action come together just long enough to make a decision, departing ways as soon as action begins to unfold— this activity is neither entirely public nor individual. If, per Foucault, living can be an open and continuous project made possible through the application of various tools of critique, reflexive judgment is both a capacity and a practice to be cultivated. Common to the authors I have investigated, reflexivity is dialectic and diachronic—it is to move back and forth between thought and action, generating a new position by taking stock of how thought and action have been, have not, and might be instantiated together, interrogating each in view of the other in order to act, but mindful that no concepts (theoretically or empirically) are stable across time and place. We present ourselves, then, with the perplexities and contradictions of thought and action. Ethical reflexivity is a dialectic that issues from agency; the agent must actively take on the task, framing the self as an object to be worked on by the self. As Arendt elaborates, the reflexive self is a plural self.

94  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault The practice of ethical reflexivity as I develop it also features a positive rather than a negative dialectic; it is not simply the truncated reflexivity of aligning action with values, beliefs, and other normative guideposts. A negative dialectic treats thought and action as that which should be chastened. In a recent and impressive study, Dan Levine (2012) has turned to reflexivity as a practice for IR scholars, primarily locating the need for reflexivity in reification. Conceptual representations have practical and analytical purchase, but their value dissipates as we forget their purpose and their limited use, treating them instead as ontological entities. This concern was one that Arendt shared, as a potential weakness of the abstractions of thinking if not checked by the particulars of judgment and the natality of willing that moves one from thinking to action. To respond to this regression between reality and representation, Levine, following Adorno, poses critique as that which can ‘chasten’ thought. The IR scholar, adopting Levine’s ‘constellar’ methodology, is to entertain, layer, and contrast theories against one another with regard to a particular problem or issue area to highlight their limitations. Hence, the ‘negative dialectic’ of reflexivity generates ‘sustainable critique’ in order to guard against the excesses of reification (Levine 2012). Levine’s emphasis on critique resonates with a Foucauldian outlook that sees in comparative critique resources for checking the blind spots and ambitions of prevailing strands of thought. The dialectic of reflexivity I wish to elaborate, however, can be characterized as ‘positive’ and ‘open-ended’ in that it is the basis for a practice among a wider set of actors—scholars and practitioners—who consciously navigate thought and action by questioning and reformulating each through a dual approach that frames thought and action as both activities and resources. This process is aided by an attitude that invites the possibility of self-transformation, rather than a synthesis or truth that repairs the contradictions of material and ideational forces. The idea is to make space for self-forming practices that may differ from those that are dominant and have disciplinary and normative power behind them by drawing on, reworking, or abandoning the resources available to us and, in the process, give birth to new ideas and strategies. Here, critique is not the end goal; rather, it enables agents to respond to an elusive and messy environment where agencies continuously take shape in unpredictable ways. In the face of this contingency and complexity a dialectic method equips agents to select and affirm that which is of value where thought and action might meet, and to discard that which is not desirable or useful for the situation at hand. Critique and affirmation are joined in a process of self-inquiry, where conclusions are always provisional and called to account by stopping and thinking. Recall that the negative and positive dynamics of dialectic reasoning are captured by Arendt as the roles of gadfly, stingray, and midwife in the exemplar of thinker Socrates. Reading Arendt in this light, I think, points to an ethics of politics as involving destruction, creation, and even inaction at times. Foucault may have exemplified these Socratic roles in his efforts to provoke others to critically and continuously appraise thought and action and what may be at stake with regard to concrete issues, rather than make prescriptions from above as an expert with specialized knowledge.

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  95 Agency benefits, invoking the example of Eichmann, from thought’s corrosiveness. Arendt characterizes thought as a kind of stoppage of time and as solitary, but it is not therefore lonely or apolitical, nor does it concern matters that are irrelevant. Arendt said in a 1964 interview, ‘My assumption is that thought itself arises out of incidents of living experience and must remain bound to them as the only guideposts by which to take its bearing’ (Arendt, cited by Buckler 2011, p. 1). And yet the past always fails us: ‘Our inherited framework for judgment fails us “as soon as we try to apply it honestly to the central political experiences of our own time”’ (D’Entrèves 2000, p. 247).25 Hence, that very framework should continuously be made responsive to our critique and reconstruction as we confront ever-changing circumstances. If thinking is to be a coherent conversation that reflects on and discusses experiences dialectically, the reflexive agent will turn to conceptual categories premised on similarities and differences, while at the same time subjecting them to critique in view of the prospect that they will fail us, or at least that particular principles and concepts are not always helpful and not helpful in the same ways.26 And, when we seek to act upon whatever we take ‘thought’ to be, contradictions and perplexities arise. It is impossible to reconcile a set of values in application and on a continuous basis. In this vein, I have tried to underscore via Arendt and Foucault in particular that ‘thinking’ and ‘thought’ can be usefully tied together. Foucault (1997c, p. 117) seems to echo Arendt, even if he didn’t seem to notice her much, when he said: Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it its meaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and to question it as to its meaning, its conditions, and its goals. Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem. Reflexivity’s dialogue, in its internal and external forms, holds up, questions, and modifies meaning always in relation to its political relevance and record, including one’s interpretation of the self and one’s interpretation of others and their self-interpretations. Similar to Levine, ethical reflexivity engages a comparative approach that utilizes multiple strands of thought, but ethically reflexive agents reformulate action and thought itself, and this form of agency is not confined to the IR scholar.27 A broader set of agents can inquire into how they might reformulate thought—as values, beliefs, principles and sensibilities—in the present as they evaluate the contingent consequences of acting in a plural world and as a plural self. And, per Aristotle, agents prioritize the particulars of the situation at hand for this dialectic. It is neither feasible nor desirable to proceed from truths or ‘universals’ about ourselves and others in light of the many failures of such projects, including their inability to allow the unique variations of each occasion. Still, this reflexive process is not foolproof. It does not guarantee better outcomes, but it can be the basis for our efforts to struggle to get along in a

96  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault world, with one another and within ourselves, where no formula or tradition can be relied upon.28 I explore some specific questions, tactics and dispositions that might further comprise a practice of ethical reflexivity in the next chapter. In the first two chapters I have focused on the process of ethical reflexivity as dialectic, dialogic and affective. I wish to underscore that I do not assume an isomorphism to the objects and concepts that a reflexive actor submits to examination to the extent that this process can be characterized as comparative. As the thinkers explored in this chapter all have noted, analogic reasoning is unavoidable—we make sense of our worlds and ourselves through tactics that identify similarities and differences, and that hold up certain experiences as relevant. To assume continuity of ontology, however, would be to deny that our interpretations and those of others change, that there are substantial differences across persons and situations, as Aristotle argued, and that things could have been otherwise. Just as we already engage in reflexivity to a certain degree, so do others. Agents can interpret their actions, which are interpreted by others as they too decide how to narrate their own actions. Since those interpretations—ours and others—can change the concepts we use, their meanings and their effects fluctuate. Thus, Arendt rejected Marx’s dialectic materialism which excises politics from history (Villa 2000, p. 7) and a view of history that glosses over the particularity of events (Barder and McCourt 2010). As seen especially in Arendt and Foucault, we have the capacity to make and remake ourselves—this is what Arendt seems to have meant when she said that we have a certain ‘origin’ within ourselves. Willing is the capacity to act, and it can be linked with the ability to reflect on thought with imagination so that new strands of thought may be articulated. The aim of this reflection is not to change structure’s norms and rules; we can distinguish between the critical rationality of reflexivity and the constitutive reasoning that constructivists invoke. We cannot avoid the intersubjective, but we can also think new thoughts and render the intersubjective— via the plural self of reflexivity—subjective and even more unstable. Thinking is enabled in different ways. For Arendt, it can be stimulated in solitude where the self withdraws in an elongated pause for internal conversation; here, thinking is abstracted from the particulars of occasions for action (1978a, p. 191) and is ‘out of order’ vis-à-vis the temporalities of politics. To engage in social interaction, including conversation, requires the pluralism of the self to recede somewhat artificially so that one may act and represent oneself to others. Judgment, in contrast, concerns the particulars of action, or matters close at hand, and is performed in view of others—where ‘this sharing-of-the-world-with-others comes to pass’ (Arendt 1961, p. 221).29 The purpose is to judge what is good, desirable, or beautiful for action, all of which calls for specific judgments in the context of concrete situations that come into view as action unfolds into the world and can then be made sense of. Does this account of reflexivity posit a certain ontology?30 Perhaps, but filtering any ontology through a stance of uncertainty located in complexity, contingency and fallibility can generate a very similar story about reflexivity. If we are always unsure about objective and unseen forces we might adopt a process and attitude that facilitate or recognize agents’ ability to grapple with this uncertainty rather

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  97 than restricting cognition and a framework for action to the scientific method and to observable phenomena.31 Affect and reflexivity Ethical reflexivity is a practice that also moves beyond the wholesale rejection or embrace of reason. As the ‘age of reason’ comes to a close, theorists and philosophers have done much to catalogue its shortcomings. With this historical record, an appropriate way forward, for now, might be to turn back to context via dialectic reason and explore non-rational forms of perception that assist critical rationality and, ultimately, ethical judgment.32 From Aristotle we saw in Chapter 1 how affective dynamics play a role in how arguments are received and, recognizing their importance for how our judgments take shape, Aristotle believed that emotions could be more or less responsibly invoked (reason and emotion participate in one another and can be molded and somewhat reshaped over time) by the ethical agent and, specifically, by speakers and audiences. The positive influence of affect for political projects has been a much more prominent theme in political theory in recent years. Affect is instrumental for engaging concern for ourselves and others and assists imagination and creativity as we tell stories that in turn provoke affective responses (Krause 2008; Nussbaum 1990; Young 1990). Arendt and Foucault also favored non-rational and inexpressible perception as conducive to responding to the ways in which thought and action have always failed us. Affect can be engaged for ethics but it can also be the object of reflexivity as part of the self. Giddens maintained that there are aspects of the self that remain in the ‘unconscious’ and that the psychological drive for a coherent identity is a strong source for repairing ruptures in the self, but these ruptures are ones that largely happen to the self, rather than ruptures that the self mobilizes. Thus Giddens does not intersect with Foucault on the desirability of cultivating a certain practice of the self as a form of ethics. Connolly, in contrast, has recently merged an ethos premised on a practice of the self with attention to the physiological and psychological aspects of the self. Appreciating the contingency and faith of identity (elements of which are more or less obdurate, according to Connolly), ‘is also to set up the possibility that some of these entrenchments [corporeal habits, feelings, and dispositions] might be recomposed modestly through artfully devised tactics of the self and its collective sibling, micropolitics’ even though they might be ‘below the reach of direct intellectual self-regulation’ (Connolly 2002, pp. xvi–xvii). An ‘ethic of cultivation’ makes ‘biocultural identity’, or ‘layered body–brain–culture loops’ subject to revision through many tactics beyond linguistic ones, extending the ‘reach of agency’ (Connolly 2002, p. xviii; Macdonald 2002, pp. 168, 171). Thinking and reflection, on this account, are not confined to the self-conscious level. Thinking is instead ‘layered, much of it moving at a virtual level below conscious regulation. When a new thought bubbles up for articulation and testing, a lot of processing and pretesting have already occurred’ (Macdonald 2002, p. 167). Any account of reflexivity as practice can similarly probe this aspect of mystery about the self that is attenuated but not absolved by reflexive tactics. Reflexivity

98  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault potentially has limits then, but per Foucault (1984c) one possible response is a ‘limit-attitude’ wherein we push up against these limits, perhaps even exploring affects deemed disorderly and non-social (Halberstam 2011). Aristotle, too, has formulated tactics to arrive at or around the ‘mean’ of actions and feelings. Though these tactics may bias toward moderation and thus unnecessarily limit ethical reflexivity’s potential, to focus on how the ‘mean’ is between excess and deficiency is also to illustrate how it varies across different situations and persons, and how a wide range of emotions can have ethico-political relevance when evaluated relative to what they do for us in concrete scenarios. Dialogue and difference Reflexivity is not just dialectic, it is also dialogic. I have turned to Arendt to illustrate how self-reflexivity involves both internal dialogue within the plural self as ‘thinking’ and the external dialogue between the self and others as ‘politics’. Dialogue aids reflexivity because it can loosen well-entrenched habits of thought and action, but is also a vital part of any practice of ethics for international/global politics because of its potential to attend to difference. Multiple reasons have been offered by scholars who argue that ethics prominently features the question of responsibility to others or, at the very least, consideration of others’ perspectives and well-being. I am less interested in reasons that have to do with finding truth or establishing a common set of norms, values or standards that serve as the basis for ‘international society’ or some other cosmopolitan order. By invoking Arendt, Foucault and Giddens I have framed ethics as having to proceed in light of profound doubt about whether there are enduring ontological and epistemological truths that can mediate difference. Instead, a contextual justification is one that points to how difference and its neglect have historically animated international and global politics and is a source of complexity and contingency for thought and action. As a field, IR has struggled with the question of how difference already matters and should matter for politics and ethics.33 Yet, I find problematic and wish to resist the inclination to assume or aspire to a (universal) global community or culture as providing the social bond that enables communication, cooperation, and mutual action; often, the existence of community is dubious or too thin for plausible conclusions about ethics or morality. As aspirational goals, community and intersubjectivity can also serve to defer ethics to another day. I wish to instead explore how a dialogic reflexivity (within others and within ourselves) can help us to cope with the proposition that ethical dilemmas involving others are always present in politics. And when we come to see that what we think of as cherished values may not actually be shared, we might arrive at more resources to navigate difficult situations, rather than fewer. Thus, I seek to bring into view specific tactics that form a practice through which difference is engaged on an everyday and continuous basis, rather than defined (or designed) away. Ethical reflexivity provides space (as a disposition), and the cognitive process (in its dialectic and dialogic approach), for considering how thought and action have and might attend to relationships and difference. This is made all the more

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  99 important when we posit agencies as always reacted to by others in ways that we may not have been able to predict or foresee, particularly in the long term as, per Arendt, action becomes unbounded when it takes shape in the world. Reflexivity, in other words, is a form of ethical deliberation well suited for the critical assessment of thought and action relative to difference and relationship. The internal and external dialogue of reflexivity aids the actor’s interrogations of his or her agency as it relates to the agencies of others. And, when the self publicly narrates reasons for action, avenues are potentially opened for discussion, assessment and evaluation of the arguments and conclusions that have been made, as many different kinds of actors, including individuals, engage in critical and dialectic reasoning. Meaningful exchange does not necessarily require common membership in a community, nor does it require dialogue among ‘equals’. To be sure, friendship can facilitate reflexivity and the formation of social ties; on this point Arendt and Aristotle converged. Per Aristotle, there are many different types of friendship, but even political friendship involves attention to each other’s needs and a certain amount of trust. Arendt sees friendship as a basis for establishing what might be and become common, but these commonalities still open up ‘in a different way to each man’; for Arendt perception is always heterogeneous and thus dialogue and attempting to take account of the perspectives of others are imperative for good politics, whether thick bonds of friendship pertain or not. The dialogic exchange is thus crucial for politics and can also create a kind of equalization among those who are otherwise unequal, as interlocutors engage in a kind of give and take in their roles as speaker and audience, as Aristotle also pointed out. Arendt described it this way: In the truthful dialogue each of the friends can understand the truth inherent in the other’s opinion. More than his friend as a person, one friend understands how and in what specific articulateness the common world appears to the other, who as a person is forever unequal or different. This kind of understanding—seeing the world (as we rather tritely say) from the other fellow’s point of view—is the political kind of insight par excellence. If we wanted to define, traditionally, the one outstanding virtue of the statesman, we could say that it consists in understanding the greatest possible number and variety of realities . . . and, at the same time, in being able to communicate between the citizens and their opinions so that the common-ness of this world becomes apparent. (Arendt 1990, p. 84) It is only through the dialogue of politics, then, that individuals are made equal to a certain extent. Arendt seemed to have looked favorably on Aristotle’s characterization of both rhetoric and friendship and the responsibilities involved—both consist of exchanges between those of different social statuses who each get something different but beneficial out of the exchange, each attempting to appeal to the needs and desires of the other and without deceit (see Chapter 1).34

100  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Arendt thought that if we could see the truth in others’ opinions we would be less reactionary about our own opinions. We do not know much, per Socrates, without inquiring and learning the doxa of others (Arendt 1990, p. 85). Yet, there is a limit here, and it is a limit that is perhaps desirable; for plurality—within the self and between the self and others—can never be absolved. Plurality waxes and wanes in relation to the situation at hand—on the occasion of judgment and as the self moves back and forth between internal and external dialogue. To speak to others, for example, necessarily involves the self arriving at internal agreement, even if the self–other dialogue proves a means of persuasion to the self and fodder for internal thought. And competence in self-reflexivity—‘living together with oneself’—equips us to live ‘together with others’ (p. 86). It is also important to underscore, for decision, Arendt’s ontology of complexity and contingency sketched earlier in this chapter. The difficulty of connecting means to ends through action, in light of failures to anticipate how others will respond to our actions, supports an agency that can be cautious in that it considers a variety of strands of thought through critical, dialectic, and (internal and external) dialogic processes. There are strong parallels here to Giddens’ conceptualization of reflexivity as refracting thought and action and responding to the feedback of unintended consequences. But with Arendt we gain much more insight into reflexivity as agent-centric—how agents who practice reflexivity reconfigure space and time for internal dialogue and political pluralism, to which we can add a communicative assertiveness in politics given the difficulties of a communicative generosity that has been set out as the ideal process for continuously attending to others and to difference. Arendt can also be useful for addressing the problems with a Giddensian account of identity that I set out above. For one, Arendt attributes to identity a more continuous variability and instability that obtains in the linguistic vicissitudes of politics and the ways in which new persons and new generations insert themselves. Identity-based fluctuations may also be initiated and fostered by the dialect and dialogue of thought. Identity is, in a way, perpetually in crisis because of the pluralism of self and society. Hence, poststructural IR scholars such as Owens (2007) have found Arendt appealing for diagnosing world politics as profoundly political. The ‘everyday’ of IR constructivism is socially thick and fairly stable, whereas the ‘everyday’ of IR poststructuralism is political and in flux.35 Onuf (1998c) found fault with Giddens for being too inattentive to language, but Arendt (1998) is less susceptible to this charge because she presented speech alongside deeds as the foundational stuff of politics.36 Perhaps Arendt moves too strongly in the direction of Kant’s notion of ‘enlarged mentality’ when we consider how tempting it is to conclude that, after considering others’ opinions, one has secured the legitimacy of political outcomes on the basis of thought experiments, as exemplified by Rawls’ (1996) ‘veil of ignorance’ as a legitimation device for ‘political liberalism’. Arendt, for example, speaks of the ‘impartial generality’ involved in making ‘myself a representative of everybody else’ (1961, p. 242). Yet, the Kantian idea that dialogue improves thought is useful as long as we keep at the forefront the need to especially consider the opinions

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  101 of those who are most affected by our actions, the fallibilities involved in such an exercise, and its subjective and individualistic quality. Thought is never truly representative (of positions in the world or in our minds), even based on dialogue. Opinions (doxai) do not have the ‘intersubjective validity’ that D’Entrèves attributes to Arendt (2000, pp. 255–256). There is a danger in making generalized statements that attribute to any group a shared opinion, such as ‘Russian LGBTQ activists’ think this or that way about an international boycott of the Olympics. Such a statement is dubious and may not actually be shared. The dialogue of reflexivity always has limits, but is nevertheless central to politics: ‘To assert one’s own opinion belonged to being able to show oneself, to be seen and heard by others’ (Arendt 1990, p. 80). For Foucault, the dialogue of politics (as a game) can be distinguished from the speech of polemics. For the latter, there is no possibility for reconsidering one’s position or answering the other’s questions, but neither is there the option to ‘remain unconvinced, to perceive a contradiction, to require more information, to emphasize different postulates, to point out faulty reasoning’ (1997c, p. 112), options that do pertain to dialogue. A practice of ethics that prioritizes reflexivity might feature agents who are not on a level playing field in terms of power and publicity, and thus seek to strategically magnify their voices (as a form of power) in certain situations, but also have made certain commitments and have reserved the prerogative to decide. In the next chapter I explore how specific tactics, exemplified by a typology of ‘ideal-type’ figures (e.g., the ‘leader’, the ‘dissident’, the ‘heckler’), can intersect with ethical reflexivity to approach the more dispersed, decentralized and linguistic politics that Arendt, Foucault, and even Aristotle, envisioned. Dialogue, after all, can be indefinitely deferred by actors who would prefer not to hear others, or who would actively suppress their voices. The cautionary point I wish to conclude with is that our efforts to listen, converse and think dialectically and critically must also consider, as part of a reflexive process, our ideas about who constitutes the ‘Other’ in the first place and the Derridean point, noted by Dan Bulley (2010) with regard to humanitarian interventions, that when we respond to others as a form of responsibility we always do so at the expense of other others. We also find ourselves in situations where there are always decisions to be made and responsibility to be had (Dauphinee 2013). Ethical reflexivity does not satisfy these demands for choice and responsibility, but it does offer us some resources for grappling with them (in this chapter and the next). Thus, I offer ‘ethical reflexivity’ as a practice of ethics that is well suited to a politics of difference and uncertainty and yet always limited by these very conditions. To summarize more fully, ‘ethical reflexivity’ is the dialectic, dialogic, and affective navigation of thought and action (process) coupled with a critical ontology of the self (attitude), wherein we investigate our subjectivity and the potential for its transformation as a response to difference, relationship, and epistemological uncertainty. In this chapter I have focused on the process of ethical reflexivity with some discussion of its attitude of a critical ontology of the self, as willingness to take the self as an object of inquiry, and an openness to self-transformation via internal and external dialogue. The next chapter takes up

102  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault the task of investigating the specific dispositions, affects, and tactics that facilitate and enact ethical reflexivity as a practice, particularly in light of that social and political life that seems highly structured or constrained via organizations and bureaucratic cultures and procedures.

Notes   1 Unless we are referring to abstract and disembodied forces that move and transform in a dialectically reflexive fashion where the consequences of opposing forces feed back into subsequent conditions. Meaningful agency is often lost in this conceptualization of reflexive modernity, found in many sociological discussions of reflexivity.   2 Kant’s Perpetual Peace (1983) exemplifies this line of thought applied to international politics.   3 One can see this resonance in Foucault’s emphasis on the event and its singularity.   4 The battle, it must be noted, is never ending, with attacks and counter-attacks (Foucault 1984b, p. 56).   5 One might argue that Foucault’s early work on the historical emergence of pervasive and disaggregated flows of power in the form of social categories and institutions (e.g., madness, punishment, sexuality) fits better with structuralism (Dosse 1997) than it does a view of ethics as inhering in self-reflexivity. Foucault stated, ‘I think there is a danger in thinking of identity and subjectivity as quite deep and quite natural and not determined by political and social factors’ (1996, p. 298). Yet, historicizing the subject and subjectivity served to illustrate how limits of thought are self-imposed and can be challenged. In the very next sentence Foucault explained, ‘The psychological subjectivity that the psychoanalysts deal with—we have to be liberated from this kind of subjectivity. We are prisoners of certain conceptions about ourselves and our behavior’ (p. 298). Furthermore, this political work is to be done by us, the very persons powerfully affected by social and political conditions: ‘We have to liberate our own subjectivity, our own relations to ourselves’ (p. 298).   6 Seyla Benhabib (1996) implies that, on this score, Arendt failed to achieve an appropriate critical distance in her writing about the Eichmann trial.   7 Arendt notes the ‘irritating incompatibility between the actual power of modern man (greater than ever before, great to the point where he might challenge the very existence of his own universe) and the impotence of modern men to live in, and understand the sense of, a world which their own strength has established’ (1966, p. xxx).   8 They can be criticized, however, for treating the concept of ‘modernity’ as a universal experience.   9 Onuf (1998c) faults Giddens for emphasizing reflexivity too much while Frost (1996, 2001, 2009) envisions a shallow reflexivity in that norms are the basis for ethical reasoning rather than objects of reflexive critique. 10 The historiography of IR is another example of this kind of reflexivity (Schmidt 2002). A related position is that of naturalizing epistemological positions so that we inquire into the epistemological positions we hold and why we hold them, an approach favored by Rorty and Quinn (Mi. Williams 2001, p. 41). 11 Thus, Hamati-Ataya is dismissive of ‘first-order accounts of scholarly practice’ such as autobiography and autoethnography that do not have clear standards for what counts as knowledge, making them far too subjective (2012b, p. 630; 2014). This leaves one to wonder whether a Bourdieusian reflexive analysis—as Hamati-Ataya (2012b) interprets it—and its requirement to distance oneself from one’s ‘own preferences and

Giddens, Arendt and Foucault  103 scholarship’ is actually more valid or illuminating than autoethnographies, where authors seeks to situate themselves in the social context. The difference may pertain more to method than a ‘properly reflexive’ exercise. 12 Arendt, like others, has read Aristotle in curious ways, lauding his concept of phronesis (1978a) but also critical of his emphasis on the authority of expertise (1961, pp. 116–118). 13 For Giddens, structure consists in routines and patterned social practices that are regularized in social institutions (Tucker 1998, p. 60). 14 Of course, these responses can include suppressing, denying or ignoring that which they ‘find out’. Furthermore, organizational members may read the results through interpretive lenses informed by social and organizational cultures, ideologies, etc. 15 Much of our understanding is tacit, or part of what Giddens terms the ‘practical consciousness’ which operates between the unconscious and the discursive levels (Giddens 1984, p. xxiii). 16 It should be noted that Arendt engages with Aristotle throughout The Life of the Mind, disagreeing with him much of the time but with his metaphysics more than his accounts of ethics and politics. 17 Arendt’s manuscript Willing was completed and then edited after her death. Judging was never completed but we have some remnants from lectures and notes. Her work was also edited by many, including editing done after her death (1978b, pp. 244–245). Many have noted the inconsistencies and contradictions in Arendt’s text. I do not try to resolve these with regard to Arendt’s writing that is relevant to the idea and practice of reflexivity. Instead, I simply note that, for several possible reasons, there is a good deal of exegetical ambiguity, but it is not particularly problematic for my purposes since I am drawing on Arendt more for inspiration than articulating an account of reflexivity that has complete fidelity to her views. 18 Judgment and decision, not knowledge and truth, pertain to culture and politics (Arendt 1961, p. 223). 19 We can add Jürgen Habermas as well. 20 While I address the tension between Arendt’s concepts of politics and ethics, Patricia Owens (2007) makes many useful distinctions between the rather unconventionallydefined concepts that Arendt invokes, such as politics, war, and violence. 21 Using the example of gender, Butler explains: ‘The particular sociality that belongs to bodily life, to sexual life, and to becoming gendered (which is always, to a certain extent, becoming gendered for others) establishes a field of ethical enmeshment with others and a sense of disorientation for the first-person, that is, the perspective of the ego’ (2004b, p. 25). 22 Thus, Connolly (1991) thinks about how an agonistic politics can take shape as a kind of democracy, one that is not bound to a particular territory but arises out of and moves across artificial borders. 23 These terms are those of the interviewers, Dreyfus and Rabinow. 24 One can also see in Foucault a resonance with Nietzsche’s call for a revaluation of values as a response to the demise of an ultimate source of authority and truth (the ‘death of God’). This condition is historical for Foucault. 25 Quoting Arendt (1953). 26 D’Entrèves offers another way to connect thinking to judgment by noting that, for Arendt, thinking generates the by-product of conscience which is relevant for the activity of judging: ‘If conscience represents the inner check by which we evaluate our actions, judgment represents the outer manifestation of our capacity to think critically.

104  Giddens, Arendt and Foucault Both faculties relate to the question of right and wrong, but while conscience directs attention to the self, judgment directs attention to the world. In this respect, judgment makes possible what Arendt calls ‘the manifestation of the wind of thought’ in the sphere of appearance’ (D’Entrèves 2000, p. 249). 27 I do not think that the IR scholar is as insulated from the quick pace of decision making as Levine (2012) assumes. 28 I think that this applies to just war as well. See Amoureux and Steele (2014) and Brown (2013). 29 What Arendt also refers to as a ‘common world’, which is not indicative of agreement, but rather whom we are addressing and seeking to persuade. 30 Perhaps what White (2000) refers to as ‘weak ontology’. 31 To say, as political science positivists often do, that the implication is that we can only work with and thus theorize that which is observable, as part of a positivist methodology, is to deny a prominent source of error, as defined within positivist ontology. 32 Toulmin (1990) offers another contextual alternative by exploring historical forms of casuistic thought. 33 IR as an American and European-centric discipline does not have a strong record of attending to difference. Rankings of journals, presses and graduate programs privilege Western institutions, and IR theories focus on Western states, scholars, norms and practices (Alker and Biersteker 1984; Tickner 2003). Likewise, concepts and institutions such as ‘international society’, norms, rules and international organizations overrepresent Western voices and ideas, as Gong (1984) has illustrated, and have perhaps elicited the political and ideological backlash that Matua (2001) suggests. While much of IR theory tends to overlook and erase difference, the literature of international and global ethics also often assumes or aspires to some degree of universality, including thin and thick cosmopolitanisms, pragmatism and dialogic avenues toward consensus (Cochran 1999; Erskine 2008; Frost 1996; Linklater 1998; Shapcott 2001; Sutch 2001; Walzer 1994). 34 Arendt turned to the ancient Greeks to discuss the importance of persuasion or political speech (peithein) and the preeminent importance of the art of persuasion known as rhetoric (1990, pp. 73–74). 35 Hansen (2006), for example, argues that a shift in policy can be easily made possible and justified by referring to different ‘texts’, as illustrated by the re-representation of the Balkans to enable and justify humanitarian intervention during the 1990s. 36 In the words of Owens, ‘Arendt argued that politics truly begins when actors start to justify, rationalize and give reasons for their actions’ (2007, p. 5). For this reason, among others, Lang (2002) has also drawn on Arendt for an account of agency that can be connected both to constructivism and realism.

3 The global phronimos

Now that I have articulated and argued for the practice of ethical reflexivity with special attention to its resonance with social thought, I turn to the more practical matter of its instantiation in global politics. In this chapter I employ Aristotle’s figure of the phronimos alongside Foucault and Arendt’s focus on attitudes, dispositions, and tactics applied to the relationally situated self, to sketch those qualities of agents in global politics (as global phronimos) that cue and assist ethical reflexivity. The focus in this chapter is on the individual as an agent but always embedded in, and thus influenced by, social and organizational contexts. Before I detail ethical reflexivity’s attitudes, dispositions, and tactics I discuss the agent and agency relative to social and organizational dynamics. A key argument of this chapter is that ethical reflexivity enables agency in the face of social and bureaucratic pressures and dysfunctions that tend toward non-reflective and rule-based behavior. Dominant political narratives and organizational imperatives of efficacy and efficiency bias toward conformity and compliance, but individuals can and do articulate for themselves and others different narratives of understanding. Although it is individuals who must ultimately exercise and carry a reflexive ethos, perhaps ethical reflexivity can be, in some limited and contingent ways, socially and organizationally embedded as a laudable practice of ethics. In other words, we can work towards a kind of restructuring of structure away from a rule-dependent ethos and towards valuing a context-based approach in which dominant narratives are dialectically, dialogically and affectively critiqued and multiple ethical resources are brought to bear to articulate and consider alternatives. Still, the endurance of collective ethical reflexivity is dependent upon individual phronimos who sustain the attitude and process, challenge complacent organizations, and assume a reflexive ethical agency despite organizational disincentives and dominant narratives. Organizations and social structures, after all, have been conceptualized as depending on stable rules and norms for coordinated action, whereas a reflexive ethos promotes a skeptical attitude towards them on the premise that rules and norms are not always useful, that they are not the only important resources for action, that their meaning is not self-evident, and that they are subject to challenge and transformation. Thus, it is useful to sketch some (Weberian) ideal-type figures that reference empirical (though not exhaustive) examples for thinking through what the reflexive agent,

106  The global phronimos as socially and organizationally situated, might or might not look like. These include the ‘leader’, ‘interrogator’, ‘dissident’, ‘whistleblower’, and ‘heckler’.

Agency and agents in the organizations of world politics Reacting to the hegemony of rational-choice approaches and the presocial individual, the field of International Relations (IR) has perhaps lost sight of the importance of agency and the individual in world politics, as I have argued.1 Now we often refer to collective actors as having certain identities, interests, beliefs, desires, and so on. This move has been acknowledged and justified as either a useful methodological strategy or an ontological fact (Wendt 2004). Alexander Wendt (2004), in an effort to avoid the ‘rump individualism’ of rationalism, argues that states are persons with the same characteristics and capacities we associate with individuals. Another strand of theorizing goes further than Wendt, holding that individuals are socialized ‘all the way down’, as opposed to an ontological individualism that has assigned an essentialism to both individuals and corporate actors such as the state (Epstein 2013). Invoking a properly relational view, Charlotte Epstein argues, lies in theorizing actors as acted upon by language and thus forming ‘speaking subjects’, including those beyond states. According to Epstein, ‘The speaking subject is the actor located at the place of I/We in a discourse’ (2013, p. 313). In Nicholas Onuf’s (1989, 2001) social constructivist account, rules constitute agents (as constitutive rules) and tell them what to do (as regulative rules). Onuf (1998b) conceptualizes agency as competence with intersubjective rules, while Samuel Barkin (2010, pp. 101–102) accepts the constructivist focus on social structure because little can be said about agency that is, by definition, ‘unpredictable’. For a practice of ethics, however, these accounts of agents are not always helpful and do not exhaust agency’s capabilities or capture its heterogeneity. Ethical reflexivity instead locates a form of agency as judgment by the contextualized and relational agent. To dialectically engage thought and action individuals interpret, work with, and even alter and formulate social concepts and understandings; speak to and converse with others; and are designated or claim to be actors of a certain kind. Reflexive agents are not presocial selves and yet can make choices, apply techniques to the self, and interpret and narrate their identities and desires in different ways. As discussed in the previous chapter, I accept that there is a certain mystery to the self. We can locate the self as formed by sociolinguistic, psychological, and rational processes, as well as aesthetic practices (that we seek to manage) and yet still acknowledge that there are certain aspects of subjectivity and agency that we do not (and are not likely to ever) understand or control. This is perhaps why Arendt’s declaration of a certain amount of ‘origin’ in ourselves as generative of a ‘natality’ that can appear in politics as self-narration is so attractive. It is also, to a certain extent, the subject of William Connolly’s project of a ‘politics of becoming’ that aims to make ‘biocultural identity’, or ‘layered body–brain–culture loops’ subject to revision through many tactics beyond linguistic ones, extending the ‘reach of agency’ (Connolly 2002, p. xviii; Macdonald 2002, pp. 168, 171).

The global phronimos  107 It is in this spirit, of both the opacities and possibilities of agency, as well as its complexity and open-endedness, that I offer a practice of ethical reflexivity. This practice has been given shape as the dialectic, dialogic, and affective navigation of thought and action coupled with a critical ontology of the self, wherein we investigate our subjectivity and the potential for its transformation as a response to difference, relationship, and epistemological uncertainty. Reflexivity as agency is not necessarily the source of correct judgments. Rather, it is a means of grappling with that which has been and is created in the world, including subjects themselves. Because knowledge is uncertain, we could have acted in other ways (contingency), and knowledge production is itself a socially valued activity,2 there are good reasons to reformulate practices of ethics toward self-humility. Agency in organizational and social context Recent scholarship in international political theory has addressed an important aspect of agency that is both theoretical and practical, asking whether both individuals and organizations can be moral or ethical agents (Erskine 2003a). This is an important matter because organizations and other kinds of collective bodies are not themselves unitary actors with cognitive abilities, yet the actions of individuals are made from within an organizational or social structure that provides individuals with roles, rules, and normative frameworks that influence an individual’s identity and ethical judgments. Individuals perceive and thus experience a collective subjectivity, including feeling emotions such as shame on behalf of the collective entity (Faizullaev 2007; Lang et al. 2006, p. 287). Individuals’ judgments and actions, in turn, affect organizational decisions and social (and even material) structures and practices. In addition, individuals may be thwarted in their ethical reasoning and purposive actions by dysfunctions that accompany the modern bureaucracy, and by dominant narratives within the institution and society at large. Bureaucracies exhibit specific challenges in that the organization’s efforts to achieve its mission, its goals, and ethical decisions may fall prey to the very rules that are designed to enable purposive action. Rules can become disconnected from their ends, incentivize against creative and critical thinking, and are privileged by the common perception that they facilitate effectiveness, efficiency and fairness. Still, while individuals learn organizational rules, values and how ‘things are done’, organizational actions ultimately take shape as individuals’ interpretations and actions—what they see as important and how it advances the good and interest of the organization, the individual, the state, humanity, or some other point of reference.3 Likewise, individuals exhibit differences in their understanding of collective bodies such as states (Faizullaev 2007) which are themselves, in part, composed of a multiplicity of organizations, groups and identities. It is thus crucial to evaluate whether and how ethical practices might be attended to and carried at both individual and collective sites. The language of agency and responsibility abounds in international/global politics. States, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and

108  The global phronimos even the amorphous ‘international community’ are blamed for perceived failures including, inter alia, ‘moral failures’ in human rights, the conduct of war, security, and the environment. While accountability is often posed retrospectively, prospective considerations of agency and responsibility need attention because of the social purposes that have been endowed to and claimed by actors of international and global politics, as well as the power these actors have to regulate, constitute or influence global politics, including the bureaucrats of international organizations and non-governmental organizations who are empowered by their role as experts and their perceived independence (Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Steele and Amoureux 2006). In addition, individuals within organizations are often expected to exercise discerning judgment—to lead and serve their organizations and communities well and to judge, prevent, and take responsibility for perceived ‘failures’. Toni Erskine (2003b, p. 6) argues that if we expect international institutions to be bound by ‘ethical imperatives’ then they must first have ‘moral agency’ which ‘entails capacities for deliberating over possible courses of action and their consequences and acting on the basis of this deliberation’. These capacities ‘render [moral agents] vulnerable to the ascription of duties and the apportioning of moral praise and blame in the context of specific actions in a way that non-moral agents are not similarly vulnerable’ (p. 6). Erskine’s description of moral agents might prompt us to ask of organizations: Who in the organization is deliberating and acting and who is capable of deliberating and acting? Can agents’ deliberative capacities be enhanced? These questions are relevant for a critical practice that seeks to illuminate possibilities not yet realized and expand the capacity of individuals and organizations to formulate them. While Erskine locates agency in the capacity to deliberate, especially about the consequences of action, others have instead conceptualized agency, and thus responsibility as well, in terms of the criterion of causality. It is this kind of logic that undergirds responsibility as ‘command responsibility’ in which those individuals charged with the direction, care and maintenance of the organization (a political leader, executive, general, etc.) are able to see the ‘big picture’ (how the organization’s actions have consequences), and can do something about it (by redirecting the organization through authoritative policy and budget decisions). Because an organization, or any collective actor such as a state, is not any one person, and structure is often conceptualized as a depersonalized bundle of procedures, norms, rules and cultures, it is much more difficult to locate agency, which implies intention (Gould 2009), along these lines. The linkage between individual action and outcome may be so diffuse that no one person or persons can be held to account, whether retrospectively or prospectively. If a direct and unambiguous causal relationship between an agent’s choice and outcome cannot be established, or causality is diluted, we might absolve or attenuate expectations for (individual) agency and responsibility (including punishment). A less stringent variation on the theme of causality is found with Giddens (1984), who associates power (as affecting but not causing outcomes) with agency. In the co-constitution of agency and structure we all make a (structural)

The global phronimos  109 difference of some kind, though some have more resources (control over things and people) than others, and that which is the basis for our actions is not always in the forefront of our minds even if, according to Giddens, we can give a discursive account of it when called to do so. Is it the case, then, that any structural change, no matter how small, is significant? If so, it’s rather unclear how agency and responsibility remain useful concepts. After all, we may feel worse and more responsible for undesirable outcomes when our actions can be more closely tied to their occurrence. A view of agency as the power to affect outcomes is also complicated by the prospect that we might identify multiple factors (internal and external to the organization/collectivity) in addition to multiple agencies that make any one outcome possible and probable. The neorealist argument against ethics from environmental (structural) constraints could be characterized in these terms, in addition to public administration theories that point to hierarchical organizational structures, budgets, and external political factors that minimize the discretion and autonomy of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Kingdon 2010; Lipsky 1980). Mechanisms of bureaucratic control, including rules, norms, culture, and hierarchy, may overwhelm and suppress individual agency. In one sense this minimization of agency in the organs of government can be justified if bureaucracy and its mechanisms of control have legitimate public purposes and work well. Kant argued that, where there is a government interest in accomplishing a task, the individual should submit to public reason as if a ‘cog in a machine’ (Kant 2007, pp. 31–32). This narrative is readily recognizable in public discourse—that in view of realizing particular ends such as public goods and national interests, governments should be able to count on public servants to effectively and efficiently implement policies and directives.4 To ‘go rogue’ with one’s own agenda is often perceived as betraying one’s organization or community. It’s not that Kant was against vigorous public criticism. His own writing, as seen in Perpetual Peace (1983), took governments to task for failing to do the work, in terms of crafting policies and institutions (domestic and international), to conclude meaningful peace, as opposed to a temporary cessation of hostilities that deferred issues of conflict. Kant argued that criticism should come from philosophers, or those outside of government, who can potentially hold governments responsible for their actions. Because Kant located the power to achieve moral outcomes in public policies, when governments commit to normatively good outcomes (e.g., peace), they need the power of institutions to achieve them (e.g., eliminating standing armies, avoiding public debt). There was thus a distinction in Kant’s mind between bureaucrats and citizens on the question of responsibility and social critique. There is also a relevant interpretation in the IR literature among some social constructivist accounts that emphasize rules and roles for both their empirical and normative purchase. We might argue that, empirically, individuals acting from within organizations have little agency or responsibility because the organization constitutes the individual; provides individuals an identity; has rules, norms and policies that are generally followed; and features collective interests that even the

110  The global phronimos organization’s leaders are socialized into. A variation on this is that competence with rules is a form of agency (Onuf 1998b). Constructivists have also extolled norms as a desirable basis for a (normative) practice of ethics (Frost 1996; Price 2008; Thomas 2001). However, one must be careful here. As noted in Chapter 1, there is tremendous variation in the constructivist literature and constructivism has been both accused of being too idealistic about the extent and power of agency and neglecting agency altogether in depicting actors as overwhelmed or ‘infantilized’ by structure (Epstein 2012). Instead of making general statements I will briefly elaborate two rule-based accounts of constructivism—that of Nicholas Onuf and Mervyn Frost—and their implications for agency and ethics in the context of collective formations. Both Onuf (2001) and Frost (1996) espouse the constructivist insight that rules and roles constitute and instruct the agents of world politics who most of the time act without reflecting on the deeply ethical basis of their behaviour (Frost 2001; Onuf 1998a, 1998b). Practices, according to Frost, have an ethical dimension because they instruct agents through norms, rules, principles, and conventions that tell us who we are and what we should do. Onuf refers to these norms as ‘constitutive’ and ‘regulative’, respectively. By making moves within practices ‘the actors in them uphold and endorse the ethics embodied in the practices in question’ (Frost 2001, p. 36). Onuf prefers to discuss norms as rules where rules ‘set standards and prescribe conduct meeting those standards’ (1998b, p. 670). When we act, then, our actions refer to standards and ‘ethical conduct reflects what we feel we should do, given available standards’ (1998b, p. 669). The major complication, then, for thinking about a practice of ethics that takes the self as an object of reflection and modification, especially in the intensely rule-based context of the bureaucracy, is that agents may not be inclined or capable of thinking outside of the rules or critically interpreting and evaluating them. Furthermore even (or especially) language is constituted through rules. Frost (1996, 2001, 2009) explicitly extends constructivist theoretical insights to a normative account in which extant practices already provide the moral infrastructure to deal with a wide range of scenarios, including the ‘hard cases’ of ethical dilemmas that arise from unexpected events, new technologies, and contradictory expectations of different social practices. Frost advocates that we use the existing practices of international society, global civil society, and globalization to generate a list of ‘settled norms’ for which we can formulate a background justification. A key step occurs at the start when agents examine the practice at hand ‘in the round’ to draw out its values and link them in a story, one that privileges values found across practices (Frost 2001, pp. 40–41). Once the background theory is established, it is certain that it will not entirely comport with all extant norms and rules. Just as legal reasoning can throw pieces of law into doubt because they no longer fit with the whole, reasoning from a value story about ethics will throw some norms and rules into doubt based on their inconsistency and contradiction. Indebted to John Rawls for the procedure of ‘reflective equilibrium’, Frost argues that coherence can be attained by moving back and forth between the value-based background theory and norms and rules until they are

The global phronimos  111 reconciled (1996, pp. 99–100). From this point of normative reconciliation ethical questions can be addressed, such as when to conduct humanitarian intervention, a question that arises out of a clash of practices (a society of states and global civil society) (Frost 2001). In Frost’s account, the question of ‘what ought’ is largely derived from an ontology of ‘what is’, as social structure in the form of practices and rules. Frost looks to the power of the norm as the basis for an ethics that, on my reading, prioritizes stability, consistency, and value hierarchy. Onuf, in contrast, explicitly refuses to make prescriptive conclusions from a constructivist ontology. Instead, he notes an element of undefined choice. Agents can choose to follow rules or violate them; if the former, rules are sustained rather than weakened or altered. Nevertheless, according to Onuf (1998b, 1998c), rules are followed most of the time without thinking, and when the relevant rule is in doubt the agent looks to others and what they are doing for clues about which rule to turn to and how it should be interpreted. The overall point I wish to make here is that if, empirically and normatively, a critical form of agency is overwhelmed by socially constitutive and regulative rules then the form of reflexivity I have sought to advance is ill suited to world politics. Against ethical agency as rule following I think it is appropriate and compelling to discuss agents as having the capacity to interpret rules in ways that diverge from the interpretations of others, to act outside of and against rules themselves, and as encountering a world in which there are multiple and deeply contested rules. The relevance of rules and norms, to begin with, cannot be taken for granted and is rarely straightforward. I have discussed this proposition at length in Chapter 2 through the lens of Aristotle’s phronesis. The basic point is that the meaning of rules (or other ‘universals’) is never readily apparent because the circumstances of each situation for evaluation and action vary. Thus, the specific form of the good fluctuates across context and must always be defined by the agent (phronimos) who deliberates and acts on those deliberations, and who prioritizes particulars over general and abstract thought. Arendt joined Aristotle in underscoring the desirability of emphasizing particulars over rules in an agent-centric practice of ethics. Rules, like other ‘universals’5 (e.g., norms, beliefs, values) are treated as ethical resources rather than moral absolutes, and are themselves treated contingently in view of our stringent evaluations of their usefulness. Thought, in other words, is tied to ongoing experiential and open-ended practice. Arendt went as far as to say that generalized rule following has resulted in the most abhorrent ‘political evil’ of our time because it reflects a ‘failure to think’—to take into account and grapple with a comprehensive view of our circumstances and our actions, as we saw in Chapter 2. For Aristotle and Arendt, then, ethics is not formulating, learning and applying rules to every situation, but drawing on them judiciously and contingently—only when they are useful. We should keep in mind that rules, on their own, continually fail us. And action tends to take us in directions that we may not have predicted. It

