Identity related to the other as constitutive and threatening A first inspiration in the development of a relational concept of identity comes from A first inspiration in the development of a relational concept of identity comes from

post-structuralist philosophy. It deals with the way in which the relation between identity and difference is constitutive. This inspiration should lead political science to focus on the potentially damaging extreme situation in which the difference of an 'other' – someone outside identity – is pointed out as an existential threat to identity.

When viewed from a philosophical perspective, identity is a logical problem.

Logically, the claim that someone is identical entails that someone else is different. In that sense, identity is dependent on difference – or, in other words, difference is constitutive to identity: If difference was not there, identity would not make sense – it would not be identity.

So difference is constitutive to identity. But at the same time, difference presents an alternative to identity. And as it presents an alternative, it presents a potential threat to identity: If something is different – why should not identity be different? Is there anything that keeps difference from spreading all over and eradicating identity?

In Derrida's phrasing, difference is the constitutive outside to identity (1988b:52f):

Firstly, difference is not identity; it is something distinctively outside identity – that's the whole point of defining identity in relation to difference. Secondly, identity needs difference to be; if identity could not relate to difference, it would not be identity.

Thirdly, as an alternative to identity; difference is a potential threat to identity. The consequence of this line of thought is that identity is necessarily threatened if it is to exist at all. Laclau summarizes the point when he writes that: "Every identity is

dislocated in so far as it depends on an outside which both denies that identity and provides the condition of possibility at the same time." (Laclau 1990:39)

Potentially, this philosophical point has serious implications for political science: If any identity needs to generate a threat to itself we should expect to see nothing but threats out there.¹⁵ Fortunately, a good deal has been done to cut this philosophical point down to its natural size – or rather; to its social size.

One example is the way Connolly (2002[1991]:8) inserts a 'human handbrake' in Derrida's logical, philosophical equation: It might be