112  The global phronimos is only when we take into account the particulars of situations and how thought and action have already played out that we have the relevant material to work for a dialectic, dialogic, and critical approach.6 Because ethical judgment assumes paramount importance, Aristotle devoted considerable attention to thinking about what makes good judgment (phronesis) and identifying the qualities of those who judge well (phronimos), including how well they engage affect for cultivating their ability to judge, act, and live well with others. To a certain extent, organizations and other groups rely on the discretion and good judgment of individual agency. Indeed, we often expect individuals ‘on the ground’ to make complex decisions in contingent circumstances, such as times of war when military personnel must reconcile and interpret the ‘laws of wars’ and the commands of superiors in a confusing and uncertain environment. And there is at least some support for those who report ethically questionable behavior, to the extent that governments have laws that protect ‘whistleblowers’ and public cultures that value the practice of whistleblowing. Even outside of exceptional circumstances, ethical agency faces steep challenges that some ‘international ethics’ literature has begun to grapple with, including that the guidelines of organizations (found in rules of procedure and organizational principles) cannot anticipate and accommodate all possible ethical dilemmas individuals might face in their organizational positions, that rules themselves cannot be relied upon to produce ethical decisions given the complexity of specific ethical questions, and that organizations embrace conflicting values and beliefs that have to be reconciled in concrete situations (Cornish and Harbour 2003; Kratochwil 2001). The literature on ethics in public administration adds to this list the presence of competing missions within organizations and multiple perceptions of ‘the public’ and thus the ‘public interest’: ‘Possible “masters’ a public servant might have include the public as consumer (of government products), the public as elected representative, the public as client (served by “street-level bureaucrats”), and the public as citizen’ (O’Leary 2014, pp. 111, 119, citing Frederickson). In IR we could compile an equally heterogeneous list to include the citizens of one’s state, the oppressed and less powerful, humanity, victims of violence and displacement. Furthermore, choices made for one such group often entail negative consequences to another group (Bulley 2010). Another downside of rules-as-ethics is found in how excessive rule following can be dysfunctional for organizations. Those characteristics of bureaucracies that enable it to pursue goals, such as a division of labor, specialization, standardized procedures, and expert knowledge, can also be the source of unintended and undesirable outcomes, including those counterproductive to the mission and ethos of the organization. Rules become elevated over their purposes when bureaucrats and leaders routinely and habitually follow them without a view toward their ends (Barnett and Finnemore 2004, p. 39).7 Applying Arendt, we can rethink this dysfunction as also failing to keep in view, not just the possibility, but the likelihood that means will unfold into other means—that acting into a complex and contingent world engages the agencies of others in an endless chain of action and reaction, in ways that are difficult to predict or control (Amoureux and Steele

The global phronimos  113 2014). Arendt referred to this as the ‘boomerang effect’, borrowing the phrase from Britain’s Lord Cromer and invoking the example of imperialism as paving the way for totalitarianism (Swift 2009, p. 80). Thus, rules can be privileged over, more broadly, ethico-political considerations and, more narrowly, the mission of the organization and its considered aims. One could also describe this condition as trained and socialized unreflexivity in that individuals become accustomed to following rules for the sole reason that they are rules. Because rules provide a behavioral guide to individuals, even exceptions to the rules can be normalized so that they become a part of regular procedures—what Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore (2004, pp. 39–40) refer to as the ‘normalization of deviance’. Arendt was particularly concerned with bureaucracies because they are often disconnected from the meaningful guidance of ideas, let alone inclusive and openended dialogue. Their purpose is to administrate, and in doing so bureaucrats can be easily attracted to the end of accruing power, a danger that is magnified in war, totalitarianism, and colonial governance, where those over whom bureaucracies exercise power are ‘stateless’ and thus without control and deprived of standing (or agency) by officials and bureaucrats (Swift 2009, pp. 81–83). Bureaucrats of international and non-governmental organizations could just as easily slide into ways of thinking and acting that are disconnected from those whom they are to serve. Rule following as the modus operandi of the modern bureaucracy has been historically consolidated through a philosophy of scientific management and professionalization and exported through global governance, inculcating an ethos that emphasizes economy, efficiency and the technical tasks of bureaucracies. As Harry Reynolds (1995, p. 125) explained: ‘These norms elevated organizational survival and task performance to preeminent places’ in bureaucracies and have ‘predisposed . . . the public sector . . . to favor a rule-driven, or rule-based, approach to ethics’. The result is that it is difficult for bureaucrats to engage in independent ethical reasoning (p. 126), and there is a tendency to create new rules and organizational bodies in the aftermath of shocking ethical blunders in a reactionary rather than thoughtful fashion. Gary Zajac and Louise Comfort (1997, p. 547) argue that this ‘legalistic approach’ found in the modern bureaucracy ‘promotes ethics tunnel vision, wherein public servants and organizations are concerned only with what they cannot do, giving little attention to the development of critical moral reflection’. Thus, the analytic move of turning to rules to understand the social basis of thought and action seems empirically sound to a certain extent, but does not capture all behavior, and it is far from conclusive that rules and norms should and can provide an ethical framework for action. It is not just rules that fail us, but perhaps institutions and institutional design as well.8 Surely, institutions matter for political outcomes, but to assert that democracy and democratization of governance (whether domestic or international) can constitute or form the basis for an ‘international‘ or ‘global’ ethics is likely a flawed strategy. I do not explore here why, exactly, this may be the case. Instead, I prefer to move away from this social and academic obsession with democracy and its redesign and note that others have provided many good reasons why democracy and its social construction, in practice, have been

114  The global phronimos deeply flawed and thus not all that we would need for a satisfactory ethics.9 A constitutional guarantee of free speech has not, for example, protected U.S. journalists from prosecution by President Barack Obama’s administration and from judicial pressure to provide information that would compromise flows of information that have been instrumental for revealing government programs and actions that have been troubling to much of the U.S. population. Thus, we will see in this and the following chapters, that if one mark of the global phronimos is to draw out and entertain alternative narratives of understanding and action, this often requires that individuals find a basis for their ethos that can stand apart from and criticize institutions, rules, and leaders that may nevertheless be legitimately formed, formulated, and selected. More broadly, there is a persistent tension here between the functionality of bureaucracy and its failures that can, to a significant degree, be extended to the social and political. The continuous refrain in IR literature that structure and agency are co-constitutive among constructivist and English School theorists elides its messiness—its complexity and contingency—that characterizes not just agency but also norms which are perhaps much more uneven and contested than IR scholars often acknowledge. There is an additional problem of legitimacy tied to prevailing concepts of agency (or their neglect) in view of their historical formation. Are the norms of international and global civil society that Frost catalogues10 yet another ‘standard of civilization’ extended through global governance, war, and the shaming of ‘pariah’ states and groups? What are held to be ‘common precepts, interests, and norms’ (Gong 1984, p. 90) may instead mark off some as non-agents. Makau Matua (2001) has argued that the global promotion of human rights is often interpreted as simply another form of racist colonialism by those who are labeled ‘victims’ or ‘savages’ but never interlocutors by self-stylized ‘saviors’. When academic literature and political practice feature justificatory discourse that invokes notions of the universal, common, or social, it neglects the painful history of agencies not recognized. Neocolonial perspectives do not merely argue that there are remarkable colonial continuities between the past and the present, but also that colonial attitudes and narratives are still enacted and perceived by a sizeable chunk of the world’s population.11 If rules and norms are not to colonize the judgment of agents, we might think about how agents can and do exercise the critical rationality of reflexivity. Turning to Arendt, we found (in Chapter 2) one way of thinking about agency’s heterogeneity as a reflexivity than can be both internal (between me and myself) and external (between the self and others). In both there is a heterogeneity to identity and thought that is fertile for a more active rather than passive agency. This account is neither entirely individualist nor social. The individual is not prior to social interaction but is also not reducible to shared norms. There is not, for example, any one way of being a statesperson, soldier, citizen, or refugee, even if we can draw out shared values, norms and rules that are found among certain groups. Agents interpret and create their identities in concrete situations with variation, and they also recraft their identities or take on new identities altogether. Agents challenge prevalent standards and ways of doing things, even when those actions involve considerable social and psychological costs.

The global phronimos  115 Foucault intimates that there is a kind of agency that arises out of challenging disciplinary, normalizing and regulatory forces that continuously work on our subjectivities. He echoes Kant’s call to take up practices of reason and aesthetics so that our subjectivities are more a product of our reflective and self-conscious experimentations and techniques applied to the self than those enacted upon us (Foucault 1984c). Of course, for Foucault, one always acts relative to something, such as discourses of truth. To question these discourses is an ‘art of voluntary insubordination, that of “reflected intractibility”’ that aims for ‘the desubjugation of the subject in the context of . . . the politics of truth’ (Foucault 2007, p. 217). Thus, Foucault does not have a generalized account of agency, but rather a perspective on thought and action that refers to that which we might find problematic. For Foucault, critique in his/our context meant to struggle to be ‘governed less’ and ‘not in that way’ because governance, its justification, and especially the legitimacy it relies on to use force (whether violence and/or the law) has contributed to the effects of power we experience. One form of agency, in this context, might be to think and feel differently (Foucault 1984c), filled out by the reason, affect, and the experience of judgment. Perhaps these agential struggles are more possible and pervasive than we imagined. As scholars we exhibit substantial variation in how we interpret our identities in terms of what scholars should do, especially when presented with specific scenarios where our teaching principles need to be interpreted/formulated. And some of us challenge what seem to be prevalent ways of doing things through scholarship and in professional and public outlets, sometimes at the risk of our careers or by redefining our careers according to alternative metrics of success. Some even leave the profession altogether in protest, taking on a different career identity. Even when we look inside the bowels of government in highly institutionalized settings such as the United States, where bureaucrats tend to view procedures in very favorable terms, they may ‘go public’ with their ethical concerns or participate in what Rosemary O’Leary (2014) has termed ‘guerilla government’, defined as ‘actions taken by career public servants who work against the wishes—either implicitly or explicitly communicated—of their superiors’ (p. xi). Such activity, O’Leary reports, ‘happens all the time in the everyday, often mundane world of bureaucracy’ (2014, p. 3), and thus administrative affairs can be more political than Arendt had thought. In organizations, groups, and communities the actions of agents, then, do not always neatly correspond to the role they are assigned or the role they have assumed. For an everyday practice of ethics this means that we always have various moral and ethical resources (both outside and within organizations and societies) to engage and alter as we address questions of ethics. According to Arendt, we are plural selves. Yes, some individuals are more eager than others to take up organizational or social norms, cultures and procedures, but which to take up and how to act on them is not always so clear. Indeed, their status and meaning as ‘intersubjective’ is often deeply contested. Furthermore, the quest for consensus and commonality may be undesirable from the view that ethical agency as reflexivity is a valuable practice as well as the widespread expectation that individuals should have the capacity and discretion to exercise critical judgment.

116  The global phronimos Individuals, organizations and societies deny themselves important resources for ethics when they valorize and rely on rules, but they may suppress their agency in other ways as well. There is the danger that bureaucrats may internalize the dominant categories of the institution so that they ‘pervade an individual’s conception of his or her life’ (May 1996, p. 82), obscuring its plurality and leaving one without the resources to check policies and decisions. And when individuals do not see themselves as having the capacity or obligation to make ethical judgments, they move themselves even further away from treating thought and action as objects of critical interrogation. Leaders can also contribute to lessening agents’ reflexive capacities and thus deprive the organization of its benefits when they micromanage their people, determining ‘key aspects of even day-to-day tactical decisions without understanding the consequences’ (Cornish and Harbour 2003, p. 124). Paul Cornish and Frances Harbour cite the example of NATO operations in Kosovo, where NATO leaders micromanaged operations and tactics, resulting in unnecessary harm to the very persons NATO sought to protect. We might also consider how the rationalization of activity, which is meant to promote the effective and efficient accomplishment of tasks, can err on the side of hyperrationalization such that decision making is deprived of the ways in which affect and cognition work in tandem for good ethical judgment (Chapter 2). Finally, it is important to recognize that dominant narratives create difficulties for ethical judgment and thus form another reason to bias in favor of change and self-transformation. Dominant narratives are stories that present certain ontologies and visions of desirability that are sustained through policies and ideologies, reproduced widely in the texts of political and popular culture, and/or are institutionalized in the form of rules, culture and norms. Dominant narratives have implications for agents’ perceived set of possible understandings and actions and are readily drawn on by agents in making sense of their world and for cuing action. Dominant narratives are important, Lene Hansen (2006, p. 21) explains, because they construct problems, objects and subjects, and articulate policies to address them. But, because they are turned to in lieu of judgment and are treated as ontological truths, reflexive agents must find ways to make them problematic, as Foucault has illustrated. One challenge of ethical reflexivity, then, is for individuals, first, to recognize how dominant discourses they reproduce play a part in constructing identity, problems, and solutions, and, second, to identify and articulate discourses that could potentially loosen the hegemony of such narratives. Building ethical agency, I believe, enacts this awareness and capacity. Citing Foucault (1977a), Lene Hansen (2006, p. 21) similarly expresses this need: ‘Language’s structured yet inherently unstable nature brings to the fore the importance of political agency and the political production and reproduction of discourses and the identities constructed within them’. On this view, identity and policy, thought and action, are intimately linked through textual performances. Yet, our ability to articulate opposing discourses by drawing on or reinterpreting ‘texts’ means that a hegemonic construction is susceptible to ‘politically constructed’ alternatives (Hansen 2006, p. 19). There is a certain kind of power, then, in articulating and asserting

The global phronimos  117 options that have been denied public consideration, a move that is available even to members of organizations who, though they may take on risk in doing so, can use their position and knowledge to articulate and advance critical narratives.12 Agency and enhanced reflexivity The view of agency I support here is tied to the purpose of my project—to investigate the possibilities for a strong conception of agency that nevertheless is not reducible to the presocial individual of methodological individualism.13 Much of IR scholarship has had a different agenda, as has other work in philosophy and social theory. Martin Heidegger, for example, ‘proceeds through a consideration of the perspective of someone who has an orientation and ability to get around in a familiar everyday world without having to stop and reflect’ (Rousse 2014, p. 14). Onuf (1998b), as I have reviewed, exemplifies a similar purpose. These accounts of agency and structure are useful analytic approaches for sociological understanding, but it does not follow that they are useful approaches to ethics. Contrary to Frost (1996), if one is persuaded that norms and rules are insufficient instructions for action in a world of complexity, contingency and difference, then an alternative basis for thought action might be developed; specifically, one in which we self-consciously exercise ethical judgment and explore rather than defend against change. To get around the world might be reconceptualized as stopping and reflecting, and rendering the world strange rather than familiar, so that its features are not so taken for granted. In the previous two chapters I have presented a certain rendition of reflexivity as an agency for ethics, an agency that explores and attempts to push beyond the parameters of living and decision that may be available to us. While reflexivity is to some extent inherent to thinking and action in accounts that posit the self as looking inward by employing some kind of external perspective, to the extent that we perform actions without attention to how thought and action relate to one another and might relate to one another differently, a basic account of reflexivity is a weak reflexivity.14 To say that reflexivity should be the basis for an ethics is to promote a stronger conception of reflexivity—to enhance agents’ ability and willingness to dialectically and diachronically evaluate thought and action. No external (or internal) perspective is taken for granted. And yet, to check overinvestment in reason is to accept an element of mystery to the self, to others, and to the world. To a degree the affective aspects of ethical judgment, such as imagination, intuition, and empathy, resist rationalization even while they play a crucial role in engaging our care, concern, and attention to ourselves and others, in the process of judgment. And, affect can, to some degree, be noticed, deployed, and remade. To be meaningful for ethics, a reflexive agency need not tightly correspond to the intended consequences of action. We can take responsibility for agency through practice even if connecting our actions to specific effects is difficult and does not completely account for our world and our relations. Just as it is tempting for individuals within organizations to neglect reflexive inquiry because their

118  The global phronimos actions seem diluted and affected by hierarchies of decision making, standard procedures, and bureaucratic norms, the actors of international/global politics can similarly minimize the possibilities for reflexivity by upholding and deferring to a variety of dominant or prevailing formations and processes, including those that are socio-linguistic and psychological. More productive for ethics is to ask: How might thought and action contribute to ways of living, subjectivities, relationships, and the interaction of agencies? Can their consequences, via diachronically expansive horizons, prompt for us different ways of thinking and doing that may be (provisionally) more desirable? While we must be careful to avoid stripping agency of its potential power and its responsibility, a distinct benefit of considering social and organizational processes is the possibility that reflexivity can be cultivated among organizations and social groups in limited ways, in addition to individuals. This potential benefit is an additional reason for positing individuals and organizations as concurrently capable of agency and responsibility. The organization (or society) reproduces an ideational and material infrastructure that influences the individuals within it and in this way can be said to be responsible for outcomes. More generally, it seems that we associate certain behaviors and affect with specific environments that though difficult to notice (Spiegel 2015) can become objects of transformation.15 Individuals, after all, are also ethical agents. As Harbour (2003, p. 78) put it: ‘Individuals retain ownership of their own actions and decisions, and thus individual moral responsibility overlaps with the collective agency of the organization as a whole’. Nevertheless, the argument of institutional responsibility is weaker than the argument of individual responsibility. One danger of anthropomorphizing organizations and societies (including ‘the social’), as IR theorists have done (Faizullaev 2007), is that we elide both the need and capability of ethical judgment. An alternative framing of agency and responsibility might focus more on the ethical reasoning of individuals even while we are also attentive to social and organizational cultures and strategies that promote or inhibit reflexivity. If, for example, environmental associations trigger certain behaviors, we can perhaps take notice of these associations and, as part of a strategy of ethical reflexivity, induce environmental shifts as a concrete reflexive tactic. When we try to take note of how our thought and action take shape, we present the possibility of working on ourselves. In this vein, Aristotle’s argument that we can still be held responsible for our choices even if such choices are not wholly attributable to volitional forces within the self is a useful framework for the agency of ethical reflexivity. There are many possibilities for individual agency that can be taken up and that we might valorize. For example, given an order that a soldier finds objectionable, he or she could appeal up the chain of command, refuse to comply, attempt to convince other soldiers to demonstrate solidarity with him or her in protesting the order, go around the chain of command and report the order to more senior leaders, leak the action to the media, refer the matter to an ombudsperson or other ethics investigator, or attempt to leave the military altogether (though not without consequence). While leaders can dramatically take the organization in new directions, build in self-reflexive processes and cultivate an emphasis on

The global phronimos  119 ethical reasoning, individuals ‘on the ground’ can interpret policies and decisions (even orders), giving them shape and acting as the ‘face’ of the organization to outsiders. Both leaders and individuals can engage efforts to remake and rechannel organizations and their actions. Thus, the cultivation of ethical reasoning and self-awareness at all levels potentially has promise for affecting outcomes when we think about agency as identifying, creating, and leveraging opportunities to critically engage the conjunction of thought and action. Ideally, there would be an organizational culture that values the contributions of all members of the organization at all levels and fosters in them the attitude of ethical reflexivity that welcomes critique and the possibility of change. Yet, because bureaucracies rely on shared purposes, shared values, and shared procedures to a significant extent, as well as efficiency, for their raison d’être, organizations may find it difficult to welcome and sustain on a continuous basis critique, dissent, and a variety of ways of living, thinking, and acting. We will see in the chapters to follow that organizations readily co-opt challenges and innovations and subject them to routinization and systematization in diluted form. Because reflexivity is intended to interrupt, disrupt, and redirect, it is especially susceptible to being targeted for neutralization. Thus, it is perhaps too optimistic to suggest that organizations can do more than tepidly support, or at least tolerate, some qualities and actions of the ethically reflexive agent (phronimos). It will always be a struggle to instantiate ethical reflexivity in world politics given social and organizational pressures. This observation does not preclude the practice of reflexivity; rather, acknowledging and confronting our social and organizational context is a way of, to borrow from Elizabeth Dauphinee (2007, pp. 83–84), beginning where we are.16

Dispositions, attitudes, and skills of the global phronimos I offer the argument that ethical concerns in political life, broadly construed, should be made prominent and should include attending to and cultivating ourselves as capable and relational agents who reflect and work on our subjectivities (organizational and otherwise), who value normative projects but do not leave them free from critique and potential transformation, and who draw on various moral resources for thought and action, recognizing that challenging prevalent norms, beliefs and opinions may entail personal risks. The individual who practices ethical reflexivity, like Aristotle’s phronimos, can be said to have certain virtues or habits (hexeis) that prompt, assist, and give expression to ethical reflexivity. The concept of the phronimos is useful for articulating a practical but critical approach to ethics because it encourages us to think about the attitudes, dispositions, skills and tactics that might be cultivated as policymakers and global/international/national bureaucrats take on a professional ethos, as well as the ethos individuals espouse as participants in politics. We can use this exemplar of the global phronimos to inform the possible development of organizational and social cultures that might support individuals and groups who seek to bring together thought and action in productive and creative ways.

120  The global phronimos In this section I return to Aristotle, who argued that ethics entails pursuing ‘goods’ with excellence. The excellences of the practice (or master virtue) of phronesis were discussed in Chapter 1. For Aristotle, the phronimos is the ethical agent par excellence who critically navigates universals and particulars through dialogue, debate and deliberation; pursues valued ends that are attainable; has experience in ethical reasoning; and acts on judgments. This kind of ethical reasoning is decidedly not rule-based. As Kraut (2009) notes of Aristotle, because what is best varies contextually, ‘there is no possibility of stating a series of rules, however complicated, that collectively solve every practical problem’. In place of a rule-based ethics Aristotle proposes an alternative in which deliberating agents possess situational awareness and formulate the good in view of particulars and with others. Thus, Aristotle found it fruitful to think about the virtues that might enable one to engage in ethical reasoning well (phronesis). Individuals have dispositions (hexeis) that denote ’enduring attributes or character traits’ that are formed through experience as well as education (Sokolon 2006, p. 16). Likewise, Foucault and Arendt offered attitudes and tactics that amount to techniques for a reflexive practice of ethics concerned with the self and the self’s relations to others. It is in this spirit that I similarly offer up a typology of qualities that position the agent of global ethics to be a person who engages in ethical reflexivity with excellence.17 Ethical, contextual and plural self-awareness The phronimos of ethical reflexivity has a sense of the self as plural, as having ethical agency, and as always situated in a context where there is variance across occasions and conditions for thought and action. In order to take part in a process of critique that has the self and the self’s relations to others as its object, the global phronimos must first conceive of themselves as having the status of an ethical agent and appreciate how their actions have ethico-empirical implications, even if indirect. They should also see themselves as having the capacity to critically engage and revise thought itself—the values, beliefs, and normative propositions to which justification of action can refer. Michael Williams refers to an ‘ethic of criticism’ as ‘self-clarification’ (2005, p. 174). The social aspect of this self-awareness or self-clarification is also found in one’s subjectivity as part of a collective group and capable of acting as a member of it, though not necessarily in line with other members and with dominant narratives of what the group is about. Reflexivity does not preclude and even benefits from experiencing oneself as embodying a collective identity and being aware of this experience, but needs persons who can interpret what this identity means to them and contribute to negotiating it anew. It is helpful, in this regard, to have a plural self-conception. We saw that Arendt’s reflexivity was premised on the idea that one could inhabit several identities or positions so as to enact an internal dialogue. This pluralism can provide ethical resources for the creativity of natality that is separate from the organizational or collective body. U.S. Representative Paul Ryan reportedly struggles

The global phronimos  121 with both faith and ideology in his position on poverty (Inskeep 2014). Whether or not Ryan actually engages critical and dialectic reasoning, awareness of the agent’s plurality and self-critical capacity would make it possible for him to at least entertain altering thought and its relationship to action, in the first place, so that ideology or faith might by interpreted differently as a result of ethical reflexivity’s critical rationality. In their ethical reasoning the global phronimos also considers particulars, showing an appreciation for and responsiveness to context which includes estimating the ways in which others have responded to our agencies, the consequences to which our actions contribute, and the interrelations and boundaries of communities that we have subscribed to in thinking and doing. Particulars thus include problems before us and their genealogies, the beliefs and desires of others, as well as the beliefs and desires of the self, that emerge through the process of reflexive self-examination. Dispositionally, the phronimos is in the habit of asking questions such as (but not only): ‘Are the rules and practices (ways of doing things) that I encounter and have learned applicable to the ethical question at hand given its features?’ ‘Are there other possible ways of thinking about this situation and details that are worth noticing?’ ‘How might my actions and words be interpreted by others, including future generations?’ ‘How have they been interpreted in the past?’ ‘What assumptions have I made about myself and others?’ Attitude of critique and openness to self-transformation From Foucault I sketched ethical reflexivity as featuring a project of becoming rather than being, that pushes the limits of thought and action through a ‘critical ontology’ of ourselves engaged as ‘permanent self-critique’. This attitude toward ethics acknowledges and embraces the contingency of our historical time by situating ethics as an approach to life rather than an end for life or an essence of life. It is instead ‘a voluntary choice’ for a certain ‘mode of relating to contemporary reality’ (Foucault 1984c). This mode of living involves stylizing the self as though a work of art. Referring to Baudelaire’s figure of the dandy and a kind of becoming as ‘dandysme’, Foucault explains that the dandy ‘makes of his body, his behavior, his very existence, a work of art’; he is ‘the man who tries to invent himself’ (p. 42). To be inspired by the figure of the dandy as a self-practice is not to reject ethics or the idea of responsibility. Rather, it is to take responsibility for oneself, for producing oneself rather than being produced by others and their regulatory and normative creations. Indeed, Foucault likens the critical ontology of the self, as an attitude, to the Greek idea of ethos. The ‘permanent reactivation’ of this attitude that ironically heroizes the present is even a kind of practical action, according to Foucault, because it involves, through both historical inquiry and experimentation, putting the this attitudinally informed action to the test of ‘contemporary reality, both to grasp the points where change is possible and desirable, and to determine the precise form this change should take’ (Foucault 1984c, p. 46). Thus, the goal is not to find out some truth about the world or the self. Neither is it to arrive at some final place

122  The global phronimos of self-fulfillment. Rather, it is to struggle with the idea of freedom relative to subjectivity as well as uncertainty, contingency and complexity. Like Arendt, Foucault prioritizes the need to attend to both the promises and dangers of possibility. Thus, this experimental attitude must be coupled with a suspicion of grand historical programs that promise a radical ‘new man’ even while one pursues a (Nietzschean) ‘re-valuation of values’. This call to experimentation acknowledges that, in positing limits to action, ‘we have to give up hope of ever acceding to a point of view that could give us access to any complete and definitive knowledge of what may constitute our historical limits’ (Foucault 1984c, p. 47). We will never arrive at self-awareness of a boundary between the possible and impossible. What we know from ‘theoretical and practical experience’ is partial and ‘thus we are always in the position of beginning again’ (p. 47). Add Arendt’s view that agencies are always acting on other agencies and we have a compelling basis for an attitude that, like the dandy, is oriented to working with the strands of life and beauty that we see and provoke, searching where others have abandoned, and exploring the night while others sleep. This ‘attitude of modernity’ is an ‘eagerness to imagine [the present], to imagine it otherwise than it is, and to transform it not by destroying it but by grasping it in what it is’ (Foucault 1984c, p. 41). It is—paralleling the notions of thought, affect, and action that I have elaborated—a ‘way of thinking and feeling; a way, too of acting and behaving’. The dangers of the opposing impulse to secure a coherent and stable ontological viewpoint have been illustrated by Connolly, who has argued that the failure to appreciate the contestability of one’s own faith or identity generates a resentment that is turned out on others. Finding sustenance in Foucault as well as Nietzsche, Connolly (2002, p. xxix) has instead called for a disposition of ‘critical responsiveness’ which entails listening to and being receptive to new identity movements that support pluralism, even to the extent that they ‘jostle elements in your own identity’. The key is to maintain a ‘gratitude for being’ even in a ‘world of becoming’ (Connolly 2012). For Connolly, this ethos would approach, for example, the hermaphrodite18 with a spirit of non-interference, leaving the body free from surgical interventions, especially at an early age. Though both Foucault and Connolly have focused on the discipline and violence enacted on persons who do not fit or abide by gender and sexual norms in the form of the dandy and hermaphrodite, respectively, one might usefully seek to move such identities from ‘tolerable’ to ‘exemplary’, and redefine agency so that it is not confined to those who see themselves, or are seen as ‘normal’ (and who pronounce who is ‘abnormal’ and who will be tolerated). We might, then, consider persons who identify, for example, as ‘genderqueer’ as a more exemplary metaphor for the historico-critical and experimental ethos that Foucault presented as a critical ontology of ourselves. What I am suggesting is that we can metaphorically deploy genderqueer as an aspirational disposition, one that illustrates how non-normative positionalities can find space and model how alternative trajectories of becoming are possible. Refusing to identify as either male or female, someone who identifies as genderqueer deeply challenges gender

The global phronimos  123 binaries.19 A genderqueer person’s style of presentation is often outside of gendernormative expectations for someone who accordingly ‘must be’ and ‘look like’ a ‘man’ or ‘woman’. And those who identify as genderqueer exercise wide-ranging choice on pronouns, perhaps using pronouns they have been socially assigned (‘he’ or ‘she’), moving from one pronoun to another (e.g., ‘he’ to ‘she’), or creating new pronouns altogether (‘ze’, ‘hir’, ‘they’, etc.). Here, we may have a particular instantiation of the ‘dandy’, a reconstruction of oneself that includes the deconstruction and reconstruction of language, identity, embodiment, and relationality (including practices of sexuality that have also been renegotiated by agents who embody gender non-normatively). These subjectivities themselves may be characterized as liminal, where one is outside or in between dominant categories (Neumann 2012). Embodying and performing a position at the margins has all kinds of implications, including that a liminal subjectivity can give rise to creativity and transgressing boundaries of thought and action because such a liminal subjectivity is freer from dominant norms and social expectations. The point is to question received gender roles and perhaps the category of gender altogether. Yet, it is important to point out that, while these self-stylizations may feature self-conscious choices to live a certain way and even to move from one way of living to another, they all involve assuming risk. One could seek to live in the gender identity that one is socially assigned rather than take on the risk of physical and psychological harm and non-belonging that arises out of hostility to the person who does not fit gender-normative expectations (though seeking to live according to a normative gender can also result in harm and suffering for someone with whom it does not resonate). One could even argue that someone who is genderqueer, transgender, or transsexual is the potential object of a particularly acute hostility (in the United States, but also elsewhere) if individuals are perceived as deceiving or masquerading in a gender that does not belong to them and accruing the benefits that come with social membership, or who refuse to occupy an acceptable gender identity at all. The risk is non-trivial. From employment background checks, to medical records and forms of identification, to internet histories, to gendered social and work spaces, the risks are substantial, as with the well-known case of Brandon Teena, who was murdered, and the lesser-known cases of so many others who have experienced harms that range from murder to social and professional marginalization. It is remarkable that intersex, transgender, and genderqueer identities (among others) have been so boldly articulated in the face of intense disciplinary and normalizing practices (Foucault 1978, 1980). These practices of the self have not always sought or worked to restructure dominant/normative narratives (though they may do so); often, persons and communities have simply sought just to carve out at least enough micropolitical and relational space to make life more bearable (Butler 2004b). And perhaps these smaller (or deviant) communities have their own advantages and pleasures. While they are not immune to norm formations (Becker 1963), their marginalized experiences (as in Foucault’s (1997a, p. 137) reference to a ‘homosexual ascecis’) and the work on the self that might accompany, make sense of, and sustain such an experience, can work to make these norms contingent on their usefulness and desirability in the

124  The global phronimos micropolitical context (for individuals or for those in a relationship). This project, struggle, or way of life may provide witness to an alternative form of politics. Many whistleblowers, I would like to suggest, also challenge cherished norms, rules, and identity narratives and often pay a heavy price—from public, professional or familial disrepute and rejection to jail time. Chelsea Manning has paid a particularly steep price, jailed under conditions of solitary confinement long before her trial and then, under conditions where her medical treatment was the purview of governmental authorities, she declared her transgender experience. These ‘dandysme’ challenges do not entirely emanate from within the individual in a thorough-going way because persons often have the support of minority communities (however small) as even loosely affiliated groups, underground identities, or obscure texts that provide ideational and discursive resources with which to work in narrating and sustaining these non-normative identities and practices. But alongside these resources, Arendtian natality (our agential powers of originality) is engaged by persons, even in social context, to generate novel stories and interpretations. While not all ethically reflexive persons must be equivalent in kind to intersex, transgender, transsexual or genderqueer persons, or even whistleblowers, these exemplars present the possibility that norms, rules and disciplinary discourses and institutions do not overwhelm agency. The violation of norms and rules need not have (though they may) discernible macro effects to have (localized) meanings for lives and ways of living. Wonder and curiosity Wonder and curiosity can be offered as additional affective qualities that cue our creative focus on thought and action. As dispositions they may flow from other affective and aesthetic experiences, especially art and literature. To wonder, in Arendt’s writing, is tied to the movement of philosophy. It is that state of marveling at and being astonished by the world such that we acknowledge and dwell on its mystery (Arendt 1990). Though this wonder may induce a kind of overwhelmed speechlessness, at its ‘mean’ (to borrow from Aristotle) we are moved to put our thoughts into words and to represent our thinking to others, as philosophers often do (Arendt 1978a, 1990, 1998). Philosophers also exemplify its potential to effect disengagement, particularly when it comes to the need for action: First, such wonder allows avoidance of the messiness of the everyday world; secondly, such ‘uncritical openness leads philosophers to be “swept away by dictators”’. Thirdly, such wonder alienates the philosopher (as with Heidegger post-1945) from the world around him, and lastly, such openness to the mystery of the world, ‘disables decision making’. (Strong 2013, citing Robinson) Arendt suggests that, in contrast, wonder can play a productive role in politics because, especially in times of crisis, those who work through the implications of thought and action can exhort themselves and others to question, as exemplified

The global phronimos  125 by Socrates (Arendt 1978a, 1990). As I will suggest with other phronetic tactics below, political agents can take on the Socratic roles Arendt sets out, of gadfly, midwife, or stingray—the person who demands justification from others, judges the vitality of ideas, or interrupts action by insistently posing questions and objections that paralyze action, respectively. And while Arendt faced the acute political crises of the twentieth century that involved death and destruction on a mass scale, we should seek to identify the crises of our times in the context of our worlds, which may be more pervasive than what the word ‘crisis’ usually conveys. Perhaps stories and poetry, more than philosophy, give rise to and express this wonder in ways that have political relevance. They do not always do so; they can stoke and channel fear and action against others, and articulate simple and reactionary political agendas marked by moral certainty. Yet, both dystopic and utopic narratives, for example, can assist in imagining and envisioning the potential consequences of extant and alternative trajectories of thought and action, particularly those that we have trouble positioning on the horizon or on the time–space register of the day-to-day (e.g., environmental trends and disasters, nuclear war).20 Strands of the present are made strange though the narrative form and by being positioned in alternative worlds of the imagination (Jameson 2005). Dystopic narratives draw out and spin certain threads from the present into the future and thus have the potential to illustrate those worlds that we wish to avoid (e.g., human extinction, worldwide conflagration, or certain ways of living). Such narratives need not be fiction and can still feature the attitudes of humility and uncertainty associated with ethical reflexivity. A group of scientists, for example, have vividly illustrated that earth could be crossing some ‘boundaries’ of destabilization but these boundaries are situated in ‘zones of uncertainty’ in order to reflect their uncertainty and to give human communities the hope of being able to respond (Achenbach 2015). It is perhaps the very uncertainty of such dystopic futures (and pasts) combined with tenuous hope that may drive a reordering of thought and action. Utopic narratives can offer stronger visions of hope and sketch positive projects and programs. Relatedly, narrative and autoethnographic (personal narrative) approaches have made some promising inroads in IR—as styles of writing that employ searching, creative, gripping, and even paralyzing narratives to explore international/global politics, and that intimately situate the scholar in scholarship and politics to address questions of responsibility and subjectivity (Brigg and Bleiker 2010; Dauphinee 2013; Inayatullah 2011). These approaches are their own forms of ethical reflexivity. Academics can also contribute to a practice of ethical reflexivity through historico-critical exercises, like Foucault’s archeological and genealogical analyses that can spur rethinking ways of understanding and living, including the very conceptual categories we use. As Foucault sought to illustrate with his study of the self as a subject of desire, the category of sexuality is itself historically dependent. Scholars investigating gender and sexuality, in particular, have taken up similar kinds of inquiries, and IR scholars investigating sovereignty have employed historical analyses to stimulate ideas about incipient and possible transformations of basic schemes of political and territorial organization (Biersteker and Weber

126  The global phronimos 1996; Edkins et al. 1999; Ruggie 1993; Weber 1994). In other words, varied methodologies and textual devices can be tools for stimulating wonder and provide rich imaginative resources for the wonder of ethical reflexivity to engage. In the everyday of politics, however, these kinds of projects are often beyond individuals’ and organizations’ cognitive capacity, training, and temporal routines. There are at least three possibilities beyond an individualized form of reflexivity that correspond to the institutional and cultural forms I presented earlier. First, higher education programs that train future global phronimos can play a role in exposing students to genealogical and reflexive scholarship along with training in methods that do not assume a metaphysics of continuity across time and space (e.g., discourse analysis, ethnography, genealogy, process tracing and narrative approaches). As scholars, we can also do more to investigate organizations as more than formal structure, culture, and leaders, and we can focus less on largescale structure in favor of micropolitics and agency. For example, Brent Steele urges that ‘rather than look for a grand solution, we instead recognise the inherent social abilities and creative skills of human beings to work around their problems, and value that ability, that possibility, itself’ (2011, p. 35). Second, organizational cultures can value a continuing investigation and conversation about its history and its ethico-political challenges. Whether the International Committee of the Red Cross has been successful in this regard is one question addressed in the next chapter. Third, public cultures can esteem creative and critical engagements which would require, for example, greater valuation of critical art, critical action, and the idea of marginal subjectivities. Perhaps liminality is definitionally and empirically negated if it becomes publicly celebrated, but examples like J.S. Mill’s valorization of extreme and strange individuality that has a presence in U.S. political culture (even if this valorization does not always match political and social practice) suggests otherwise. Critical and diachronic perspective The global phronimos subscribes to a critical and diachronic perspective that gives rise to a dialectic between thought and action in view of the past and the future, and values the affective faculties, enabling us to care about normative projects and engage in ethical questions earnestly and creatively. Treating thought and action dialectically is not to wrest reality under control, but rather to pursue change in ‘factual territory’ (Benhabib 2000, p. 73) created by trajectories of action, even if the new trajectory will inevitably be disrupted and altered by others and by oneself as reality is continuously subjected to others’ and the self’s agencies. Again, the dialectic of my account of ethical reflexivity is not the resolution of contradictions in the form of a synthesis; it is instead the iterative interrogation of thought and action by an agent, refracting each on to the other to create disturbances, perplexities and transformations. Perhaps Foucault more than Arendt appreciated how, in politics, positive projects are worthwhile when attended to with critique, for ‘any reform worthy of the name requires questioning modes of thought that say it is impossible’ (Foucault, cited by Gutting 2005).

The global phronimos  127 The global phronimos has a chronologically expansive view from which to consider past actions and the understandings they’re informed by, keeping in mind meaning’s instability and variation. A historical analogy, for example, is not inherently instructive or especially apt, and can itself be variously narrated. And, conceptualizing horizons of time (Hom and Steele 2010), such as a ‘queer time and place’ (Halberstam 2005), can themselves open up or close down a dialectic investigation of thought and action. This expansive chronological view also extends into the future (as futurist) when ethical agents probe beyond its imagined limits the possible consequences of their actions and the alternatives that are available to them. The key move for agents of ethical reflexivity, in this regard, is to identify the temporal assumptions to particular lines of thinking and feeling, and to investigate how they may shift with an alternative temporal (and spatial) register. An affect of friendliness and the art of rhetoric Aristotle, Arendt, and Foucault all underscored acts of speaking as integral to politics and ethical judgment. Arendt wrote of the courage of showing up and speaking in the public sphere, and Foucault (2001) put into relief the courage of speaking freely and frankly by depicting Greek parrhesia. To think through what we are doing requires not just the self’s internal conversation, but the political activity of discourse—to speak and respond. Arendt, it seems, would agree with Foucault that it is only through speaking and acting that the ‘I’ and the ‘We’ are formed. And Aristotle viewed the debate and dialogue of rhetoric (the art of speaking) as central to political and social life. Aristotle, as seen in Chapter 1, is particularly attentive to that which marks good and successful rhetoric (the art of speaking), including the obligations of both the speaker and audience relative to the social bonds they have and perpetuate. An Aristotelian ethics is a practice of constant interrogation into what it means to live well in our various associations and interactions in the context of specific situations. Especially in international/global politics difference has been a confounding feature of political thought and practice. Dialogue and debate are surely necessary for an ethics that prioritizes difference and yet it has been difficult to envision how this can occur without positing ideal conditions that do not exist and do not appear imminent. Political theorists have made problematic empirical and normative assumptions about interlocutors and the conditions for dialogue that tend toward the assimilation of others (Shapcott 2001). But if we can achieve ‘understanding’ through communication, as Richard Shapcott proposes, we must also specify how understanding is relevant for politics and for relationships. Aristotle’s account of the ‘art of rhetoric’, I would like to suggest, is notable for thinking about a communicative exchange where Habermasian conditions of equal power and a shared normative background (‘lifeworld’) do not pertain. This communication may be directed toward purposes beyond understanding (since policies and decisions are routinely made). Aristotle prompts us to think about rhetoric in the context of unequal conditions. The mere fact that in the moment of speech one side occupies the ‘pulpit’

128  The global phronimos makes speech unequal, not to mention that the one in the position of audience may not be afforded a turn to speak back under the same conditions and with the same authority. Nevertheless, Aristotle points to the powers (and obligations) that a speaker and an audience has, respectively. In the next section of this chapter, using the device of ideal types, I explore some tactics that the ethically reflexive phronimos can invoke to magnify their voice. In addition, both Aristotle and Foucault discuss friendship and, in the case of Aristotle, friendliness, as affective and relational strategies that are appropriate for political and social conditions saturated by power. Aristotle presents the ‘art of rhetoric’ as being able to see that which is persuasive, and the persuasion, deliberation, and debate that comprise rhetoric are some of the most important social and political activities we undertake because, like phronesis, rhetoric is concerned with things that vary. The relevance of the particular features of a situation are not obvious. In thinking about good deliberation, in general, Aristotle points to the combined importance of reasoning (logos), character (êthos), emotion (pathos)  and even imagination (phantasia) to help us to draw out and evaluate the various options before us (Wiggins 1975/1976, p. 43). Many would readily agree with Aristotle that the audience evaluates speech through both reason and emotion. The speaker must appeal to the audience with a sound argument but must also engage the concern and affect of the audience. The audience, in turn, assesses the speaker’s ability and success in doing so along with whether the speaker seems trustworthy. Whether rhetoric actually serves ethical debate depends, for one, on whether the speaker has selected ‘the most appropriate language, style, and means of persuasion’, which ‘demand[s] tact, discrimination, sympathy, sensitivity, and all the other qualities of practical wisdom’ (phronesis) (Beiner 1983, p. 87). The audience should also treat seriously its role as judge of the speaker and the arguments put forth, discriminating well among them. Thus, it is desirable that the audience, too, cultivate good ethical judgment over time. For Aristotle, affect can be responsively felt and deployed by the speaker and the audience; it is not divorced from our agential capacity. Whether and how to feel anger or gentleness, for example, is at least partly responsive to how we evaluate the particulars of the situation and how we have cultivated our affective faculties over time.21 It is important to underscore that the affective and rational dimensions of debate and dialogue cannot only be strategic. To persuade others requires discourse that appeals to their needs and desires, and thus genuine efforts to know, understand, and care about others. And, an audience is not usually amenable to being persuaded if they feel that the speaker could not also be persuaded if there was a reversal of roles. While speech may be deployed to manipulate the audience, Aristotle offers several insights on effective rhetoric that point to how its qualities are already important. Thus, when others are responding to our agencies, as I have argued, they are responding not just to actions (e.g., policies) but also to what we say and what we have said and done in the past.22 In discussing ethics (1984) and rhetoric (1991), Aristotle is particularly attentive to the affect of friendliness and the relationship of friendship in conjunction with other emotions. Anger, for example, might be triggered when generosity is not returned, a friend does not come to one’s aid or those in need are treated

The global phronimos  129 insensitively. These actions and the emotions associated with them influence and are influenced by the quality of social relations and the expectations these relations entail, and they enact (or fail to enact) care of the self in addition to care for others. Friendliness is the affective state of wishing well for another and acting to benefit another. Friendliness begets and involves mutual benefit; both the giver and receiver experience a mutual pleasure. For friendship to materialize, there must be a regularity of caring and being cared for in return. Aristotle describes three kinds of friendship. The first two, useful and pleasurable friendships, involve liking another for some good or pleasure. The third, virtuous friendships, are those in which friends are valued for who they are and benefits are paid in view of the other’s needs and desires. While virtuous friendships are more desirable, even these feature self-benefit, and useful and pleasurable friendships still require generosity and trust. Friendliness and friendship can be attentive to difference because each party exchanges benefits, attends to others’ differing needs and desires, and cares about the other. Friendship also provides the minimum context for specifying and pursuing justice (Aristotle 1984, 1160a, 1161a). Drawing on Aristotle, we might say that different needs and desires must be actively attended to through reciprocal gestures, earnest communication, forgiveness and good will, recognition of difference, and mutually beneficial exchanges. The risk we take in this project is to like first, and to like more, with the hope of reciprocity and mutual feeling. Friendliness and friendship also promise to assist reflexivity’s critical rationality. The dialectic of thought and action benefits from a wide variety of perspectives; we are more likely to take into account and care about how our actions have affected and been interpreted by others. Friends alert one another to possible errors in thinking, they contemplate important ethical questions together, and they weather through mistakes and slights rather than hastily abandon their relationship. This kind of communication has the advantages of being within reach and the mutual expectation that the parties listen to each other rather than assume the other’s wants, desires and intentions. The self-lover in the noblest of senses is one who works on herself as a potentially virtuous and relational being. In friendship one attends to the needs and desires of the self and others through communication, friendliness, sympathy, forgiveness and sacrifice. Friendliness as affect draws attention to the active social agency necessary for friendship. In addition, this affective disposition is crucial for engaging the desire and willingness to initiate mutual projects of care in global politics in the first place. Foucault, well known for his aesthetic account of the self, was also deeply concerned with relational possibilities and their radical potential. He offers, for example, positive possibilities for social transformation in consideration of friendship as a ‘way of life’ that can fundamentally challenge relational norms. While both the politics and scholarship of IR tend to view the possibility of friendship in global politics as unlikely, utopian, or unstable (because based on instances of mutual interest or coercion), it is precisely this seeming impossibility, among others, that offers radical possibilities for reformulating relationships at the micropolitical level. In an interview on gay male friendship as a ‘way of life’, Foucault was concerned with challenging dominant notions that gay male

130  The global phronimos sexuality begets relationships based solely on the sexual act. To suggest otherwise threatens alternative possibilities. A worthy project might thus consist of new relationships—gay male friendships—that diversify this homogeneous normativity. What Foucault rejected was being restricted to the ‘two readymade formulas of the pure sexual encounter and the lovers’ fusion of identities’ and this requires ‘a homosexual ascesis that would make us work on ourselves and invent—I do not say discover—a manner or being that is still improbable’ (1997a, p. 137). Foucault’s reflexivity as investigating and reinventing the self takes place within relationalities. If this is a positive program, Foucault underscored, it is nevertheless a program that is ‘wide open’ (Foucault 1997a, p. 139). The agency that Foucault imagines is a subversive one because it resists effects of power and it is positive or productive because it generates new possibilities for remaking the self and relationships. Agency as friendship can build alternative notions of community and responsibility and it is made all the more important by our mutual vulnerabilities (Butler 2004b). Judith Butler speaks specifically to ‘those of us who are living in certain ways beside ourselves, whether it is in sexual passion, or emotional grief, or political rage’ and are doing so in community (p. 20). Our broader condition is one in which we are always objects of others’ gaze and thus perpetually and relationally possible and vulnerable. It perhaps matters less that we change large-scale structures or that friendship be structurally enacted (Wendt 1999). Instead, reflexivity as a micropolitical agency forms a different register of space and time more amenable to an ethics that is agent-centric, political, and relational, and thus more relevant to the activities of daily living. Risk and courage The global phronimos is willing to take risk that inherently accompanies action but subjects risk taking to a test of ‘means’ and contextual appropriateness with the aim of having an ethical relation with others. In other words, the risk that the global phronimos takes is in consideration of both the self and others. The upshot of a disposition toward risk taking is that we are less inhibited in taking difficult action that corresponds with our ethical judgment. The downside is that taking risks can result in harm to others because when we act, even on ourselves, there are ramifications when our agencies travel with consequences that may be intended and foreseen or unintended and unforeseen. Just as Aristotle favored emotions and capacities exercised at the ‘mean’ as a kind of balance, we might see risk as attenuated by prudential considerations. This is perhaps what is meant by those scholars in IR fond of discussing the ‘limits of action’ as an antidote to perceived political excesses (Williams 2005). Part of the risk in representing a collective actor or a social identity is that our actions may be judged by other members as unrepresentative. Thus, we can be shamed, excommunicated from the collective body, or re-presented as having never had genuine membership. As I will discuss in the next section, ‘whistleblowers’ are particularly prone to this kind of treatment. Bureaucracies and societies more generally have tended toward minimizing risk via institutions, technologies, and

The global phronimos  131 popular culture (Muller 2008). This aversion to risk is exemplified by the driving force of terrorist risk assessments invoked to decide policy issues based on the mere possibility of one ‘lone wolf’. Here, risk is assessed on the basis of just one possible future rather than realistic assessments of past and likely occurrences (Mythen and Walklate 2008). This is an especially powerful dynamic when it exists in confluence with a wider culture of fear and insecurity, one not confined to the post-9/11 period in the United States, but also prevalent during the Cold War and, with variation, across many different political communities. While political leaders often face incentives to cultivate fear, the media and other actors, including academics, can contribute to magnifying the ‘narration of threat’ (Edwards and Gill 2002) in ways that beget reactionary rather than critically reflective responses. These narrations can facilitate global flows of risk displacement, as we will see in Chapter 6, with regard to the use of drones and the psychological insecuritization of populations that find themselves the objects of surveillance and violence. Finally, it’s important to note that not just states but also other types of organizations can be highly risk-sensitive. Leaders and bureaucrats in the United Nations sought to minimize the organization’s exposure to risk in the 1990s in response to perceptions that the wider political environment would not tolerate further peacekeeping failures (Barnett 2002). Aristotle’s disposition of courage contributes to a better interpretation of risk. According to Aristotle, courage is the mean between fear and confidence. Too much confidence can result in rashness of action and too much fear can beget cowardice. Referring to the examples above, the form that this cowardice takes includes displacing fear on to others so as to lessen your own. Not only is this a failure to be virtuous, per Aristotle; this displacement can engage the agencies of others who come to resent its selfishness. Aristotle offers an alternative formulation of courage; one who is courageous ‘endures or fears the right things and for the right purpose and in the right manner and at the right time, and who shows confidence in a similar manner’ (Aristotle, cited by Sokolon 2006, p. 16). Fear, properly deployed, motivates us to deliberate about sources of our fear, to turn to others for help, and to assist others in need (Sokolon 2006, p. 96). Related emotions include anger, gentleness and confidence. Anger can be very effective in motivating us to act but too much anger can overwhelm our capacity to listen and fuel a desire for revenge. Gentleness can calm anger and, in general, temper and turn emotions around, but too much gentleness can make us passive in the face of the need to act (Sokolon, 2006, pp. 59–63). Confidence can support imagining that our fears can be overcome (p. 97), but too much confidence can overwhelm our capacity and willingness to evaluate whether the risks of action are too harmful or the implications too uncertain. To summarize, risk and courage form dispositions for ethical reflexivity, but they are subject to contextual application, as well as a test of ‘means’, and should aid rather than inhibit deliberation and the consideration of others. Practice and experience The global phronimos practises ethical reflexivity on a continuous basis. In Aristotelian terms this regularity of ethical judgment is what constitutes

132  The global phronimos ‘experience’ and it is why young people are not ethical agents par excellence. The circumstances in which the global phronimos is called to ethical reflexivity are not extraordinary, but pertain to the everyday. Practicing good ethical judgment over time increases the ethical skill of the individual. For Aristotle, ethical knowledge is practical (Khan 2005, p. 48). It is important to remember, however, that experience does not have all of the advantages. Recent research has suggested, for example, that the biological makeup of teenagers and young adults tends toward creativity and the willingness to take risks in trying new courses of action and new experiences, while adults can be more risk-averse and resistant to change (Siegel 2014). The characteristics of youth and maturity can have positive or negative implications, lending support to their contextual and judicious application. Taking on risk, for example, can facilitate the pursuit of hopeful possibilities and alternative directions but it can also initiate chain reactions that have adverse consequences for ourselves and others in the pursuit of naïve adventures. Nevertheless, just as youth can take on self-practices of restraint and caution (as in Aristotle’s discussion of enkrateia) while thoughtfully seeking experiential learning to round out their dispositional makeup, more experienced persons can likewise work on the self to encourage spaces and strategies for creativity, imagination, and intuition along with the willingness to explore alternative futures and relationships. Generally, all individuals with the capacity to do so can appraise their qualities, tendencies and practices as they cultivate the attitudes and dispositions that lend themselves to good ethical judgment, conceptualized here as the dialectic, diachronic, dialogic, and affective navigation of thought and action.

Some ideal-type global phronimos With this inventory of the attitudes, dispositions and tactics of the global phronimos I now consider some ideal-type agents that reference empirical examples for thinking through what the reflexive agent might or might not look like. These include the ‘leader’, ‘interrogator’, ‘dissident’, ‘whistleblower’ and ‘heckler’. The figures of the ‘leader’ and the ‘interrogator’ most closely fit the IR, foreign policy, and public administration literatures that suggest intraorganizational reforms for realizing decision making ‘free of error’, where error is defined relative to ends and goals assumed in advance. Ethical reflexivity, however, because it often involves questioning well-entrenched or popular narratives and ways of doing things in the context of power/knowledge constellations, dispenses with the notion of error, and may involve more controversial tactics that aim to represent the voices of phronimos to others, underscoring the agonistic and political aspects of ethical reflexivity as a practice. The leader ‘The leader’ as an ideal-type phronimos either already occupies a position in which phronetic leadership is possible or assumes leadership in a social setting. The more public recognition and formal authority an individual has, especially

The global phronimos  133 as the head of an organization or agency, the more power to lead a challenge to thought. It is commonly expected, for example, that a new leader will arrive with a creative and insightful plan for where the organization should go. But, it is not authority and influence alone that comprise this agent. Arendt described the phronimos as ‘the understanding man whose insights into the world of human affairs qualify him for leadership’ (1990, pp. 75–76). Of course, there are a variety of ways of conceptualizing leadership and leaders. With regard to ethical reflexivity I’m particularly interested in leadership in two senses. First, leadership can be in the form of discussing and encouraging the consideration of a wide range of alternatives among one’s peers and those who are under one’s supervision or influence. A leader can also play a special role in ensuring that those who may be impacted by decisions participate in some way as interlocutors. In world politics, activists, musicians, and other artists have at times been particularly adept at surmounting political obstacles to bring together persons across borders of tension and conflict to collaborate, communicate, and build mutual feeling. And art itself can be a reflexive mode of inquiry and action. As Christine Sylvester (2013a, pp. 320–321) argues, In the arts, the relation between what we see or hear and what we know is never a settled question . . . It is possible that the ‘forces twisting their way through the viewer’s thoughts’ in moments of art contemplation can reveal interstices of our familiar assumptions and frames of inquiry. In their capacity to enhance sensory acuities, their very otherness can be an asset in thinking about connections in new ways. Second, leadership can mean working assiduously to move ethical reflexivity across and up organizational decision making, including the advocacy of unpopular or unheard alternatives that the phronimos has carefully considered, all the while evincing some measure of humility and uncertainty about that which is being advocated. The phronimos, who in assuming leadership faces steep hurdles, might consider a variety of strategies to appeal for consideration, such as going around the chain of command or publicizing concerns as a whistleblower or heckler might do. In more vertically hierarchical organizations (relative to flatter organizations), the success of these efforts cannot be ruled out, even if less likely. The interrogator Of the exemplars considered here, the ‘interrogator’ is most like the figure of the ‘devil’s advocate’ that comes out of the ‘groupthink’ literature (Janis 1982; Jervis 1976, pp. 415–417; ‘t Hart et al. 1997), including Allison and Zelikow’s (1999) landmark study of foreign policy decision making. In these accounts decision making can fall prey to group dynamics, such as the tendency to defer to a charismatic leader, but is improved by persons who ask difficult questions and raise objections. Someone who ‘interrogates’ seeks to draw out and highlight the dangers and disadvantages of any one position that is debated or garners favor. In

134  The global phronimos another example, Arendt likened Socrates to a gadfly who always asks why and what for, never affirming a way forward. Thus, the interrogator is not a phronimos in the complete sense. Here, it is more the organization or the society as an ethical agent that benefits from persons who take up such roles. Perhaps Machiavelli meant something similar when he advised the Prince to ‘guard against flattery’ by choosing discreet men from among his subjects, and allowing them alone free leave to speak their minds on any matter on which he asks their opinion, and on none other. But he ought to ask their opinion on everything, and after hearing what they have to say, should reflect and judge for himself. And with these counsellors collectively, and with each of them separately, his bearing should be such, that each and all of them may know that the more freely they declare their thoughts the better they will be liked [by the Prince]. (Machiavelli 1986, p. 80) The interrogator, then, can make a useful contribution to the organization, as with Machiavelli’s advisers, or be labelled harmful to society, as with Socrates. The dissident The ‘dissident’ is one who tends to take heterodox positions and thus contributes to creating a diversity of opinions by pushing the bounds of what are considered acceptable or usual positions. The traditional ‘policy brief’ would be too conventional and mundane for the dissident because it tends to present a rather narrow range of mainstream options. Instead, the dissident might engage strategic means of action that aim to protest or even sabotage particular public policies, decisions, or organizational projects. Describing ‘guerilla government’, O’Leary notes that there are as many tactics as individuals ranging ‘from putting a work order at the bottom of the desk drawer and forgetting about it to slipping information to a legislative staff person to outright insubordination’ (2014, p. 108). These tactics, particularly when wielded within an organization, should be undertaken with deep reflection as they may compromise notions of procedural fairness and the pluralism of democratic institutions. Nevertheless, subversive tactics have been undertaken by individuals motivated by serious concerns with public health and the environment, among other high-stakes issues (O’Leary 2014), and thus it is not difficult to imagine that individuals working on matters of security might conclude in favor of such tactics in some situations. In Chapter 5, for example, I inquire into the avenues of action that may have been available and taken up by individuals within the U.S. government who interpreted the policy of ‘enhanced interrogation’ as unjustified torture. Outside of official channels of governance, protest (including civil disobedience) and revolution are other possible avenues of action. Revolution can be a form of political participation and natality, as Arendt noted, but revolution potentially carries such significant ethical costs—risking all kinds of serious intended

The global phronimos  135 and unintended consequences—that it is especially difficult to justify given the portrait of the ethically reflexive actor presented here. As Arendt argued, the application of violence destroys politics because it resists being guided by discourse and deliberation. Not only is violence difficult to efficaciously connect to a political end, it can destroy entire peoples (e.g., nuclear weapons). Patricia Owens paraphrases Arendt as saying that, ‘Any such glorification of violence was a denial of speech, the essence of authentic politics and the “most human form of intercourse”’ (2007, p. 6). Yet, Arendt did not reject violence outright. What she rejected, perhaps, was the Clausewitzian proposition that it could be unproblematically turned to as a mere continuation of politics by other means (Owens 2007, p. 6). And thus considerations of efficacy can be turned to in view of affirming and respecting difference and the plurality of politics, including evidence that non-violent action can be highly effective (Stephan and Chenoweth 2008). While sabotage is a potential tool available to the ethically reflexive agent, organizations have made and can make space for dissent with positive consequences for the organization and the political community. Judicial decision making, for example, can incorporate a channel for expressing disagreement—the dissenting opinion—that does not merely record the losing position. In the words of Hughes, ‘A dissent in a court of last resort is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed’ (quoted by Fisher and Harriger 2013, p. 158). In the U.S. Supreme Court, dissenting opinions have paved the way for foundational political and social changes on matters such as race and civil rights (p. 158), but this judicial body has also been accused of being generally hesitant to act in a hostile political environment. In her examination of ‘guerilla government’, O’Leary (2014) advocates several ways in which organizations can promote dissent as a creative and innovative asset to the organization. Through dissent alternative ways of thinking and acting are presented and vetted, groupthink is mitigated, and individuals have a voice and thus feel valued and satisfied in their work (pp. 107–138). Organizational culture plays a key role as it communicates acceptable and desirable behaviors. Because organizational culture is fluid, leaders can go a long way in altering this culture in favor of decentralized participation, mutual respect, dialogue, and the importance of challenging unpopular opinions. And yet, these measures will not and should not guarantee that individuals always stay within the bounds of what is acceptable within the organization, as I will explore next with the example of the ‘whistleblower’. The whistleblower The ‘whistleblower’ is, in part, the product of legislation and policy. In many states and organizations there are legal and procedural protections for those whose actions, within certain parameters, reveal information about harmful or illegal practices and behaviors,23 but the ideas that justify whistleblowing belong to

136  The global phronimos ethics. They include the notions of personal integrity and judgment, alongside some kind of greater good or concern that motivates individual acts of defiance. Corruption, illegal activities and self-enrichment are the most commonly accepted ills to be rectified by whistleblowing; less often, whistleblowing is posed as exposing actions contrary to ‘public interest’ or behavior that is ‘unethical’ or ‘harmful’ or in opposition to the organizational mission (De Maria 2008; Gummer 1985; Hedin and Månsson 2012; Obama 2012c; Truelson 1985). Edward Snowden, for example, challenged intelligence-gathering methods and programs of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) on the grounds that they were ‘abuses’, ‘wrongdoing’, and did not serve the ‘national interest’ (Poitras and Greenwald 2013). The legitimacy of whistleblowing is also often tied to notions of legitimate process: Did the whistleblower attempt to go to his or her superiors first? Did s/he remain anonymous? Is s/he seeking to preserve or destroy the organization/country? These strictures tend to make the legitimacy of whistleblowing contingent on the motive and intent of the individual who exposes sensitive information. While both Snowden’s leaks and Manning’s leaks were frequently referred to as ‘whistleblowing’ in the media when they were still anonymous, the coverage changed over time to become much more critical of the disclosures, especially when more was known about the whistleblowers as persons, and critics often engaged in ‘character assassination’. An official from the NSA, interviewed by the news program 60 Minutes (Miller 2013), suggested that Snowden cheated on an employment test and that he had many strange habits. Some U.S. representatives and senators have rather haphazardly accused Snowden of spying for Russia or China (Mayer 2014). Likewise, Frontline’s coverage of Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley) was scandalous: the episode, inconsistent with Frontline’s programming in general, included a series of sensational accusations about Manning’s character and actions growing up and prior to sharing information with WikiLeaks, including Manning’s reasons for joining the military, Manning’s Facebook comments on the U.S. policy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, and rumors about Manning’s gender. The implication was that these details threw into doubt Manning’s status as a legitimate whistleblower (Maggio 2011). An additional shortcoming of how we conceive of whistleblowing is that we often expect whistleblowers to come to the occasion of decision making with fully formed values and convictions that are then ‘applied’ to the potential case of wrongdoing. Whistleblowers themselves often conform or affirm this narrative by making sense of their decision as a ‘choiceless choice’, feeling compelled to do something by the strength of their beliefs and their personal fidelity to them (Alford 2007, pp. 226–227). It is as if doubt and uncertainty compromise our motives and the ethical validity of our decisions. Ethical reflexivity, because its dialectic process queries and amends thought and not just action, however, is not limited to upholding conventional or static interpretations of legality, public policy, or public interest. A practice of ethical reflexivity can lend itself to a version of whistleblowing that derives its legitimacy more from raising and advocating the proposition that certain practices and actions are ethically troubling and thus worthy of shifting the site of

The global phronimos  137 debate and decision making to a different or wider audience such as the ‘public’. Whistleblowers cannot realistically maintain that everyone should reach the same judgment about the exposed information as them, but instead whistleblowers can at least declare that they themselves are acutely troubled, that others may be too, and that whistleblowing is a form of political speech that is intended to initiate a wider public conversation about a weighty issue. The ‘moral test’ of whistleblowing, then, is not limited to the law, regulations, or bedrock values, principles, and institutions, all of which can be called into question. Thinking about Arendt, it may be more fruitful to advance whistleblowing as an expression of conscience or judgment that arises from the internal dialogue of reflexivity. One is not, then, overwhelmed by common conceptions of sacred values and given ways of doing things. Instead, the call of conscience might be a careful thinking through of different ethical judgments with an eye toward reconsideration of prevalent ‘universals’, per Aristotle, that we have previously drawn on to understand situations and direct action. Fred Alford (2007, p. 243) concludes that the whistleblower is romanticized as ‘a type of folk hero, which is a stereotype. Everyone wants to hear about the stereotype, no one wants to know how vulnerable we are to power, and how much it can take from us, including the meaning of our lives’. Even if the whistleblower is judged kindly by the media, this individual is likely to face: rejection by peers, family, or friends; loss of a job or the inability to secure another job; workplace hostility; and depression and psychological disorientation. Even worse, the broader public may not see the act of disclosure as a valid case of whistleblowing. This risk is particularly acute when the leak is in the area of security because its rationale of secrecy lends itself to accusations of treason, a lack of patriotism, or having caused harm to the institutions and policies of the collective body. It appears unlikely that Manning expected to face solitary imprisonment and a lengthy prison sentence as a result of the vast array of information divulged to WikiLeaks that, she thought, exposed deep and widespread wrongdoing and incompetence on the part of the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fear of reprisal and lack of efficacious avenues for whistleblowing are magnified in agencies and sectors that deal with intelligence, defense, and diplomacy. In terms of risk, the whistleblower faces consequences that portend great acclaim, widespread opprobrium, or both. Whistleblowing, whether or not there is consensus on qualifying incidents, has had non-trivial consequences. Post-Snowden leaks, the NSA and President Obama undertook a significant public relations campaign to assure the U.S. populace that the programs were beneficial, legal, and not all that intrusive for them. But with continued leaks and continued criticism of the NSA and the administration, Obama initiated a task force; its report has formed the basis for the president’s NSA reforms. It appears that the debate within the task force has raised critical questions and elicited continued congressional criticism. Richard Clarke, for example, said that the intelligence infrastructure erected post-9/11 has created the potential for a police state that could subsequently be realized by another crisis event (Cornish and Block 2014), but it remains to be seen whether their

138  The global phronimos recommendations will be acted upon or other reforms to intelligence practices undertaken. The heckler One might support heckling as a form of protest by those who live in societies where there are considerable restrictions on speech. Among the media of the United States and Europe, for example, the heckling protest of the band Pussy Riot in Russia was largely portrayed favorably, while the heckling of U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama by members of Code Pink in 2013 was judged negatively by the media and wider public. And yet, I want to suggest, heckling can be a means of magnifying one’s voice in a wide array of social and political conditions, including democracies. When some have distinctly greater access to public fora, heckling can be a way of temporarily evening the playing field (or at least somewhat closing the gap) for the dialogue, debate and deliberation of ethical reflexivity. Heckling is one way to magnify one’s voice in the public sphere and can even be a part of a public conversation, a conversation that otherwise offers individuals without office or status limited means of speaking. For one, heckling can provoke a response; sometimes the speaker invites a brief exchange even in the presence of a large audience where there are often no plans for a ‘question and answer’ session. Former president Bill Clinton has, on more than one occasion, responded to a heckler criticizing the U.S. response to genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Obama has also responded to hecklers with regard to Guantanamo detainees and U.S. drone practices. In addition, in the aftermath of a heckling incident the press often picks up the story and sometimes interviews those involved or tries to summarize their views, giving the heckler’s message a wider airing. The heckler takes on a certain amount of risk as well. Heckling can spur an uncomfortable audience to turn on the heckler with looks of disapproval and verbal responses that work to shame the heckler. The prospect of violating rules of decorum and eliciting a wider opprobrium from the audience, media and/or heckled speaker may pre-empt many from considering the tactic of heckling in the first place. But it is the heckler’s boldness that may be precisely that which attracts the attention of the media and the public. When certain types of heckling are more commonly accepted, as in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, it may become less noteworthy and thus a less potent tactic of speech, even if it is a desirable intraorganizational procedure for fostering and prodding a wide array of viewpoints. While the prospective heckler should thoughtfully evaluate the decision to heckle given its potential downsides (heckling has an element of coercion, as do many tactics of civil disobedience), it’s unlikely that heckling shuts down the ‘free speech’ of public dialogue. Most of the time, heckling does not prevent the speaker from speaking because the heckler is usually removed from the audience during or after the disturbance. And when heckling does prevent speech on some occasions, the speaker (who tends to have privileged access to the public sphere) can speak elsewhere and maybe even at will to the press and a public audience.

The global phronimos  139 I am not, however, suggesting that heckling is more desirable than a form of dialogue that involves equal opportunities for exchange and the opportunity to be heard by a wider audience, but where these conditions do not hold, heckling is one rhetorical tactic that should not be so severely condemned because it is a way of momentarily shrinking the access gap and thus enabling perspectives that may question both thought and action.

Conclusion In this chapter I first explored some conceptualizations of agency, arguing that a view of agency as contextualized and contingent judgment, rather than causal power or competence with rules and norms, is more appropriate given the ways in which rules, principles, values and institutions continuously fail us and are always in need of interpretation in light of particulars. The agent may be socially constituted and incentivized by a variety of forces and factors, but per the internal conversation of Arendt’s reflexivity, Foucault’s techniques of the self, and the skills and practice of Aristotelian ethical judgment, we can imagine a variety of ways in which agents can find and cultivate a certain ‘origin’ within themselves to articulate, debate, feel and experience alternative narratives of understanding. I discussed some attitudes, dispositions, skills and tactics that exemplify the character, resources and means that we might expect ethically reflexive actors to inhabit and utilize. And I have developed ideal-type figures as loose exemplars of global phronimos. Considering organizational structures and cultures, it is especially important that agents carry and exercise a reflexive ethos that taps into their plural self-identities to avoid having their judgment colonized by social and organizational bodies. Even a restructuring of structure away from rule-based normative accounts to value questioning, dissent, and leadership cannot often and consistently support profound challenges to thought (e.g., norms and missions), making ethical reflexivity as a diffuse practice all that more important. One might respond that ethical reflexivity biases against the status quo or conservative ideologies. This is true by definition. Dominant ways of living and doing things enjoy an ontological privilege as everyday practice (Onuf 1998b). Arendt’s discussion of Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem illustrates how proficiency with rules (whether during World War II and/or the trial) spurns the reflexive ‘thinking’ of thought–action couplings. Proficiency in discerning which rules are helpful in a particular context as well as which rules should be challenged and questioned, and keeping in mind that rules will always fall short, is thus sorely needed in world politics. We turn to all kinds of socio-linguistic rules and norms for justification, but on their own they cannot instruct us as an ethics and they do not transcend contextualized use, interpretation and instantiation. In this chapter I have discussed attitudes, tactics and figures that can be deployed to magnify and put into creative tension and play the ways in which agents bring together and interpret thought and action so that various alternatives and their effects can be considered and reconsidered, on a continuous basis, as we struggle with what is desirable in world politics.

140  The global phronimos

Notes   1 See, however, Lang (2002), Williams (2005), and Steele (2011), who have turned to theorizing agency in IR in ways that have points of contact with my account here.   2 On this point see the philosopher Michael Williams (2001).   3 Even strategic evaluations suppose some normative goal such as the moral priority of the welfare of one’s fellow citizens over distant others.   4 The notion of ‘national interest’ could also be justified by realist or constructivist perspectives, among others (Weldes 1999).   5 By ‘universals’ Aristotle likely meant broad principles, though they were not necessarily shared or valid across societies.   6 By ‘dialectic’ I do not mean to imply that the objective is to work through contradictions in order to achieve non-contradiction or truth. Rather, as explained in Chapter 2, I conceptualize the dialectic aspect of ethical reflexivity as agents grappling with complexity and contingency in thought and action by interrogating each relative to the other in order to act. Ethical reflexivity is a continuous process of ethical judgment interrupted, but not closed, by the demand to decide.   7 What the authors term the ‘irrationality of rationalization’.   8 Thus, I find unpersuasive arguments that locate an agency-free reflexivity with the procedures and practices of institutions (e.g., Rosanvallon 2011; Shulman 1976).   9 Perhaps most noteworthy among these studies are those that have troubled U.S. democracy (e.g., Gilens and Page 2014; Hertel-Fernandez 2014), U.S. academic conceptualizations of democracy that have formed the basis of the democratic peace thesis, and the political deployment of democratic peace for ulterior ends (e.g., Oren 1995, IshShalom’s (2013) examples of the United States and Israel). 10 Some of these norms include that states are democratic/democratizing, modernize their economies, engage in free trade and draw on international law (e.g. just war principles) and diplomacy to promote the interests of their citizens even while they intervene in cases where the individuals of a global society are objects of abuse (Frost 1996, 2009). 11 See, for example, Naeem Inayatullah and David Blaney (2012). It is also worth noting the example of the Human Rights Council in the United Nations as one arena in which this postcolonial struggle often plays out. 12 Connolly (2012) refers to one form of power as ‘the ability to stop potential issues from achieving sufficient definition to reach the public arena for decision’. Another form of power, then, consists in countering such efforts. 13 See also, Williams (2005) on ‘willful realism’, Steele on ‘reflexive realism’ (2007a), and Levine (2012) on a ‘constellar’ reflexivity for the field of IR. 14 Rousse (2014, pp. 2–3) attributes this view to Kant and as taken up by theorists who nevertheless present substantially different views of agency, such as Korsgaard and Heidegger. 15 The research Spiegel (Robins and Helzer 2010) cites investigates how environmental associations may be triggers or cues for certain behaviors, including drug addictions. 16 Dauphinee’s (2010, p. 818) reflexive method has largely been autoethnography: ‘The risk of autoethnography opens us to the possibility of seeing more of what we ignore in both ourselves and others, asking why it is ignored, and what we might need to do about it’. 17 It should be noted that this section does not rely on a close exegesis of Aristotle. I borrow the concept of phronimos from Aristotle to similarly sketch out a picture of one who engages in a particular kind of ethical reasoning that is, in this case, ‘ethical reflexivity’ rather than phronesis.

The global phronimos  141 18 This term is not often used today, but generally refers to someone born with a physical embodiment that does not neatly fit into the socially and medically constructed categories of ‘male’ or ‘female’. Ascribing the condition of intersex (a social and historical act) mobilizes and designates categories of physical characteristics, but which characteristics and how much variance is a matter of interpretation and is never precise or stable: see Fausto-Sterling (2000). 19 There is no reason why individuals who are considered or who consider themselves as intersex could not identify as genderqueer. 20 Nussbaum (1990) has also extolled the importance of literature for practices of ethical judgment. 21 Our affective makeup is, in a way, a ‘repository or memory of the wisdom of past experience (empeiria), which the agent may consult during the course of practical deliberation’ (Abizadeh 2002, p. 287). 22 We can see here that Aristotle’s view of rhetoric and its role in ethical judgment is not reducible to a rational-choice account of ‘reputation’ that is premised on the intersection of the likelihood of keeping promises with calculations of benefits and costs in view of interests. 23 U.S. legislation that protects whistleblowers includes the Civil Service Reform Act (1978) and the Whistleblower Protection Act (1989).

4 Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda

Scholarly and political narratives that view ‘Rwanda’ as an ‘event’ meant to signify the international community’s failure to effectively intervene in the 1994 genocide emanate from certain understandings and purposes. In part they respond to what many saw as denial within the United Nations (UN), the United States, and elsewhere of the unpalatable scenario that a large-scale genocide was underway. After the genocide and over time there developed a widespread sense that a major failure had occurred, and yet no single leader or group readily admitted fault,1 thus leading to well-tread references to an ‘international community’ and its collective failure to act. Academic analyses of the Rwandan genocide have concentrated more specifically on the capabilities and responsibilities of international organizations (IOs) and powerful states in the face of massive human rights abuses and the relevant factors that play a role in whether the international commitment to ‘never again’ is translated into onthe-ground humanitarian intervention. While there is some academic work on social and political reconciliation and post-conflict democratic transition in which Rwanda makes an appearance, the primary focus of the human rights literature has shifted to ‘responsibility to protect’ as an alternative norm or doctrine that promises to facilitate the prevention of genocide and effective responses to it when it happens. In this chapter I consider Rwanda through the lens of ethical reflexivity, rather than solely as a case of ‘failed humanitarian intervention’. A one-dimensional image of Rwanda has glossed over and erased the diversity of experiences and individuals in Rwanda, thus neglecting opportunities to critically rethink what happened and could have happened in the 1990s. Additionally, it obscures the ‘lessons’ that Rwanda provides for the issues of the present, not just for the actors of international and global politics, but also for Rwandans who have their own interpretations of the genocide and what it means for Rwanda now and in the future. I am interested in the choices made during and since the 1994 genocide, as well as their historical context. Although the remaining two chapters of this book primarily investigate actors within the United States, I want to consider here how scholars more generally, but those within the United States more specifically, can begin to acknowledge and see the agencies of others. How did Rwandans understand their agency, and have these understandings changed over time? How

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  143 is genocide remembered and situated in how Rwandans now view themselves and are viewed by others? For much of my generation in the United States (and the one preceding it), the 1994 Rwandan genocide represented an illustration of what was at stake in the global fight against genocide (and against violence that could become genocidal). Specifically, the way we have remembered and documented Rwanda worked from the premise that there were only two possibilities—an intervention or nonintervention by the Security Council or a powerful country in the genocide of 1994. This story has blind spots that have not been addressed, even as the consequences of the War on Terror have disturbed notions and practices of humanitarian intervention. Stylizations of Rwanda still fail to recognize the experiences and agencies of individuals, organizations, and communities who struggled during, before, and beyond those 3 months. They have homogenized their experiences, highlighting only certain remembered details to fit a simplistic narrative. That there was politicide and war, that many struggled against the violence, that many faced complicated decisions, and that Rwandans have since sought to contextualize the genocide on behalf of certain purposes and visions are just some of the experiences left out. Yet, they are relevant, both for how we reconstruct the past and, relatedly, how we continuously orient our thought and action in the present and future. Critically re-elaborating ‘Rwanda’ is important, then, for reconceiving practices of humanitarian intervention that the United States and others support as well as other foreign policies that affect Rwanda. This inquiry also matters for investigating agency and ethics, and reflexivity as a practice in particular, because by reconstructing Rwanda as something other than ‘failure’ we are able to locate and describe practices of ethics during but also beyond the genocide. We cannot assume that we know and understand Rwanda from the ways in which we remember ‘1994 Rwanda’. Additionally, we are able to explore how memories of the genocide and their importance for politics are actively mediated by a variety of actors, including individuals, communities, states, and governmental and non-governmental IOs. Rwanda, for example, has not swept the genocide of 1994 under the rug as it has often been accused of doing, but there are narratives about the violence and its history that are carefully crafted and attended to. Narrative contestation is present but there are some alternative narratives that threaten the specter of a return to genocidal violence. Herein lie many Rwandans’ perceptions that they are misunderstood by others, particularly foreign governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have been critical of Rwanda by labelling it an authoritarian government and as lacking basic freedoms such as free speech. This narrative tension, as it is continuously re-performed, affects Rwanda materially in the form of aid and investment flows, but it is also noticed and plays a part in Rwandan self-identities and interactions with non-Rwandans. Thus, in this chapter I want to investigate and listen for these other voices and for a variety of articulated experiences. In particular, if ethical reflexivity involves evaluating the desirability of various thought–action couplings in view of a specific context, we should more fully draw out past and present trajectories.

144  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda Here, I do not aim to be comprehensive, but to take up some narrative strands and explore their promises, perplexities and contradictions. Not just those who care about and study human rights (however defined) might be interested in how narrow the discussion of Rwanda has been, but also those concerned about security and stability. Rwanda increasingly stylizes itself as an exemplar in a region where refugee flows and violence remain prominent concerns among neighbors. Is this self-image informed by Rwanda’s experience of genocide? If, as academics and policymakers, we are to understand how Rwandans have sought to restylize their international and regional image, their social and political projects and their aspirations for the future, we need to first do a better job of understanding how they arrived where they are. What are the political, affective and ethical contours of Rwandans’ journeys? I aim to illustrate that there was nothing inevitable about how agencies have been performed in Rwanda, during and after the genocide, and in the thought and action of Rwandans and ‘external’ actors. Specifically, it is important and useful to investigate the thinking of agency, as Hannah Arendt sought to do with the Holocaust. Rwandans, for example, participated in the violence of 1994 but they also took a variety of actions that challenged the violence and enacted alternative courses of action at tremendous personal risk. Tracing these stories is powerful because they demonstrate that even in the most challenging of circumstances—a frenzied, fearful, fast-paced and high-pressured environment—something like a practice of ethical reflexivity might still be possible. I inquire into whether ethical reflexivity depended on the attitudes, dispositions and tactics discussed in the previous chapter, including seeing the self as plural and contextual, interpreting and seeking out others as interlocutors, having a critical and diachronic perspective for the dialectic interrogation of thought and action, and taking on risk. I respond to Hannah Arendt’s invitation to think about agency and responsibility in more specific and contingent ways relative to political crises. Just as simplistic narratives do not fit Rwandans well, they also do not fit the experiences of those who were in Rwanda representing IOs and NGOs. Thus, in this chapter I also devote some attention to the account of Philippe Gaillard from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It is the IO/NGO experience of Rwanda that many of us are most familiar with (e.g., Barnett 2002), and yet even Gaillard’s story might upset the dominant narrative of ‘1994 Rwanda’ as an unequivocal failure to intervene grounded in international and institutional shortcomings. A point I wish to underscore in this chapter is that narratives of Rwanda written by outsiders are not purely objective descriptions. They are interpretations from the various subjectivities that we inhabit, including that of ‘scholar’.2 Thus, in the pages that follow I engage reflexive and interpretive methodologies—invoking a hermeneutic approach to my topic of inquiry while seeking to maintain an awareness of where my interpretive proclivities might lie. While a reflexive methodology does not achieve objectivity as defined by representational fidelity, an advantage to my approach is that it opens up to a variety of possible truths, rather than narrowing to a singular truth. Pursuing this approach to scholarship is intended to be consistent with my broader project—an investigation of a practice

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  145 of ethics that is premised on the wager that a perspicacious search and interrogation of more, rather than fewer, thought–action couplings is ethically more satisfactory.

Agency and complexity in Rwanda An investigation of agency, even during the extreme violence of genocide, will be the focus of this first section. As noted above, questions of interest to journalists and scholars about the genocide have mainly focused on intervention—its desirability, its efficacy, and its possibility given the interests, beliefs, and politics of IOs, NGOs, and ‘powerful countries’ like the United States (Barnett 2002, 2009; Cohen 2007; Des Forges 1999; Labonte 2013; Melvern 2009; Pattison 2010; Power 2002; Walling 2013). Yet, efforts in Rwanda to collect testimonies of those who experienced the 1994 genocide, public narrations of genocide in memorials and yearly remembrances, and explanations and justifications of political and economic projects over the last two decades contribute to the variety of narratives I draw out in this section of the chapter to demonstrate the micropolitics of agency and ethics. This is not to say that scholarly accounts are not useful to this project. Anthropologists especially have responded recently with close ‘field work’ in Rwanda and East Africa that has considered a wider array of questions about the 1994 genocide, its historical context, and contemporary Rwandan and regional politics. One might ask, here, whether the lack of such work in the field of International Relations (IR) is simply the reflection of disciplinary boundaries and a kind of scholarly division of labor. Perhaps, but there is a cost to this disciplinary organization that makes a blurring of their borders fruitful. When we focus on the ‘high politics’ of IR we construct outcomes only on some space and time dimensions and we often imbue these outcomes with a kind of inevitability that can only be explained when the right theory is applied. Yet, the scope of the inquiry—its design, collection, and analysis—is shaped from the outset by theoretical, methodological, and cultural perspectives. IR scholars examine collective outcomes and broad patterns but then want to say something meaningful about how these effects came about, often without more appropriate concepts and tools, including those that make sense of agency. To take one example, Christian Davenport and Allen Stam (2009) presented the possibility, through spatial and temporal mapping, that alongside the genocide of Tutsis and the targeting and killing of those deemed ‘accomplices’, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF, a mostly Tutsi rebel force formed by children of Rwandan refugees) engaged in a large amount of killing, including violence that was beyond that which was militarily necessary as they gained and consolidated control of Rwanda during and after the genocide and war, constituting perhaps a second genocide. However, to the extent that this mathematical tally imputes certain assumptions about motives and about identity (that Hutus, Tutsis, and their political and social affiliations were carefully distinguished, for example), their analysis is incomplete, if not misleading. It seems likely (from various accounts)

146  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda that such killings by the RPF did happen. Yet, Davenport and Stam do not statistically find that many Hutus who were killed were taken as Tutsis, killed for reasons of revenge or opportunity for goods and land, killed because they had assisted those who were targeted, or killed as political opponents (Des Forges 1999, p. 266; Whitworth 2006). The questions Davenport and Stam (2009) raise may be threatening to those who only excoriated the United States and the UN for not invoking the label ‘genocide’ until it was too late to save Tutsis from Hutus, but it should perhaps also disturb that to be significant this violence and various appeals for help within Rwanda would need to fit a neat genocidal narrative with clear ‘perpetrators’ and unassailable ‘victims’. The practice of ethical reflexivity that I have developed in previous chapters does not escape theoretical, methodological, and discursive frames, but by underscoring multiple narratives, the importance of interpretation and agency among a variety of actors, and dialectic interrogations of thought and action, there is a bias in favor of considering a wide variety of voices, experiences and questions from different subject positions. Instead of attempting a comprehensive effort in this regard, I focus my efforts on lines of thought and experience not well-covered in the field and practice of IR. In articulating a practice of ethical reflexivity I have proposed that considering alternative understandings and situating actions— actual and potential—against them sets the stage for a different way of doing ethics. When we take a closer look, for example, at the decisions of Rwandans beyond the political elite of the national government and political parties, we see that there were a variety of actions, reasons for actions, and ways of characterizing them, and that these were crucial for enacting violence but also for how it was challenged, resisted and remembered. The now popular notion that post-1994 the Rwandan government and Rwandans characterized the violence during and around 1994 only as genocide, for one, is overwrought. Among Rwandans (including those who were targeted and harmed) the violence itself is variously named as ‘genocide, ‘war’, ‘civil war’, and ‘the events of 1994’, and any one person does not always use the same term (as seen in various transcriptions of testimonies and interviews). And while the Genocide Memorial in Kigali mostly uses the term ‘genocide’ and ‘Tutsi genocide’ and emphatically insists on its incidence and its distinctiveness, the memorial’s exhibits also feature and discuss other kinds of violence, including civil war, stating for example, ‘There was a civil war. But the genocide happened and it was something different.’3 Indeed, an important part of documenting and remembering the genocidal violence in Rwanda has been acknowledging the many outbreaks of violence since independence from Belgium, and the tenuous political arrangement in the 1990s in which many political parties competed for power within and against an emerging democratic framework. It was in this context that a genocide was planned and initiated. Examining the agencies of those who planned the genocide at the highest levels is a worthy scholarly project, but here I want to take a closer look at those who made decisions during the genocide about whether to implement and act upon those instructions and pressures (I retain this focus on individuals in their social and

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  147 organizational context in the next two chapters). For those who participated in the violence or who sought to counteract it there were several justificatory narratives at work. These narratives can be measured against ethical reflexivity but also against the lack of ethical reflexivity. Was there a kind of widespread ‘thoughtlessness’ along the lines of what Arendt explicated for the Holocaust that facilitated mass murder? Some Rwandans have traced their participation to an inexplicable escalation of threat that could only be made sense of by referencing its beginning in the first several days after President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. At first, these individuals described, there was uncertainty and fear, including suspicion that the RPF or other outsiders threatened the community. For others, it was a signal to take revenge and finally address the long-standing but growing Tutsi threat in the form of RPF forces on the Ugandan border and in the capital of Kigali. Even with the Arusha Accords in place that advanced a power-sharing arrangement and process (one that accepted the RPF presence in Kigali), there was a sense that if they did not kill Tutsis they would be destroyed instead (Hankel 2008, pp. 207–208). Others described the fear as having an origin that was more mysterious, so that Tutsis and Hutus initially grouped together for protection against that which may have threatened, only to separate when it became apparent that Tutsis and Hutus deemed accomplices (inkotanyi or ibyitso)4 were targeted for death (Lyons and Straus 2006, pp. 48, 62–63). This transition occurred as ‘trained youth’ began to kill, organizers distributed weapons and many individuals were give the unsavory choice of killing Tutsi neighbors and Tutsis and Hutus on lists or having their families or relatives (who were often also on these lists) harmed or killed (Lyons and Straus 2006, pp. 49, 58–60). Individuals who gathered and were summoned for ‘patrol’ turned to the objective of killing. In the words of one perpetrator, ‘It was hunting for Tutsis’ (Lyons and Straus 2006, p. 61). Other individuals described personal incentives and wide-ranging threats that were necessary to push them into participation. Another prominent reason offered was that of responding to ‘orders’. Less prominent but also articulated was the reason that killing enabled looting and acquiring valuable land (this behavior, however, was widespread during the violence) (Hatzfeld 2005). Any framework for reflexivity that looks to Arendt as inspiration must ask: Just as with Eichmann, did these individuals simply fail to think? Because the distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis tend to fall apart when based on ethnicity or physical appearances and because there also appears to be some interidentity mobility (sometimes tied to class but also to marriage and as a strategy for obtaining access to social goods), to the extent that it was mainly Tutsis and ‘accomplices’ of the RPF who were targeted, the killing relied on the local knowledge and suspicions of neighbors, state-issued identity cards, and the construction of who was not ‘pure Hutu’ or Hutus in good standing (as evidenced by the principles of ‘Hutu Power’, including the ‘Ten Commandments’ that prescribed how Hutus should treat Tutsis and disentangle themselves from them). Thus any centralized plan hatched by government and party leaders would have to be ‘grassroots’ in its implementation.

148  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda Across interviews and testimonies we hear of the organization of ‘patrols’ so that individuals were gathered to do the killing, among whom at least some needed significant prodding and even explicit threats. Others were able to avoid participation altogether or were able to ‘go along’ by doing very little of the killing or not killing at all, but paying fines and doing other related ‘work’ that facilitated the killing and the redistribution of goods, land, and political power (Hatzfeld 2005, pp. 73–74). Unlike Eichmann, who acted from the routine of the everyday such as going to work and advancing his career, the killing in Rwanda required a drastic change in life’s routines, though the violence (at least in its initial stages) had historical precedent and was kept alive in social memory. Participants described a suspension of the everyday activities of going to work, taking care of their land, and going to church. There was an obliteration of rules not just with regard to the treatment of friends and neighbors, but also, for some, with regard to sexual behavior and the bounds of marital relationships (rape, for example, was widespread but characterized as an exception). And yet, there were attempts to routinize and normalize the violence by referring to it as ‘work’ and ‘patrol’. Those who killed described how their activities constituted a new routine where they ceased to think about their activities and their significance. In the words of one: The one who rushed off machete in hand, he listened to nothing anymore. He forgot everything, first of all his level of intelligence. Doing the same thing every day meant we didn’t have to think about what we were doing. We went out and came back without having a single thought. We hunted because it was the order of the day, until the day was over. Our arms ruled our heads; in any case our heads no longer had their say. (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 50) Another described adjusting to the routine and no longer needing ‘monitors’ (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 71). Killing became ‘easy’, individuals avoided contemplating the basis of their actions, and they filled their days with the ‘work’ and its related socializing in the evenings—a kind of general thoughtlessness prevailed such that ethical questions were precluded. Once the killing began many individuals who were engaged in violence described no longer being afraid; they had become habituated to the killing (Lyons and Straus 2006, p. 64). What they saw and felt had changed. Individuals described vision that was clouded, and seeing but not recognizing their neighbors even though their features were the same (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 24). Persons to be killed were described as ‘targets’ and killing was viewed as without consequence (Hatzfeld 2005, pp. 37, 51). ‘We no longer saw a human being when we turned up a Tutsi in the swamps. I mean a person like us, sharing similar thoughts and feelings’ (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 47). Alongside thoughtlessness, some (if not many) maintained an awareness of what they were doing and why. To them there was a basic continuity which framed genocidal violence as not all that different from the violence of civil war. As one participant said about those targeted for death, ‘They had already stopped being good

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  149 neighbors of long standing’ (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 47). And another reported, ‘As with farm work, we waited for the right season . . . [A]s with a harvest, the seed was planted before’ (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 56). Some recalled grappling with the desire not to kill, but many felt as though they had ‘no choice’. There was disorder, and fear for themselves and their families (Hankel 2008, p. 211; Lyons and Straus 2006, p. 64). There were also conscious attempts to reconcile killing with social and emotional ties through various coping strategies. When someone didn’t want to kill a neighbor or someone with a good or kind reputation they could pay others to do it. One individual who paid others to kill a friend in his stead recounted that persons from his sector also paid for a coffin and buried him (Lyons and Straus 2006, p. 64). Still others expressed regret for their actions, but even then very few looked back on the circumstances to consider alternative courses of action they could have taken. Despite all of the pressures to kill and the atmosphere of generalized fear, there were many individuals who took tremendous personal risk to act otherwise and this was a different form of thoughtfulness. One Tutsi doctor, Claude-Emile Rowagoneza, who worked in the Butare Hospital, recalled that many doctors and nurses continued to work at the hospital despite the killing and pressure from interahamwe to turn over or release Tutsi patients (Lemarchand 2009, pp. 501–502). While some doctors did so, many others did not. Both Tutsi and Hutu doctors and nurses risked their lives by going to work and staying in the hospital. Hutu doctors hid Tutsi and fed Tutsi staff. Dr Rowagoneza had ‘good neighbors’ who protected his family by identifying them as Hutu. He also recounted that: My wife was taken twice by interahamwe but neighbors insisted she was Hutu . . . I spent my time hiding in a toilet at the hospital. Eventually I left the hospital and stayed with another friendly Hutu doctor who took me to another Hutu friend who hid me in his toilet. (Lemarchand 2009, p. 502) While some individuals extracted payment for help, others assisted those who fled and hid out of principle or a sense of obligation or relationship (Des Forges 1999, p. 221; Fuji 2009, p. 92).5 The killing, while centrally planned, met a mixture of local resistance, responsiveness, and competition that cut across ethnic differentiation (Lyons and Straus 2006). Some individuals who survived recounted help given from different people at different times (Mukamwiza 2011). Not just ordinary people, but individuals in positions of power sought to leverage their authority and resources to stop the killing. Alison Des Forges detailed some of the resistance: The prefects of Butare and Gitarama and many of the burgomasters under their direction as well as isolated administrators elsewhere, like the burgomasters of Giti in Byumba and of Musebeya in Gikongoro, continued traveling through their regions to deter attacks, facing down crowds of assailants, and arresting the aggressors. In those areas, there were relatively few Tutsi killed before the interim government decided to extend the genocide. (Des Forges 1999, p. 263)

150  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda These leaders and administrators were mostly replaced, killed, or intimidated until they complied, while others were undermined through a lack of support and the creation of a parallel chain of authority that could bypass the existing governmental and bureaucratic infrastructure (p. 263).6 In addition, there were several instances of protection and cooperation to save lives on the part of soldiers, national policemen, pastors, priests, and nuns (Des Forges 1999, p. 267; Gourevitch 1998, p. 125).7 In those areas where the killing was not proceeding apace, others, including interahamwe and militias, were sent in to do the ‘work’ and prod others to do the same. In Gitarama, Fidele Uwizeye, the prefect, organized burgomasters and other local officials to direct the Hutu and Tutsi who fought to repel instigators and assailants coming from other areas (Des Forges 1999, p. 271). Knowing one’s neighbors facilitated identifying those who were to be targeted either as Tutsi or as on the wrong side of politics, but this knowledge also made susceptible those who might hide or seek to protect the targeted. Verdianne, a Hutu, recounted to Jennie Burnet (2012, pp. 91–92)8 how her husband had been killed in the early days of the genocide, targeted because he was a moderate member of the Republican Democratic Movement and supported Faustin Twagiramungu. When Verdianne fled with her children she decided to separate herself from them in fear that she might be killed at a roadblock for looking like a Tutsi and thus endangering her children. At some point, she sent them up a hill to seek help. These children were taken in and protected by a couple. Perhaps the couple’s actions potentially put them at risk since, as the story seems to relay, they did not know the children. Or, illustrating just how complicated the ethical calculus and affective flows became, they may have had some prerogative to help others since the couple’s sons ‘manned the barriers on the main road below and killed Tutsi and other “enemies of the state”’ (p. 92). Thus, the couple was unlikely to be closely monitored. It is certain in this case more than the next two (Chapters 5 and 6) that many incurred tremendous risk to help others—whether neighbors or strangers—but it is difficult to discern the thinking of these persons. We mainly know about these acts only through the testimonies of those who depended on them to survive (Burnet 2012; Des Forges 1999; Fuji 2009; Gourevitch 1998; Hatzfeld 2006; Lyons and Straus 2006; Totten and Ubaldo 2011). Some of these encounters were haphazard and occurred between strangers who nevertheless responded to an appeal for help. Others drew on previous social and group ties (Fuji 2009, pp. 131–153). Still, so many others were overcome with fear or motivated by perceived injustices and inequities, even greed, to target and kill their neighbors. In such a complex and confused environment with several possible mitigating factors, how do we make conclusions about ethics and assess its practice? One entry point is to loosely borrow from the distinction found in applications of international humanitarian law between ‘justification’ and ‘defense’ (Hankel 2008, pp. 208–209). To justify one’s action is to claim that it was right rather than wrong as measured against the law (national or international). To provide a defense is to instead concede wrong-doing but also offer reasons to be factored into deciding how to punish an individual case. When individuals retrospectively

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  151 identified the killing as wrong but sought to explain how they came to be involved, they may be offering the legal equivalent of a ‘defense’. This kind of explanation may also be an appeal for understanding from others for acts that the agent regrets. Indeed, it seems that many individuals who participated in the genocide conceded wrong-doing but did not feel as though they were meaningful agents in this situation—that they had choices—particularly when their acts felt coerced. In discussing actions as ‘mixed’, Aristotle refers to one source of non-agency as the force that others have over us; this force is to be acknowledged even if we ultimately make a choice to perform an action and thus could have acted differently. An evaluation of some objective condition of agency might be relevant for assessing responsibility after the fact, but whether an individual’s affective state includes the belief that one has agency is one important condition for whether a practice of ethics, like ethical reflexivity, is possible or more likely at that moment. Individuals must feel that they are agents who have some measure of meaningful choice, as I argued in the preceding chapter, and this is possible even when other pressures are being brought to bear. Of course, we cannot dismiss the possibility that individuals did have a sense of agency but later sought to offer a defense of their actions to form a coherent narrative of defense for lessening their guilt. In characterizing their agency, many described feeling fearful and coerced while others minimized this factor (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 74). Still others acknowledged agency but directed their efforts toward their own reward and comfort (e.g., looting) (Hatzfeld 2005, pp. 76, 83). Yet, because some refused to participate in the killings (Fuji 2009, p. 86) and others found creative ways to work against the killings, whether one had agency or not was not an objective condition or a foregone conclusion, but more a matter of self-awareness and a cultivated disposition. In the previous chapter I described the phronimos of ethical reflexivity as one who possesses an awareness of the self’s agency; dialectically, dialogically, and affectively interrogates thought and action via a diachronic perspective; and assumes contextually appropriate risk. Ethical reflexivity becomes a practice when cultivated over time and through experience. Was there time to engage in such a thorough-going practice in the fast-paced and high-pressured environment of this genocide and other forms of violence? At the very least, we can say that ‘thought’ was put into sharp relief. Those who believed and even propagated genocide ideology clung to that strand of thought as a guide to action. Those who had previously found Hutu and Tutsi categorizations irrelevant to their lives and not particularly salient to social discourse had to make decisions about how to react to what they perceived as the sudden (or stronger) presence of this intergroup ideology. As plans were unveiled and initiated, as individuals were instructed, coerced and pressured, interpretations were performed at the intersection of thought and action. What did it mean to be and to have neighbors who were socially labelled, often suddenly, Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, or some combination thereof? What obligations were owed to others? How much risk would one take to act on considered judgments and engage in self-critical judgments in the first place? Even in the midst of genocide some evaluated, confronted and sought to revise the dominant narrative. They challenged thought and the action it informed. Others,

152  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda however, took a more neutral position as bystanders; they resisted genocide ideology but did not act on these considered judgments. Among those who articulated and supported a genocide ideology that situated whole groups of persons as dangerous and worthy of extermination, it is rather disturbing that instead of ‘thoughtlessness’ they might have been ‘thoughtful’ in endorsing a line of thought and taking action that resulted in mass murder. Can, then, ethical reflexivity sanction genocide? It is this kind of scenario that animates foundationalists’ rejection of relativist lines of thought as approaching nihilism. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine how genocide could be consistent with the practice of ethical reflexivity, especially when we consider diachronically expansive judgments among Rwandans themselves. What Arendt found particularly abhorrent about Eichmann was his ordinariness, including his adaptability to rules. Some of his comments about orders and about Germany’s culture and social dynamics during the time of Jewish extermination echo similar comments made by several Rwandans who participated in the violence. The point of ‘thinking’, for Arendt, was to spurn the reliability of rules in favor of an ongoing struggle with ethics. It is only later—when these rules have been dispensed with and we might be faced with having to account for our actions—that those who failed to think feel disoriented and may turn to whatever rules are available. Thus, it is difficult to find many Rwandans who later endorsed inflicting violence on their fellow Rwandans. Instead, explanations referred to the absence of agency, feeling as though they had no power in the situation, or as being in an irrational or mistaken state of mind. Even the more plausible selfdefense explanation has been largely absent. The threat was subsequently seen, by those who reacted to it, as vastly exaggerated. Individuals who enacted the violence by and large regretted their actions, even when they could not provide a satisfactory account to others about why they did what they did. Still, as I have documented, this kind of thoughtlessness was not assured. Although a diachronic perspective could locate past instances of violence as relevant, it might also bring into view similar dynamics of overinflated fear in Rwanda’s historical self-narrative, as well as other conditions that could facilitate such violence. In other words, many individuals did not thoroughly confront the reasons for their fear. And it is an open question just how much any of the parties genuinely engaged the peace process that punctuated civil war and the genocide. Excessive fear fails Aristotle’s means test because it crowds at any reasoning that can properly contextualize it. Not all engaged the sources of their fear deliberatively and dialogically. Instead, fear overwhelmed phronetic capacities. Overtaken by fear, even those who objected to the killing found it difficult to speak and act against violence. There was an escape from agency. While individuals often offered the excuse that they had been influenced by political leaders’ propaganda and cultivation of fear, the recent attacks by the RPF from Uganda, and the historical pattern of cross-border incursions and violence, there were also few efforts to dialogically engage one another in confronting these perceptions. And in the midst of violence itself, whether that of 1994, 1992, 1963, 1959 or some other time, dialogue proved especially difficult. This does not mean, however, that all conversation was absent, including requests and demands for attackers to explain and account for their actions. Several survivors

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  153 describe these kinds of interactions even knowing, they thought, that the attacker would nevertheless try to kill them. In some cases, they introduced enough doubt to turn would-be attackers away (e.g. Uwazaninka 2006, p. 248). Some of the subsequent criticism of the UN ad hoc court and the gacaca courts stemmed from a perceived lack of meaningful dialogue. Rwandans who were targeted and whose family members were killed wanted an explanatory account of some detail, and one that acknowledged and narrated one’s agency. Athanase Bugirimfura explained in 2006, I think unity and reconciliation would be possible if those who committed the crimes approached you and told you why they had committed them. Then you would have opened up a dialogue. But I haven’t seen anything like this in my commune yet, although I hear the words ‘unity and reconciliation’ on the radio. (Bugirimfura 2006, p. 31) All of this is not to say that the practice of ethical reflexivity would lead to obviously good action and outcomes. An ontology of complexity, uncertainty and difference sets the stage for ethical reflexivity as a desirable practice. Even in the context of recovering from genocide, responsibility and reform are difficult and opaque. One Rwandan later remarked, I think, by the way, that no one will ever line up the truths of this mysterious tragedy and write them down—not the professors in Kigali and Europe, not the intellectuals and politicians. Every explanation will give way to one side or another, like a wobbly table. A genocide is a poisonous bush that grows not from two or three roots but from a tangle of roots that has moldered underground where no one notices it. (Hatzfeld 2005, p. 90) This complexity doesn’t preclude interpretation and judgment of the various historical trajectories (that include continuities and breaks), but it tends to give rise to a certain reticence to make certain conclusions, explanations, and prescriptions. The struggles and the contradictions are palpable. In the words of Angélique Mukamanzi: I believe that we must be given an appropriate justice, but I don’t want to say whether the prisoners ought to be shot. Neither do I wish to express what I think about why the Whites watched all these massacres with their arms crossed. I believe that Whites take advantage of quarrels among Blacks to sow their own ideas afterward, and that’s all. I don’t wish to say anything about what I glimpse in the hearts of Hutus. I’m simply saying that Hutu compatriots agreed to exterminate Tutsi compatriots in the marshes so that they could loot their houses, ride on their bicycles, eat their cows . . . Among neighbors, when we ask ourselves why the genocide chose the little spot of Rwanda on the map of Africa, we get lost in discussions that tangle up and never lead to any answers that can fit together. (Hatzfeld 2006, pp. 87–88)

154  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda Here, there is at once an effort to try to understand how the genocide came to be and the roles of various actors in it and yet also the possibility that no account could be definitive or entirely coherent. In the next section I take a closer look at only some of the ways in which Rwandans see themselves today, over 20 years after the 1994 genocide, though necessarily represented through the filter of my interpretations. This perspective is limited—I cannot really claim to speak on behalf of any Rwandans let alone all Rwandans, but I can try to make sense of some of what we might see and hear, or what I heard, including my own experiences in dialogue with Rwandans. Thus, the next section features some first-person narrative that touches on how some Rwandans represented their past and present, including their challenges and concerns, but also hopes and joys. To get a fuller picture, in particular, of this intersection of insider and outsider perspectives, I also discuss some of the U.S. media coverage of Rwanda that Rwandans have been sensitive to. I should also underscore that this is an initial and cursory exercise, one only meant to disturb an excessively simplistic image of Rwanda that tends to either idealize or demonize the post-genocide regime.

Moving beyond the event: agencies and narratives in postgenocide Rwanda ‘What were you thinking as you were killing? What did it feel like?’ Frederic’s answer that followed was not satisfactory. Perhaps it never could have been entirely satisfactory, especially to the Rwandans present, but Frederic seemed somewhat evasive and hesitant in his effort. He had just finished his story without much emotion and without discussing the details of his killing—how or why it happened. The closest he had come to an explanation was a brief reference to the careful planning of the genocide by the government. The young Rwandan who asked the question, Olivier,9 asked it again after Frederic tried to explain how those who killed felt coerced and threatened. The question was longer this time. And then another young Rwandan, André, asked a variation on the same question. Each restated the question in Kinyarwanda using different words. They were translated into English by another young Rwandan, an individual in his mid-20s who seemed to be showing some compassion to Frederic, occasionally touching him on the shoulder as Frederic narrated his explanations to a small group of U.S. students and their two leaders. Emmanuel was focused on the work of translating, but later when the interaction was over he walked away quietly. We knew Emmanuel’s story, or at least we knew that his story was difficult. He had been orphaned by the genocide. For almost 2 weeks our small group had spent every day with Emmanuel and his colleagues working on mentorship projects that they had initiated. Most of the Rwandan college students had at some time in their lives been refugees and several had lost loved ones to the 1994 genocide and to other forms of violence at other times. Their lives and their community service appeared deeply informed by the earliest experiences of their lives. And at that moment in the reconciliation

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  155 village10 it was apparent that, though we were there that day to learn about the genocide, we were learning more about how the genocide is remembered and framed 20 years later in Rwanda from the young Rwandans sitting next to us in the audience. Our interactions, shared experiences, and informal conversations throughout the day mattered most for shaping the knowledge we would take away. For Olivier and André it was their first time at a reconciliation village and they were eager to ask questions of those who testified—from Frederic, who spoke from the experience of a ‘perpetrator’ and from Jacqueline, who shared her story as a ‘survivor’. But for them the reconciliation village did not seem particularly emblematic of the genocide and of how Rwanda has coped and moved forward. They didn’t find Frederic’s remarks illuminating or entirely truthful, though Olivier expressed a desire to go back to the village and have further conversations with Frederic and other residents in an effort to really understand how they could live together and how they could become friends. And yet, these young Rwandans had also expressed considerable optimism about the ability of Rwandans to carry forward the project of peace and reconciliation. This is not to say that this project is uniform, nor is it irreversible. There are still severe socioeconomic inequalities not alleviated by Rwanda’s recovery from large-scale violence and subsequent move toward a service-sector economy, universal health care and poverty programs. And there are underlying tensions around access to education, employment opportunities, urban housing reforms and development projects. For example, Rwandans who are educated abroad and return to Rwanda are, with good reason, thought to have privileged access to good jobs. Nevertheless, there was energy and confidence among the many young Rwandans we met and a commitment to divest social, political and economic problems of collective identities. This doesn’t mean that mere mention of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa is prohibited and avoided. Western media have suggested that Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has legislated and coerced Rwanda, to a degree, into reconciliation through the policing of language and in the interest of preserving his own power. This narrative implies either that true recovery cannot arrive under such oppressive conditions, or that hatred lies just below the surface so that at any moment an irrational but predictable conflagration could be ignited by scratching this surface. Many Rwandans, though not all (Thomson 2013), resent this external narrative and tend to instead see themselves as a stable and peaceful presence in an unstable region, even a model of what is possible after large-scale social and political trauma. It is here that inside/outside interpretive differences are starkest. A great deal of the discursive contestation is around how and whether Rwanda has sought to move past the genocide. While Rwanda’s economic program and health initiatives have been admired abroad, the tone of the international media coverage, NGO reports, and a certain degree of diplomatic exchange has generally been critical, asserting that Rwanda’s government has created an authoritarian state where civil liberties are in jeopardy. In its coverage of Rwanda, The New York Times, for example, routinely refers to President Paul Kagame (former RPF commander in power since the genocide was stopped by the RPF’s takeover) as

156  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda ‘authoritarian’ and a ‘strongman’, and as having a ‘firm grip on power’ and not tolerating dissent (Cowell 2014; Gettleman 2013). One Times reporter wrote, ‘In Rwanda, the memory of the genocide is used to justify President Paul Kagame’s tight grip on power even in the face of growing criticism of his actions at home and abroad’ (Kulish 2014). A BBC reporter recently characterized the freedom to use ‘ethnic’ labels such as Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi as ‘a sign of how much more progress has been made’ there relative to Rwanda (Franks 2014). And Western media often refers to Kagame in emotional terms, as ‘angry’, and attempts to psychologically profile him (Gettleman 2013; McGreal 2013). Scrutiny has also come from the UN with reports in 2010 and 2012 that documented Rwandan support of rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with negative consequences for the population’s security and human rights, including allegations of human rights and international humanitarian law violations by Rwandan forces and individuals (United Nations 2010, 2012).11 And NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have given Rwanda very poor marks for tight controls on political opposition; the disappearance, murder, or arrest of some individuals characterized as Kagame’s opponents; and a lack of widespread internet access and internet freedom (Human Rights Watch 2014a, 2014c). Freedom House even gave Rwanda the rating of ‘not free’ (as opposed to ‘free’ or ‘partly free’). Slight improvement in Rwandan’s numerical score was noted in 2014 for greater press and internet freedoms and elections deemed free and fair by independent observers (though still rated ‘not free’) (Freedom House 2014). While these assessments and accusations may, to a significant degree, capture certain aspects of politics and political leadership in Rwanda, they also fail to take into account contextual considerations, and some of their conclusions—including the Burundi–Rwanda comparison by the BBC reporter—evince a superficial familiarity with Rwanda and its neighbors.12 More specifically, democracy and freedoms in speech, press and association are assumed to have universal and beneficial application without regard to how such values and practices have been interpreted and operationalized in Rwanda with specific effects. Rwandan political participation beyond Kagame’s consecutive terms or outside the formal electoral process receives little to no international attention. Despite a seemingly endless fascination with Rwanda in the United States, there is a distinct lack of attention to Rwandan voices in national media coverage and, in Rwanda, the sense that they are misunderstood by the United States and others. Within Rwanda, a dominant public narrative of self-understanding includes attempts to make sense of the 1994 genocide. Rwanda’s major post-genocide project has been, in the words of Kagame (2014), ‘survival’ and ‘renewal’. As Rwanda marked the 20th year of the genocide, businesses and municipalities erected signs with the message, ‘Remember–Unite–Renew’. In addition to the pursuit of fundamental social change, this project has aimed to balance ‘justice and reconciliation’, mainly using gacaca courts to judge genocide’s participants and as a forum for forgiveness. Rwanda has welcomed but also compelled the return of refugees for, they explain, purposes of accountability and security. They have also expressed the aim of working for regional security, which has included

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  157 military involvement in the region’s conflicts. And there are a variety of initiatives to memorialize the genocide and educate subsequent generations about the history of Rwanda’s conflicts. Yet, Rwandans have also identified and diagnosed their problems, including genocide, relative to non-Rwandans. Genocide has been framed as stemming from ‘division’, and colonialism as having a key role in creating this division. Memorials and their narrations, Kagame’s various speeches over the years about the genocide, and the testimonies of both those who were objects of violence and those who inflicted violence point to colonialism’s influence, from the political strategies of the Germans and Belgians to French missionaries and France’s enduring favoritism of Hutus. As Rwanda prepared for commemorating the 20th anniversary of the genocide, strained relations with France were put in relief when Kagame, in an interview, again accused France of having a direct role in the 1994 genocide. France then announced that it would not send a high-level delegation for the commemorations, to which Rwanda responded by barring the French ambassador from participating in anniversary ceremonies. Indirectly referencing this incident in his remarks on the 7th of April 2014, Kagame (2014) remarked, Historical clarity is a duty of memory that we cannot escape. Behind the words ‘Never Again’, there is a story whose truth must be told in full, no matter how uncomfortable. The people who planned and carried out the Genocide were Rwandan, but the history and root causes go beyond this country. This is why Rwandans continue to seek the most complete explanation possible for what happened. We do so with humility as a nation that nearly destroyed itself. But we are nevertheless determined to recover our dignity as a people . . . The passage of time should not obscure the facts, lessen responsibility, or turn victims into villains. People cannot be bribed into changing their history. And no country is powerful enough, even when they think they are, to change the facts. After all, les faits sont têtus [the facts are stubborn]. Therefore, when we speak out about the roles and responsibilities of external actors and institutions, it is because genocide prevention demands historical clarity of all of us, not because we wish to shift blame onto others. On the grounds of the Kigali genocide memorial there is a star-shaped fountain and a stream above this fountain that represents the role of colonialism. This stream divides Rwanda and the water below collects its effects. It is this view of the reasons for Rwanda’s violent episodes that informs a sensitivity to being instructed in how to reform and how to effect ‘never again’ in Rwanda. Adding to this picture, we might take into account how ideology as a pivotal factor is understood in Rwanda such that speech in politics and the press is now so carefully controlled. In Kagame’s interviews and speeches and in Rwanda’s public narratives, ideology is frequently tied to colonial inventions and strategies of political rule. Thus, Rwanda was ‘perpetually on the verge of genocide’ because the categories of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were racialized and invoked to distribute

158  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda political and economic power (Kagame 2014). But public narratives also point to the force of an ideology of ‘Hutu power’ that was cultivated in domestic politics over the last few decades of the 20th century, particularly during the early 1990s and the months leading up to and during the 1994 genocide. The Rwandan press played an especially important role in broadcasting ideological messages of hate and even identified specific persons at specific locations for attack. Kagame’s regime subsequently identified ideology as a factor that enabled intergroup cleavages and resentments, in addition to poverty and a lack of education (with the critical thinking it presumably brings). Together, these factors, it is thought, interacted with political agendas and strategies to facilitate widespread violence. Finally, regional politics plays a strong role in Rwanda’s politics. As a small country with permeable borders, populations have historically moved across these borders, especially to escape violence or return home, even one or more generation later. From across borders, messages and rumors spread and political and armed movements can form and regroup. Borders allow a defeated group to fight another day. The RPF’s movements historically reflect this dynamic, as does the escape of individuals who participated in genocide and then fled across the border as the RPF took control in 1994 (though not all who fled participated in the violence). While the Kagame government’s involvement in neighboring countries may have mixed motives, Rwanda continues to be concerned with neighboring populations and population movements as security and violence in Rwanda have had this cross-border element.13 To speak of ‘Rwanda’ without attention to the intersection of borders, regions and colonialism is common in politics and scholarship, but misguided, as Mahmood Mamdani (2001) has argued.14 The sanctioning of Victoire Ingabire, which has elicited prominent attention in international media, can be situated in light of these interpretations. Ingabire was sentenced to a prison term of 8 years for promoting genocide ideology and forming an armed group. One incident that the government and many Rwandans found particularly galling happened when Ingabire spoke at the genocide memorial in Kigali, remarking: ‘If we look at this memorial, it only refers to the people who died during the genocide against the Tutsis. There is another untold story with regard to the crimes against humanity committed against the Hutus.’ In an unusually indepth analysis of this matter, a reporter for London ’s The Guardian noted, ‘Tutsi survivors were outraged not only by the implication in her statements of a “double genocide”, which they saw as intended to diminish the organized killings, but the choice of location at which to make the comments’ (McGreal 2013). These comments were made in the context of Ingabire’s return to Rwanda after living in the Netherlands for 15 years, where she became the head of a political party that included refugees who played a part in the 1994 genocide. While Ingabire’s plight is connected to who can publicly mourn and for which reasons, Rwandans worry about public speech that may begin to re-enact intergroup divisions, particularly as identity-based violence continues in the region around them. Killings of Hutus, during and prior to 1994, are part of public narratives (often mentioned at genocide memorials and in public remembrances), but the terms of their use are being

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  159 constantly negotiated, both by those who use them and by the central government in view of the lessons they have taken from the past. The point of this discussion has not been to defend the Rwandan government or Paul Kagame, but rather to illustrate a wider range of perspectives from and on Rwanda, and to raise some critical questions. For the most part, there is a basic lack of self-awareness in the criticism that Western media, NGOs and leaders level against Rwanda. In light of the details of the 1994 genocide and its historical antecedents it is quite unlikely that, in the near future at least, Rwanda will become a paragon of free speech. This is not to say that there cannot be external or internal criticism, but that criticism should acknowledge and discuss that there are real and legitimate fears about having, for one, a multiparty system in which some parties may be considered too extreme and, two, unfettered speech in a country where it was crucial for the deaths of potentially over one million people. Human rights reports and diplomatic missions that detail Rwandan government wrongdoings and call for various pressures and sanctions also compound many Rwandans’ sense that they are misunderstood, forever marked by inferiority and made the object of civilizing pressures. Rwandans have sought to replace fear and shame with pride and hope, but there is a palpable insecurity among Rwandans— rooted in misrecognition and the desire for others to see that Rwanda is more than the genocide. ‘Tell others what Rwanda is really like’ is an oft-heard refrain in Rwanda directed toward outsiders who visit. The U.S. government and NGOs have a close relationship with Rwanda but Rwanda’s insecurity extends beyond diplomatic discourse, to a historical pattern of exploitation, crude caricatures, and depictions of Rwanda and Africa as culturally inferior, less modern, and underdeveloped. There is an exasperation in Rwanda that their successes, even by Western standards, are not recognized as such. Rwandans have undertaken a large-scale transformation of themselves—from basic social structures to interpersonal relations and identities. When one of my students asked a group of Rwandan students what they most liked about their country they overwhelmingly and immediately responded, ‘Peace’. Where there might be more productive avenues for subjecting this project to an ethically reflexive examination lie most with Rwandans themselves, who can inquire into which aspects of government policies, political and social cultures, and security practices threaten a return to in-group and out-group dynamics, and which political and media controls are warranted and without excessive violence. The micropolitics of resistance to state power (particularly among peasants) in Rwanda is also relevant but only apparent to academics to the extent that we are willing to see and investigate a wide array of interpretations and experiences of Rwanda’s politics and its history (see Thomson 2013). To speak of Rwanda’s challenges is also to speak of the region’s challenges and thus Rwandans might be particularly attentive to the effects of their actions across borders, such as political destabilization, displaced populations, torture and execution, coerced recruitment of child soldiers, and conflict and rape. If NGOs and Western governments want a place at the table in this discussion they would do better to approach Rwanda with more reasonable expectations

160  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda and with greater awareness and sensitivity to Rwanda’s historical context and the policy challenges it has bequeathed. From the perspectives of at least some Rwandans, colonialism has passed on its own narratives and assumptions that IOs, NGOs, governments, and the media have invoked. Rwandans asked us, as persons from the United States, hard questions that sought to apply our evaluative standards to our own political and social relations. Several noted the racial tensions that have plagued the United States, warning us that genocide and other kinds of mass violence can break out when the warnings are not taken seriously. One Rwandan, the subject of a documentary film, had traveled to the United States and later recounted to us his own mistreatment at the hands of the police because of the color of his skin. In Rwanda, he explained, the police are not so suspicious and abusive. Yet, because the police, security guards, and their military-style weapons stand out on the streets of Kigali, Rwanda might appear to be a police state to outsiders. This is not, I should underscore again, to say that Rwandan elites wield power in unproblematic ways. There is a particular history that is presented and pursued by state elites (Thomson 2013) and Rwanda is a country in a system of sovereign states that regularly work to produce certain subjectivities and discipline their populations. In this regard, assessments of ethical reflexivity ‘between friends’ (the United States and Rwanda) has an added layer of complexity, one that will resurface in Chapter 6 in the discussion of drones and the relationship between the United States and Pakistan. There are two dimensions of reflexive inquiry applicable to both Rwandans and Americans—to probe the agency we have in critiquing and remaking ourselves, and to probe the ways in which our agencies have interacted with others’ agencies. At the Kigali genocide memorial where the symbolic river of colonialism feeds into the waters of Rwanda, at one corner of the fountain sits a monkey with a cellphone. The message, as the guide explained it, is that Rwandans need to communicate with one another to overcome their divisions even though these divisions are not entirely of their own making.15 To shift to an agent-centric practice of ethics requires a different analytical lens than those we often turn to. Over the preceding pages I have tried to locate some ways in which dominant external narratives of Rwanda are problematic, especially that of Rwanda as a continuous, though less catastrophic, failure since the 1994 genocide. In each period (genocide and post-genocide) Rwandans’ agencies are glossed over. To inquire into alternative imaginations and relationships to Rwanda and to Rwandans pushes us toward varieties of experience but also to avenues for agency. To disrupt the narrative that ‘Rwanda has an opportunity to stop a genocidal cycle of violence as long as it develops the right political and economic institutions’ is perhaps to investigate how Rwandans have had agency all along and how empirical instantiation of agencies need not and did not always take the form that so many have assumed (and likely beyond what I have investigated here). This inquiry elaborates further the possibility that the ‘right institutions’ (or ‘good/global governance’) approach has been an unhelpful distraction, in part because it feeds into the perception that many Rwandans have of outsiders

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  161 as perpetuating a post-colonial superiority in which former colonizers seek to continue to redesign their social and political relations.

Ethically reflexive (phronetic) leadership in the International Committee of the Red Cross Finally, I turn to a more positive example of how an international NGO responded with greater ethical reflexivity to Rwandans. In 1994, with widespread killing all around them in Kigali, Rwanda, the head of the Rwanda delegation of the ICRC, Philippe Gaillard (2004b), later recalled an experience that might not seem particularly significant: I had with me A Season in Hell by [Rimbaud]. It was a sort of ritual act, before having dinner every evening around seven o’clock instead of praying, which I don’t really believe in. I read one poem of A Season in Hell to, I don’t know, 20, 25 colleagues. It was incredibly silent, and they were not people especially sensible to poetry, but these poems in this context took much more strength. Every word meant something. This ‘ritual act’ that Gaillard and much of the ICRC staff (including Rwandans) participated in did mean something. For Gaillard, these experiences took place in a tragic setting—‘a real Season in Hell, the unpublished version’—in which the humanity of overwhelming beauty managed to only make brief appearances. Gaillard situated these aesthetic moments, however fleeting, as that which could eclipse their collective pain, gripped by utter horror. Gaillard held on to Keats, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’. Gaillard imagined his agency as directed toward a particular aesthetic purpose defined in humanistic terms: ‘this is our job, to find beauty, create beauty in the very core of horror’, and ‘even in the depths of the most unfathomable horror, I encountered courageous men and women who were exceptionally clear-thinking and lucid enough to do another human being a good turn in the midst of what they knew to be a veritable genocide’ (Gaillard 2004a). Literature helped Gaillard to make sense of his experience; he drew on it affectively to direct his action, and as sustenance as he approached exhaustion and even self-destruction. In interviews and occasional talks in the years after the genocide, Gaillard wove literary references together with a recounting of that which happened to him and that which he did. Gaillard exhibited a kind of defiant attitude in the telling of these stories and in media interviews during and after the genocide—one that claimed and assumed his agency in the situation but also one that recognized Rwandans as interlocutors, even those who were committing violence. And Gaillard had resources to sustain this agency as viable, as making sense. As the signs of impending violence unfolded and genocidal violence broke out Gaillard organized his staff to evacuate the wounded (those ‘not finished off’) to an ‘improvised field hospital’ in Kigali, spoke with the press about the violence, and set up other field hospitals throughout Rwanda (Gaillard 2004a, b). ‘Surgical operations’ were performed in ambulances and 2,500 people were in treatment in

162  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda the Kigali hospital at the end of the genocide (Melvern 2001). Gaillard (2004c) later recalled that: The ICRC contributed to this media coverage and reporting like it maybe never had done in its almost 130 years of existence at that time. On 28 April 1994, some three weeks after the beginning of the genocide, the ICRC called on the governments concerned including all members of the Security Council to take all possible measures to put an end to the massacres. Gaillard estimated that the ICRC’s actions prevented the deaths of between 60,000 and 70,000 Rwandans and helped to ensure that the mission’s Rwandan staff (numbering over 100) were not endangered. The ICRC, by most accounts, violated its organizational principle of ‘neutrality’ but did not convince ‘other governments’ to take significant measures. In the end over 800,000 Rwandans were killed from the violence of genocide and war. Philippe Gaillard drew on poetry and literature as one moral resource for the plural self’s reflexive and internal dialogue, and for external dialogue, as he represented the ICRC in Rwanda. Gaillard’s recounting of his thought and action during the genocide resonates in many other ways with the practice of ethical reflexivity I have sketched. For one, Gaillard offered interpretations of ICRC principles that did not necessarily fit dominant interpretations within the organization, including those specific to Rwanda, and he advocated and took the organization beyond its traditional mandate. Gaillard later offered contextual justifications for doing so and positioned his ethical agency as independent of his organizational context even if informed by it, hinting at the critical rationality and plural self of reflexivity. Taking on a degree of risk (professional and personal), Gaillard critically navigated the ethical terrain he encountered. While Gaillard’s agency was enabled by his position, access to media, and other resources, Gaillard also assumed leadership consistent with the figure of ‘leader’ set out in the previous chapter. Perhaps Gaillard’s experience working in a variety of settings allowed him to cultivate the skills of dialogue and navigate particulars in tension with thought, but it was not assured. ‘We saved most if not all our local employees, but they also saved us. I was in consultations with them all the time. This was something the U.N. mission didn’t have. We knew everyone in Kagali‘ (Gaillard 2004a). Gaillard explained that the ICRC mission’s ability to operate amidst a genocide was made possible, at least in part, by dialogue and attention to local context.16 Gaillard had frequent contact with the ICRC’s Rwandan staff as well those Rwandans who organized and facilitated the genocide (Barker 2004). This dialogue enabled the ICRC to induce some government officials to assist ICRC efforts, secure a commitment from the rebel force—the RPF—to uphold international humanitarian law and respect ICRC activities, convince perpetrators to respect Red Cross vehicles, and even changed the minds of some Rwandan officials who had supported genocidal efforts. Gaillard held that dialogue with friend and enemy alike was ‘a far better cornerstone for security than armoured vehicles or bullet-proof vests. Dialogue

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  163 is a sign of openness and trust . . . Dialogue is the expression of a calm strength which sometimes recharges the batteries of the person you are talking to’ (Gaillard 2004b). Although ICRC staff and operations were themselves victims of the violence around them and were continuously challenged in their operations, this empathic and iterative approach of ‘listening to the other side’ and ‘grasping how the other person understands your words’ allowed them to successfully challenge some of the actions and understandings of the belligerents. Their efforts were exhaustive. Gaillard explained: I went from Kigali to Kabgayi several times. I held discussions with the government and religious authorities. I took ministers and military officers with me in order to make them realize the scale of the disaster and the inhumane conditions in which their people were living, regardless of the ethnic group to which they belonged. They got the point, but they were so disorganized and apathetic that they were incapable of ending the murderous folly and systematic slaughter that at least some of them had helped to organize. (Gaillard 2004b, emphasis added) Yet there were also ‘moderate open-minded officers who were ready to talk and who were driven to despair by the suicidal, murderous behavior of some of their colleagues’, and these individuals worked with Gaillard to protect civilians with some success (including 300 children whose parents had been murdered near Gisenyi and 600 orphans in Butare) (Gaillard 2004b). Several days after the genocide started a Rwandan Red Cross ambulance was stopped, and the wounded patients pulled out of the ambulance and killed on the side of the road. In consultation with the ICRC headquarters in Geneva Gaillard decided to make public this incident, an act that likely endangered the lives of ICRC and Rwandan Red Cross workers and could have been interpreted by the ICRC itself as violating its principle of neutrality and its method of confidentiality. After a short press release that was widely broadcast, the government undertook a public awareness campaign about the role of Red Cross and safe passage became more regularized (Gaillard 2004a, b). Despite this incident, other threats to ICRC staff, and the bombing of the Kigali field hospital, the ICRC remained in Rwanda and took on an average of 100 wounded people a day at the Kigali hospital. The ICRC also erected a makeshift hospital near Gitarama that accommodated 35,000 people and fed 20,000 displaced persons in northern Rwanda. After hearing that thousands of Tutsis had been brought to a football stadium in Gisuma the ICRC boldly traveled to the area to speak to the local authorities and were able to save 9,000 people (Gaillard 20041). Perhaps the most critical decision was to simply stay in Rwanda. While concerned for the safety of his staff, Gaillard was also worried about the ICRC’s Rwandan staff who had brought their families to the ICRC delegation site.17 While the United States, the UN and other NGOs immediately began to talk of evacuation and implemented their plans despite the pleas of Rwandan staff for protection,

164  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda the ICRC decided against evacuation, invoking both the mission of the ICRC and the ethical relation between the organization and its local staff. That this debate took place within the ICRC reflected an awareness, rather than the assumption otherwise, that foreign nationals might not have moral priority over Rwandans.

Institutionalized ethical reflexivity at the ICRC? One question raised by Gaillard’s experience is whether the ICRC as an organization supported and biased in favor of ethical reflexivity or whether it was Gaillard’s phronetic leadership that was pivotal. The articulation of seven organizational principles in 1956 and 1965 along with their greater elaboration in 1979 (Forsythe 2005b, p. 161) roughly tracks a shift in the ‘Movement’18 from a more pragmatic and dynamic mode to a more rule-based operational culture. Of these principles, the ICRC has mainly emphasized the principles of ‘humanity’, ‘neutrality’ and ‘impartiality’, along with the method of ‘confidentiality’. In the midst of armed conflict (especially between states) neutrality, impartiality and confidentiality have been interpreted as serving the ICRC well. All victims of warfare and internal violence, civilians and combatants alike, are attended to. Assistance is based only on individuals’ needs and suffering. And the ICRC has, for the most part, found the method of confidentiality to be satisfactory for relaying its complaints about violations of humanitarian law while maintaining access to sites of potential violations.19 Historically, there has been greater continuity in the ICRC in its preference for discreet appeals and communication. The principle of ‘humanity’ can be characterized as a ‘meta-principle’ because it directly speaks to the organization’s moral purpose, while the principles of impartiality and neutrality are more operational, as reflected by the frequency with which they are invoked during on-the-ground operations.20 The principle of humanity is defined thusly: The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation and lasting peace amongst peoples. (ICRC 1996) In a 1979 ICRC publication that elaborates these principles, Jean Pictet (1979) refers to ‘humanity’ as ‘the essential principle’ even though it was not among the first of the principles to be articulated. Especially important to this principle is ‘protection’, which includes sheltering a person from, inter alia, ‘attack’, ‘ill-treatment’, and ‘efforts to destroy him or make him disappear’, as well as ‘meet[ing] his need for security to help him survive, to act in his defence’ (ICRC 1996). Over the years, this protection has been extended from injured combatants in interstate war to detainees involved in a broad range of conflicts.

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  165 Impartiality and neutrality are connected to humanity. The principle of impartiality extends humanity to all: The International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavours to relieve the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress. (ICRC 1996) Initially, the point of the principle of impartiality was designed to declare that the Movement would assist both sides to interstate conflicts and was thus confined to non-discrimination on the basis of nationality. In 1949 other categories of nondiscrimination were added so that ICRC aid would be dispensed to all individuals, no matter their identity or side in a conflict, and only prioritized by intensity of need ‘so that the aid given transcends the most virulent antagonisms’, friendship, or emotional identification with one side to a conflict (ICRC 1996). In this regard, it is an ideal that is difficult to achieve but always to be strived for. The principle of neutrality is explicated in terms of ‘trust’ or ‘confidence’: ‘In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature’ (ICRC 1996). There are two types of neutrality. ‘Military neutrality’ refers to ‘not acting in a way that could facilitate the conduct of hostilities by any of the parties involved’ so that the ICRC is not seen as participating in a conflict (ICRC 1996). Examples of military necessity tend to be starkly posed, such as ‘surrounding a military objective with medical units so that it will not be targeted’ and ‘hiding weapons in a hospital’ (ICRC 1996). Certainly, the ICRC wants to avoid weakening international humanitarian law, disrupting humanitarian activities, and creating mistrust among the relevant parties that could perpetuate and intensify their conflict. ‘Ideological neutrality’, as an additional form, ‘implies standing apart at all times from political, religious or any other controversies in which the Red Cross or Red Crescent, were it to take a position, would lose the trust of one segment of the population and thus be unable to continue its activities’ (ICRC 1996). This form of neutrality is more a ‘state of mind’ and thus quite difficult to apply. Indeed, the author of this publication has trouble giving examples to designate ‘right’ action in this regard: It is admittedly not always an easy task to apply the principle of neutrality, not least because everyone has personal convictions. When tension mounts and passions are aroused, every member of the Red Cross or Red Crescent is called upon to exercise great self-control and refrain from expressing his opinions in the discharge of his duties. (ICRC 1996) Difficulties with neutrality extend beyond what this author so blandly articulates. If neutrality rests on perception, this principle is violated every time a party

166  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda perceives ICRC bias, and it creates problems for the principle of humanity which can direct efforts more toward one group than another if suffering and need are disproportional. In this sense, need-based impartiality and perception-based neutrality are in tension and not reconcilable in the abstract. There is the expectation within the organization and its guiding documents that vexing ethical questions will be addressed by applying the ICRC’s fundamental principles and mission. The publication becomes almost dogmatic about neutrality, declaring: It is only by consistently applying the principle of neutrality in spite of all the difficulties involved, that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement will continue to enjoy widespread confidence . . . To make matters more difficult, the spokesmen of other charities do not hesitate to take militant positions or to denounce publicly those responsible for injustices or inhumane acts. (ICRC 1996) The author of this publication associates ‘confidentiality’ with neutrality, but in a press article seven years later, Marion Harroff-Tavel (2003), ICRC’s Deputy Director for International Law and Cooperation within the Movement, cautioned that, ‘Neutrality should not be confused with confidentiality’. Neutrality aims at gaining the trust of the belligerents while confidentiality is a ‘working method, a means of persuasion that is the ICRC’s preferred approach’. At best, confidentiality is a method of communication that recognizes and honestly engages others as interlocutors, but another interpretation locates the surfeit of secrecy that has characterized the ICRC’s methods as a way to avoid grappling with difficult and vexing situations. The ICRC found itself in a difficult ethical situation in Rwanda (and the Holocaust) where its principles proved problematic. The ICRC is concerned with the protection afforded by the Geneva Conventions (as the ‘guardian’ of those conventions) and other elements of international humanitarian law, but in the case of genocide the génocidaires were not necessarily combatants and they targeted civilians, making ‘unbiased’ action potentially harmful to a very large number of persons. For the ICRC delegation in Rwanda prevailing notions of core principles were thus challenged, and individuals on the ground redefined, reframed, narrowed, and even rejected the scope of neutrality and impartiality while drawing on other resources for ethical judgment. They emphasized the principle of humanity and other relevant international law (the Genocide Convention) in ways that were responsive to critical analysis and contextual interpretation. Philippe Gaillard led the way, though it is important to note that the ICRC has long featured a contradictory mix of purposes, principles, and attitudes. David Forsythe, who has studied the organization at length, notes this tension at the outset of his study of the ICRC:

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  167 [T]he welfare of individuals is the highest value in its mandate, but it proceeds slowly, cautiously, with minimal objectives, and mostly on the basis of the consent of public authorities. Further, it claims to be non-political but is inherently part of humanitarian politics. It professes impartiality and neutrality, but it calculates how to advance humanitarian policies that are in competition with other policies based on national and factional advantage. Also, it promotes IHL [international humanitarian law] but downplays public legal judgments and emphasizes pragmatic—if principled—service. That is, it helps develop IHL mainly for others, while often emphasizing pragmatic, contextual morality itself. (Forsythe 2005b, p. 2) Gaillard drew on this more contextual and informal ICRC tradition when he asserted that one could not be entirely ‘neutral in the face of genocide’, a sentiment that informed his vociferous comments about the nature and scale of the violence to the media on numerous occasions, even naming individuals and ‘sides’, and publicly appealing to the Security Council to take political measures that would actively address the violence. It would be a stretch to characterize Gaillard’s words and deeds as discreet and non-political. Although the ICRC did not traditionally operate during genocide Gaillard was able to connect the moral purpose of the ICRC, with some modification, to this unfamiliar context. He felt an imperative to act even in the face of genocide as a daily ‘fact’ and to act in ways that clearly set out how and when the ICRC might be ‘neutral’ and what the ICRC expected from those committing most of the violence. His method was sometimes confidential, but also involved publicly addressing powerful figures in Rwanda and in the international community, often through the media. This contextual approach to addressing genocide is not unlike the pragmatic orientation of an earlier ICRC identity (Forsythe 2005b). In Gaillard’s context, it was to search for, as he put it, a ‘millimeter of humanity in kilometers of horror’. Gaillard interpreted the principles of neutrality, impartiality and humanity in ways he found helpful while recognizing that they could not, on their own, illuminate for him a clear path of action. Drawing on and rendering ICRC ‘texts’ (or ‘discourse’), Gaillard (2004a, 2014) interpreted neutrality as ‘humanitarian neutrality’, which meant ‘first to be on the side of the victims, of ALL the victims’. This nevertheless created a problem because, as Gaillard explained, ‘when the victims belong to the same category, then their executioners start to look at you with suspicion’ (2004b). It is precisely these kinds of situations that make the ICRC nervous—when the pursuit of humanitarian protection is perceived as favoritism. For example, after giving an interview to the Rwandan National Radio Gaillard found himself targeted as a political enemy when Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines announced that Gaillard was a ‘Belgian national’, which was, Gaillard thought, akin to a ‘death sentence’. Gaillard stood by his decision to give the interview despite the perception that he was taking sides and, instead of passively accepting the negative reaction or pursuing a more conservative and discreet agenda (which would have been

168  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda supported by prevalent ICRC thinking), Gaillard prevailed upon government authorities in Gitarama to correct this story. Gaillard found himself in yet another difficult position vis-à-vis neutrality just a couple of days later when the same media outlet was targeted by the RPF. Gaillard concluded that in this situation a stricter neutrality was appropriate and meant that the ICRC should provide medical assistance to the media outlet’s personnel despite their indirect (and perhaps direct) role in the genocide and the threats on his life that resulted from this media outlet’s false reports, compounded by slim ICRC resources. While Gaillard drew on the ICRC’s primary principles and his personal conviction that he ought to do what he could in the face of genocide, it was not always clear what action these guidelines might give rise to. When the new Prime Minister (installed during the violence) requested that the ICRC remove tens of thousands of bodies from the streets of Kigali, Gaillard believed that the dead bodies posed a public health risk for the remaining population but also concluded that moving the bodies would potentially be of assistance to the génocidaires by making it easier for them to efficiently kill. Instead of applying a principle to a particular situation the global phronimos interprets the particulars of the situation and evaluates whether and how principles are useful or appropriate. This process may involve de-emphasizing, setting aside, or further developing certain elements of thought. This is an example of the continuous dialectic movement between thought and action that characterizes critical rationality. Gaillard responded to this situation by refusing to move the bodies and requested that the Rwandan government first stop the killings. But later, when the Rwandan government decided to use its common-law prisoners to evacuate the bodies, the ICRC agreed to give them the fuel. Gaillard had made his point as part of a larger effort to convince at least some in the government to reverse course, and decided to relent only when the Rwandan government changed the terms of the situation. The ICRC also provided the government with chlorine and aluminum sulfate to allow the central pumping station to stay operational, preventing further large-scale suffering and death. Gaillard’s experience shows that ICRC principles can be in tension and— contrary to the ICRC’s claims in a key publication—are perhaps not ‘complementary’ (ICRC 1996, pp. 17, 19).21 The ICRC has a long history of neutrality, impartiality, and discreet methods that have supported its raison d’être of providing humanitarian relief in all conflict zones. Yet, in the midst of the genocide it was the ICRC, much more than the UN, the United States and other powerful states, that spoke out most vociferously against the violence and those who were enacting it. The ICRC may not have, as an organization, loudly pronounced the massacres as ‘genocide’, but given the ICRC’s history of deference toward states, its secretive and centralized Swiss administration, and its cautious approach (Forsythe 2005b), Gaillard’s bolder actions and his defense of them were all the more remarkable. Yes, Gaillard drew on ICRC principles to make sense of his action, but his interpretations and actions were not the norm and he recognized himself as having an ethical agency that could be separate from, and even oppose, the organization. In contrast to the UN

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  169 mission in Rwanda commander, Roméo Daillaire, who was, Gaillard recalled, ‘abandoned by his own organization’, Gaillard felt supported. Still, Gaillard felt a responsibility that potentially surpassed his organization’s position, ‘[I]f my organization, which is usually not outspoken would have told me, “Please Philippe, don’t talk so much”, I would have left the organization. You cannot be silent, no. And they never told me to shut up’ (2004b). Perhaps the ICRC’s regret over its record during World War II as having not acted against the Holocaust provided a kind of permissive environment for Gaillard,22 but his actions were not determined by it, and much of the Holocaust regret has been most strongly articulated in the years after the organization’s Rwanda experience, as if to give its experience in Rwanda retrospective coherence as part of a broader organizational story and identity, further underscoring Gaillard’s phronetic leadership in narrating organizational culture on the spot.23 ‘We must always act as men of thought and think as men of action’ (Pictet 1979). Did Gaillard and the ICRC delegation recognize the ethical and political nuance of the situation and, if so, was their ethical reflexivity enduring? Two narratives seemed to prevail among IOs, NGOs such as the ICRC, and international and Western media—that either the violence in Rwanda was that of ancient tribal hatreds (and thus not particularly exceptional or actionable) or that the violence was one of genocide in which Hutus were seeking to eliminate Tutsis and punish ‘moderate’ or sympathetic Hutus. As Elizabeth Dauphinee (2007, 2013) so vividly narrates with regard to the conflicts in Bosnia, individual and community experiences of conflict, and thus issues of responsibility, are so much more vexing and even ‘impossible’ than what we, as outsiders, commonly narrate. Indeed, ethical reflexivity as a practice is not a panacea, and the example of Philippe Gaillaird and the ICRC delegation in Rwanda is perhaps only a fleeting exemplar of ethical reflexivity. Gaillard’s stories, his self-understandings, the ways he navigated thought and action, and the sociopolitical positions and resources available to him, evinced a certain amount of contextual interpretation and creativity, self-interrogation and dialogue, struggle to recognize difference, and the assumption of personal risk in order to recognize and give meaning to ethical relations. However, as we’ll see with the case of U.S. interrogation and detention policies after September 11, 2001 (in the next chapter), the ICRC subsequently and narrowly leaned back on the method of confidentiality in the face of policies and conditions that it deemed problematic.

Conclusion Academic assessments that have sought to retroactively evaluate the duty to intervene and the responsibility to protect in the face of severe human rights abuses such as genocide have concluded that Rwanda is an example of failure, as an ‘event’ or ‘case’. Indeed, in a reformulation of the international norm of humanitarian intervention to that of responsibility to protect, Rwanda is often cited as justification. Instead, I have taken a closer look at how individuals ‘on the ground’ evaluated and acted in this situation and have since sought to contextualize their experiences, including Rwandans themselves.

170  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda From the IO/NGO organizational context I focused on Philippe Gaillard, head of the ICRC delegation. Gaillard maintained a high degree of situational awareness in leading the delegation by seeking to understand Rwandans, including those who were planning and executing genocidal violence. Despite the ICRC principles of neutrality, impartiality and confidential communication, Gaillard dialogically engaged particular actors. Gaillard was concerned not just with whether Red Cross operations were respected but also with the genocide, and he judiciously used media outlets to take action that enacted his ethical judgments. Gaillard subjected his own positionality and relationality to self-interrogation and dialogue and he assumed a high degree of personal risk to act. I also inquired into whether the ICRC organizational culture allowed and even facilitated this kind of phronetic leadership, especially in view of its organizational memory of the role of the ICRC in the Holocaust, which was deemed a failure to judge and act ethically. The answer is not altogether clear, but seems to come down more on the side of individual leadership in this case. Gaillard’s leadership was important given the organization’s centralized and opaque operation as well as its cautious and state-centric approach. The ICRC’s decisions during the War on Terror with regard to U.S. detention and interrogation practices, which reverted to ethical judgment from operational principles alone, only underscores how pivotal Gaillard’s leadership role was for the organization’s more ethically reflexive response during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. While I wouldn’t go as far as Daniel Warner (2005) in arguing that the ICRC need never violate ‘fundamental principles’, I do agree that the ICRC has often referred to the need to maintain ‘access’ to sites as its bottom line without really working through what that access actually does in concrete situations.24 Gaillard exhibited instead a contextual appreciation and drew on a wide variety of ethical resources (including those we might see as ‘personal’) to grapple with difficult decisions. Listening to the voices of Rwandans who experienced genocide and other kinds of violence unnerves the simplistic portrait of Rwanda that categorizes persons simply as ‘perpetrators’ or ‘victims’. Instead of homogenizing their experiences, a more detailed examination can prompt various questions about Rwandans’ experiences and how they have made sense of them. We see that some Rwandans did exercise ethical reflexivity and we were able to locate how the various capabilities and dispositions of ethical reflexivity can be tied to actions and outcomes on a more micropolitical level. Rwandans continue to try to make sense of the genocide over 20 years later and what it means for contemporary politics. I have also suggested that the specific criticisms made of Rwanda by external actors are inseparable from idealized identities among the latter. Thus, alternative interpretations that arise in the analysis here are especially relevant for turning to U.S. subjectivities in the War on Terror in the next two chapters.

Notes   1 Some leaders of powerful countries and international organizations later offered tepid apologies for their failure to respond in a timely fashion and with the appropriate tools and measures for a meaningful intervention.

Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda  171   2 We often see, for example, reference made to ‘American IR’ to refer to the particular subjectivity of the scholar who works or has been trained in the United States.   3 From the author’s field notes.   4 The term inkotanyi refers to members of the RPF, as does inyenzi, but the latter, which is translated as ‘cockroaches’, is explicitly derogatory.   5 Some, however, protected at a price only to later participate in killing the same persons they had protected (Gourevitch 1998, p. 29).   6 The prefect of Butare, for example, was executed and his family killed (Des Forges 1999, p. 265).   7 The RTLM radio turned on some military officers, including generals and colonels, who had argued for a halt to the genocide and who, in some cases, actively helped Tutsi escape. The radio accused them of aiding the RPF and making their military victories possible (Des Forges 1999, p. 269).   8 An anthropologist, Burnet (2012) made several trips to Rwanda, where much of her research was made possible by her continuous presence in communities, particularly with women who had organized themselves into survivor groups and associations.   9 Names have been changed. 10 In reconciliation villages, of which there are a small number in Rwanda, those who killed during the 1994 genocide and those whose families were killed or who were themselves targeted or harmed live and work together. A much larger process consisted of gacaca courts, which were turned to in 2005 to deal with a prison population that numbered over one million and in light of widespread dissatisfaction in Rwanda with the UN-created International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Rawson 2012). 11 As the 2010 report notes, Rwanda has acknowledged its involvement in the 1996–1998 war. See Rwanda’s country response to the report, submitted to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Republic of Rwanda 2010). 12 The magnitude of recent violence in Burundi is simply much greater than it has been in Rwanda for some time. 13 Rwanda has admitted to its involvement (in particular its efforts to break up and disarm Hutu camps in Zaire in 1996–1998), though may also deny some of it as well. 14 In this regard, Mamdani’s (2001) analysis of the 1994 genocide is invaluable. 15 From the author’s field notes. 16 Gaillard said, ‘People take decisions without knowing the context, being far away from the context, not smelling things’ (2004b). 17 Gaillard explained, ‘I think the main reason why we decided to stay was because of our local staff’ (2004b). Romeo Dallaire (2003), commander of the UN mission in Rwanda, expressed similar concern about those working with and for the UN in Rwanda. 18 These ‘fundamental principles’ were adopted unanimously by the 20th International Conference of the Red Cross in 1965. The ‘Movement’ encompasses the ICRC and Red Cross national societies. 19 A glaring exception is the Holocaust during World War II. In various ICRC documents one finds embarrassment about the organization’s failure to speak out about the genocide (ICRC Assembly 2006): ‘the ICRC did not do everything in its power to put an end to persecution and help the victims. The organization remained a prisoner of its traditional procedures and of the overly narrow legal framework in which it operated.’ 20 ‘To hear one’s fellow man, to recognize his suffering, is to feel the call to service. Therein lies the Movement’s sense of purpose’ (ICRC 1996).

172  Living in and beyond genocide in Rwanda 21 ‘The values underlying the Movement’s Fundamental Principles are simple: they are all founded on respect for the human being. That is why they can be universally recognized and accepted . . . The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent form a coherent whole. While the scope of each must be specified, it is essential to read them—and to respect them!—as a whole, since it is from this whole that the unique nature of the International Movement is derived and continues to prevail’ (ICRC 1996, pp. 17, 19). 22 The failure, according to Forsythe, was a lack of creativity and passion to develop strategies for acting in the context of the Holocaust (2005b, pp. 45–46). Just as the UN was animated by concerns of organizational longevity in its handling of the mission to Rwanda, the ICRC during World War II also turned to a narrative or organizational survival to inform its lackluster approach. 23 Jean-Claude Favez conducted a far-reaching study published in French in 1988 and then English in 1999 that was instrumental in prodding the ICRC to more self-critically examine its actions during the Holocaust (see Favez 1999). 24 Forsythe (2005a, p. 468) notes that there is plenty of historical precedence for ICRC’s overt and public interventions. Thus, the organization features competing narratives that may be drawn on for ethical deliberation and action.

5 ‘An ethical train wreck’? Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. War on Terror

The Constitution Project foregrounded its 2013 report on U.S. interrogation practices with this observation: [T]here is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after September 11, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody. Despite this extraordinary aspect, the Obama administration declined as a matter of policy, to undertake or commission an official study of what happened, saying it was unproductive to ‘look backwards’ rather than forward. (The Constitution Project 2013, p. 1) The Obama administration also decided, as it took office, that individuals within the Bush administration would not be prosecuted and there followed no professional reprimand of the lawyers who authored the various ‘torture memos’ (Johnston and Savage 2009). In 2011 Attorney General Eric Holder announced that criminal investigations would proceed for just two out of 101 cases of suspected detainee abuse (Ackerman 2011a).1 This, despite candidate Barack Obama’s trenchant criticism of Bush-era policies and legal opinions that authorized many interrogation procedures ranging from harsh to extremely painful and distressing. In at least two memoranda it was implied or directly stated that to be torture, acts would necessarily involve pain akin to death or organ failure (Bybee 2002; Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting Minutes 2003).2 Indeed, some individuals died while in custody and after receiving ‘enhanced’ or ‘alternative’ interrogation, and it is largely unknown (at least to the public) the extent and nature of psychological effects and physical injuries to detainees short of death. In addition to Obama’s criticism, the Senate Armed Services Committee undertook an 18-month investigation with a 2008 report of 250 pages, concluding that: The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. xii)

174  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror While this report emphasized upfront that ‘timely and accurate intelligence’ is necessary for the safety of Americans, it also linked intelligence methods to U.S. insecurity by considering how they played out in the world. Thus, the Committee took note of former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora’s June 2008 testimony that, ‘there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq—as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat—are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. xii). Indeed, only a few years earlier a firestorm of scandal broke out when leaked pictures of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq depicted harsh treatment of detainees that was widely deemed torture. While some have questioned whether such treatment occurred because of ‘enhanced interrogation’ policy or because of individual initiative, this incident, along with abuses at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Guantanamo prison camps and multiple ‘black site’ locations around the world, raised the prospect that the policy of enhanced interrogation and the general instructions from the highest levels to ‘take the gloves off’ and work ‘in the shadows’ of the ‘dark side’ facilitated harsh treatment of detainees that even resulted, at times, in sexual assault and death. At Abu Ghraib, prison guards understood that harsh treatment was called for because it positively contributed to the interrogation process by roughening up the detainees (Taguba 2004). Detention practices were also affected by the policies, procedures, messages, and suggestions that traveled from practices at Guantanamo and Afghanistan (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008). One could add to the forces of permissiveness in the treatment of detainees the creative interpretations of prisoner status in the War on Terror relative to the Geneva Conventions (Yoo 2002). This categorization of persons as neither combatants nor non-combatants,3 it has been argued, authorized a wide range of heretofore legally and morally prohibited actions against those resituated as essentially non-persons, or persons unrecognized by international and domestic law. And though the Bush administration memos initially applied to members of al Qaeda and the Taliban, the techniques were also applied to detainees in Iraq who were widely deemed prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Conventions (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008; Sanchez 2003). In late April and early May of 2004 the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison went public in a 60 Minutes II (Rather and Leung 2004a) report, followed by Seymour Hersh’s article (2004) in The New Yorker that covered the internal investigation of a Military Police battalion. Graphic images were met with widespread shock and dismay in the United States and ‘Abu Ghraib’ dominated the news cycle for some time. Later, we learned that some photographs that depicted instances of rape and sexual assault with foreign objects were not released because they were deemed too inhumane. The public reaction in the United States was decisive, swift and bipartisan. Senator John McCain, a Republican, invoked ‘American values’ and the possibility that, if the United States selectively interpreted treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, others would do the same in future wars (Katel and

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  175 Jost 2006, p. 675). President Bush explained on a U.S.-funded Arab network, ‘People in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent’ (Kelly et al. 2004). A former Marine lieutenant colonel, Bill Cowan, was featured on a subsequent 60 Minutes II broadcast, lamenting that, ‘We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening, and indeed, here they are happening under our tutelage’ (Rather and Leung 2004a). General Mark Kimmit, stationed in Iraq at the time, was adamant that the Army in particular was poorly represented by the Abu Ghraib prison, ‘The Army is a values-based organization. We live by our values. Some of our soldiers every day die by our values, and these acts that you see in these pictures may reflect the actions of individuals, but by God, it doesn’t reflect my army’ (Rather and Leung 2004a). The knee-jerk reaction to these photographs was a contradictory mix of denial and condemnation mostly drawing on notions of identity and morality. The idea that we don’t torture and that it’s anathema to our very being—the ‘American soul’, as Bush has put it, or the Army’s ethos—dominated this first reaction, a reaction that mostly placed the blame on a few (Rather and Leung 2004b). But two additional discourses developed as the public debate proceeded that questioned, one, the efficacy of enhanced interrogation and, two, its legality. As time went by some in the Bush administration (especially Vice-President Dick Cheney) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (including Director George Tenet) boldly asserted that torture worked—it extracted important intelligence that kept Americans safe (Rodriguez 2013; Thiessen 2011). According to Cheney: [T]he enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives . . . [T]hey were directly responsible for the fact that for eight years we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States. (Jost 2009) Key Department of Justice memos underscored the need to acquire information quickly, both to prevent terrorism and to prosecute terrorists (Gonzales 2002). When the Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2006 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that struck down the Bush-created military commissions controversial for their rights denials, there was outcry from some conservatives who thought that such restrictions on the War on Terror would impede U.S. antiterrorism efforts, while other conservatives, such as Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, disagreed (Katel and Jost 2006, p. 676). Perhaps because of this Supreme Court ruling and thus the need to make legal the prosecution of detainees, President Bush acknowledged the CIA interrogation program but still maintained, ‘I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world, the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws. It’s against our values. I have not authorized it’ (Bush 2006). Yet, by now, these identitybased denials largely rang hollow, particularly considering the inserted clause of ‘military necessity’ in the same Bush speech as a qualifying clause in Bush’s pledge to abide by the Geneva Conventions for interrogations. In fact, much of the

176  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror discourse on enhanced interrogation and torture has been centered on this claim, that the consequences of such practices are either useful or costly, especially with the release of the U.S. film Zero Dark Thirty that depicted the claim that waterboarding helped lead to identifying and killing Osama bin Laden. On the other side of the ledger, some have argued that U.S. policies have created terroriststo-be at Guantanamo Bay and around the world (Mayer 2009) and that they did more to shut down than solicit information from detainees; these detractors included some of those who participated in the interrogations (Carle 2011a; Soufan 2009, 2011). Even at the time that new interrogation, detention and prosecution practices were initially articulated and promoted in 2001 and 2002, several questioned, sometimes vigorously, the new policies. On the one hand, it was remarkable that any kind of dissent within the government took shape given the pervasive shared understanding that one should not question the official response to terrorism. To do so at this highly emotionally charged time in U.S. history was to devalue the lives lost on 9/11, especially if such ideas were made public. Thus, to learn of internal struggles over interrogation underscores that even in the most stifling of environments and pressure to make decisions and produce results quickly—in the context of the need for wartime intelligence and to prevent terrorist plots as they form—the dialectic of thought and action is perhaps possible.4 Yet, we also find that, in some ways, this critical rationality and its dissent were limited. For one, its form was often limited to legal and instrumental arguments. Second, tactics deployed to express and act upon alternative understandings were limited to working within the organization rather than seeking to widen the scope of concern so that others too could take up critical evaluation and ethical judgment of the new policies. To a certain extent these tactics are understandable. The prevailing public mood very much aligned with the attitude expressed by President Bush that ‘you are either with us or against us’, and interrogation policies were articulated and aggressively implemented from the highest levels of U.S. government. Still, there were also distinct costs and certain implications that I discuss in this chapter. Most of all, I am concerned to explore the incidence and opportunities for ethical reflexivity presented by this issue in its historical context.

Defining and practicing torture: the pure of heart Within the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House, initial legal moves in the months after the events of September 11, 2001 largely consisted of an expansive interpretation of presidential powers with regard to terrorism and foreign policy, distancing the United States from the Geneva Conventions, couching the use of force in terms of self-defense, interpreting torture as it is delineated in U.S. law as narrowly as possible, and creating alternative and secret means and sites to detain and interrogate suspected terrorists (known as ‘extraordinary rendition’ and ‘black sites’). While there are several memoranda that address these tasks, perhaps no other is as well known as the August 1, 2002 memo signed by Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel (but reportedly

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  177 authored by John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General), and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, known as the ‘torture memo’. This memorandum notes first that torture is defined by Sections 2340-2340A of title 18 of U.S. Code as, an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control. (Bybee 2002, p. 2) The memo makes it clear that, while there might be many acts that ‘constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment’, they nevertheless may ‘fail to rise to the level of torture’ if they are not ‘extreme acts’. This is because the statute must be read cumulatively and in view of the historical context of U.S. involvement in the Torture Convention, including the ‘reservations, understandings, and declarations’ submitted when the United States ratified the Convention (Bybee 2002, p. 2). On the basis of these considerations of intent, the memo concludes that torture is specifically intended to enact ‘pain that is difficult to endure’ (torture, and not some other objective, must motivate the act) and will ‘likely result’ in ‘death, organ failure, or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body function’ (emphasis added) (pp. 3, 13). Not only that, ‘these actions must cause long-term mental harm’ of ‘significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years’ and ‘must result from one of the predicate acts listed in the statute’ (pp. 1, 13). Based on all these considerations, ‘we conclude that there is a wide range of such techniques that will not rise to the level of torture’ (p. 2). After outlining this cumulative definition of torture (or ‘sum of these component parts’), Yoo proceeded to outline and endorse the various reasons why, even if all of these conditions are met, enforcement of 2340-2340A, including prosecution of individuals for violations, could be precluded. An exception is to be made if, for example, torture was undertaken by an individual on behalf of the government for defending the self or another in light of ‘the threat of an impending terrorist attack’ which would include those who were already detained but had assisted in ‘set[ting] the attack in motion . . . just as someone who feeds ammunition or targeting information to an attacker’. And, because the U.S. right to self-defense was triggered by ‘the events of September 11’, interrogations undertaken in the ‘war against al Qaeda’, by definition, belong to actions that constitute self-defense. The memo concludes: Further, we conclude that under the circumstances of the current war against al Qaeda and its allies, application of Section 2340A to interrogations undertaken pursuant to the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers may be unconstitutional. Finally, even if an interrogation method might violate Section 2340A, necessity or self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability. (Bybee 2002, p. 46)

178  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror In other words, U.S. law prohibiting torture portrays torture as very narrow in scope, but deemed irrelevant besides, because it could be unconstitutional (in conflict with the President’s charge to provide for national defense) and because torture can be justified by necessity or self-defense which is met by the activities of the conflict at hand. It was this kind of legal reasoning that informed how detainees were treated. In his 2011 book, Glenn Carle, a former CIA officer who interrogated a detainee at a ‘black site’, was euphemistically instructed to ‘do whatever it takes’ to get information, which he understood to mean torture. When Carle replied to his superior, ‘We don’t do that sort of thing’, he was met with the response, ‘We do now’ (2011a, p. 29). Carle inquired into whether, as is customary in the CIA and per Executive Order 12333, this covert action had received a ‘presidential finding’, which is ‘a written authorization . . . that a covert action was found to be in the national interest, legal, and ordered by the president’ (p. 30). The response was, ‘We have it . . . We have a letter from the president. We can do whatever we need to do. We’re covered’ (p. 31). What these blanket and often implicit authorizations (repeated to anyone who questioned) elided were the incongruities and contradictions found in the textual analysis. In a memorandum written in October 2002 by Staff Judge Advocate Diane E. Beaver we find a dismissal of ‘international law analysis . . . because the Geneva Conventions do not apply to these detainees’ and the same narrow construal of the U.S. torture statute as seen in previous memos, but the analysis becomes rather strained with the examples given. The memo notes that ‘the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences are imminent is not illegal for the same aforementioned reasons that there is a compelling governmental interest and it is not done intentionally to cause prolonged harm’ (Beaver 2005, p. 235). Yet, the very next sentence reads, ‘However, caution should be utilized with this technique because the torture statute specifically mentions making death threats as an example of inflicting mental pain and suffering’ (p. 235). On waterboarding, a similar logic unfolds, ‘The use of a wet towel to induce the perception of suffocation would also be permissible if not done with the specific intent to cause prolonged mental harm, and absent medical evidence that it would’. But caution is again warranted because ‘foreign courts have already advised about the potential mental harm that this method may cause’ (Beaver 2005, p. 235). And yet, Beaver concludes, ‘I recommend that the proposed methods of interrogation be approved’ (p. 235), without investigating what these cautionary points might actually entail for interrogation practices. Here, we see the results of trying to define torture out of existence. If a person’s intent in applying these methods is, by definition, to pursue a governmental interest then it really doesn’t matter whether the acts have already been defined as torture by U.S. statute, nor does it matter that there is evidence of harm from these tactics. As Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of Guantanamo Bay, stated in a 2003 memo, ‘These techniques are not intended to cause gratuitous, severe, physical pain or suffering or prolonged mental harm, but are instead intended to induce cooperation over a period of time by weakening the detainee’s

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  179 mental and physical ability to resist’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. 114). Torture is realized as a state of mind in the person applying violence, and the person receiving the violence is thus rendered immaterial; the body and the violence enacted upon it are perversely no longer relevant, even though it is this very bodily pain that motivates concern about torture to begin with. Because the body is rendered invisible there is also no possible self–other relation through which to frame questions of ethics. The consequences of acting, whether in utilitarian or relational terms, simply do not matter. Thus, Beaver could note the contradictions without recognizing them as such or exploring their potential implications. In sum, in this justificatory framework there is no room for ethical judgment beyond checking one’s mental purity (as intent).

The public response I: ‘An ethical train wreck’ or a legal train wreck? These legal and institutional interpretations set into play an expansive regime of interrogation practices that shocked the U.S. public and incensed many others, not just with regard to what was found at Abu Ghraib but also (less so) at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram, as well as the memoranda and instructions that authorized them. These acts, furthermore, included some of those that the Bybee memo (2002, p. 24) held out as being consistently noted as having a ‘barbaric nature, that it is likely a court would find that allegations of such treatment would constitute torture’ to include: ‘severe beatings using instruments such as iron barks, truncheons and clubs’ (Iraq and Bagram prison in Afghanistan5), ‘threats of imminent death, such as mock executions’ (‘black sites’6, Guantanamo7), ‘electric shocks to genitalia or threats to do so’ (Abu Ghraib8), ‘rape or sexual assault, or injury to an individual’s sexual organs, or threatening to do any of these sorts of acts’ (Abu Ghraib9), and ‘forcing the prisoner to watch the torture of others’ (Iraq10). In his 2009 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearing entitled ‘What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration’, David Luban declared that the memos written by lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel ‘are an ethical train wreck’. Acknowledging that there are always challenges of legal interpretation relative to specific actions, Luban nevertheless concluded that these lawyers acted unethically in that the memos ‘fall far short of professional standards of candid advice and independent judgment’. More specifically, the memos: involve a selective and in places deeply eccentric reading of the law. The memos cherry-pick sources of law that back their conclusions, and leave out sources of law that do not. They read as if they were reverse engineered to reach a pre-determined outcome: approval of waterboarding and other CIA techniques. (Luban 2009)11 Luban’s statement explicitly draws on a particular source of ethics—that which applies to lawyers in their professional roles and associations—and thus Luban

180  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror frequently referred to the ethics of the lawyer–client relationship. Yet, in his testimony Luban implicitly invoked an additional source of ethical judgment that refers to a lawyer–public relationship. The advice that the lawyers of the Office of Legal Counsel give informs the ‘high stakes’ decisions of the executive branch because they are tasked with giving advice to the president concerning the faithful execution of the laws, and thus, Luban stressed in his closing remarks, executive branch officials and ‘the American people deserve the highest level of professionalism and independent judgment’ (2009). In sum, the ethical compass that Luban’s analysis points to is law, which embodies the public interest, and ethics is a good-faith effort to interpret and adhere to the law in ways consistent with best practices. The notion of the ‘rule of law’, including international law and the ways in which U.S. law tracks it on the matter of detainees and their treatment, was also often tied to the idea of American identity. Democracies and rights-regarding regimes adhere to the rule of law, it is often assumed and asserted. Capturing the irony of modeling a new set of interrogation techniques on the SERE (‘survival, evasion, resistance and escape’) training that U.S. military personnel undergo, Malcom Nance, former Chief of Training for the US Navy SERE program, noted the ‘stock phrase’ constantly repeated during training to describe just who the U.S. trainees would be resisting: ‘A totalitarian evil nation with a complete disregard for human rights and the Geneva Convention’ (Torturing Democracy 2008). The Senate Committee on Armed Services approvingly quoted General David Petraeus on this point, ‘Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. xxv). What’s problematic about the arguments in these memoranda is not just the legal justifications which, Luban and many others argued, border on the implausible as good-faith readings of the law. The memos are also potentially problematic because an answer to the question of what constitutes torture and whether torture is moral or ethical cannot be provided solely through a legal analysis as so many have sought to do (e.g. Sands 2008). What if U.S. code did put primary emphasis on intent so that malintent would be necessary to say that torture had been committed? What if international law vis-à-vis human dignity in general and torture specifically were not so robust? Surely, the law is relevant for criminal responsibility but it would be short-sighted to use the prism of criminality to decide what one should do in each and every situation. Individual legal accountability does not exclusively define moral culpability or demarcate the parameters of good ethical judgment. As one former Navy defense lawyer Charles Swift put it, ‘Guantánamo was the legal equivalent of outer space’ (Mikkelsen 2009). The implication is that if there is no law there is no morality. Often, legal arguments themselves proceed as if it is obvious what is or is not lawful rather than how law is open to interpretation and not always relevant. Furthermore, there may be times when one would want to challenge prevalent legal interpretations and the law itself on the basis of other lines of

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  181 thinking. In other words, answers to legal questions are not the same as answers to ethical (or moral) questions. These legal gymnastics remove us from thinking even in a very common-sense way about torture. As one frustrated commentator offered, ‘Torture is the infliction of extreme suffering for the purpose of extracting information or a confession . . . The point is to create such agony that the subject will do anything, even give you information he’d prefer not to give you, to make the suffering stop’ (Waldman 2013). Similar is the definition found in the Army Field Manual, which has been held up by the Obama administration as its standard. Here, torture is the infliction of intense pain to the body or mind to extract a confession or information, or for sadistic pleasure’ (Torturing Democracy 2008). While it is not therefore a simple matter to decide how to interrogate a prisoner or whether to do so at all, the legal obfuscation of a concept beyond the possibility of its usefulness crowds out the opportunity and need for ethical judgment. Individuals, in these situations, may be more likely to turn to commands and rules which advance and sustain thoughtlessness. Jose Rodriguez (2013), former head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and director of the National Clandestine Service, defended enhanced interrogation by noting both that, ‘The Justice Department assured us in writing at the time that these techniques did not constitute torture’, and that the question should be (which excises even the possibility of the need to talk about torture), ‘Are harsh but legal measures . . . sometimes necessary?’ Critiques and justifications based on legality, then, focus on whether the legal barrier has been hurdled (exceptions included), and not on the substantive discourse and alternative frames of thinking that could challenge it. We cannot fruitfully begin to discuss the idea that individuals try to anticipate and evaluate the meaning and consequences of their actions, and perhaps be held responsible for them despite intent (see my discussion of agency in Chapter 3). The Senate Committee on Armed Services (2008, p. xii) located a sizable portion of responsibility at the highest levels of decision making, perhaps wanting to combat the notion forwarded by the Bush administration that Abu Ghraib abuses, to the extent they could be characterized as such, were the result of a few ‘bad apples’. Notably, the Committee’s report that concluded a 2-year investigation began first by pointing to how President Bush ‘opened the door’ to the consideration of ‘aggressive techniques’ by declaring the Geneva Convention inapplicable ‘to the conflict with al Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention’ (2008, p. xiii).12 Again, this kind of discourse poses law as the trump, but it’s not clear why law has this status. Does law summarize shared judgments? Does law provide order and predictability? Does it reflect a specifically American identity? Perhaps, paradoxically, in order to maintain law’s status as a coherent practice of ethics Obama had to elide it by moving past the question of punishment, thus precluding honest discussions of legal interpretation and its potential weaknesses.13 To do otherwise might have raised the unpalatable possibility that legal arguments rest on law’s hermeneutic expression and may not constitute ethical judgment.

182  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror

The public response II: torture just doesn’t work Other than narratives that marshalled international and domestic law, considerations of efficacy dominated the contest over enhanced interrogation and torture, especially among those who questioned from within the U.S. government. This narrative is exemplified by former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) supervisory special agent Ali Soufan who, like Luban, provided testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009. Soufan was involved in a series of investigations, including attacks on the USS Cole and those of September 11, 2001, and he was involved in interrogating Abu Jandal and later, but intermittently, the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. Soufan argued against enhanced interrogation: ‘These techniques from an operational perspective are slow, ineffective, unreliable, and harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda’ (Soufan 2009). They are ineffective, Soufan argued, because al Qaeda operatives are trained for them, slow because it takes so long for detainees to break down, and unreliable because they can easily produce false information. Stacked up against these factors, Soufan defended and practiced an ‘informed interrogation approach’ that has overlap with the Army Field Manual. This approach is based on building a relationship with the detainee and strategically leveraging cognitive and emotional strategies along with knowledge of the detainee and his culture to obtain information and actionable intelligence. Enhanced interrogation’s strategy of ratcheting up the ‘force continuum’ with ‘harsher and harsher techniques’, Soufan offered, could obtain compliance but not cooperation. As evidence, Soufan testified that with his partner they successfully interrogated Abu Jandal with the more traditional approach (‘informed interrogation’) just after 9/11 and that when he interrogated Zubaydah after his initial capture actionable intelligence was obtained in the first hour. Subsequently, ‘enhanced interrogation was applied including repeatedly waterboarding Zubaydah (83 times in one month) under CIA direction indicating, Soufan believed, that Zubaydah had ‘called his interrogators’ bluff’ (Soufan 2009). As mentioned above, former Vice-President Dick Cheney and Jose Rodriguez of the CIA were among those voices who asserted that enhanced interrogation worked, that it specifically played a role in upsetting active terrorist plots against the United States and assisted in locating bin Laden (McGreal 2011). They, along with President Bush and the Office of Legal Counsel, claimed Zubaydah as an enhanced interrogation success. Soufan pointed out that he was brought back in to question Zubaydah two more times after CIA interrogators and contractors had failed to produce results with enhanced interrogation and it was only in this second round of Soufan’s involvement that Zubaydah divulged information about Jose Padilla (Soufan 2009).14 Even more damaging is the argument that information from torture produced false evidence linking Iraq with weapons of mass destruction that then informed (or enabled) Colin Powell’s pre-war presentation at the United Nations (Mayer 2009). Taking a broader view of all U.S. interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and other sites, the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded from its investigation that the use of ‘aggressive

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  183 techniques . . . damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. xiii). That ideational contestation took place on the fault line of utility should not be a surprise. The pressure coming from the Bush administration, that so many later acknowledged, was in the form of the imperative to get results, and to get them quickly. To protest entailed a rebuttal of the idea that enhanced interrogation, whether torture or not, produces actionable intelligence. In his questioning of the use of SERE training techniques ‘reverse-engineered’ for detainees at Guantanamo, Major Paul Burney thought that these tactics ‘while they do get you information, do not tend to get you accurate information or reliable information’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. 47). Bisher al-Rawi’s pro bono attorney, Brent Mickum, made this argument when he said, [Y]ou get to the point where you will say anything to try and be allowed to get some sleep. And what everyone has told me, they have no idea what they may have said. I mean, you’re just not lucid. They could ask, you know, did you assassinate George Bush? And they would say, ‘Yeah’. (Torturing Democracy 2008) Yet this counter-narrative raises the prospect that if torture is successful as measured by producing ‘actionable intelligence’ (that disrupts terrorist plots or results in other individuals detained)—if it has utility, that is—then it can be justified. Posing this counterfactual is provocative because it is not at all clear that those who opposed enhanced interrogation would be satisfied with a calculation of utility that turned out to favor its practice. The discourse of utility is limiting in other ways as well. The notion of time, for example, when seen through the prism of utility, favors action over thought when the two are situated in a zero-sum dynamic. Whether the ‘ticking bomb’ or the ‘mushroom cloud’,15 the passage of time assumes an increasing likelihood that U.S. citizens will be harmed. Thus, with post-9/11 intelligence inevitably (and always) pointing to more attacks, U.S. government officials did not have ‘the luxury of time to develop a more patient approach’ (Mazzetti and Shane 2009). On this logic, the probability of an attack, however small, multiplied by the immense horror associated with an attack on the homeland, justifies many acts of torture, even if they do not actually procure actionable intelligence.

The public response III: ‘No one sat down’ To talk about torture more meaningfully—to think through its consequences and from the perspectives of others—would entail learning and thinking about actual experiences. Otherwise, many acts are allowed that need only be defended, legally or instrumentally, on the occasion of death, even if then. If death occurred from interrogation and detention it was because of user error, it was supposed, rather than a flaw with the techniques themselves, techniques purified by intention and

184  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror purpose. As Jonathan Fredman, chief counsel to the CIA’s Counter-Terrorist Center put it in a 2002 meeting with Guantanamo staff, ‘If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. xvii). Nevertheless, dominant narratives also evinced a concern with protecting interrogators who could potentially be punished for their errors. In 2005 the CIA’s Jose Rodriguez destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogation footage (including the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed16) out of concern for interrogators and the agency (Ackerman 2013). Detainees’ lives were once again rendered not just of less value but of no value. Concern that such publicity might generate ‘heat’ on the CIA thus stopped short of a certain amount of selfinquiry about whether such a public reaction might have significance beyond the CIA being misunderstood (Mazzetti and Savage 2010). From the elaborate legal justifications in the Department of Justice and the White House to agency and individual decisions, the welfare of anyone other than U.S. officials and citizens was simply not considered. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion that taking notice of the perspectives of others and the actions they inform will result in a ‘better’ outcome or in a more astute process of ethical judgment. As Brent Steele notes about enhanced interrogation, after the initial outcry the U.S. public and politicians began to accept and embrace the idea that torture could be honorable in view of its aim to uphold the security of the American body politic and its religious values (2010a, pp. 161–162). Difference could be judged ‘evil’ or threatening and thus ‘cultural knowledge’ only deployed instrumentally. While Bush administration lawyers and officials challenged the idea that torture was strictly verboten, this challenge to thought was not therefore dialectic. In a dialectic approach agents consider and evaluate how altering our ideas about torture and interrogation could lead to a variety of consequences, and how thinking about torture has informed past actions. Per Foucault, reflexivity’s attitude takes form as an openness to transformation that is expansive in its search for relational formations— continuously thinking about and evaluating a full range of alternatives and their possible effects with an openness to surprising and unexpected conclusions. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, instead deemed the internal process a kind of Arendtian thoughtlessness: No one sat down, not John Yoo, not David Addington, not Dick Cheney, not Donald Rumsfeld, and said, ‘What’s the cumulative effect of allowing all these things to be done?’ What if you do twelve of these things repeatedly over a 45-day period in the dark with no exposure to the light, no sleep, hypothermic temperature conditions, hanging by your wrist from the wall sometimes. That’s not torture? I don’t’ think anyone ever sat down and thought about it. If they did, they condoned it. (Torturing Democracy 2008) Missing, according to Wilkerson, was an active thinking about, though he did not preclude that some may have thought it through but come down on the side of sanctioning the potential consequences.

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  185 Michael Gelles, Chief Psychologist at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, took his complaints about the treatment of detainees to Alberto Mora, Navy General Counsel, in December of 2002. As Mora reported, ‘He came to me and . . . and said that his people down in Guantánamo had reported to him that detainees were being abused . . . He felt that the abuse was serious, that it most probably violated American law and certainly violated American values, that his men were upset at being associated with this’ (Torturing Democracy 2008). Mora, in turn, went directly to Jim Haynes who authored the ‘action memo’ (of December 2002) regarding approval of a range of interrogation techniques. According to Mora, I told him, ‘Jim, this could be torture’. And he instantaneously responded, ‘No it’s not’. And I said, ‘Think through a little bit more carefully as to each of these techniques. Light and auditory stimulus deprivation—what does that mean? You put them in a completely dark room for an hour, a day, a week, a month, until the person goes blind? Until madness sets in? Phobia techniques. What is that? The rats, the bats, the snake, a coffin. When and how? (Torturing Democracy 2008) Here, Mora asked Haynes to think through the specifics in an imaginative exercise. One might even suggest that if this exercise spurred in Haynes a similar internal conversation that extrapolated and elaborated others’ possible experiences it could constitute the Kantian ‘enlarged mentality’ that Arendt advocated (see Chapter 2). It doesn’t appear, however, that Haynes stopped to think in response to Mora’s gadfly proddings. With some amount of self-awareness, Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA17) instructor Joseph Witsch anticipated and sounded the alarm on JPRA’s involvement in instructing personnel in the interrogation tactics that SERE techniques were designed to resist. Witsch was involved in providing information and demonstrations to Defense Intelligence Agency personnel, Guantanamo interrogation staff, and the CIA on techniques such as sensory deprivations, sensory overload, psychological and physical pressures, degradation, conditioning, sleep deprivation, body and face slaps, hooding, stress positions, water immersion, stripping, isolation, and waterboarding (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008). While Witsch never ‘went public’ with his concerns, he did express a good deal of trepidation through the chain of command and he was remarkably aware of just how JPRA’s actions could travel in problematic ways that their progenitors hadn’t intended. In an early after-action memo, Witsch was enthusiastic about the potential to translate knowledge from SERE into ‘effective manipulation/exploitation’ that ‘goes beyond the old paradigm of military interrogation’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. 23). But just 2 months later, after training and meeting with ‘GTMO [U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay] personnel’, Witsch’s tone had changed considerably:

186  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror I highly recommend we continue to remain in an advisory role and not get directly involved in the actual operations—GITMO in particular. We have not actual experience in real world prisoner handling. The concepts we are most familiar with relate to our past enemies and we have developed our Code of Conduct procedures based on those experiences. (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. 48) And then in another memo to a JPRA superior, where Witsch poses the question, ‘What do we bring to the table?’, he answered: I believe the techniques and tactics that we use in training have applicability. What I am wresting with is the implications of using these tactics as it relates to current legal constraints, the totally different motivations of the detainees, and the lack of direction of senior leadership within the [U.S. government] on how to uniformly treat detainees . . . The handling of [designated unlawful combatants] is a screwed up mess and everyone is scrambling to unscrew the mess. (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, pp. 48–49) It seems that, having listened to those concerns and having learned something about concrete conditions on the ground at Guantanamo, Witsch had begun to consider how the principles and purposes that informed SERE training may or may not be desirable for a different set of circumstances (including the inadequacy of ‘senior leadership’), though he may have overestimated the extent to which his alarm was shared. Later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rescinded authorization to employ some of these SERE-based tactics at Guantanamo under intense pressure and a threat by Mora to sign his draft memo to Haynes, which characterized ‘the majority of the proposed category II and all of the proposed category III techniques’ as ‘violative of domestic and international legal norms in that they constituted, at a minimum, cruel and unusual treatment and, at worst, torture’ (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. 108). Almost immediately, however, Rumsfeld tasked Department of Defense General Counsel with creating a ‘Detainee Interrogation Working Group’ to ‘assess the legal, policy, and operational issues relating to the interrogations of detainees’ (Committee on Armed Forces 2008, p. 109). When the working group solicited information on SERE methodology from JPRA on ‘exact procedures, techniques, and constraints’, Witsch was again hesitant to participate and expressed his ‘serious concerns’ internally, including how interrogation practice would take place: Open source intel [intelligence] and media is flooded with what the USG/ OGAs [United States government/other government agencies] and DOD [Department of Defense] are currently doing with DUCs [designated unlawful combatants]. How long will it take before we see some discussion on SERE school methods and techniques being used to interrogate DUCs . . . Our training is based on simulating our captors’ passed [sic] performance while tapering the physical/psychological severity and harm to our students . . . [The]

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  187 pressures we apply in training violate national and international laws. We are only allowed to do these things based on permission from DOD management and intense oversight . . . I hope someone is explaining this to all these folks asking for our techniques and methodology! (Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, pp. 116–117) Witsch was aware of how these ideas could take shape in ways that were undesirable and unintended, especially for the SERE program, but also for the detainees themselves in the psychological and physical harm that could be caused, and he wanted to ‘get a handle on all these people’. Ultimately, all that SERE practitioners achieved in their largely belated and intermittent concern, however, was a delay in providing the working group with the information it requested. Beyond these exchanges, more insight into how individuals experienced detention and interrogation was slow in coming and not particularly prominent. Because of persistent Freedom of Information efforts, we now have at our disposal a trove of documents, including judicial and tribunal transcripts for some detainees, but these also took some time to materialize. Two Supreme Court rulings would be necessary before habeas corpus was recognized. Unfortunately, where these transcripts record individuals’ direct experiences of interrogation, most of the text is blocked out. Investigations also have a mixed record in this regard. The Senate Intelligence Committee has compiled an 8,000-page report, but the focus is said to be agency documents that cast doubt on CIA claims that its post-9/11 interrogation and detention programs were largely successful (Mazzetti 2014). The Constitution Project’s 560-page report (2013), however, includes many interviews with former detainees.18 The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) produced reports in 2004 and 2007 that featured direct interviews with detainees, but these reports were confidential (shared only with the U.S.-led coalition of countries waging war) and thus could hope to make an impression only on policymakers (see my discussion of the ICRC in Chapter 4). Some individuals directly involved in administering and observing interrogations have recounted their experiences and critically reflected on communicative exchanges, power dynamics and relationships between interrogator and interrogated (e.g. Carle 2011a, 2011b; Soufan 2011), but these too are limited and of limited value. In Glen Carle’s book (2011a) that recounted his experience as a CIA officer interrogating an alleged high-value al Qaeda operative who, it turned out, was not a member of al-Qaeda, let alone the central figure they had thought, Carle’s text was heavily redacted by the CIA despite 12 revisions.19 Every time Carle recounted what the detainee (who Carle referred to as ‘CAPTUS’ because he could not use his name) said or experienced, the text was blacked out. Thus, we never get to know CAPTUS or hear about his exchanges with Carle, which promised to be illuminating. As Carle summarized it, ‘My approach was to deepen his and my burgeoning relationship, not terrify him . . . Many times over the years superiors had told me, one way or another, that “we don’t do sociology in the DO [Directorate of Operations]; we collect intelligence” . . . Nonetheless, each day I worked hard to know CAPTUS as a man’ (2011a, p. 6).

188  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror Documentaries are another source of information about individuals’ experiences,20 as are activist efforts that have the goal of shutting down Guantanamo and releasing individuals from custody. These efforts are a more direct conduit because their political strategies have involved publicizing detainees’ stories that illustrate their treatment and how detention has impacted their lives. Most directly, autobiographical accounts have been written by individuals who were released after many years in custody.21 Yet, it is not clear how widely these firstperson accounts have been noticed. Most successful may have been Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel’s 2013 op-ed in The New York Times, ‘Gitmo Is Killing Me’, in which he relayed his experience of force feeding: I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone. To illustrate how empathic acts of listening matter for ethical reflexivity I further highlight some voices here. The 2007 ICRC report features interviews with 14 individuals who were considered ‘high-value targets’ by the United States: the ICRC had previously been denied access to many of these people. While the ICRC reports in general, with their use of selected quotations to illustrate thematically organized violations of international law (and some longer excerpts in the appendix), do not provide a holistic picture of individuals’ experiences and perspectives, they have the advantage of painting a fuller overall picture of interrogation practices from perspectives other than U.S. policymakers and officials. These interviews, for example, allow us to hear what it might have been like to be snatched up, transported in cuffs, with a hood over one’s head and one’s mouth possibly taped shut, transported to an unknown location in a painful position, without ever having contact with family, and in solitary confinement almost all of the time (ICRC 2007). In confinement the detainees described being kept naked and awake for long periods of time on a regular basis in excessively cold or hot conditions, and shackled with their arms above their heads. Of the 14 detainees, three were waterboarded. Abu Zubaydah offered this description: I was put on what looked like a hospital bed, and strapped down very tightly with belts. A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds caused severe pain.22 I vomited. The bed was then again lowered to a horizontal position and the same torture carried out . . . On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled without success to breathe. I thought I was going to

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  189 die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine when under stress. (ICRC 2007, p. 10) The waterboarding accompanied other treatments that varied over time. And, given the cyclical quality of the interrogation methodology, there were reprieves: There then followed a period of about one month with no questioning. During this period I was given food, rice and beans, on a daily basis . . . They also continued to give me Ensure to drink. My cell was still very cold and the loud music no longer played, but there was a constant loud hissing or crackling noise, which played twenty-four hours a day. I tried to block out the noise by putting tissue in my ears. (ICRC 2007, p. 29) There was one particular period that Zubaydah identified as when ‘the real torturing started’: I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face. As I was still shackled, the pushing and pulling around meant that the shackles pulled painfully on my ankles. I was then put into the tall black box for what I think was about one and a half to two hours. The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside. It had a bucket inside to use as a toilet and had water to drink provided in a bottle. They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls had been covered with plywood sheeting . . . I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body . . . After the beating I was then placed in the small box. They placed a cloth over the box . . . I had to crouch down. It was very difficult because of my wounds. The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in the leg and stomach became very painful . . . I don’t know how long I remained in the small box, I think I may have slept or maybe fainted. (ICRC 2007, pp. 29–30) Waterboarding followed this sequence of treatment. Zubaydah recounted further: I was stripped naked and remained naked throughout the month of July. Also during this time was again kept for several days in a standing position with my arms above my head and fixed with handcuffs and a chain to a metal ring in the ceiling . . . I do not remember for exactly how many days I was kept standing, but I think it was about ten days. The doctor finally ordered that I be allowed to sit on the floor, I was still kept with my arms extended above my

190  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror head. This was very painful on my back. During the standing I was made to wear a diaper. However, on some occasions the diaper was not replaced and so I had to urinate and defecate over myself. I was washed down with cold water everyday. (ICRC 2007, p. 33) Leaked documents such as the ICRC reports, along with hearing transcripts, allow us much greater access to others’ perspectives, lives that heretofore lacked the basic political and social existence that recognition affords. Yet, these mechanisms of communication are still limited. Faced with prosecution and thus allowed to speak on only certain dimensions of their experience, and denied the opportunity to present material that they find relevant, these individuals cannot give their best account of their actions and their beliefs. When whole paragraphs and pages of hearing transcripts are blocked out when detainees discuss their treatment they have little control over their story. Of course, we can assert that individuals who have hurt others should grapple with their actions and their beliefs, but this argument does not then exempt us from doing the same. Those who have created and enacted detention and interrogation policies that have caused so much suffering have left us all in an ethical quagmire. As Carle (2011b) points out, the man whom the CIA detained and whom Carle determined was not al Qaeda and not a terrorist was nevertheless detained for 8 years and released without much of an apology. Years later the United States still has not publicly questioned and discussed what happened and what to do about it, precluding questions like: How do we take account of the pain and suffering that detainees have experienced? How can U.S. foreign policy be recrafted to account for how detention and interrogation policies have been reacted to in the world? Even more difficult for Americans to take on is the task of inquiring into how individuals came in the first place to take violent action against the United States or some other country. While we might not agree with this perspective, Abu Zubaydah sought to make a distinction between offensive and defensive jihad in his 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing (U.S. Department of Defense 2007). The latter, a view he ascribed to, is to take military action against those who invade ‘Muslim lands’ and he characterizes Russia in Chechnya and Israel in Palestine as fitting these parameters. While Zubaydah identified with the cause of al Qaeda at certain points (though he was not a member), which he saw as defensive jihad, he claimed to disagree with what later came to be the ‘al Qaida philosophy of targeting innocent civilians like those in the World Trade Center’ (p. 9). It’s not that he favored U.S. policies. He did not. He opposed their policies and he sought to explain his position to the tribunal: Dear Members of the Tribunal . . . . In saying all of this, I am not trying to gain your pity. I am only trying for you to see the big picture, the true picture not the picture, depicted by the media, which the CIA found out too late . . . [A]ll I hope from you is that you try me for something that I am proud

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  191 of having done, not something I didn’t do or am against, not something that would shame me before the world. I am not here to lie to you, or cheat you, or to lie to myself by saying I am not an enemy of your injustice. I have been an enemy of yours since I was a child because of your unjust acts against my people, the Palestinians, through your help and partnership with Israel in occupying our land and by killing our men and raping our women and kicking out our people and turning them into refugees for more than 60 years . . . I can not deny that, since back when I was a child, I liked a lot of things in your country and your history and your culture . . . My moral position is not against the American people or America, but against the government . . . Yes, I write poetry against America and, yes, I feel good when operations by others are conducted against America but only against military targets such as the U.S.S. Cole. (U.S. Department of Defense 2007, p. 23) What I am suggesting here is not that this view is correct, or that Zubaydah’s view represents everyone who is detained at Guantanamo. Rather, I am arguing that to make an ethical judgment in this situation is both to consider how we have treated Zubaydah specifically in detaining and interrogating him, and how he came to do what he did and how he understands his actions. To not do so is to risk formulating and practicing foreign policies that are both unethical and unwise. Zubaydah’s account of when violence is just, after all, is not all that different from the just war tradition and doesn’t comport well with former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz’s claim that, ‘We’re dealing with a special breed of person here’ (Wolfowitz 2002). Should Zubaydah’s analysis concern us? What might this prompt us to think about and do? What if we listened to others and responded? These are the questions of ethical reflexivity. Ethical reflexivity also involves, among other things, taking certain risks. Majid Khan’s plea deal stipulates that, in exchange for testifying against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, he will be sentenced in 4 years to a maximum sentence of 19 years but perhaps less (Savage 2012). While this is less than the 25–40 years he would have faced, Khan also faces the prospect that the U.S. government will never release him. As reported in The New York Times, ‘the American government has reserved the right to continue to detain terrorism suspects, even after they serve their sentences or are acquitted at trial’ (Savage 2012). At his hearing, where Khan plead guilty, he told the judge, ‘I’m making a leap of faith here, sir. That’s all I can do’ (Savage 2012). In turn, the question that we are faced with, is what ‘leaps of faith’ are we prepared to make? What risks will we take on as we ask and answer the hard questions about U.S. foreign policy and practices enacted after and before September 11, 2001? To continue to hold individuals who were falsely accused and mistakenly detained on the reasoning that they now pose too high of a risk to ourselves because of what we have done to them is to fail to take responsibility for our actions and to continue to be blind to how our actions travel and intersect with others’ agencies. Who else will be inspired to take up arms by a sense of continued injustice or U.S. cowardliness?

192  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror

The phronimos of ethical reflexivity? If you’re not ‘being a pain in the ass’ then ‘you’re doing it wrong’ Among those more self-aware of the ethical struggles with contingency and complexity, of having to act when there are clearly no good decisions, wrestling with thought in view of its implications, and giving ethical regard to others, there was one choice that was especially vexing: Does one challenge dominant narratives by working ‘within the system’—such as one’s organizational home—or outside of it by becoming a ‘troublemaker’ or by ‘going public’? What could one do within the organization? What could one do outside the organization? In the midst of Carle’s struggle to understand CAPTUS and to understand why the CIA team that had investigated him believed CAPTUS to be a member of al Qaeda and to have more information than Carle had extracted, this CIA officer thought through his options for doing what was wise and ethical. My choices were to run the case as well as one could run it, or to try to challenge the entire case. I knew how that would work out. I would be removed from the case. I would be characterized as a troublemaker—and CAPTUS would be handled by someone who did not question the approach to interrogation that had been authorized or the foundations of the case . . . [three lines redacted] . . . The case would continue, from inertia. (Carle 2011a, pp. 143–144) Carle concluded that, ‘The only way to achieve anything was to work within the system’, but that did not keep him from asking, ‘When did it become my duty to say no?’ (p. 144). Yet, Carle also recognized that there were costs to his choice— ethical tradeoffs that he alluded to through the curious metaphor of prostitution. Carle recounted one particular night in the lobby of a hotel in an undisclosed country. In a commentary more about himself than the two women he observed, Carle wrote: The two hookers who had approached me in the hotel parking lot were sitting down by the band, momentarily alone, looking vaguely forlorn. They had stared across the lounge, eyes vacant. They were struggling to remain themselves while, with some visible discomfort, they made the compromises they had to make to get through sometimes callous nights. I watched them for a while, pensive, wondering how deeply they felt, how self-aware they were, feeling compassion for two young girls grown weary too soon. (Carle 2011a, p. 145) Carle seem to imitate that the difficult choices he associated with prostitution were also his difficult choices and that it was he who struggled with self-awareness, that he had become unpracticed in it. He found the choices difficult because, ‘we [CIA agents] think in ambiguity and doubt’ (p. 33). It was the CIA’s work in the ‘gray’

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  193 areas that had first attracted Carle to the job—to the vexing and even ‘impossible’ decisions—but Carle lamented that post-9/11 the organization ushered in ‘new rules’ that obsessively aimed for certainty in a world viewed through the prism of fear, a fear that was magnified as more and more resources were applied to the fight (p. 282). Errors could only be tolerated if they were the casualties of hunting down and eliminating terrorists (p. 163). Nevertheless, in Carle’s words, ‘no one can institutionalize better judgment’ (p. 289), and after his experience with CAPTUS, Carle no longer agreed with the Bush administration’s diagnosis of a monolithic fundamentalist and even existential Islamic threat (p. 281). Still, did Carle match action with the situational appreciation and judgment that he evinced, as I have imagined ethically reflexive phronimos to do? At the beginning of the book Carle sets out what would become the task: ‘of all the moments in my career this one called for me to exercise being a pain in the ass’ (2011a, p. 34). Carle appreciated contingency and complexity and sounded the call to ‘exercise judgment’ by taking notice of and interpreting particulars (pp. 32–34). He saw the ‘contradictions and challenges’ in his instructions as a CIA official and also the resources he had to reconcile them with acting ‘properly or morally’ (2011b). He was self-aware of his emotional responses and evaluated the role they had in who he was becoming (2011a, p. 283). Yet, when we find out just what Carle did to be a ‘pain in the ass’ in the concluding pages of his book, it reads more as a defense of fairly safe actions and insistence that he always acted with integrity rather than exemplary of an active, bold and yet humble ethical agency that assumes some risk. On the one hand, it’s hard to disagree with Carle’s argument that one might choose to wage battle internally (within the organization), that it is here one has the best chance to make an impact even if, at most, the gains are modest and, at worst, one loses. Carle recounted how, in the final days of his assignment, he feverishly authored two ‘incendiary’ cables that argued detaining CAPTUS was wrong and to keep him in custody compounded this error and unnecessarily destroyed his life. The tone of this passage in the book is of finally choosing to take a bold stand, but when Carle returned home he discovered that these cables had never been sent from the field, and he did not follow up on communicating the same message up or around the chain of command. Restricting one’s options has its perils for ethics and for tactics. We might ask of Carle, given your judgment, what did you do to magnify and leverage your power? What sense of obligation might you cultivate given your position in an agency that claims a prerogative of secrecy and has tremendous capacities? In Carle’s words, ‘I saw clearly in this gray world, and I wanted to say “No! Enough!” (2011a, p. 237). He made a judgment, even an Arendtian ‘I Nil’, but he ruled out most of the potential tactics that could have been at his disposal. He is not a hero, he claims, just struggling to do his best within the constraints he faces and up against a dominant paradigm that, if questioned, ‘risks excommunication’ (p. 236). His view on whether and how to correct the mistakes with CAPTUS did not prevail but, after 8 years in custody, CAPTUS was released following a media leak from someone in the CIA. Carle claims to have not made this leak, a leak that was investigated, but the rest of the text allows that, even if Carle was the source

194  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror of the leak, the denial was perhaps necessary to avoid especially negative repercussions, the act of excommunication he feared. This internal exchange Carle presents to us illustrates a broader tension in a practice of ethical reflexivity—that the thinking through extolled by Arendt does not ensure that one will say ‘No’ and thereby incur the costs of organizational, social or political exclusion or exile. Nevertheless, to be a phronimos of ethical reflexivity often requires this risk. It is not therefore the moral naïveté associated with heroism and an inflated sense of agential power. The phronimos acts on ethical judgments, often knowing full well that the costs may include negative career effects, public marginalization, or a loss of freedom, as discussed in Chapter 3. But if we don’t expect a CIA officer to risk incurring these costs to act on a firmly felt judgment, given the difficulty of holding this type of actor (and the executive) responsible, when would we expect individuals to stand up? Were there not any physicians (or medical professionals) who, involved in interrogation and setting standards for it (Physicians for Human Rights 2010; Rubenstein and Xenakis 2010), judged these actions to be problematic enough to do something about it? Instead, dissent was largely intraorganizational and consisted of removing oneself or one’s agency from the situation. FBI agent Ali Soufan, in another example, reported that: I protested to my superiors in the FBI and refused to be a part of what was happening. The Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, a man I deeply respect, agreed passing the message that ‘we don’t do that’, and I was pulled out. (Soufan 2009) Soufan’s partner from the FBI as well as a ‘top CIA interrogator’ and ‘an operational psychologist for the CIA’ also protested and ‘left the location’ (Soufan 2009). James Comey, deputy Attorney General at the time, was certainly a formidable voice (among others: see Shane and Johnston 2009) in questioning the 2005 Office of the U.S. Attorney General memo (Bradbury 2005) as it was being written,23 and that ultimately concluded in favor of the legality of the ‘combined use’ of CIA interrogation techniques. Comey urged his colleagues to take on the lens of a future congressional hearing in formulating the 2005 memos (and thus to try to think outside of the current standpoints and with alternative ethical resources/ thought) and warned that legal standards did not amount to standards of appropriateness. Yet, though Comey indicated that he had already submitted his resignation and thus was both disempowered but available to take the ‘spear’ within the Attorney General’s office, we are left to wonder why Comey ultimately acquiesced on this and related decisions about enhanced interrogation and whether Comey could have done more. When one learns about just how widespread the internal dissent was, one wonders why some of these individuals didn’t do more and do it earlier. Furthermore, we might consider that the more widespread the expression of dissent on a particular issue, the lower the costs for individuals. Many in the Department of Defense, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and so on, registered their disagreement

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  195 and offered reasoned arguments and alternatives to each other and up the chain of command, invoked identity and the specter of history’s judgment and pointed to the reputation of the agency, the government, and the country. Some tried to make interventions on the ground. Only in the safety of the aftermath, when it was in vogue to have been a dissenter, did some claim to have been a ‘pain in the ass’. General Taguba (Hersh 2007) and Joseph Darby (Steele 2010a), in contrast, acted on their ethical judgments of Abu Ghraib, at great personal and professional cost. Unlike its actions in Rwanda, the ICRC was also rather reticent in its confrontation with the U.S. government over conditions for detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo. The intraorganizational debate, it seems, was resolved on the side of maintaining access and applying pressure through confidential communication with U.S. and coalition partners. Yet this position often proved unsatisfactory (at least for some) at the ICRC because interrogation and detention practices were not changing, the ICRC was aware that it was not given access to all prisoners and the U.S. government implied in its public statements that ICRC visits meant that the organization deemed conditions satisfactory (The Constitution Project 2013, pp. 49, 52–53, 55). In his frustration with U.S. non-response on all these fronts, the head of the Washington ICRC office Christopher Girod provided some clues to the media that all was not well with regard to detention conditions and interrogations, but Geneva (headquarters) reacted negatively to this amount of confrontation as inconsistent with the confidentiality that would guarantee continued access to the detainees (The Constitution Project 2013, pp. 52–53). In a press release after the Wall Street Journal published excerpts from a confidential report (Cloud 2004), the ICRC’s president Jakob Kellenberger stated, ‘I am profoundly disturbed that the report was made available for publication without the consent of the ICRC . . . This long standing practice [of addressing problems and violations through private approaches] allows us to act in a decisive manner, while ensuring that our delegates have continued access to detainees around the world’ (ICRC 2004b; see also Warner 2005). Yet, it’s not clear how Kellenberger sees the ICRC as having acted ‘decisively’ in this case, particularly since the United States has shown itself more susceptible to public than private shaming (Steele 2007c). Contrary to its experience in Rwanda, the ICRC was not, 10 years later, open to leadership on the ground that pushed up against the organization’s core principles.

Conclusion: slowing down time I want to conclude this chapter by noting the prominent temporal dimension and narrative in this case, especially because it is a key challenge for a practice of ethical reflexivity. In the Bush administration a handful of determined individuals leveraged the power of their positions and the shock, grief and anger of 9/11 to aggressively and quickly implement a series of policies, programs and institutional doctrines. Was there really time to stop and think when decisions were often unofficially made and practices changed before the formal process was concluded? Admittedly, this is a challenging environment in which to appreciate and explore contingency, complexity and difference. Public opinion, media coverage

196  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror and existential fear facilitated the administration’s agenda. Yet, I have pointed to only some of the instances in which individuals could appreciate that there were alternative framings, policies and practices that extended beyond arguments of law and efficacy and that gave ethical regard to difference. Whether they were willing to take on the discomfort and risks of matching action with thought was another matter. They most often were not. The temporal narrative in play with regard to the War on Terror and the terrorists who are detained is twofold. First, the ticking bomb metaphor has appeared to dominate the imaginary of both the public and policymakers, which situates the passage of time as inversely related to the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the homeland so that political reforms, policies and practices must be constantly enacted in the desperate search to prevent the next attack. Second, the War on Terror as indefinite in time (and global in space) obliterates the model of returning prisoners of war (even if the United States designates detainees as such) after the conflict has ended. Jeh Johnson (2012) has suggested that there will be a ‘tipping point’ in which enough of al Qaeda leadership and organization will be defeated/ eliminated such that we can say that the War on Terror has in fact come to an end. Indeed, this premise is a possible way to get around congressional defense spending authorizations that have curtailed Obama’s flexibility in trying detainees or releasing them to other countries (for trial or release). To declare that this war has ended would be a bold move, bound to garner a lot of political heat in the United States, but it is one possible measure in thinking about how ‘indefinite detention’ could be confronted, both as an end to a very real state of being for so many persons and as a concept judged undesirable and not particularly useful. Should such persons be thought of as ‘prisoners of war’? This possibility should be debated, but alternatives should be considered as well, including, as I have raised, the possibility that releasing the prisoners is an ethically reflexive response to the tremendous suffering that we have enacted upon them, which entails a willingness to take on the risk of not being able to control all outcomes, and thus the possibility of being harmed. This chapter began by noting that the Obama administration has declined to prosecute individuals who were involved in articulating, planning, interpreting and enacting enhanced interrogation techniques on those detained during the War on Terror in the interest of moving on. I have suggested that the general framing of the U.S. experience with interrogation and detention that informed this decision about the desirable criminal response enabled us to engage in a massive case of denial. ‘Looking back’ and ‘coming to terms’ with thought and action can be part of ethical reflexivity’s diachronic and dialectic self-interrogation and yet it need not result in criminal prosecution. That criminal prosecution is seen as the only alternative to denial is problematic, both because there continue to be many prisoners detained for the foreseeable future and, they’ve been told, possibly indefinitely, and because we are not setting ourselves up for evaluating and promoting better ethical judgment. We can instead look back on these events and inquire into ‘who did what’ to critically evaluate and present the various alternatives, to take account of the context and how agencies might interact and play

Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror  197 out, to investigate and prioritize difference, and to act on these judgments, even if it involves an element of personal risk. Is it unfair to ask individuals to take on personal risk? Perhaps, but we have seen that some do so nonetheless, and often from a sense that they hold a position of power that should be accounted for through careful and searching ethical analysis. As this book goes to print, a row between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA over the committee’s classified report is playing out. The committee has accused the CIA of interfering in its investigation and erasing documents on congressional computers. The CIA has accused the committee of improperly accessing and handling documents. That the CIA may again be avoiding, if not interfering with, congressional oversight activities, and that congressional oversight might itself be ineffective, presents the possibility that those of us who can more readily achieve a critical distance might decide to recognize and laud individuals who take on tremendous risk to interrogate the U.S. self—its thought and action—and the relationships it enacts. Thus, political responsibility and scholarly responsibility are intertwined in a practice of ethical reflexivity.

Notes   1 Neither was the involvement of physicians and medical professionals investigated by the government (Risen 2010).   2 Death, however, does not necessarily entail torture, according to the memos, since intention is the linchpin for determining its occurrence (Bybee 2002). (The notes from this meeting paraphrase rather than directly quote those present at the meeting.)   3 President Bush used the term ‘illegal combatants’. The creation of military commissions and the secret CIA program of extraordinary rendition were also helpful in creating this regime.   4 There seems a general sense among those who promoted and enacted the new interrogation techniques that the global War on Terror constituted an altered landscape in need of new rules (see, for example, the initial enthusiasm of Joint Personnel Recovery Agency instructor Joseph Witsch, ‘We must have a process that goes beyond the old paradigm of military interrogation for tactical information or criminal investigation for legal proceedings. These methods are far too limited in scope to deal with the new war on global terrorism’: Committee on Armed Services United States Senate 2008, p. 23).   5 See Taxi to the Dark Side (Gibney 2008) and International Committee of the Red Cross (2004a).   6 Helgerson (2004); Jost (2009).   7 Torturing Democracy (2008); Committee on Armed Services United States Senate (2008).   8 Hersh (2004).   9 Hersh (2004). 10 ICRC (2004a). 11 As an example, Luban (2009) noted that the lawyers did not take into consideration the case United States v. Lee which was ‘perhaps the single most relevant case in American law on the legality of waterboarding’. 12 The report notes that, just prior to this memorandum the General Counsel’s Office at the Department of Defense solicited information about interrogation techniques from the

198  Enhanced interrogation in the U.S. war on terror JPRA which specialized in training American forces to resist and weather interrogation techniques (Committee on Armed Services 2008 p. xiii). 13 Questions of legal interpretation might concern process (how law matters) and substance (which laws matter). 14 Padilla, an American citizen, was arrested in 2002 after returning from international travel and designated an ‘enemy combatant’ by the Bush administration. He was eventually tried and convicted in 2007 on charges of conspiracy to murder overseas. Padilla’s detention, treatment and conviction have been criticized on many grounds, including excessive detention without trial, charges that did not comport with the reasons for which he was initially arrested and interrogation methods that amounted to torture. In a ruling by a three-judge panel, Padilla’s suit against John Yoo (one author of the ‘torture memos’) was dismissed because, although the panel agreed that Padilla was tortured and that torture is unconstitutional, they ruled that in 2002–2003 torture was not clearly and legally barred (Rosenthal 2012). 15 The ‘ticking bomb’ scenario is prolific in popular and political discourse. The ‘mushroom cloud’ was invoked by Condoleeza Rice in her public justification of the Iraq War of 2003, implying that, in the face of uncertainty about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons programs, it was better to act now lest proof come in the form of a ‘mushroom cloud’ at some later date. 16 In 1 month Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times and Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times at secret ‘black-site’ prisons (Bradbury 2005). 17 JPRA is an agency in the Department of Defense that oversees the training of U.S. personnel in techniques to resist torture by enemies that do not follow the Geneva Conventions. 18 Full interviews are available online: http://detaineetaskforce.org/resources/interviews/. 19 In the original manuscript, 100 of 250 pages were redacted (Carle 2011a, p. 279). 20 Examples of such documentaries include Taxi to the Dark Side (Gibney 2008), Standard Operating Procedure (Morris 2008), and Inside Guantanamo (Cohen and Else 2009). 21 These include Kurnaz (2009) and Begg (2007); some second-hand accounts include Shepard (2008) and Smith (2008). 22 Zubaydah still had wounds from surgery as a result of the injuries he sustained during capture. 23 As revealed by a set of emails (Shane and Johnston 2009).

6 The silences of private judgment Drone practices, criticism at home and abroad, and the failure to respond

Strolling along the Mall of Washington, DC, a Yemeni woman whose trip was financed by two non-profit organizations remarked about America and its use of drones, ‘They have such a beautiful country here, such a beautiful city. Why do they need to go chasing someone with bombs in the desert?’ (Worth and Shane 2013). This trip to the United States by Yemenis to talk to any policymaker who would listen occurred in the context of a dramatic increase in the media coverage of drones in the early 2010s, including a confrontation between Senator Rand Paul and the Obama administration over whether the United States can kill a U.S. citizen with a drone on U.S. soil. Given the prominence of the issue of drones, it may be difficult to recall just how neglected the question of drone production and use has been until recently, and thus that drone use is an emerging security practice that presents many difficult ethical questions its proponents have yet to address. The U.S. drone program (outside of their use in Iraq and Afghanistan) was only recently publicly acknowledged (in January 2012), even though this official silence had been accompanied for some time by intermittent media coverage and anonymous comment by administration officials, along with critical commentary from international organizations, human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs), other states, activists, and increasingly, drone victims and their families. In this chapter I discuss the U.S. policy on drones and domestic and international responses to illustrate a number of considerations for a practice of ethical reflexivity. While the U.S. public has been mostly in support of the use of drones,1 more critical media coverage—fueled in part by indepth investigations by human rights and other organizations—has recently brought a wider array of questions to bear on U.S. drone practices. Nevertheless, while drones are tremendously unpopular in most of the world, U.S. policymakers have been generally non-responsive to these concerns. There appears a general disjuncture between Americans and the rest of the world with regard to how much they think the U.S. government takes into account the interests of others (Pew Research Center 2013, p. 13), and this is perhaps most dramatically illustrated by the issue of drone strikes. Given this backdrop, I ask whether and how the actors of world politics have dialectically, dialogically and diachronically interrogated and grappled with U.S. drone practices. Have they attended to difference and uncertainty in ethical judgment? Have they looked back on the self and the self’s relationality through the

200  The silences of private judgment prism of drone narratives? Beyond President Obama’s appeal to trust his judgment, there have been relatively few claims to critical investigation of drones at the highest levels. I examine perhaps the most prominent case, found in Dennis Blair’s criticism of drone policy following his brief tenure as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) under the Obama administration. I undertake a similar analysis for the Pakistani Imran Khan and his political and social campaign against drones. I ask whether Blair, Khan, and Obama have practiced ethical reflexivity. Turning to a differently situated Pakistani I ask the same question of Malala Yousafzai. Shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for being an advocate of education for girls, Yousafzai survived and continued her activism. Upon visiting President Obama in Washington, DC, Yousafzai used the opportunity to also speak with him about drones. That this intercultural dialogue had to ‘piggy-back’ on a public relations moment in service of other U.S. foreign policy objectives (the education of women and girls) belies the dearth of intercultural dialogue, but it also illustrates how ethically reflexive agents might pry open spaces for diaethic exchanges.

A ‘remote control’ foreign policy At the outset it should be acknowledged that drones2 provided an attractive and even ethical alternative for President Obama’s administration to the post9/11 military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a foreign policy tool for addressing threats in a wider set of countries (or ‘theatres’), especially Pakistan. Drones, it is thought, have the benefit of a ‘lighter footprint’ relative to conventional war in terms of their destruction and the supporting infrastructure necessary for their deployment. They also seem less likely to elicit widespread accusations of violating other countries’ sovereignty. In addition, drones promise precision and thus, it is said, fewer civilian casualties. For a president who campaigned on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—wars that had elicited an international and domestic backlash and where civilian and military casualties were seen by many as too high—closing detention camps at Guantanamo, giving up ‘enhanced’ interrogation practices, and continuing and accelerating the drone program for ‘targeted strikes’ was indeed an attractive foreign policy package. The ‘War on Terror’ could thus still be prosecuted even while conventional troops were gradually withdrawn from Iraq first, and Afghanistan second. Billed as a precise and effective weapon that can gather intelligence and identify and destroy targets (both ‘terrorist leaders’ and ‘insurgents’/’militants’) in areas that are difficult to ‘penetrate’ without high military and human costs, the use of drones considerably expanded, including strikes and/or surveillance in countries with which the United States is not officially at war, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. In addition, drones have been deployed by the United States to support NATO operations in Libya (Ackerman 2011b). The story of drones can also be rendered as one of organizational politics. In this account drones became the next revolutionary technology (in the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs) to reshape the military for greater efficiency and

The silences of private judgment  201 effectiveness in pursuit of organizational missions and goals. Here, the story is one of ‘fits and starts’ in the development and adoption of drone technology culminating in a sizable drone program under George W. Bush and its acceleration under Barack Obama that spanned both the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While drone technology had its beginnings in World War II (Singer 2009, p. 48), drone development and testing were rolled out in a now-defunct Army program in the 1990s, and drones were used to provide images of Bosnia in 1995 and Afghanistan and Iraq somewhat during the early years of the wars (Schmitt 2002b). These initiatives were hampered for various reasons, including mechanical failures and bad weather (Miller and Schmitt 2001). In Afghanistan and Iraq, drones were initially more of a supplementary tool for counter-insurgency operations and weapons use rather than a stand-alone platform, but it wasn’t long before the drone program accelerated, with the CIA aggressively pursuing armed and not just surveillance drones. There were also interorganizational rivalries over drones (Shanker 2008) and what has been interpreted as an institutional reticence to grow smartly. One 2005 New York Times editorial, building on an editorial earlier in the year (The New York Times’ Editorial Board 2005a), urged the U.S. Air Force to ‘step up the pace of its introduction of unpiloted drones, which can be used for surveillance and attacks. They are much cheaper than fighter jets and do not risk pilots’ lives’ (The New York Times’ Editorial Board, 2005b). Some of the resistance to Air Force drone acquisitions (which could entail retraining some squadrons for drone missions) came from state governors who were afraid of losing their aircraft important for fighting forest fires and responding to natural disasters (Cloud 2005). But the Air Force was also beset with its own divisions about which piloted aircraft it preferred, let alone debating the more unpalatable unpiloted kind (Boot 2008). Perhaps, as Singer concluded, ‘The CIA has armed its Predators and the air force decided that it couldn’t be left behind’ (2009, p. 35). The CIA, for its part, felt burned by how it was later portrayed as not aggressive enough before September 11, 2001 in pursuing Osama bin Laden, suggesting that air strikes (rather than capture, which was dismissed as too risky at the time) could have been used in what would have been self-defense rather than assassination (Johnston and Purdum 2004). Thus, post-9/11 the CIA was particularly ambitious with regard to the means used in the War on Terror, including drones, and the ‘ugly duckling’ in the sky (Miller and Schmitt 2001) soon became its primary tool. The early years: the promises and perils of drone technology for the War on Terror Early on in the War on Terror drones were folded into a narrative in the United States that equated technological success with military success. The war in Afghanistan, followed by the war in Iraq, featured an unprecedented use of ‘smart bombs’ that included laser and global positioning system (GPS) technology. These bombs received a lot of attention, such as joint direct attack munitions (JDAM), that employed ‘state-of-the-art’ GPS technology and were thus deemed

202  The silences of private judgment ‘weather-proof’.3 The percentage of bombs guided by lasers and satellites during the war in Afghanistan as of mid-2002 was reported to be 60 percent, compared to 8 percent during the Gulf War (Schmitt 2002a). Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thus labeled the war in Afghanistan the most accurate war in history, and during the early months of the Iraq War Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically touted their ‘superior technology’ as the ‘most obvious difference’ between the current wars and the Persian Gulf War. As Rumsfeld declared, ‘The outcome is in the process of speaking for itself’ (Cushman and Shanker 2003). When drones were mentioned during this early period they were usually touted as tools of growing importance for providing the ‘real-time’ intelligence that enabled a quicker response to targets that had been identified, and greater precision in guiding bombs to their targets.4 The conjunction of these technologies was seen as part of a larger transformation of the military under Rumsfeld’s leadership, enabled by advances in research and development (Schmitt and Dao 2001). The success of this transformation hinged on the success of technological advances and their efficacity, especially for the conflict in Iraq. On the ‘benefits’ side of the ledger it was thought that drones held promise for support and surveillance—they provided intelligence to identify suspicious activities, catch those in the act of planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs), locate ‘wanted’ individuals and search for captured U.S. troops (Filkins and Burns 2006; Oppel 2006). And drones were touted as just one step on the way to autonomous fighting that would give asymmetric warfare a whole new meaning (Weed 2002). Yet drones could only do so much in a war that, after the first few months, relied more on ground (than air) operations (including intelligence gathering), and where the ability of drones to ‘see’ was hampered by weather. And there were drone crashes, at the very least, in Iraq and Iran (Cloud and Gall 2005; Wong 2005). Sometimes drones seemed like just one more seductive ‘technological fix’ for chasing elusive targets, comparable in the words of one journalist to an arcade game of ‘whack-a-mole’ (Gordon 2007). To the extent that there was early criticism of U.S. drone policy it followed the form of concerns about efficacity and, sometimes, issues of legality. In wars of counter-insurgency, exemplified by the conflict in Iraq but increasingly in Afghanistan as well, and in strikes outside of war zones, including Yemen, as early as 2002, whether drones were useful and lawful were still open questions. Critics contended that drone strikes amounted to assassination and were not part of a well-defined war, but in public and governmental discourse there was little discussion of the ethics of drone strikes. There was also little discussion in the early years about how drone technology might create undesirable and unintended consequences. This, despite a prominent drone mistake in 2002 when on January 24th, a U.S. attack using Hellfire missiles killed 21 Afghans. In a follow-up raid 27 people were detained, and the detainees along with those killed turned out to be civilians. Several of those detained alleged that they had been abused by the U.S. military. In another incident in February three civilians, described as peasants by Afghan villagers, were killed by a CIA Predator drone missile as they gathered scrap metal to sell. Though all of the intelligence the United States claimed to have was not revealed, the military cited deferential treatment of a ‘tall man’ by

The silences of private judgment  203 those around him (and thus possibly bin Laden) as one factor they considered (Cohen 2012; Struck 2002). The drones program received an early ‘shot in the arm’ when regular CIA drone operations in Yemen and Pakistan got off the ground with cooperation between the United States and Yemen, and a secret deal between the United States and Pakistan, the terms of which only later came to light (Mazzetti 2013; Priest 2005).5 There was much disquiet among U.S. foreign policy commentators with regard to Pakistan who, they concluded, was gambling on a ‘double game’— content with U.S. support to fight the Taliban in Pakistan but supporting militants in their conflicts with India and Afghanistan as well as catering to public opinion to unite its population against the excesses of U.S. imperialism and conceit (Filkins 2008; Perlez 2008; Schmitt and Mazzetti 2008). The implicit message was that the United States had to tolerate, to a certain degree, this troubled relationship because challenges in Afghanistan were compounded by Pakistan’s safe haven for militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) (Mazzetti 2008). In the imaginations of U.S. media al Qaeda, the Taliban, and extremist Islam were all grouped together in ‘Pakistan’s wild, largely ungoverned tribal areas’ (Filkins 2008; Mazzetti and Rohde 2008). A kind of ‘failed state’-equalsanarchy discourse facilitated U.S. covert air (but also ground) operations. Drones, then, were emphasized less for their precision or as humane weapons during these early years. Concerns with civilian casualties centered less on drones and more on general combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Human Rights Watch reported, for example, that NATO operations were responsible for around 45 percent of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan.6 There was also a general concern with the War on Terror given two major wars with potent insurgencies and controversy over interrogation and detention policies; drone ‘assassinations’ could simply be added to the list (Priest 2005). ‘The year(s) of the drone’ Looking back, it’s commonly assumed that drones were well on their way to foundational status as a central plank of U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Pakistan, Yemen, and even Somalia early on, but it was 2009 that was dubbed ‘the year of the drone’ by the New America Foundation in a 2010 report (Bergen and Tiedemann 2010). During 2009, they reported, perhaps 51 strikes were carried out under Barack Obama’s administration relative to 45 during all of George W. Bush’s administration. It seems that 2009 actually ushered in a drone presidency since it was followed in 2010 by at least a threefold increase in drone strikes. While media coverage in the early years of the drone program was sparse, an uptick in coverage and the range of concerns it expressed tracked drone use for the most part. The number of articles on drones in The New York Times, for example, rose nearly fourfold in 2009 relative to 2008 and has steadily climbed since then into 2014 (despite a decrease in drone strikes since 2011). Whereas the early coverage of drones centered on questions of technological efficacy and organizational politics, the expansion of the drones program was

204  The silences of private judgment accompanied by a host of legal questions (Froomkin 2010; Kramer 2011).7 Are drone strikes a form of assassination that violates international law? Could drone strikes be conducted in countries not at war with the United States under the premise of self-defense? Have drones targeted persons not actively engaged in combat? Are drones disproportionate in their harm to civilians? Legal criticism became more poignant as the Obama administration expanded drone strikes beyond a specific list of key figures to target militants in so-called ‘signature strikes’ based on ‘pattern of life’ analysis as well as, in a few cases, American citizens abroad (Stanford/NYU 2012). Amnesty International has pressed the U.S. government to make its legal argument clear and the American Civil Liberties Union released a December 2011 report (Stanley and Crump 2011) that urged the government to take measures to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens domestically from drones based on the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Most recently, a group of human and civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, sent Obama a letter of concern calling the administration to observe international law and submit drone strikes to judicial review (Amnesty International 2013). Under increasing pressure, President Obama finally formally recognized the drone program in Pakistan in an online chat on January 31, 2012 (Obama 2012a) and spoke more about the program in an interview with CNN later that year (Yellin 2012) and in a speech the next year at the National Defense University (Obama 2013). John Brennan also spoke about the drone program in 2012 at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. When they did, the administration could finally try to offer a more robust defense of drone practices and they did so by focusing on its legality, especially the laws of war as captured by prevalent notions of just war. In addition, they sought to assure the U.S. public that the decision-making process was careful and thorough. Both Obama and Brennan, for example, have emphasized that drone strikes are resorted to only when capture is not an option, and that care is taken to minimize civilian deaths (Shane 2013; Yellin 2012). As Obama put it, ‘we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties and in fact there are a whole bunch of situations where we will not engage in operations if we think that there’s going to be civilian casualties involved’ (Yellin 2012). Some media accounts brought a critical eye to these claims, noting that civilian deaths were routine, that the Obama administration’s count of civilian deaths was not credible and that promises of transparency and careful decision making were not matched with detailed information (Los Angeles Times’ Editorial Board 2012). As one headline put it, Obama was asking Americans and the world to ‘Just Trust Me’ (Rosenthal 2013).

Dennis Blair: Obama’s ‘wishful thinking’ Hinting at some of the tension within the administration on the role of drones in the War on Terror, Dennis Blair, Obama’s DNI from early 2009 to mid-2010, made a series of public statements critical of U.S. drone policy and practice after being ousted by the administration. While it can be argued that any DNI faces

The silences of private judgment  205 insurmountable hurdles to be politically relevant given the position’s weak founding legislation as well as acrimonious interagency politics (especially between the DNI and the CIA director), Blair’s approach to thinking about and examining drones reflected a broader approach that was poorly suited to the White House agenda.8 While it’s unclear whether there was one specific incident that led to Blair being forced out after just over a year in his post, these internal struggles (that sometimes had to be mediated by the White House) along with the botched but too-close-for-comfort Christmas day ‘underwear bomber’ of 2009 all likely contributed to dissatisfaction with Blair (Knickerbocker 2010; Mazzetti 2010). It was this late 2009 incident in particular, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from Nigeria boarded a plane from Amsterdam on its way to the United States and attempted to detonate explosives packed in his underwear (thus earning him the nickname ‘the underwear bomber’ in U.S. media) (Finn 2012), that appears to have been a key moment for the Obama administration in the decision to step up its drone campaigns against mid-level and not just ‘high-value’ insurgents and terrorists (Scahill 2013). Blair had perhaps been too forthright on occasion about the institutional challenges he faced at DNI, including in Senate testimony about the December 2009 incident (Miller 2010). As DNI, Blair felt considerable pressure (as did others) to achieve results from the drone program (Shane and Schmitt 2010), in addition to having a White House that tended to centralize decision making and control,9 and a CIA drone program that held transparency at arm’s length. One month prior to the December incident Blair reportedly raised the issue of drones in a National Security Council meeting seeking to ‘override the agenda and force a debate on the use of drones, according to two participants’ (Miller 2011). Despite Blair’s clashes with the White House, he later generally spoke positively about the quality of the decision-making process in the White House, noting, for example, that there was a ‘hunger’ for intelligence that could facilitate real understanding of what was happening ‘on the ground’ and what might happen given different possible actions (Blair 2010). While Blair did not find too much fault with the overall decision-making approach of the Obama administration, he disagreed on the projection of consequences for drone policies. In a 2011 op-ed for The New York Times Blair wrote: Over the past two years, America has narrowed its goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan to a single-minded focus on eliminating Al Qaeda . . . In Pakistan, no issue is more controversial than American drone attacks in Pakistani territory along the Afghan border. The Obama administration contends that using drones to kill 10 or 20 more Qaeda leaders would eliminate the organization. This is wishful thinking. Drone strikes are no longer the most effective strategy for eliminating Al Qaeda’s ability to attack us. (Blair 2011b) Blair called, then, on the Obama administration to reassess both its goals and the means used to achieve them by invoking a ‘long-term’ perspective. It’s important to remember, Blair argued, that the United States may conclude that it has a

206  The silences of private judgment wider array of interests that pertain to its relationship with Pakistan. Not only that, eliminating al Qaeda leadership (though others have been targeted as well, such as Pakistani Taliban and Haqqani) may disrupt capabilities in the short term but organizations can outlast this strategy, a strategy that has profound costs. These costs can be unintended and hard for policymakers to see, because not just-over-the-horizon. As Blair put it, ‘The steady refrain in the White House was, “This is the only game in town”—reminded me of body counts in Vietnam’ (Becker and Shane 2012). In other words, Blair’s chief complaints concerned both the parameters of drone policy and the agencies it elicited from others. Drone policies, because they are ‘unilateral’ (decided and implemented without the other country’s involvement, e.g., Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia), breed alienation and resentment and thus cannot sustain further improvement in the effort to counter al Qaeda or other groups that might threaten the United States (Blair 2011a). Drones are ‘bitterly resented’ in Pakistan (Blair 2011b). Not just Blair, but other officials have complained about the consequences of U.S. drone policy, especially in Pakistan, which was the focus of the large increase in strikes in 2010. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, was reported to have ‘complained to colleagues that the C.I.A.’s strikes drive American policy there, saying “he didn’t realize his main job was to kill people”’ (Becker and Shane 2012).10 Security has been defined, in Blair’s view, as eliminating people who we think threaten us without attention to how the means used might foster the very problem we perceive. Blair urged that we avoid the Faustian bargain. Beyond strategic concerns, Blair identified a kind of basic lack of recognition. In an interview with Lesley Stahl he noted that, ‘we’re treating countries just as places where we go attack groups that threaten us’ (Blair 2011a). For Blair the case against continued drone use in this situation, at least as he articulated it, doesn’t pertain to some characteristic peculiar to drones, but rather, the difficulty of using drones as a foreign policy tool that doesn’t instrumentalize an entire population (Blair 2011a). On the basis of reflexivity’s dialectic reasoning, we might ask whether working with governments would avoid alienation, resentment and blowback among the population in the way Blair envisions. Perhaps Blair conflates too much a government with the wider populace in his recommendations but he does evince a desire to understand and consider others that includes but also extends beyond government leaders. Here, we see how Arendt’s interpretation of the Kantian notion of ‘enlarged mentality’ has greater purchase than I had anticipated in previous chapters because the active and direct listening of actual dialogue cannot occur without, first, the desire to consider others’ perspectives. No doubt intelligence and diplomatic practices can elicit wide-ranging considerations, but in the context of a strained relationship, official denial, and divergent messages for international versus domestic audiences, we tell not just others but also ourselves that there is little need to consider others’ perspectives as relevant beyond strategic reasons alone. Surprise and even denial can overwhelm us when we suddenly ‘discover’ some of these perspectives. Stahl (Blair 2011a), when interviewing Blair, discussed her recent trip to Pakistan,

The silences of private judgment  207 I was shocked at the depth of the anti-Americanism. I was stunned by it, and it was everywhere we went, in the streets, at the universities, everywhere. It’s red hot, and it’s focused on the drones.11 Stahl seems to be channeling, perhaps for others in setting up her interview with Blair, the feeling that the desired outcome, held up all along without much thought, is suddenly in question. And in our relational neglect we are confronted perhaps with an image of ourselves that we don’t recognize but also an affective intensity that is so disturbing that it can elicit denial, thoughtlessness, defensiveness, or shock. By all accounts, including Blair’s own words, these outspoken comments on U.S. drone policy were not made vindictively as a response to his dismissal. Blair seems to have positioned himself more as a ‘friendly critic’ where, per Aristotle, a friend seeks to alert another friend to errors in thinking and judgment (see Chapter 1). And while Blair’s short tenure as DNI cannot be directly or entirely linked to his position on drones, as some have asserted (such as Williams 2013, p. 210), it is reasonable to conclude that Blair did not embody the role of the loyal bureaucrat and he didn’t fit, more specifically, the culture of the Obama administration that has been described as closeknit and secretive. Yet, this secrecy can instead be seen as a by-product of Obama’s effort to centralize decision making about drone strikes as a form of responsibility (a proposition explored below). As Thomas Donilon, his national security adviser, put it, ‘His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world . . . He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short’ (Becker and Shane 2012). At a time when public opinion overwhelmingly favored drone strikes and when not many political figures engaged in forthcoming and critical analysis of U.S. drone practices, it is noteworthy that Dennis Blair not only expressed internal dissent and attempted to shift the terms of the debate but also that he subsequently expressed his concerns publicly without the safety of peer or public support. This contrasts with the case of ‘enhanced interrogation’, where dissent was articulated in the midst of and mostly after initial public outrage about the Abu Ghraib photos. It should also be noted that Blair took on some risk since the drone program in Pakistan was technically classified. One might even contend that Blair’s criticism helped pave the way for journalists and concerned groups to bring greater scrutiny to the question of drones. Blair’s evaluation of drones took into account the context of difference and others’ agencies—he sought to assess the trajectory that the use of drones had taken thus far and where a continued drone-practice arc could lead, giving particular regard to how drones have reified others only as objects of insecurity. Nevertheless, Blair can be criticized for not going far enough. He waited some time after leaving office to ‘go public’ and his departure could have been an occasion to speak out about U.S. drone policy. As a high-level official leaving office, Blair’s questions would have elicited greater attention.

The game changers: drones confronted in and from Pakistan In contrast to the concerns of U.S. media and popular discourse with international law, the domestic use of drones in weakening or eliminating al Qaeda, Pakistani

208  The silences of private judgment and ‘pan-Arab12 media has tended to view and resent U.S. drone practice as violations of sovereignty, the cause of civilian casualties and potentially impacting geopolitical dynamics. The newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, for example, took special notice of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan in 2009, summarizing her visit thusly: Clinton came face-to-face with simmering Pakistani anger over U.S. aerial drone attacks in their country and drew back slightly from her blunt remarks suggesting Pakistani officials know where the terrorists are hiding. (‘Clinton Faces Pakistani Anger at Predator Attacks’, 2009) Clinton, the paper observed, sought to avoid commenting on the ‘tactic’ of drone strikes and, when pressed by a reporter about whether her definition of terrorism included ‘the killing of people in drone attacks’, Clinton replied that she did not subscribe to that view of terrorism. Al Jazeera often raised this concern as well—that drones were terrorizing whole populations. It gave sustained attention to efforts that investigated life under drones (such as the Stanford/NYU (2012) report) and were more likely than U.S. media to feature images of drones’ destruction of bodies and infrastructure than U.S. media, which tended to focus on images of the technological bodies of drones themselves (Amoureux 2010 ; ‘Are US drones terrorising civilians?’ 2012). It is in this context that Imran Khan, a Pakistani and widely popular former cricket player turned philanthropist and politician, has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of drone use in Pakistan. In 1996 Khan formed the political party Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which won 17 percent of the popular vote and 10 percent of National Assembly seats in the 2013 elections. Khan’s political success (though he lost the 2013 election for prime minister) and bold messaging earned him the reputation of ‘game changer’ (Jawaid 2012). Earlier in his political career, Khan sought to make the broader argument that the U.S. war in Afghanistan was contributing to Pakistan’s problem with extremism when he traveled to Washington, DC in 2008 to speak with then Senator Joe Biden (and chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) (Mishra 2012). And after the attacks of September 11, 2001, as the United States was preparing for war in Afghanistan, Khan traveled throughout Pakistan to speak with tribal leaders and others and, on that basis, urged the United States to engage a slower political process on the premise that Pakistanis, including those with a more fluid view of the Pakistan–Afghanistan border, would fight the United States in Afghanistan as occupiers (Islam & America Through the Eyes of Imran Khan – Pakistan 2007). Whether or not Khan and the PTI have politically benefitted from highlighting the issue of drones in Pakistan, Khan has long been a critic of Pakistani political leaders (mainly for corruption and subverting democracy) as well as U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis Pakistan. It would be disingenuous to say that Pakistan as a whole condemns drone strikes, but opinion polls especially, and journalistic investigations as well, point to a very high level of dissatisfaction with the use of drones in Pakistan’s border

The silences of private judgment  209 region and are thus one reason why Khan is so popular (Mishra 2012). Though the government repeatedly protests drones as violations of sovereignty and declares (along with Parliamentary resolutions) that the United States must cease its interference (even more so with regard to covert ground operations), the government is nevertheless often seen as complicit with the United States by Pakistanis. Thus, while we can ask whether Khan himself is ethically reflexive, Khan is also of interest because he represents a perspective that resonates with so many Pakistanis since the drone program in Pakistan began. In a documentary narrated by Khan and filmed in 2001, he described ‘America’ as a ‘bull in a china shop’ to summarize his view that the United States tends to grossly oversimplify Pakistan and addresses its concerns with excessive, blunt and blind force (‘Islam and America’ 2007). To understand the trajectory of Khan’s view of U.S. drone policy is to look back to the war in Afghanistan. In the U.S. rush to war after September 11, 2001, Khan advocated a slowing down instead of a rush to war in Afghanistan without careful consideration of alternative understandings, approaches and possible consequences. At the time of writing the United States has officially ended ‘combat operations’ but still has a military presence in Afghanistan (albeit much lighter) (Shear and Mazzetti 2015), the consequences of which—both short-term and long-term—are not all apparent. Later, as the use of drones in Pakistan escalated, Khan worried that, despite their billing as a precise weapon, drones would create ‘massive collateral damage’, disperse militants, and bring ‘blowback’ to Pakistan’s cities (Boone 2012). The call for an end to drone strikes in Pakistan along with efforts to talk with the Taliban have been at the center of Khan’s political message and agenda. Attracting large numbers of Pakistanis to his political rallies, especially in urban areas, Khan boldly declared in 2012 that he would take his message to Waziristan, where many of the strikes are concentrated (‘Waziristan “Peace March” Will Help . . . ’ 2012). In this ‘peace walk’ he wanted to listen to what individuals and communities had to say about drones and how they have affected them. Despite his Pashtun background and favorable message, Khan received death threats from some Taliban who dismissed him as a ‘liberal secular person’ (Leiby 2012), and Khan was criticized by some in Pakistan for naively believing that the Taliban could be appeased through negotiation without preconditions (Boone 2012). In the end, the peace march went ahead.13 It received only marginal media coverage in the United States but more attention in the United Kingdom. The Pakistani army, which had warned Khan that his group would not be allowed into Waziristan and that they faced considerable danger, eventually blocked the road and turned away Khan, thousands of his supporters and American peace activists from Code Pink. The Associated Press (2012) reported that ‘Pakistanis in small towns and villages along the 250-mile route warmly welcomed the convoy, which included more than 150 vehicles’. While this march could be dismissed as a staged political antic heading into the 2013 elections, such a reading is too simplistic. Khan has alternately been posed as a visionary up-and-coming political leader who has brilliantly mobilized Pakistan’s youth (under the age of 25, who now make up 63 percent of

210  The silences of private judgment the population) (Jawaid 2012), as a front for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)14 and even as a member of the Pakistani Taliban. Khan’s politics, however, are more complex than these caricatures represent. Just a few days after the peace march Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old girl who had been outspoken about Taliban rule in the district of Swat in northern Pakistan and promoted a right to education for girls and women, was shot in the head by Pakistani Taliban. While Khan referred to her as ‘a courageous daughter of Pakistan’, he also refused an interviewer’s invitation to condemn the Pakistani Taliban, offering in response the rhetorical question, ‘Who will save my party workers if I sit here and give big statements against the Taliban?’ (‘The Peace and Love Tour’ 2012). Khan was criticized for not being equally concerned with victims of violence in Pakistan, but his party had also been victimized by the Taliban even while Khan promoted more inclusive political solutions. Another reading, then, is that Khan was resisting an inflammatory line of questioning that could work against political reconciliation. Remarkably, Yousafzai survived. And, even after the incident, she shared Khan’s view of drones. Two years after being attacked Yousafzai was invited to the White House so that President Obama could ‘thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls’ education in Pakistan’ (The White House 2013b). In what was supposed to be an event to mark the president’s proclamation of the International Day of the Girl, Yousafzai also used the occasion to appeal to the president on drones. In a statement after the private meeting Yousafzai said, ‘I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people’ (Ensor 2013). It’s not clear whether or how Obama responded, since press did not attend the unscheduled meeting, but it is rather remarkable that Yousafzai confronted the U.S. president on this issue in a face-to-face setting. Yousafzai was firmly opposed to the Pakistani Taliban’s use of violence to achieve their goals and their broader social and political vision (Yousafzai 2013), which directly and profoundly affected her, but she nevertheless did not support the use of violence to address the Taliban threat. Of course, not everyone in Pakistan shares Khan’s and Yousafzai’s perspectives.15 Khan has represented his views in what may be a self-reflexive analysis of his own. In his self-narrated video filmed in 2001 Khan moves through Pakistan talking with various people of all kinds to investigate what might happen with a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and what could be done differently, but it also becomes a kind of self-reflexive travelogue. In his analysis of the ‘failures’ that have led to the undesirable state of affairs between Muslims and Americans, Khan takes stock of his own experience as exemplary of the ‘we’ in Pakistan that has contributed to these international problems. Images of Pakistanis playing cricket dressed in their upper-class white uniforms intersperse Khan’s narration throughout, most often as he discusses his own privileged education and Western socialization, both of which, he explains, are crucial to the economic, social and political success of the ‘we’ (Khan and others) in Pakistan who help to constitute the ‘West’ that so many Pakistanis resent (‘Islam and America’ 2007).

The silences of private judgment  211 When I came out [of school] . . . we understood the Western culture better than our own. Our thinking was Westernized, we wore Western clothes, our idols were Western, pop stars, movie stars. We read English papers . . . The civil service, which was the best profession in Pakistan, you could only get in if you had a good grasp of English and Western knowledge. So the majority of the population was excluded. And so the resentment began to grow . . . It’s against the small Westernized elite, which has hogged everything in this country . . . And now the majority, when it turns against us it also turns against the West because we, for them, epitomize everything that is wrong with the West. Most of the top brass in the army, including Pakistan’s military government, come from the same elite. Siding with America, as the government is doing at the moment, only underlines the gulf that exists between the rulers and the ruled. (Islam & America: Through the Eyes of Imran Khan – Pakistan 2007) Reminiscent of his later ‘peace walk’ into Waziristan to protest drones, Khan stylizes his journey through Pakistan as the U.S. war against Afghanistan is about to begin as a ‘peace walk’, one that aims to grapple with the problems of U.S. foreign policy and search out understandings that enable alternative actions. At the end of the short film Khan visits a group of Afghan men disaffected with the Taliban, who find their rule oppressive, but nevertheless will return to Afghanistan to fight an American ‘invader’. The possibilities that Khan looks to, then, are for a different Pakistan and a different Afghanistan where the ‘potential’ of the people is realized. Khan claims a certain story of difference for Islam that rejects both the idea that Islam has fundamental similarities with Western religions and the idea that Islam advances terrorism. Yet, Khan also adheres to the idea of democracy and has promoted institutional changes in Pakistan that would include an independent election commission, an independent judiciary based on the rule of law, a social welfare state, and sovereignty (Khan 2008). The figures he draws on for inspiration include Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mohammad Iqbal, two figures crucial to the founding of the Pakistani state and whose ideas continue to have influence. Khan has engaged a historico-critical analysis of how Pakistanis have arrived where they are, with a critical view of his own subjectivity in all of this, and in an attempt to project where Pakistan might and should go relative to the United States. In their critiques of the Pakistani Self and the U.S. Other, both Khan and Yousafzai have attended to this relation as one of potential friendship. To be sure, their analyses of U.S. actions have been trenchant, but not without suggestions for redirection. As Khan put it in a Peshawar speech: God has punished Pakistan because Pakistan’s government has traded the blood of Afghan people in return for American dollars. Pakistan has become a slave for America. Is this how friends treat other friends? Countries are made by taking a stand, not by bowing down and taking orders. (Khan 2013)16

212  The silences of private judgment It may be that greater understanding between the United States and Pakistan facilitates a looser friendship if we can think of friendship in an Aristotelian fashion as consisting of different social types (e.g., ‘political friendship’) rather than a friendship that must ever be moving toward more intense reciprocity, agreement, and mutual affection. Hans Morgenthau (1978) thought that self-interest as the basis for politics could bring about a kind of justice if we recognize that others also have self-interests that we might be able to respect. Similarly, an acceptance of others’ different projects and reflexive judgments could enable a relationship where spheres of thought and action do not have to be reconciled, even if one disagrees with some of Khan’s conclusions and various aspects of his politics, which may or may not all be consistent with a practice of ethical reflexivity. From this stance we might then be able to attend to the needs and desires of one another and cultivate trust and respect on that basis. This does not mean, however, that mutual criticism is precluded. Aristotle’s estimation of just how difficult it is to discern the best course of action also relates to our social and political positioning. Thus, the proper bounds of friendship also have to do with the kinds of decisions we are well suited to make through phronesis. Aristotle wrote, for example: ‘Nor do we deliberate about all human affairs, e.g., no Spartan deliberates about how the Scythians would best govern themselves, for things such as this cannot occur through us’ (1984, 1112a29–31). To accept that we cannot ‘fix’ Pakistan in matters of governance and security is to open up new possibilities for relationship and different avenues of action. This alternative perspective would be a radical change for the United States. That there are disturbing aspects of the U.S. drone program in Pakistan, raised by a variety of actors within the United States, Pakistan, and the United Nations, makes this rethinking all that more important. Yet, if we take seriously the advice of both Hannah Arendt and Judith Butler (see Chapters 2 and 3) to consider the iterative interaction of agencies we would be attentive not just to states but to communities and individuals as well. Thus, it is important to consider that, even if a certain policy/decision/action attends to the needs of a Pakistani government, it may not attend to the needs of Pakistanis, and may ultimately elicit reactions from them that we find undesirable as they take shape in the world.

Counting drones, living drones Much of the discourse concerning drones in the United States estimates the number of drones, the number of drone strikes, and the number of persons killed. This debate seduces one on the premise that if we just figure out the ratios we can conclude whether a war, a practice, or a strike is just. We have at our disposal a bevy of numerical analyses by journalists, NGOs and academics that seek to count and thus conclude something important about these numerical trends and there is fierce debate among them about methodologies for categorizing and counting who is killed. These persons are separated into ‘civilians’, ‘terrorist leaders’, ‘militants’, ’insurgents’, and ‘unknowns’, with further subdivisions such as al Qaeda, Taliban, al Qaeda ‘types’ or ‘associates’, Haqqani, al Shabaab, and ‘high-value’

The silences of private judgment  213 versus ‘mid-range’ ‘targets’. These terminological divisions are not just murky and difficult to establish given such a high level of uncertainty for those onthe-outside-looking-in, they also come to reify that which we see (in scholarship and politics) and thus should prompt us to inquire into just what work they are doing for us. Do we, for example, then find it easier to treat entire groups as expendable so that just al Qaeda, or al Qaeda plus Taliban, or al Qaeda plus Taliban plus militants, or high-level al Qaeda and only Afghan Taliban can be eliminated? Also, who we kill and with how much error remains obscure even among the most well informed.17 Rather than agreement on exact numbers and appropriate classifications, it is perhaps more important at this point to observe that the numbers differ so widely and that almost all seem to indicate that the U.S. government errs on the side of undercounting deaths of those they might admit to being ‘innocent’ while overcounting the deaths of those they deem ‘guilty’ (or not yet shown to be innocent).18 In addition, to the extent that we might consider changing course, the laborious but dubious process of counting and the controversial task of deeming certain groups expendable or not are perhaps not particularly relevant and even distracting. What these numbers obscure, especially those narratives that confine their analysis to downward trends in the overall number of strikes and civilian casualties, are the experiences involved in any one drone strike. To illustrate what is missing from U.S. media accounts, almost all of which orient their reporting of the facts by counting,19 I begin with one particular report of drone strikes in Afghanistan during 2012 and in the context of other media reports that underscored the formulation of tighter rules on drone decision making within the Obama administration. In this New York Times article two drone strikes in Afghanistan were reported that killed their targets but also killed one civilian and severely injured two. What might be ordinarily glossed over in the U.S. media as an unfortunate incident of collateral damage received more than a passing mention because the reactions elicited in Afghanistan were deemed important in that they imperiled an already strained negotiation between the United States and Afghanistan over a status of forces agreement. The New York Times recounted the events of the strikes in this way: The first [drone attack], in Garsmir district, targeted an insurgent commander traveling on a motorcycle, but the missile missed him and apparently hit civilians; one child was reported killed, and two women severely wounded. The targeted man fled on foot and was killed by a later drone strike. (Nordland 2013) The second strike was apparently unremarkable because it killed one insurgent in a nearby district and there were no civilian casualties, according to a NATO coalition official. Whether this militant-to-civilian kill ratio is proportional or not—a metric from the just war tradition that orients much of the academic and media discussion in the United States (see Plaw and Fricker 2012)—it doesn’t tell us much about the lived (or dying) experience of drone practices. At most, we learn something about the political consequences—that Karzai was particularly upset that the drone killed this individual in a home (though the coalition denied

214  The silences of private judgment that the drone aimed at or hit a house). Karzai explained, ‘This attack shows that American forces are not respecting the life and safety of Afghan people’s houses’ (Nordland 2013). While we might excuse this article because the drone strike exacerbated a difficult situation between the governments of Afghanistan and the United States, which the journalist underscored, other media accounts have told similar kinds of stories. In October of 2012 it was reported that, ‘An American drone fired missiles into a compound in the Orakzai tribal region on Thursday, killing 18 Afghans and wounding 4, a senior local official in the area said’ (Khan 2012), but we don’t learn much more. One possible explanation is that there simply is not much information that can be gleaned, even when multiple sources in multiple countries investigate and provide information. Yet, U.S. media accounts also do not specifically name those who are killed unless they are leaders of high organizational standing, and we usually learn nothing about the lives of ‘civilians’ and ‘unknowns’ and very little about the circumstances of their deaths. When there is ambiguity about persons’ status, they are reported to be alleged Taliban, al Qaeda, insurgents, fighters, or terrorists. As drone use increased dramatically, beginning in 2008, there was eventually greater focus on depicting these experiences, but this happened more from indepth efforts by NGOs and educational institutions to investigate the consequences of drones more comprehensively rather than journalists’ investigations or government reports. Contacted by Reprieve, a U.K.-based charity, the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic of Stanford University’s Law School teamed up with the Global Justice Clinic at the New York University School of Law to undertake 9 months of research in Pakistan to interview individuals from Pakistan’s FATA, beginning in December of 2011. The report that resulted (though it also contained legal and strategic analysis) was widely covered in the international press (Drones in Pakistan Traumatise Civilians, U.S. Report Says 2012; Drones ‘Terrorising’ Pakistani Civilians, Say Experts 2012; Shane 2012) for its depiction of life under drones through the voices of Pakistanis who described their experiences of specific drone strikes and the general psychological effects of drones and their impact on daily lives, as well as the damage to property, economies and communities in North Waziristan. The impact of drones depicted in the voices of Pakistanis is striking. In 69 interviews, individuals discussed how drones tore apart the bodies of those who died into unrecognizable burnt pieces and gravely injured and maimed those who managed to survive. Especially when men died, families were often left without a parent and income and many parents lost children in the strikes. We might reasonably argue that at least some of those labelled terrorists are not actually so. In one strike on March 17, 2011 in North Waziristan at least two drone missiles struck a jirga (community meeting) and resulted in 42 dead and 14 injured. While the Stanford/NYU investigation suggested that most were civilians, the United States insisted that they were all insurgents (2012, pp. 57–58). The Obama administration has tried, it seems, to minimize the deaths of non-combatants. On that point, the New America Foundation reported that the rate of civilian and ‘unknown’

The silences of private judgment  215 casualties in Pakistan from drones has steadily declined under the Obama administration.20 Strikes themselves have also declined from 122 in 2010, when drone strikes were at their height in Pakistan, to 26 in 2013.21 In Yemen, perhaps all but one strike occurred under Obama and there, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (2014) reported, in a remarkably wide range, 24–71 civilians out of 287–423 were killed in 59–69 confirmed drone strikes (the actual figure may be 89–108).22 Nevertheless, there are other aspects of drones that might elicit consideration. Drone strikes have, for example, created pervasive anxiety and stress and affected education, community trust, infrastructure, and the ability of families and communities to care for one another. Many of these affected individuals themselves survived a drone strike, but many others simply live with the daily presence of drones in their lives, what might be termed the ‘anticipatory anxiety’ that characterizes conflict zones (NYU/Stanford 2012, p. 81). A father of three who wished to remain anonymous said, ‘Drones are always on my mind. It makes it difficult to sleep. They are like a mosquito. Even when you don’t see them, you can hear them, you know they are there’ (p. 84). Haroon Quddnos, a taxi driver who survived a strike on his car and a second missile as he ran from the burning vehicle, described the perpetual fear: We are always thinking that it is either going to attack our homes or whatever we do. It’s going to strike us; it’s going to attack us . . . No matter what we are doing, that fear is always inculcated in us. Because whether we are driving a car, or we are working on a farm, or we are sitting home playing . . . cards— no matter what we are doing, we are always thinking the drone will strike us. So we are scared to do anything, no matter what. (Stanford/NYU 2012, p. 82) Noor Khan, the son of one community leader who was one of 40 killed in a strike on a jirga, described the community’s anxieties after the strike: Everybody is scared, especially the elders . . . [T]hey can’t get together and discuss problems . . . [I]f a problem occurs, they can’t resolve it, because they are all scared that, if we get together, we will be targeted again . . . Everybody, all the mothers, all the wives, they have told their people not to congregate together in a jirga . . . [T]hey are pleading to them not to, as they fear they will be targeted. (Stanford/NYU 2012, pp. 98–99) Whereas protests against drones in the United States have been few and have relied on tactics that are generally seen as aggressive and improper, such as the heckling performed by Code Pink, as the drone issue received greater media coverage and greater analysis by NGOs and academic institutions, drone discourses became slightly more heterogeneous. We find some discussions of drones that are explicitly identified as ethical (Kaag and Kreps 2012). Images of persons killed and infrastructure destroyed by drones are appearing with more frequency in press

216  The silences of private judgment coverage (Sullivan 2013),23 but this coverage has been highly dependent on only a few indepth and first-hand investigations.24 Especially important have been the stories that drone victims tell themselves about their experiences. The report Living Under Drones (Stanford/NYU, 2012), detailed above, was important, but so too were documentary projects such as Robert Greenwald’s film (Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars) and Code Pink’s efforts both to go to drone victims (in the ‘peace march’ to Waziristan with Imran Khan’s PTI) and to bring drone victims to Washington, DC.25 To be clear, I am not implying that ethical evaluation of drones must conclude against all uses of drones in all situations, but to take either legal evaluation or numerical evaluation as ethical evaluation precludes such voices and regard for the particulars of difference. Some of the most notable ways in which drones impact individuals and communities are not recognized and given standing by the ‘laws of war’ and ‘just war’ principles. . Furthermore, many organizations and efforts to make foreign policy practices problematic on some other basis (such as drones or interrogation) look for or are open to only some types of articulations of experience, perhaps those narratives that can be used to pathologize the mad ‘victims’ in a rhetorical contest with their opponents who pathologize the mad ‘perpetrators’ (Howell 2007).

U.S. (non-)response As much as these efforts to publicly discuss drones have brought the spotlight a bit more to drone practices in terms of ethics and not just legality, the Obama administration has responded with largely unfulfilled promises of transparency and debate (Obama 2013). From Obama’s claims that drones are ‘very precise precision’ weapons that are only deployed when there is certainty that children are not present (Obama 2012a), to the administration’s drone ‘fact sheet’ (The White House 2013a), to an outline of new guidelines (a ‘rule book’) for deploying drones (Obama 2013), these efforts have not resulted in much more information. When, for example, a 10-year-old boy, Abdulaziz, was killed in a drone strike in Yemen on June 9, 2013, along with ‘several militants’, the Obama administration refused to account for the child’s death (Currier 2013; see also Worth and Shane 2013). In the words of one reporter, National spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not comment on the June 9 strike or more generally on the White House position on acknowledging civilian deaths. She referred further questions to the CIA, which also declined to comment . . . The new White House statements don’t address what happens after a strike, even in general terms. (Currier 2013) In other words, we must take at face value administration claims (by Obama, Kerry, and others) that they, according to Kerry, ‘do not fire when we know there are children or collateral—we just don’t do it’ (Currier 2013). To acknowledge

The silences of private judgment  217 and name even one child may have been inconvenient for the administration, but also unnecessary in their view—if, per the laws of war, civilians are discriminated from alleged combatants in policy and at the point of targeting. While Obama claimed that not as many civilians are killed as various sources have estimated and CIA director John Brennan, reputed to be the ‘architect’ of the drone program, advocated that the government publicly release these numbers during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier that year, the Obama administration has since declined to do even that. Later, Brennan, representing the Obama administration on this specific issue, enacted transparency as a sum total of this statement: So let me say it as simply as I can. Yes, in full accordance with the law, and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives, the United States Government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones. And I’m here today because President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts. (Brennan 2012) Despite this belated confession about the drone program, with limited information about the process and results of drone strikes (contrary to Brennan’s mandate), the dialogic, dialectic and diachronic aspects of reflexive judgment have been stunted at the outset. Instead, we only have the opportunity to judge President Obama’s judgment based on assurances that it is sound. Obama attempted to describe just one aspect of this judgment—his justification of the use of drones—in a 2013 speech at the National Defense University. Drones are justified, in his mind, by the available alternatives, which are doing nothing or ‘conventional military options’ that put ‘boots on the ground’ (Obama 2013). Others might respond by pressing him on whether he has really considered a wide array of alternatives, and inquire into how the alternatives were framed. ‘Doing nothing is not an option’, according to Obama, because ‘the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes’ (2013). Yet, Obama does not say, and perhaps does not consider, whether drone strike deaths are really reducing the overall number of casualties and incidences of violence or adding to them. Does this utilitarian calculation have a net benefit, but also is such a calculation appropriate and desirable in the first place? As the perspectives of Pakistanis, Afghans, and Yemenis have illustrated, discourses of domestic law, international law, and just war (possibly with the exception of torture and conditions of imprisonment) do not consider the psychological and community effects of instruments of war that may be more severe and widespread than commonly assumed. Finally, ‘doing nothing’ is dismissed as a non-starter by Obama (and others), but ought we at least explore what ‘doing nothing’ might look like and whether it could create more space for those in these ‘targeted’ communities to take on their own ethico-political projects? Imran Khan has lamented that drone strikes

218  The silences of private judgment disrupt Pakistanis’ efforts to politically reconcile. As peace talks approached in Pakistan a U.S. drone strike killed Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Khan’s party organized a rally that attracted 10,000–13,000 people who protested against the United States for sabotaging the talks (Masood and Mehsud 2013). While the Obama administration and the media have pointed to a dramatic decline in the number of drone strikes over the last 2 years and a new more restrictive internal policy, drone strikes that seem ill timed with regard to local political processes in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as high-profile mistakes that are the result of neglecting the most basic cultural knowledge point to just how incompetent ethical judgment in the White House has been.26 One Yemeni man present at a drone attack (after the new policy) that struck a wedding procession in Yemen in December of 2013 (killing up to 12 civilians and injuring 15 others) explained that in a wedding where the bride and groom are from different villages the residents travel to the bride’s village for wedding festivities (Human Rights Watch 2014b). This incident underscores that those deciding the drone strikes have not taken into consideration crucial particulars of the situations they encounter, but it also exposes just how inaccurate ‘real-time’ intelligence (as communication) actually is as an extension of the ‘bodily senses’ (McLuhan 1964). What view of time and space informs this over-confidence in the use of air-to-ground weapons and is it desirable in view of the consequences (inter alia, mistaking a wedding procession for a terrorist convoy)? In articulating the new policy, Obama stated, ‘Any U.S. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies, and impacts public opinion overseas’ (Mazzetti and Worth 2013). In light of this statement it is strange that Obama does not seem to press its implications with regard to drones, perhaps because (as we saw earlier) he has such a narrow view of the alternatives available to him. But are they really only ground war, drone war, or nothing? These questions themselves might arise out of ethical reflexivity’s dialogic, dialectic, and diachronic process. This process would require the kind of analysis featured in this chapter—critically engaging thought and action, looking back and looking forward, in conversation with others and within ourselves, and aware of our own agency and the agencies of others to alter thoughts, judgments and actions. Private judgment alone, per Arendt, precludes a meaningful politics. Brennan likewise employed the frame of just war as a means for deciding the ethics of drone strikes in his 2012 speech at the Wilson Center. He made the usual claims that drones discriminate between civilians and combatants and their violence is proportional to the military ends they achieve. This continuous justificatory refrain, captured by Obama’s (2012a) redundancy in announcing drones ‘precise precision weapons’, invokes key terms that summarize certain ethicoconceptual claims without ever evaluating their meaning and appropriateness. This is a missing but key movement in the dialectic thinking of ethical reflexivity. Saying that drones are more precise than alternative weapons does not make them precise and it does not then justify the activity to which this ‘precision’ attends. ‘Precision’, as Zehfuss (2011) notes, actually accepts imprecision—even a great deal of imprecision—when we investigate just how it is formulated. Precision is

The silences of private judgment  219 measured by the ‘circular probable error’ (CPE), which ‘is the radius of a circle centered on an aimpoint within which some percentage—usually 50 percent—of weapons fired at the aimpoint will fall’ (Conetta, quoted by Zehfuss 2011, p. 548). In other words, to talk about precision is to refer to a designated CPE that nevertheless is met only every other time. This reliance on the discourse of precision as all that we need for ethical evaluation is thus problematic because the fact of precision tells us nothing about the bounds of acceptability of precision’s imprecision. What is an acceptable CPE and can we really determine such an answer without referring to what happens both within that radius and outside of that radius in concrete and specific terms, not just every other time but every time as well? The precision discourse simply assumes that a smaller CPE is better than a larger CPE and thus justifies that action. While this logic is easy to affirm, it does not then mean that the use of the weapon itself in any number of situations is justified absent other relevant considerations. As Daniel Brunstetter (2012) worries, deeming drones humane according to just war in bello standards does not then bypass ad bellum considerations. The extent to which this logic has unfolded is illustrated by the recent domestic fury that attended the question of whether a U.S. citizen could be killed on U.S. soil. The Obama administration’s initial answer, before it was ‘No’, was ‘Yes’. The battlefield, precision-drone discourse implies, is global. Thus, in our public discussion we rarely explore where and how many civilian casualties are acceptable because we stop at the qualities of the weapons themselves rather than the qualities of their consequences. The so-called ‘double tap’ strategy, discussed by the Stanford/NYU (2012) report, is revealing. While an immediate second strike (a strategy often engaged) tends to harm those who try to assist the wounded, the second strike increases the accuracy rate of the drone strike incident. Thus, as long as the ‘target’ is destroyed, the death of civilians can be justified with a second strike even if these casualties might include first responders or the injured who do not receive assistance for several hours while would-be responders wait out the possibility of a second strike. Second, and related, precision-drone discourse tends to preclude the consideration of other important particulars. If the application of violence is inherently imprecise then we need to bring into view additional considerations. Brennan (2012) makes an attempt to do so when he invokes the final metric of ‘humanity’ which, in his words, ‘requires us to use weapons that will not inflict unnecessary suffering’. Drones meet this requirement, he stated, for the same reasons that they are proportional: ‘By targeting an individual terrorist or small numbers of terrorists with ordnance that can be adapted to avoid harming others in the immediate vicinity, it is hard to imagine a tool that can better minimize the risk to civilians than remotely piloted aircraft’. Again, Brennan’s discourse of precision precludes relevant considerations. He never arrives at considering the sequence of events that ensues from the actual deployment of the weapon. What does it do to bodies? How do the parts of the missile break apart and engage other objects in a sequence of movement? What are the experiences of those who feel and see the weapon in action? How is the sight and sound of drones experienced? What do individuals

220  The silences of private judgment then do with these experiences? These are the kinds of questions that we could ask if we were to take seriously the task of evaluating the cruelty of a specific weapon. We can also learn more about experiences of drones by listening to the stories of drone pilots who experience drones in a different way, one that is seemingly safe. Yet drone pilots experience a tremendous amount of stress. One study pointed to the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that appears especially likely when ‘operators had seen close-up video of what the military calls collateral damage, casualties of women, children or other civilians’ (Bumiller 2011). In the opening of Greenwald’s film (Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars 2013), a former drone pilot, Brandon Bryan, recounted a drone strike in which he witnessed one man die after the missile severed his leg. The pilot’s reaction was pained and even haunting. On the other end of the affective spectrum, some drone pilots report satisfaction with their work when they know that they are helping marines and soldiers on the ground who need assistance in a fire fight. The same media story on pilot PTSD quoted an Air Force colonel who pointed to the ‘virtual relationship’ that drone operators build with troops they are ‘protecting’ (Bumiller 2011). These experiences suggest that drones do not altogether remove pilots from the consequences of their actions and their relations with others, as some analyses of simulated warfare have supposed,27 and thus these experiences can be another ethical resource in our reflexive self-inquiries, particularly because we witness in many of these stories how, per Butler (2004a), lives are precarious in that who is made a potential object of violence depends on recognition that such lives are grievable. We can designate this act as a form of agency.

Conclusion: on transparency, difference and dialogue In some ways, the discursive focus on transparency is a distraction to thinking about drones. As long as critics call for transparency and the Obama administration responds with declarations that it values and practices transparency, the debate remains here in the realm of what transparency means or how much is enough. And this discursive tug-of-war distracts from the voices and thus perspectives that we might already hear. From efforts like the Living Under Drones report (Stanford/NYU 2012), the activism of Reprieve and Code Pink, some close and careful investigative journalism and the creative and insistent journeys of Pakistanis, Afghans, and Yemenis to bring their voices to those who enact suffering, there are important opportunities to hear and share perspectives and thus to critically engage our own thought–action couplings. Because drones direct the risks of fighting a war away from the attackers, war making is in danger of becoming a policy process marked by a politics no different from that of domestic matters (Singer 2009, p. 323), where Americans tend to refer only to their own perspectives and interests for political decision making. Recognizing the agencies of others is important because ethical reflexivity entails projecting as best we can how the interaction of our agencies might play out, but also engaging in empathy that allows for and recognizes difference. The difference for Pakistanis that Imran Khan claims, for example, illustrates how

The silences of private judgment  221 means unfold into means according to culturally contingent interpretations. Because we know that at least some—if not a great many—individuals and families have been killed by drone strikes and were not involved in attacking or planning to attack the United States or U.S./NATO forces in Afghanistan, the concept of badal based in Pashtunwali tribal custom seems all the more likely to be in play (as some have noted), where those who are wronged may feel obligated to seek revenge. Thus, U.S. political and military leaders may continue to find individuals, whether of ‘high’ or ‘low value’ to target with drones. The result, as Blair (2011a) has summarized, is that the United States has devoted extraordinary resources to target a fairly static maybe 4,000–6,000 individuals (and maybe less) at the cost of millions of dollars per targeted person, despite the express desire of the administration to reach a ‘tipping point’ in the war. Other trajectories could also be illustrated in the evaluation of U.S. drone practices, including alternate courses that could be played out with more (or less) desirable results for international relationships, and the well-being of communities, families, and individuals. In the meantime, tactics that seek to bring other perspectives to the ‘halls of power’ but do not meet the ideal of democracy’s equal, open and deliberative dialogue can nevertheless claim a place in a practice of ethics, as I argued in Chapter 3. Malala Yousafzai and others who have traveled to the United States can use the opportunities they have and the opportunities they create to confront and talk to policymakers and Americans about their experiences. We should perhaps relax our views on the unacceptability of heckling because heckling can sometimes momentarily equalize the playing field by garnering media coverage and through the possibility that the speaker will pause and engage the heckler, as Obama has occasionally done. Code Pink’s heckling sought to draw attention to U.S. drone policy when it remained widely unquestioned and the program had not yet been acknowledged by the administration. In this situation of unequal power—Code Pink had little access to public fora for debate and discussion—their strategy was to get the issue on the table through non-violent direct action. As discussed in Chapter 3, ethical reflexivity does not preclude strategic action and it is worth considering how certain tactics can make the presentation of minority and challenging perspectives possible. Widening the scope of deliberation and decision does not itself guarantee more ethical outcomes. In the case of drones, the United Nations has simultaneously condemned the prolific use of drones by states (United Nations News Service 2014) and embraced drones as a tool of peacekeeping and monitoring (Katombe 2013; Oakford 2014). Drones, as a tool of foreign policy, threaten to preclude a politics in which ethical reflexivity is possible. Individuals killed by drones have little opportunity to explain their actions that seem suspect to United States. When a person is treated as an object that can only be met with elimination that person is no longer (or never was) an agent—‘never was’ because once a person is killed, s/he is classified either as ‘terrorist’/’insurgent’, and thus as having given up the prerogative to speak, or as ‘civilian’, and thus having a fate that is tragic and regrettable but whose voice was elided by an already-determined moral imperative (to minimize the loss of life from war). If there are already victims-to-be, should their voices not be prioritized while they are still agents? U.S. policymakers and

222  The silences of private judgment statesmen find it difficult to hear others because they are not treated as agents in the first place. While considering U.S. drone practices serves to demonstrate how the practice of ethical reflexivity has been largely absent, how legal evaluation has substituted for ethical evaluation, and as a ‘counterfactual’ to illustrate what ethical reflexivity might look like, it also demonstrates the ways in which ethical consideration benefits from and even requires a public debate and a certain kind of conversation with those who are affected by foreign policies. This case also reflects the particular challenges of ethical reasoning in the use of technologies that distance agents from affective and dialogic interaction with those who are the ‘objects’ of its application. Instead, ethical evaluation has been assumed to be the ‘legal’ evaluation of applying ‘the laws of war’ (Brennan 2012; Brunstetter 2012; ‘Drones and the Man’ 2011; Obama 2013; Shane 2012). Is there a link between drone practices and interrogation and detention practices? Mazzetti (2013) suggests that there is—that the Obama administration and the CIA were eager to find a way out of renditions to ‘black sites’ and the interrogation methods associated with the War on Terror. Yet, there was some internal tension, perhaps even a debate, between those who remembered the Frank Church congressional revelations of CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders and the younger generation coming into power in the CIA that did not share this institutional memory. Senator Rand Paul, in his attempted filibuster of John Brennan’s appointment as CIA director, had this to say to Obama about his leadership role in the matter: ‘I think it would be fair to say that candidate Obama also felt that the president didn’t have the authority to imprison you indefinitely without a trial’ (O’Keefe and Blake 2013). And what Paul found so disturbing about the possibility of a drone strike against an American citizen, especially on U.S. soil, was that it judged someone guilty without opportunity for defense and for reasons that might not warrant death. Paul asked rhetorically whether the president would have dropped a Hellfire missile from a drone on a Jane Fonda who showed sympathy for the North Vietnamese. While Paul’s protest has some downside, because it placed parameters on such considerations around U.S. citizenship, this line of questioning can prompt us to transgress those limits. It can be a dialectic and dialogic exercise in enlarged mentality to ask, What if we were in the crosshairs of another country’s drones for similar reasons?28 When is it OK for a drone to attack us? Are we helping ourselves to security at the expense of the insecurity of others through a variety of post-9/11 policies and practices? How would we judge our actions from the frame of other historical incidents?29 Even though the Obama administration announced at the beginning of its tenure that the phrase ‘War on Terror’ would no longer be used, it has not followed that the War on Terror has been suspended, suggesting that difficult questions about the intersection of thought and action have been avoided.

Notes   1 In 2013 the Pew Research Center reported that 61 percent of Americans approve of U.S. drone strikes against ‘extremists in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia’ (Pew Research Center 2013, p. 14).

The silences of private judgment  223   2 Or, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UACVs). Another preferred term used by U.S. government representatives is ‘remotely piloted aircraft’. See, for example, Brennan (2012).   3 It’s important to note, however, that GPS-guided bombs are actually less accurate than laser-guided bombs in terms of their circular probable error (CPE), a concept well explained by Zehfuss (2011, p. 548).   4 One article quoted military officials as reporting a 75 percent target accuracy rate, a ‘marked improvement’ over the air campaigns of the Persian Gulf and Serbia (Loeb 2003; Schmitt 2002a).   5 The first drone strike in Yemen occurred in 2002 and in Pakistan in 2004.   6 Reporters began to spend more time in Afghanistan to investigate this trend (Afghan Civilian Casualties Rising, Analysts Report 2008).   7 Most reports on drones include a legal analysis, including Stanford/NYU’s (2012) report, Living Under Drones.   8 The organizational problems were present at the outset when, during Blair’s confirmation hearing, several senators and Blair himself acknowledged the position’s slim policy and budget powers along with the sheer magnitude of the task. The director is charged with leading and coordinating 16 intelligence agencies.   9 In an interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS, Blair responded to a question about how the White House might balance CIA, DNI and Defense Secretary personalities by saying, ‘The White House will probably continue to do what they did, which is—we’d like to ask a number of people to get their opinion and we’ll coordinate it in the White House’ (Blair 2011a). 10 Munter later left Pakistan after conflict with the Islamabad CIA station chief was resolved by the Obama administration in the CIA’s favor (Walsh 2013). 11 The transcription is mine. 12 A term used by Asharq Al-Awsat, for example, to describe itself. 13 Khan reported that he had obtained assurances from some tribal elders who ‘sounded out’ the Pakistani Taliban (Leiby 2012). 14 The ISI is Pakistan’s largest and most influential intelligence service. 15 See, for example, Martin (2013) and Shah (2012). 16 Speech given in Urdu and translated for the author by Ali Cochan. 17 There are many efforts to categorize and count those who are killed by drones, including those of the Long War Journal, the New America Foundation, the Bureau of Investigation Journalism’s website ‘Covert Drone War’, Avery Plaw and Matthew Fricker (2012) and the joint Stanford/NYU effort Living Under Drones. 18 In mid-2011, for example, the administration claimed that over the previous year there had been zero civilian deaths and yet over 600 ‘militants’ killed, a claim that was widely dismissed by others as not credible. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism claimed, in contrast, that at least 45 civilians were killed in ten strikes over the same period (Shane 2011). According to Becker and Shane (2012), the administration counts all militaryage males as ‘militants’ unless there is otherwise ‘explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent’. 19 Exceptions include Wilson (2011) who reported on daily experiences of drones among Palestinians in Gaza. 20 Curiously, the report also underscores that in Pakistan only 58 ‘known militant leaders’ have been killed by drones, which is only 2 percent of all drone strike deaths. 21 http://securitydata.newamerica.net/drones/pakistan-analysis.html. 22 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/. 23 Especially by Huffington Post but later by The New York Times as well.

224  The silences of private judgment 24 The photographs of drone victims used by the Huffington Post were obtained from Robert Greenwald. 25 The ‘drone summit’ of November 2013, according to the organizers, ‘brought together drone survivors and families of victims from Pakistan and Yemen, human rights advocates, lawyers, authors, social media experts, technology experts, artists and musicians, and grassroots activists’( http://www.codepinkarchive.org/article.php?id=6457). Code Pink has not only been one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S. drone program, but also one of the earliest organized efforts to challenge the Obama administration on drones. 26 For an argument about how competence and the just war tradition can be linked, see Amoureux and Steele (2014). 27 Grossman (2002), for example, argues that distance can be a tool of dehumanization that overcomes our inhibition to kill. 28 Indeed, the prospect has been raised that U.S. drone practices have initiated a drone arms race (Shane 2011). 29 See my attempts to publicly pose some questions that challenge dominant U.S. narratives about drones and indicate alternative lines of thinking (Amoureux 2013a, 2013b).

Conclusion Some closing thoughts on behalf of authorial reflexivity

I began this study with the question, ‘What kind of ethics in world politics is possible if there is no foundation for knowledge, or, at the very least, if this global reality is complex? The scholarship of international political theory and international/global ethics has generally addressed the uncertainty, contingency, and diversity of identity, ethical knowledge and practices with a search for some kind of consensus, shared culture, or common institutions and norms, however thin or shallow. These positions issue from a variety of traditions and perspectives, including cosmopolitanism, constructivism, English School, pragmatism, and critical theories. There are both advantages and disadvantages to these projects, many of which are acknowledged by their adherents. Nevertheless, the power and attractiveness of an international or global society with shared norms usually wins the day among International Relations (IR) scholars. Some see such a state of affairs as already in place, while others have sought a viable path toward it (e.g., a communitarian path toward cosmopolitanism). Much of this literature is engaging and even persuasive. I believe, however, that there is a compelling alternative to these projects—one that underscores the importance of judgment over rules, difference over homogeneity and attention to relationality in the micropolitical space of everyday experience, living, and resistance. Simply put, the hard work of ethics will happen ‘on the ground’ where there are no easy answers and where rules and norms, on their own, cannot instruct us. What I have aimed for can be plainly stated—to offer an approach to ethics that I think others might find attractive and that can be taken up by anyone who agrees that it is worth trying. If readers expected a triumphant conclusion about how to make world politics ‘better’ or ‘just’, they will likely be disappointed. This ethics must resonate with and prove satisfactory to those who would practice it. Thus, while I have sought to show how many different scholars and policymakers, individuals and communities can rethink experiences and events they think they know, I have focused most on how ethical reflexivity can be a practice for continuously interrogating and remaking U.S. foreign policy from a variety of subject positions. Furthermore, having turned to reflexivity as the centerpiece for a practice of ethics and in view of my own positionality, I can at least fashion the practice of ethical reflexivity itself as an object to be evaluated and worked over as it takes shape in the world. This practice can be accepted as

226 Conclusion it is, or modified on the basis of other reflexive traditions of thought. I offer my ideas provisionally and contingently. I have proposed a ‘practice’ for ‘global ethics’, but each of these terms requires explanation and pause. I have used them with some reservation. First, ethical reflexivity as a ‘practice’ is shorthand for reflexivity’s continuity as a self-conscious activity that involves turning back on the self to evaluate and navigate thought and action for specific situations. Because reflexivity induces instability, especially when informed by the attitudes and dispositions I set out, it is subversive of practices that primarily rely on ‘rules’ and tacit knowledge, or what Vincent Pouliot (2008) refers to as ‘inarticulate know-how that makes what is to be done self-evident or commonsensical’. While I offer specific processes, attitudes, dispositions and tactics to give reflexivity form, it would go against the very grain of the idea of reflexivity if ethical reflexivity (as I or anyone else formulates and enacts it) is not itself actively appraised. Not only that, ethical reflexivity’s agent-directed intertextuality looks for, leverages and even seeks to realize fissures, slippages and inconsistencies between thought and action. The point is not to resolve them to reach a stable point of balance between thought and action, but to put them in useful tension by agents who see their points of contact and points of friction as resources and the very stuff of ethics in a world that does not admit of easy decisions, only difficult and perhaps impossible choices. Ethical reflexivity is a practice and a positive project in the sense that its exercise is ongoing and features certain guideposts that promote self-awareness and the provisional status of this and all other practices. Nevertheless, ethical reflexivity can be socially valued and learned, in a way, similar to Aristotle’s notion of ethical virtues as dispositions. It’s not actions or behavior that are regularized, but the readiness and willingness to grapple with questions of ethics, and some experience in doing so. This might be the late or postmodern phronimos of world politics. Second, I refer to this practice of ethics as ‘global’ not because I think it is valid for everyone everywhere. Rather, the scope of ethical consideration, I believe, for those who try on and try out ethical reflexivity should be as inclusive as possible. It strikes me that Judith Butler (2004b) was on to something in her rendering of relationality as intense and profound vulnerability to one another, not just in violence but also in desire. The lover, the friend, the stranger, all have affective power in how they express or withhold recognition, even if such recognition can only ever be imperfect. Those who are addressed also have power in contesting and refusing the ways in which they are recognized as an ‘other’, or as a ‘you’ by an ‘I’ (Butler 2015, p. 12). In international/global/world politics we have struggled with how to recognize others but have also decided that some lives are simply not worthy of recognition and thus not grievable (Butler 2004a)—not just those labeled ‘terrorists’ (a label that casts a very wide net, as discussed in Chapters 5 and 6), but also those labeled ‘civilian casualties’, as indicated by the Obama administration’s refusal to discuss civilian deaths from drones, persons whom they neither name nor accurately count. It is very difficult to meaningfully engage ethical questions in view of relationality when we cannot see, let alone

Conclusion  227 hear, others because we have taken comfort in rules and intentions to justify the deaths and violence that follow. Rules, whether universal or not, cannot be the basis for global ethics. Aristotle offers a still persuasive argument, relevant to IR, that rules (or ‘universals’) fail to determine specific ethical judgments. We have overinvested in the just war tradition as ‘rules of war’.1 Those who parrot its precepts, as if merely saying the words made both the precepts true and their actions in alignment with them, and even those who argue that it is a matter of changing or updating the rules, would rightfully take us all for simple creatures if we fail to see and account for the inadequacy of rules writ large. Arendt, in the example of Eichmann, illustrated just how easily we can shift from one set of rules (Nazi Germany) to another (the war crimes tribunal). Must we all accommodate rules so easily, like Eichmann? Is the only viable solution to make the best rules possible (whether norms or international law)? I have argued instead, with reference to specific issues in Chapters 4–6, that we sorely need alternative resources for ethics and it is with this in mind that I offer ethical reflexivity as a practice for any of a variety of actors who are dissatisfied and disillusioned with prevalent models of ethics and morality. Relatedly, I have not observed the now mostly unstated convention of organizing scholarly analysis as well as normative theorizing along the lines of levels of analysis or type of actor. I have discussed reflexivity relative to states, nongovernmental organizations, their organizational subdivisions, other kinds of communities and groups, and individuals, though I have focused most on individuals because the attributes and functions that organizations claim and possess often socialize and incentivize against far-reaching critique of thought and action. This is not to say, however, that individuals have a privileged ontological unity, coherence, and self-knowledge. There is a fundamental mystery, incompleteness, and plurality to the self which can actually benefit ethics. The fractured and incoherent self, always in relationship with others and affiliated with certain groups and communities, makes thinking possible. By focusing on and leveraging the self’s plurality, we need not be reduced to social norms and pressures, but can hear ourselves and re-represent the heard perspectives of others through an Arendtian internal dialogue, only reaching ‘agreement’ for the moment of speech or deed. This is not to deny a desirable pluralism and plural-self for politics, but to argue that the internal work of the self can inform and be informed by a publicpolitical pluralism, and this is especially fruitful when reflexivity assists unpopular and creative critique and formulation of other ways of living in the realm of words and deeds. Rather than fall back on well-tread theorizations of (equal) communication as the only strategy for ethics, I have sought to stylize reflexivity as dispositions, processes, and tactics that can be wielded intrapersonally and interrelationally. In this regard, Arendt and Foucault have been especially instructive. Both bring into view figures who create vibrant inner worlds to achieve critical distance from thought action, and take refuge to search for and create beauty and pleasure; and Foucault pointed to relational possibilities that diversify the ‘readymade formulas’ for life that we have likely performed. Yet, both were also deeply concerned about and active in politics, as inextricable from ethics. For Arendt,

228 Conclusion attention to the ethico-political represented a shift, pulled by events not of her own choosing but that of Nazi Germany and its agents. She came to see political action and judgment as vital to living, rather than a strict separation between philosophy and politics. It would be undesirable to get stuck in thought, either as a form of escapism, or in wonder. Arendt was tempted to do so; she felt abandoned by the world as a Jew and then a stateless person, but in her ‘homelessness’ refused to become ‘homesick’ or unworldly. Philosophers (she claimed instead to be a political theorist), she wrote, are particularly in danger of crossing the ‘rainbow bridge’ of reified concepts about which Nietzsche warned. Here, too, Arendt may have been thinking of those who, like Heidegger, were swept up by grand and violent political projects. Thus, thinking and acting (or willing), along with judgment of particulars, have been rendered by Arendt in ways that can inform a flexible agency to respond to the unique (often, ‘dark’) times we live in. Even in the most structured and coerced circumstances, when it seems that we have few options, Arendt (1968, 1978b) pointed to those individuals who found some ‘origin’ within themselves to think and act anew.2 Though Foucault is often framed as leaving us with no more than power-laden subjectivities, he also cultivated a guarded, though never triumphant, optimism that we could push up against the limits of our received experiences (a ‘limit-attitude’) to claim some of the power that we do have in constituting ourselves as subjects. To pry open other ways of living, exemplified by gay male friendships and the eccentric ‘dandy’, does not aim for idealized and unproblematic social relations and identities. Just as Aristotle concluded that ‘mixed actions’ (of both force and choice) more often than not are what we have to grapple with, Foucault wanted to maintain that ‘everything is dangerous’ even if we pursue with vigor that which multiplies strands of beauty in our lives, and engage in battlefield tactics against that which has induced self-discipline and normalization. For Foucault, his sexual life was surely intertwined with his scholarly and political projects, even though (like Arendt) he was fiercely private about its details. Foucault and Arendt were more interested in promoting critical thinking and novel action than pronouncing the way forward as public intellectuals. The benefit of their exilic experiences is found in their ability to recognize and articulate how agency could matter without resorting to social analyses that simplify and minimize the magnitude of the challenge of ethics, perhaps because they struggled with their own sense of power in a world that threatened to overwhelm them. The political field that I have sought to bring into view in my discussion of reflexivity’s potential for ethics is, in a way, already marked by ‘reflexive modernity’. Thus, ethical reflexivity is not an invention but rather a substantial reworking of some familiar ideas and concepts. Arendt, Foucault, and Giddens all point to modernity or late modernity as a reflexive age, but with important variation. Indeed, it might be suggested that, when we consider the IR, sociology, and anthropology literatures on reflexivity, its variety of conceptualizations and uses have a meeting point in a reflexive age, even if there are some visions of reflexivity that may be more desirable than others (as I believe). While Giddens is useful for locating the ways in which ideas and actions feed back into subsequent

Conclusion  229 conditions for action, including their unintended and unforeseen consequences, this reflexivity is not particularly agent-centric. For Giddens, individuals seek the security of routine, and when insecurities surface, repair tends to be patchwork. Ontological insecurities provide opportunities for strategically inducing reflexivity (Steele 2008a), particularly with the eclipse of tradition by modernity (the former with its more stable knowledge transmission), but this form of reflexivity cannot itself be a practice of ethics. A Giddensian agency is less judgment or a way of life, and more drive for stability, order, and structural wholeness and coherence, to the extent that the agent is active at all. Even if we could achieve a world of societies and organizations that continuously took into account the consequences, intended and unintended, of their actions—this is also not the reflexivity of a practice of ethics. In this minimalist sense, the military could be a reflexive agent par excellence, and this should give us pause.3 The efficient collection and use of information and the feedback of consequences of action as measured against a particular mission, even if in the interest of collective (organizational) survival, do not amount to the evaluative purpose of ethics, nor tap into agents’ capacities for creativity and natality. Thus, I turned most to Arendt and Foucault, who articulated a reflexivity that could respond to and rework modernity and its very terms, and to Aristotle, whose account of ethical and practical judgment in its attention to particulars informed the formulations of both thinkers. Aristotle’s conceptualization of phronesis, as practical reasoning or prudence, is crucial for living a life of excellence, where ethical virtues are contextually located and enacted, not for the sake of what is right or wrong, but for the sake of what is good, bad, beautiful or ugly with regard to persons and situations, including human relationships. This form of ethical judgment is premised on agents (phronimos) who cultivate critical rationality and their ethical sensibilities in order to live well and act for the sake of what is noble (kalon). Because good judgment takes account of particulars and even prioritizes them for specifications of the good(s), Aristotle’s ethics enacts a kind of ‘critical rationality’. In opposition to ethical decision making as logical demonstration (apodeixis), Aristotle promotes an ethics that features reasoning (logos), emotion (pathos), intuition (nous), and character (êthos) as important for drawing out alternatives, making a satisfactory choice and identifying some strategies for acting given our limited capacities. As David Wiggins (1975/1976, p. 43) put it, to make apparent the moral qualities of a situation ‘may require a high order of situational appreciation, or as Aristotle would say perception (aisthēsis)’, and that this ‘situational appreciation’ would ‘prompt the imagination to play upon the question and let it activate in reflection and thought-experiment’. In confronting questions of what should be done in particular cases, the phronetic actor draws out the salient features of the situation, asking what is ethically significant about it. The phronimos also looks to theories or ‘thought’ for direction, including proffered ‘universals’ in an investigation of both possible actions and the justification or reasons for taking particular actions. At the same time, the phronimos is constantly engaged in assessing and questioning how well

230 Conclusion we have confronted particular situations with deliberation and choice. Aristotle’s focuses on cultivating a self who is practiced in phronesis and disposed to thinking about and grappling with acting well has contributed to my articulation of ‘ethical reflexivity’ as a practice. There were no easy answers for Aristotle: he constantly referred to both ethics and politics as imprecise, as art rather than science, and as in need of constant thinking and rethinking. Agency itself is delimited in important ways, according to Aristotle, and yet we can try to make choices and make sense of them nevertheless. If Aristotle indeed prioritized particulars over universals (as I would advocate), universals and/or universalization are held in check because the particular challenges the very notion of constancy and homogeneity of any specification of the good, of values, the beautiful or that which is desired.4 It is apparent that Arendt draws on and engages Aristotle’s work, as does Foucault, though focused on ancient Greeks in general. In posing Socrates as an exemplar of ‘thinking’, Arendt often refers to Aristotle’s texts as synonymous with Socrates’ views; thus she moves from Socrates’ self-stylizations as gadfly, midwife, and stingray to Aristotle’s phronesis.5 Perhaps because agency has been so neglected in IR, Arendt’s reflections on thinking are often overlooked.6 A basic framework for ethics that we can invoke from these thinkers, I argue, is the capacity to look back on the self to articulate and question thought and action. In addition to the reflexive capacities of thinking, willing and judging that Arendt sets out, Foucault’s methods of genealogy and archaeology extend the corrosive and creative achievements of agents’ iterative evaluations of thought and action. A genealogical history and an archaeological excavation do not reveal a point of origin or foundation. Instead, they seek out the discursive formations that construct and limit thought and action, and, in setting out some of their ‘numberless beginnings’ in their ‘details’ and in their ‘accidents’ (Foucault 1984a, pp. 80–81), to re-engage the incoherency and imprecision of our self-narratives with a more contingent rendition of history as ‘events’ (Barder and McCourt 2010). Under these conditions new ways of living can be imagined. After setting out the process of ethical reflexivity in its dialectic, dialogic and affective movements, I turned in Chapter 3 to the task of thinking through the attitudes, dispositions, and skills that an ethically reflexive agent (global phronimos) might have as well as the tactics s/he might engage, looking especially to Arendt, Foucault, and Aristotle. In Foucault’s lexicon, they amount to ‘techniques of the self’ that constitute the self’s ethical practice. Ethical agents foremost need a sense of themselves as agents with an appreciation for how their actions have ethico-empirical implications, even if indirect, and of their capacity to critically engage and revise thought itself. This self-possession is not assured, as theories and popular understandings of agency posit causation and command as necessary for agency. To work on thought and action is to also work on ourselves, implying that there is also a certain sense of openness to self-transformation that accompanies and supports ethical reflexivity—what Foucault referred to as a ‘critical ontology of ourselves’. It is also to provoke rather than dictate to those who participate in politics, and ethically reflexive exchanges are not merely polemics. Along with other dispositions, it is worth noting, as I conclude, that there were some

Conclusion  231 perhaps surprising or unexpected implications of the practice I set out, particularly in view of Aristotle’s discussion of rhetoric and Foucault’s consideration of the power we might assume in contesting and reworking the self. Specifically, in my review of some ‘ideal-type’ global phronimos in Chapter 3 and the case of drones in Chapter 6, the tactic of heckling can be justified to shrink the public access gap. Otherwise, we defer ethics until communicative standards are acquiesced to by those already discursively advantaged. I have investigated and argued that, though there are avenues for institutionalizing ethical reflexivity as process and attitude, it may be too optimistic to place our hopes for ethically reflexive practice here. Perhaps the most we can hope for from organizations is that they sometimes tolerate and tepidly support the qualities and actions of the global phronimos, or the ethically reflexive agent. Furthermore, given the various social and organizational characteristics and pressures that I have reviewed in Chapter 3 especially, we can expect that agents will always have to struggle to instantiate a practice of ethics that might challenge the actions and policies of an organization and perhaps its mission as well, and in doing so, potentially bring embarrassment and shame to the organization or state, and risk to themselves. I was able to identify several individuals within the U.S. government who reflexively articulated ethical concerns, presenting to others historical analogies and imaginative exercises that challenged the policy and tactics of ‘enhanced interrogation’. Yet, their critiques were confined to the chain of command. ‘Going public’ or too far outside of the organizational hierarchy would have entailed career risk and at least some social opprobrium that individuals either were unwilling to take or simply could not conceive. On the upside, when individuals have led the organization in challenging directions, as we saw with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Rwanda, the aberrant behavior is usually folded into an organizational narrative that makes sense of it, not necessarily as perfectly ordinary action for the organization but as action that can somehow be understood and valued. Yet, this act is also one of co-optation and there is no guarantee that an organization will continue to support challenging actions and narratives that interrogate the organizational self, as we saw with regard to ‘enhanced interrogation’ when the ICRC reverted to neutrality in ways that protected the United States from criticism. Though constructivists have very helpfully offered a compelling basis for connecting a great deal of what we do as based in rules, it is not therefore the case that rules should be the basis for a practice of ethics. What was so troubling to Arendt about Eichmann was how adept he was with rules. His evil did not lie in his childhood, genetics, motives, or even ideology, but rather most of all in his failure to think. And this failure to understand what he was doing took shape as normal life—as clichéd phrases, as career ambitions, as fitting into a social and organizational hierarchy, and as following the law. The disturbing thing about ‘political evil’ for Arendt is that we are all capable of it. Thus, to see, as we did in the case of the U.S. policy of ‘enhanced interrogation’ during the War on Terror that the law was the central pivot point—both for the Bush administration’s objective to pursue much more aggressive interrogation and detention policies and for those

232 Conclusion who saw and opposed torture—is especially telling. The discursive battle over drones has taken place on similar (legal) terrain—here, the laws of war. Whether international law or domestic law, either can be reshaped for the situation, and when pliability amounts to permissibility under the logic that what is legal is ethical, there is no need to offer additional justification or persuasion. Thus, when the Obama administration finally decided to ‘come clean’ about the drones program and explain its justification, once the legal case was laid out, no further detail was forthcoming or seen as necessary by Obama, Brennan, and much of the public. And, strikes and the individuals they killed need not be commented on or explained. Dispensing with rules alone is not a mark of ethical reflexivity, particularly if those rules are simply replaced with new rules that demand no more thinking than before—as in the case of the new rules of the War on Terror and the new rules and routines (the ‘work’) of the genocide in Rwanda. In all of these cases, including Rwanda, I have sought to bring the agencies of individuals (still in their social context) in view to gesture towards other self and relational possibilities. The account of reflexivity I offer is substantially different from the discussions of reflexivity in the IR literature. I am not as much concerned with intersecting levels of interpretation between scholars and those whom they study, but rather the intersecting levels of interpretation that happen in all facets of life and across many stations, positions, memberships and non-memberships of politics. I thus resituate the basis for reflexivity in difference, but also in epistemological uncertainty and ontological contingency. It is difficult to know, but it is possible to think and to act. Ethical reflexivity is one form of responsibility that issues form this starting point.

Dangers and limits of ethical reflexivity In discussing modernity as an attitude, Foucault (1984c) invokes Baudelaire’s conceptualization of modernity that features a voluntary choice to seize what is ‘heroic’ about the present, but in the enthusiasm to throw off the conventional rules and insist on the perpetual possibility of self-transformation, does ethical reflexivity bleed into a dangerous decisionism? In a now oft-cited exchange between the reporter, Ron Suskind, and a ‘senior adviser’ to President George W. Bush, Suskind recalled the adviser to have said, that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’, which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore’, he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’. (Suskind 2004)

Conclusion  233 This Bush adviser was politically deploying language as purposeful speech acts that create a social reality, as a decision in time. Self-awareness of one’s creative powers can be unleashed to inform actions and create a social reality, and that creation might be judged worse (at least by some) than a less reflective reproduction of reigning norms and tacit knowledge. Foucault (1984c, p. 47) demonstrated similar concern, stating his preference for greater freedom over the danger of radical programs when he wrote: I prefer the very specific transformations that have proved to be possible in the last twenty years in a certain number of areas that concern our ways of being and thinking, relations to authority, relations between the sexes, the way in which we perceive insanity of illness . . . to the programs for a new man that the worst political systems have repeated throughout the twentieth century. Arendt and Giddens were also wary of the grand programs that could manipulate and transform our social and natural environment through technological but human-initiated processes that unfold into the world with uncertain but disastrous consequences. Still, Foucault’s statement is remarkable given the fact that his life work has been to expose how many different ‘ways of being and thinking’ (even those that seem ostensibly ‘good’) have resulted in the coercion, discipline, subjugation and exploitation of the individual. Yet, it is this very ethos that can be the well-spring of alternative ways of thinking and being, as ‘becoming’. The discomfort lies in taking on responsibility for our actions (our natality), and in judging and being judged for the consequences of our thought and action, even those consequences we did not intend. Thus, when Arendt refers to the power of forgiveness and promises to create ‘islands of security in oceans of insecurity’, I believe that she may have meant a continuous and imperfect strategy for the unpredictability and irreversibility of actions. Otherwise, we would be devastated by knowing and living with the consequences of a single act. This does not then mean that our power is unlimited, that we can wrestle chance into submission, as Machiavelli sought to do with fortuna (Amoureux and Steele 2014). There are numerous things about ourselves and the world that we may not understand, but this does not preclude a nuanced approach to knowledge and earnest experience of many types of agency. Jane Bennett (2011), for example, has discussed the lack of a grammar for talking about the agency of material things and our curious relationship with them. Key to ethical reflexivity as a practice is not just elaborating the agency of the self but also others’ agencies and other types of agencies. Ethical reflexivity is not a panacea, then, or a recipe for recrafting the world at will. It is a way of living that entails a promise to try to anticipate in a searching and self-critical process the possible consequences of our actions as they unfold, to try to make out what appears on the horizon just beyond what we can see and to create but also justify new meanings in politics. To appreciate the full spectrum of our relationships with others and to maintain a certain amount of humility while not giving up on the boldness and risk of action—such as liking others first

234 Conclusion and liking more—is a potential response to an uncertain, contingent and complex world. Others will judge this commitment and how well we keep it, and thus whether or not we are forgiven for what results. That all will be willing to take on acute risk to the self, and that we can slow down or stop to think in a postmodern temporality perceived to be beyond our control, threatens to upend or preclude ethical reflexivity. It may be that only some need to be ‘capable of loving the world more than one’s own self’ (Arendt, quoted by Owens 2007, p. 106) to have an impact on politics. And, perhaps it is through reflexivity itself that we are most capable of reconstructing alternative political temporalities. The idea of ethical reflexivity and its specific features as a practice, as I have mentioned, are all subject to critical appraisal, but one type of appraisal that I have not taken up (perhaps only tepidly in Chapter 4) is that of autoethnography. In part, I have justified this move to myself, and now to you, as not as pertinent to elaborating reflexivity itself as a practice. Autoethnography, in other words, is one particular form that reflexivity as practice might take (e.g., contributors to Inayatullah 2011). But do I still have an obligation to make myself more transparent and to interrogate the basis of my own claims? It is an ethical claim, after all, to favor newness, self-transformation, and risk, even if ethical reflexivity also allows actively holding on to that which has worked well for us in the past and continues to be valued in our relational worlds. Reflexivity’s basic premise is that of looking back on the self, which involves a commitment to continuous interrogation and thus always the possibility of change. And, this practice could be too exhausting for a life that has any measure of joy and sense of well-being. Perhaps I have been attracted to and have taken up this project because of the ways in which it connects to my own experiences and to a romanticized liberal-individualist narrative.7 It does seem likely that reflexivity resonates with my specific lived experiences and/or cultural context. I could try to elaborate these connections, but I also do not think reflexivity is a veiled form of liberal individualism, if for no other reason than that it opens outward to others’ experiences and perspectives rather than generalizes about them and their moral worth. I find it somewhat difficult to write one or another version of my story; perhaps this task remains for another occasion. But also, as seen with the semi-fictional professor in Elizabeth Dauphinee’s (2013) book and the reflexive agent (phronimos) here, I may also not understand exactly why I do what I do, whether or not they are fully identifiable reasons. I may only recognize the efforts of others to induce me to see them differently because I am attuned to them (and to other texts) through reflexivity as a practice. There are, then, limits to reflexivity, and there are a variety of reflexivities, including a political reflexivity in which we are exposed, provoked and narrated by others. From reflexivity we will not reach definitive answers about ourselves or others, neither will we achieve clear views of what to do. But we can put ourselves to the task of struggling with the difficult questions that arise when we engage reflexivity’s attitudes and tactics. We can prepare ourselves to be ready for these engagements and ready to entertain novel ideas and the actions and relationships they entail.

Conclusion  235

Notes 1 See some of the contributions to Heinze and Steele (2009) and Brown (2013). 2 That this origin is enabled first by natality, that we are all born into the world, and second by mortality, that we will all die, is intriguing, but not all that clear about how, exactly, this facilitates new thinking and acting. We need also to elaborate Arendt’s views on the use of metaphors in speech (that they are specific to context and history) and her ontology of action (that we act into the world but it unfolds in ways that we cannot control and may not have predicted). I attend to these matters in Chapter 2. 3 I am indebted to James Der Derian for this suggestion. 4 A similar line of reasoning can be found in Edelman (2004, p. 6), drawing on Lacan. 5 However, Arendt (1961) is somewhat critical of Aristotle and his notion of experience in her early essay, ‘What is Authority?’ 6 See, however, Barder and McCourt (2010), Lang (2002), Lang and Williams (2005), and Owens (2007), who discuss Arendt’s later work to varying degrees. 7 See Rosemary Shinko’s (2012) comparison of liberal and postmodern subjectivities.

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Index

Abizadeh, A. 31, 39–41, 49, 53n.24 Abu Ghraib controversy 22, 25n.32, 174–5, 179, 181, 195, 207 aesthetics 4, 7, 28–9, 43, 96, 115, 121, 124, 228; ethical reflexivity 4, 88, 106; Gaillard, P. 161; judgment 78–9 affect: action 38–9; agency 47, 115, 151; cultivated 32, 39, 117; difference 27, 98, 128–9; ethical reflexivity 6–7, 15, 38–42, 97–8, 105, 124–6; experience 52n.18, 118, 128, 141n.21; International Relations 38–9; judgment 49, 93, 112, 116–7; negative aspects 53n.24, 207; non-normative 90, 98; particulars 26, 47; perception 30, 39–40, 49; reason 30, 37–40, 52n.19–20, 97; relationality 90, 129; rhetoric 97, 128; sociological aspects 38–9, 222, 226; see also anger; attitudes and dispositions of global phronimos; courage; friendship and friendliness; gentleness; rhetoric; wonder and curiosity Afghanistan: civilian casualties 203, 213–14, 223n.6; detainee abuses 174, 179, 182–3; post-9/11 conflict in 15–17, 25n.33, 200–3, 205, 208, 209–11, 221; Quran burnings 14–17; use of drones 199–203, 205, 213–14, 221; U.S. relationship 14–17, 203, 213–14 agency: action 36, 207; an account of 19, 70, 74, 84–5, 93, 114–15, 118, 139; as activity 28, 47, 74, 114, 129; as capacity to deliberate 6, 108, 116; as causality 108–9, 230; as competence with rules 106, 110; as judgment and choice 32–7, 74, 105–6, 111–12, 114–19, 144,

228; as power to influence 74, 108–9; as rule-following 109, 111, 117; as subjective experience 93, 106, 115, 120, 142–3, 148–9, 151–2, 161–2, 168, 193–4, 218, 230; constructivism 106; contingency 29, 31–2, 37, 47, 114, 117; effects of 117, 191, 212; everyday 49, 51, 130; explanatory versus evaluative 23n.8; infantilized 110; in International Relations theory 4, 18–19, 28, 37, 70–2, 95, 104, 106; limits of 37, 100, 112, 230; of self and others 13, 17, 20, 28, 69, 99, 109, 130, 160, 218, 220, 222, 233; recognition 17, 113–14, 220, 226–7; responsibility 2, 32, 53n.27, 86, 107–8, 118, 144, 191, 193, 197; Rwandan politics 142–52, 160–1; reflexive agency 5, 7, 9, 19–20, 39, 49, 51, 56–7, 63, 67, 70–2, 74–5, 85, 95, 105–7, 114–15, 117–18, 130, 140n.8, 151, 160–2, 228; social and organizational context 20–1, 28, 63, 70–3, 75, 79, 103n.13, 105–11, 114–15, 118, 120, 124, 139, 162, 168, 194; suppressed 116 agents: contextualized and relational 2, 37, 75, 88, 96, 105–6, 111, 221, 226; formation and ascription 5, 12–13, 60, 91, 114, 221–2; globalization 62–3; in constructivism 70, 72, 110; individual and collective 19–20, 22, 75, 107–8, 118–19, 134, 227; insecure 63, 73, 228–9; logics of rationality 4; of world politics 2–3, 20, 108, 115, 124, 143, 212, 226–7; political-agents 19; practice 26; scholar-agents 4, 19; speakers and audiences 27, 97; who evaluate the

262 Index practice of ethical reflexivity 9–10, 23, 71; see also Aristotle, phronimos; global phronimos; self Allen, J. 14 anger 24n.14, 38–41, 128–9, 131, 195 anxiety: psychological 51–2, 61–3, 73, 215 Arendt, H.: agency 5, 212; authorial reflexivity 56–7, 64, 66, 68–69; ‘banality of evil’ 65; bureaucracy 113; history 64–6, 69, 82, 96; homelessness and homesickness 67, 76, 79, 228; internal (2-in-1) dialogue 4, 74–7; Kantian ‘enlarged mentality’ 6, 77, 79–80, 84, 100, 185, 206, 222; , means-means chain 2, 66, 69, 100, 112–13, 220–1; on Aristotle 75, 82, 99, 103n.12, 103n.16, 230, 235n.5; philosophy 67, 75, 77, 79–80, 124–5, 228; promises and forgiveness 78, 233; reflexivity 102n.7; rules 111, 152; totalitarianism 64–5, 67–8; violence and ethics 135; withdrawal 67, 75, 79, 92, 228; wonder 81, 124, 228; Zionism 67; see also dialogue; Eichmann, A.; judging and judgment; thinking; thoughtlessness; willing Aristotle: actions and feelings at the mean 30, 39, 41, 46, 48, 51n.2, 98–9, 124, 130–1, 152; agency 5, 29, 118; contextual and practical philosophy 29–30, 96; dispositions 5, 24; good deliberation 33, 230; IR literature 27–9, 54n.35; means and ends 33–4; metaphysics 48–9, 54n.37; mixed actions 24, 32, 118, 228; phronesis 20, 26, 29–38, 41–2, 45, 47, 49–51, 52n.11, 52n.15, 112, 120, 128, 140n.17, 212, 229; phronimos 7, 20–1, 26, 29, 32–3, 35–9, 41, 49, 111–12, 120; rhetoric 40–2, 127–9, 141n.22; telos 33; the good (eudaimonia) and goods 33–5, 49, 52n.16, 62, 120; uncertainty 23n.2; virtue 40, 88; see also affect; friendship and friendliness; particulars and universals; rhetoric art and ethical reflexivity 88, 121, 133 attitudes and dispositions of global phronimos 7–8, 13, 17, 20, 98, 226, 228, 230, 234 autoethnography see narrative

becoming 8, 48, 56, 93, 103n.21, 106, 121–2, 233 Beiner, J. 35 Biden, J. 13, 208 Blackburn, S. 17 Blair, D. 200, 204–7, 221, 223n.8–9 boomerang effect see Arendt, meansmeans chain Bourdieu, P. 71, 102n.11 Brennan, J. 204, 217–9, 222, 232 Bulley 6, 24n.10, 101, 112 bureaucracy 70, 107, 109–10, 113–15 Bush, G.W. 10–11, 15, 24n.20–1, 25n.32, 173–6, 181–2, 197n.3, 201, 203 Butler, J.: agencies of self and other 14, 24n.18, 32, 53n.27, 93, 212, 226; micropolitics 123, 130; recognition 226; ‘reflexive being’ 4–6; vulnerability 9, 83, 103n.21, 130, 220 Carle, G. 178, 187, 190, 192–4, 198n.19 Carr, E.H. 9, 17–18, 23, 25n.35, 83 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 175, 178, 184, 187, 192, 197, 197n.3, 201, 203, 205, 222, 223n.10 Cheney, R. 175, 182, 202 Clinton, B. 25n.32, 138 Clinton, H. 12, 208 Code Pink 138, 209, 215–6, 220–1, 224n.25 Comey, J. 194 Connolly, W.: agonism 86–7, 103n.22; hermaphrodite 122–3, 141n.18; identity and difference 86, 97, 122; power 140n.12; self-reflexivity and becoming 5, 39, 54n.38, 97, 106, 122 complexity and contingency: Arendt 2, 5, 37, 64, 66–7, 70, 75, 77, 79, 100; Aristotle 29, 31–2, 40, 45, 47; enhanced interrogation 192–3, 195; Foucault 5, 6, 8, 64, 86, 121–2; Giddens 62–3; in Rwanda 145–54, 160; International Relations literature 225; norms 114, 117; responsibility 93; role in ethical reflexivity 1–2, 5–6, 9, 20, 29, 36–7, 56, 70, 86–7, 91–4, 96–8, 107, 112, 117, 140n.6, 153, 169, 192 232; see also unintended consequences context see agency, social and organizational context; agents,

Index  263 contextualized and relational; particulars and universals contextualist approaches 29, 51n.5, 104n.32; see also Aristotle courage 40, 45, 67, 127, 130–1, 161, 210 crisis 55, 63, 73, 82, 91, 100, 124–5, 137 Dauphinee, E. 3, 101, 119, 125, 140n.16, 169, 234 Deleuze, G. 58–9 D’Entrèves, M. 80, 101, 103n.26 democracy 11, 31–2, 53n.24–25, 65, 83, 103n.22, 113–14, 140n.9, 156, 208, 211, 221 Der Derian, J. 1, 23 determinism/voluntarism debate 72 dialectic, positive versus negative 6, 89–91, 93–6 dialectic reasoning 19–20, 35, 52n.14, 53n.23, 55, 72, 76, 81, 84, 93–7, 126–7, 168; diachronic perspective 126–7, 191, 194, 218; drones 206–7, 218, 220–2; of ethical reflexivity 4–6, 9, 93–7, 112, 140 fn.6; torture 184 dialogue 79, 84, 95, 98–102, 127; alternative perspectives 17, 184, 187–8, 208–211, 214–6, 220; benefits 79; conditions and limits of 6, 99, 100–1, 127, 231; external 6, 22–3, 24n.10–11, 64, 98, 104n.29, 152–3, 162–3; Foucault’s view of 101; ideal of consensus 115; internal/inner 75–7, 120, 170, 185; lack of 10–11, 17, 113, 187, 190, 200, 213–4, 216; political tactics 6, 23, 138, 188, 210, 221; reflexive agency 99–101; Rwanda 162–3 difference 1–2, 6, 12–17, 19, 27, 41–2, 47, 86, 98–9, 127, 153, 207, 211–2, 216, 220–1; care of the self 88; in International Relations literature 104n.33, 225; needs and desires of others 10, 50, 129, 199; responsibility 98; see also self dissent, and organizations 118–19, 134–5, 192, 194–5, 207, 224n.25 dominant narratives 5, 20, 55, 60, 90–94, 105, 107, 116–18, 120, 123, 129–30, 139, 142–4, 151, 156, 160, 162, 184, 192–3, 224n.29

double hermeneutic 3, 67, 71–2 drones: arguments and tactics against 204–11; 215–16; counting of 212, 223n.17–18, 223n.20; effects of 214–5, 219; efficacy 201–2; ethical analysis 202; intention 216–7, 227; legal analysis 202, 204; organizational politics 200–1; Pakistani views of 208, 214–6; political and ethical advantages 200, 202; strategic advantages 202; transparency 15, 204–5, 216–17, 220 efficacy see instrumental reasoning Eichmann, A. 65–6, 68, 75, 78, 80, 82, 95, 102n.6, 139, 148, 152, 227, 231 emancipation as telos of reflexivity 27, 70 enhanced interrogation: arguments against 182, 185–6, 193; policy of 73, 174, 176–7, 200; protest against 134, 193–5, 231; SERE techniques 185–7; unintended consequences of 185–7; see also torture Enlightenment, the 7, 52n.11, 57–60, 62, 70, 92 epistemological uncertainty 47–9, 56–7, 69, 86, 92, 98, 232 Erskine, T. 107–8 ethical reasoning 22, 110–11, 136, 181, 183–4, 194, 215–6, 222, 232 ethical reflexivity 92–102; as a practice 4–7, 30, 93–6, 129, 139, 225–6, 230; attitudes and dispositions of 13–14, 119–27, 184; context of 10, 234; critical rationality 4, 6, 35–8, 51, 70, 72, 96, 97 114, 228; examples of 14–17; 162, 170, 195–6, 211–2; its contingency 225–6; lack of 10, 13; limits and challenges 9, 13, 23, 232–4; ontology 96; organizations 118–19, 192–5, 197; power 6, 8–9, 18–19, 24n.16, 28, 41, 55, 59, 63, 70, 74, 85, 88–91, 101, 115–18, 127–8, 130, 132, 137, 152, 187, 193–4, 197, 221–2, 226, 228, 231, 233; questions of 36–7, 118, 121, 185, 190–1, 213, 216, 218–9, 222, 224n.29; selfinquiry and transformation 1, 3, 8, 51, 56, 93–4, 116, 119, 121–4, 126, 184, 230, 234; situational appreciation/awareness 33, 152n.10, 62, 170, 193, 229; summary of 8–9, 19–20, 55–6, 93, 101–2, 107, 225–32; tactics of 30, 42, 55, 63, 80–1,

264 Index 97–8, 118, 123, 125–6, 128, 132–9, 176, 193, 221, 228, 230–1; textual resources 50–1, 124, 161–2, 167, 226; see also dialectic reasoning; dialogue; global phronimos; risk; self experience 26, 30, 32–3, 35–6, 38–9, 42, 49, 74, 68–9, 76, 77–8, 89, 95–6, 115, 120, 122–3, 131–2, 141n.21; age 33, 132 expertise 61–2, 64, 67, 74, 94, 103n.12, 108, 112 Ferguson, K. 78–9 Foucault, M.: agency 6, 115; archaeology and genealogy 8, 48, 60, 85–6, 88–9, 125–6, 230; asceticism 8, 87, 91, 123, 130; authorial reflexivity 57–61, 68–69; becoming 8, 48, 121; care of the self 56, 60, 87–90; counter-power 59, 63, 102n.4; critique 8, 86, 126; dandysme 121–124, 228; Enlightenment and modernity 7–8, 57–8, 68–70, 85–6; ethics 7–8, 60, 87, 89, 121–2; eventualization 85–6; governmentality 59, 89; history 88, 102n.3, 103n.24; Iranian revolution 91; knowledge and power 8, 59–60, 85, 87; reflexivity 70, 85–6, 89, 102n.5; self-techniques 5–6, 8, 59, 87–8, 91; see also subjectivity freedom 6, 8, 31, 58, 62, 70, 89, 91, 95, 122, 156 friendship and friendliness 27, 50, 53n.28–9, 53n.31, 54n.33129, 99, 207, 212; a good 44–5; a way of life 129; affective dispositions 42–5; among states 15, 45; critical rationality 42–3, 45–6, 129; dialogue 99; justice 44, 129; needs and desires of others 15, 27, 99, 212; perception 99; self-virtue 44, 46–7; social importance 44–5; types of friendship 43–4; with oneself 76 Frost, M. 70–1, 102n.9, 110–11, 114, 117, 140n.10 Gaillard, P. 144, 161–4, 166–70, 171n.16–17 Gelles, M. 185 gentleness 39–40, 131 Giddens, A.: agency 63, 74, 108–9; agency and power 74, 108–9; authorial

reflexivity 61, 63–4, 67, 69; globalized risks 62–3, 74; institutional reflexivity 62, 72; on addiction 63; practical consciousness 103n.15; reflexivity 4–5, 55, 61–3, 70, 72, 74, 97, 100, 228–9; routines 61, 63, 72; structure 103n.13; the unconscious and the self 97; technology and human action 62, 69; tradition and modernity 61–3, 229; (un)intended consequences 74; see also anxiety; double hermeneutic; ontological security; risk global phronimos 6, 9, 20, 22, 26–7, 37, 42, 47, 55, 91–3, 95, 100–1, 105, 114, 117, 151, 168, 184, 193, 226, 229–30, 234; characteristics of 105, 120–32, 192; conceptualization 116, 119–20, 139, 140 fn.17; ideal types 132–39, 162, 231; see also Aristotle, phronimos; attitudes and dispositions of global phronimos; self global politics and ethics 8–9, 19, 21, 23n.4, 29, 98, 107–8, 129; concept of 2–3, 226–7 globalization 61–3, 69–70, 110; risk 73 groupthink 133–5 Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (GTMO, GITMO) 14, 138, 174, 176, 179–80, 182, 184–6, 188, 195, 200 Guzzini, S. 3–4, 56, 71–2 Habermas, J. 24n.13, 48, 103n.19, 127 Halberstam, J. 92–3, 98, 127 Hamati-Ataya, I. 23n.6, 56, 71; on autoethnography 102n.11 Hansen, L. 50, 86, 104n.35, 116 Haynes, J. 185–6 heckling: advantages and disadvantages 42, 138–9, 231; drones 138, 215, 221; ethical reflexivity 138–9, 231; Guantanamo 138 Heidegger 83, 117, 124, 140n.14, 228 homosexual ascesis see Foucault Honig, B. 56, 78 identity 207; difference 86, 225; dominant narratives 116; contingency and heterogeneity of 5, 15, 19, 61, 90, 100, 114, 116–17; meaning of 120; Pakistan 210–1; relative to individuals and organizations 107, 109, 167; resentment 122; Rwanda 143–4, 155–60; United

Index  265 States 13, 17, 180; see also self; ontological security imagination and perception 7, 13, 20, 33, 52n.10, 53n.23, 117, 125, 160, 229; affect 39–40, 97 Ingabire, V. 158 institutional reflexivity 62–3, 72, 74, 229; agency 140 fn.8; culture 126, 170; limits of 169, 183; see also organizational reflexivity instrumental reasoning 16, 22, 33, 128, 176, 182–4, 202, 206, 216, 221 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC): confidentiality 163, 166–7, 169, 187, 195; humanity 164–5, 167, 171n.20; impartiality 165–6; interrogation 187–8, 195; neutrality 162–3, 165–8, 231; reflexivity 231; Rwanda delegation 161–70; the Holocaust 169–70, 171n.19, 172n.23–4 international law see legal reasoning intersubjectivity 55–6, 79, 84, 96, 98, 106–7, 115, 120 Iraq: civilian casualties 203; detainee abuse 174–5, 179, 182, 195; ethical reflexivity 13–14, 31–2; opposition to war by realists 17–18; ‘ticking bomb’ scenario 198n.15; use of drones 199–203; WikiLeaks 137; withdrawal debate 10–14, 24n.22–30 judging and judgment 4–5, 24n.13, 73–4, 91, 93–6, 106–7, 117, 137, 139, 140n.6, 141n.20, 153, 166, 170, 180–1, 191–3, 195–7, 217–8, 228; Arendtian 55, 66, 75, 77–81, 84, 103n.18, 103n.26; Aristotelian 7, 26–8 30, 33, 37–8, 40–2, 45–6, 48–9, 52n.20, 54n.32, 112, 120, 131–2; as spectator 80; organizations 108, 112; public versus private 22, 79, 207, 218, 222; risk 151; thinking 103n.25 just war tradition 18, 23n.3, 28, 51n.5, 104n.28, 140n.10, 191, 204, 212–13, 216–7, 218–19, 224n.26, 227 Kagame, P. 155–9 Kant, I. 6–7, 48, 51n.3, 69, 79, 83–4, 100, 102n.2, 109, 115, 140n.14, 185, 206; reflexivity 57–8; see also Arendt

Karzai, H. 14–15, 213–14 Kerry, J. 11–12, 216 Khan, I. 200, 208–12, 217–8, 220–1, 223n.13 Khan, M. 191 knowledge 3–7, 19–20, 24n.15, 28, 37, 48, 56–7, 59, 62, 71, 86, 102n.11, 103n.18, 107, 112, 122, 147, 150, 155, 182, 233; cultural 184, 218; crises of 67; distribution of 12–13; of the self 8, 74, 227; organizational 117; practices 71; scientific 30, 36, 51n.7, 88–9, 97; tacit 103n.15, 226, 233; transmission of 62, 229; see also epistemological uncertainty; Foucault, knowledge and power; non-foundationalism Krause, S. 38, 52n.20, 97 Lang, A. 23n.8, 28, 104n.36, 140n.1 legal reasoning 22, 53n.24, 53n.30, 110, 113, 171n.19, 174–81, 194, 198n.13–14, 202–4, 216–7, 222, 223n.7, 231–2 Levine, D. 3, 94–5, 104n.27, 140n.13 liminality 57, 123, 126 Machiavelli, N. 84, 134, 233 MacIntyre, A. 52n.11 Manning, C. 124, 136–7 Matua, M. 104n.33, 114 metaphors and analogic reasoning 77, 96, 231 methodological individualism 117 methodology: reflexive 94, 144–5 micropolitics 2, 5, 21–2, 49–50, 56, 90, 97, 123, 126, 129–30, 145, 225; texts of the everyday 5, 100, 104n.35, 115 Mill, J.S. 93, 126 Mitzen, J. 73 modernity 52n.11, 55–8, 61–4, 69–70, 85, 102n.8; attitude/affect of 7–8, 58, 122, 232; reflexive 7, 55, 62, 64, 72, 86, 102n.1, 228–9 Mora, A. 174, 185–6 Moran, J. 11 Morgenthau, H. 18, 24n.17, 28, 51n.3, 212 Munter, C. 206, 223n.10

266 Index narrative: approach in IR 125; coherency of the self 73–5, 105, 144, 230; organizational 22, 105, 109, 172n.22, 172n.24, 231; self-writing 87; storytelling 81, 97, 125; utopic and dystopic 125 natality see willing neocolonialism see postcolonialism Nietzsche, F. 78, 86, 103n.24, 122, 228 non-foundationalism 1–3, 24n.15, 47–8, 92, 225, 230 normativity 90, 94, 122–4, 129–30; the non-normativity of failure 92–3 norms: as ethics 2, 21, 102n.9, 109–14; challenges to 5, 64, 75, 96, 114, 119, 122–4, 129, 139, 233; interpretation of 5, 49, 72, 111, 139; of international society 2, 6, 24n.9, 26, 98, 114, 140 fn.10, 186, 225; politics 18, 85, 105, 109; ‘standard of civilization’ 114 Nussbaum, M. 29, 35, 39–40, 50, 52n.19–20, 53n.23 Obama, B. 12, 15–17, 25n.26, 141n.20, 174, 200–1, 203–5, 210, 216–8, 222 O’Leary, R.: 115, 134–5 ontological security 62–3, 73 Onuf, N. 27, 51n.2–3, 71–2, 100, 102n.9, 106, 110–11, 117, 139 organizational challenges and dysfunctions 22, 105, 107, 112–16 organizational reflexivity 21, 103n.14, 118–19, 139, 164–70; limits of 119, 168, 231; see also institutional reflexivity Owens, P. 83, 100, 103n.20, 104n.36, 135 Padilla, J. 182, 198n.14 Pakistan: blowback 205–6; experiences of drones 216–21; identity 211; U.S. relationship 203, 211–12; views of drones 208–10 Panetta, L. 14–15 particulars and universals 30–1, 33, 35–7, 52n.9, 77–8, 83, 95, 111, 121, 140n.5, 156, 168, 229; see also norms; rules Paul, R. 199, 222 pluralism of politics 84, 95, 100, 116, 122, 134–5, 139, 227; in Arendt 64–5, 75, 77–8, 80, 84, 100; see also self, plural/fractured

postcolonialism 114 power 18–9, 24n.16, 25n.35, 59, 101; reflexivity 102n.5, 102n.7; subjectivity 91; conceptualizations of 140 fn.12; see also Foucault, knowledge and power principles see particulars and universals Rahim Wardak, A. 15 Rawls, J. 29, 100, 110 reflexivity: agency 70–1, 74–5, 96, 117–18; anxiety 73; as ethics 3–5, 71–2; capacities of 5, 75; constructivism 71–2; definitions of 4–5; history 57–8, 230; in the field of International Relations 3–4, 19, 56, 102n.10, 140n.13, 140n.16, 234; quality of 73; self-discipline 85–7; skilled 74; sociological 71; weak versus strong 117; see also ethical reflexivity reification 19, 94, 213, 228 relationality 9, 49–51, 85, 88, 90, 93, 106, 123, 130, 170, 184, 220, 226–7, 234 responsibility 2, 5–6, 50–1, 53n.27, 67, 82–3, 86, 93, 98, 101, 107–9, 117–18, 121, 125, 130, 144, 197, 232–3; command 13, 108; criminal 180; drones 191, 207; enhanced interrogation 181; Rwanda 153, 157, 169; narratives of irresponsibility and Iraq 11–13, 24n.23; see also difference restraint 32, 82–3, 132 revolution 134–5; American 78; Iranian 58, 91 rhetoric 6, 27, 51n.1, 52n.14, 53n.22, 104n.34, 127–8; affect 20, 40–2; 127–9; as art 128; difference 41–2, 99, 127–8; drones 41; ethical judgment 27, 128, 141 fn.22; Guantanamo 42; obligations of speaker and audience 40–1, 128; politics 104n.36, 127; virtue 41; see also dialogue; heckling rhetorical tactics see dialogue, political tactics risk 44, 47, 61–3, 73, 130–2, 134–5, 137–8, 144, 149–51, 162, 176, 193, 207, 219–20; affect 47; at the ‘mean’ 130–1; aversion to 131; of ethical reflexivity 22, 115, 119, 123, 140n.16, 150, 191, 194, 196–7, 231, 234 Rodriguez, J. 181–2, 184

Index  267 rules 2, 4–5, 33, 51n.2, 51n.5, 65–6, 72, 75, 139, 164, 193, 197n.4; bureaucracy 107–8, 112–13; constructivism 70, 72, 106–7, 109–11; failure of 31, 42, 50, 65–6, 83, 112–13, 139, 181, 227, 231; in relation to particulars 5, 30–1, 35, 78, 111; role in reflexive ethics 21, 105, 111, 114, 121, 139; U.S. drone policy 216; see also knowledge, tacit; norms; just war tradition Rumsfeld, D. 24n.23, 186, 202 Rwanda: agency 232; ethical reflexivity 159, 170; reconciliation village 154–5, 171n.10; relations with France 157; Western narratives 155–6, 159–60; see also identity; Rwanda genocide Rwanda genocide 21–2; academic analyses 142, 145–6, 169; alternative narratives of 143, 146–53; dialogue 152–3; dominant narratives of 142–3, 146, 151–2; ideology 157–8; regional politics 158, 171n.11–13; resistance to 149; thoughtlessness 146–7; twentieth anniversary 156–7 security 14, 18, 73, 134, 137, 144, 158–9, 162, 164, 184, 206, 222; insecurity 131, 159, 174, 207, 233; social and psychological account 63; see also ontological security self: capacities 48–9; mysterious 97, 106, 117, 227; plural/fractured 5, 64, 68–9, 74–7, 84, 95–6, 100, 115–6, 120–121, 139, 162, 168–9, 227; relational 5–6, 9, 49–50, 51, 56, 60, 85, 88, 90, 93, 106, 119, 129–30, 232; self-awareness 72, 119, 120–2, 148–9, 151, 159, 226, 233; self-transformation 9, 19, 50–1, 85, 121–4, 130, 184; techniques of 5–6, 8, 19, 59, 87, 91, 115, 120, 139, 230; see also Aristotle, phronimos; global phronimos Senate Armed Services Committee 173–4, 180–3 Senate Intelligence Committee 187, 197 sexuality as practice 85, 89–90 Shinko, R. 235n.7 socialization 4, 53n.28, 75, 106, 113, 227 Socrates 84, 94, 124–5, 134, 230

Sokolon, M.K. 39, 52n.18 Soufan, A. 182, 194 speech 75, 78, 81, 100, 104n.34, 135, 235n.2; deeds, in Arendt 78, 100, 227; speechlessness 68, 124; see also narrative 78 statesperson, virtues of 28, 99 Steele, B.J. 63, 73, 126, 140n.13, 184 structure see agency; norms; rules; subjectivity; intersubjectivity subjectivity 8–10, 68, 60–1, 85–6, 89, 91, 93, 102n.5, 122–3, 126, 228; see also intersubjectivity Sylvester, C. 133 temporality 36, 67, 81, 100, 104n.27, 121, 127, 151, 183, 195–6, 198n, 218 thinking: Arendt 55, 64, 66, 75; as an activity 4–5, 8–9, 37, 66, 69, 74–6, 94–6, 120–2, 144, 184; benefits of 60, 64, 82–3, 98, 103; destructive of norms and rules 75, 95; dialogic aspects 75–6, 79, 84; dissent 135; facilitated by plural self 75–7, 227; Foucault 60, 95; Greek thought and practice 64, 88–9, 104n.34; invisibles and abstractions 77, 81, 83, 94, 96, 181, 228; layered 97; political 75, 95; relation to willing and judging 82, 84; thinking and affect 38, 46, 76; times of crisis 82, 91; see also dialectic reasoning thought and action see dialectic reasoning thoughtlessness 65, 82, 147–8, 181, 184 torture: Central Intelligence Agency 178; efficacy 22, 175–6, 182–3; ethical reflexivity 194–5; evaluation of 22, 73, 175; experiences of 183–91; intention 178–9, 181, 183, 197n.2; justifications for 175–79; legality 22, 178–81, 198n.14; Obama administration response 15, 173; political effects 174, 176, 182–3; professional ethics 179–80; protest of 176, 231; self-defense 176–8; torture convention 177; ‘torture memos’ 173–7; U.S. identity 175; U.S. values 175; waterboarding 176, 178, 182, 188, 197n.11, 197n.16; see also enhanced interrogation truth 86, 92–3; alternative perspectives 99; judgment 103n.18; see also knowledge

268 Index unbecoming 92 undecidability 6, 169, 226 unintended consequences 5–6, 13, 37, 55, 66–7, 69, 74, 135, 202, 229; see also complexity and contingency universalism 3 values, revaluation of 103n.24 Varnhagen, R. 67, 79 virtue 26, 28, 30, 32–3, 36, 39–40, 41, 43, 45–6, 48, 53n.25, 119–20, 229; activity 36 Wall, J. 50 Weber, C. 92 Wendt, A. 53n.28, 106, 130 War on Terror 10, 17, 24n.19; drones 170, 201–3, 213

whistleblowing 15, 112, 135–8, 141 fn.23; risk 124, 130, 137; effects of 124, 137–8; tactic ethical reflexivity 124, 135–7; legitimacy of 136 wonder and curiosity 9, 81, 124–6, 228 Wiggins, D. 34, 52n.10, 52n.12–13, 229 willing 55, 65, 78, 80, 81–4, 94, 96, 103n.17, 228; ‘I Nil’ 82–3, 192; natality 64–5, 75, 78–9, 81, 91, 106, 120, 124, 134, 228–9, 233, 235n.2 Witsch, J. 185–7, 197n.4 Young-Bruehl, E. 80, 83 Yousafzai, M. 200, 210–11, 221 Zubaydah, A. 182, 184, 188–91, 198n.22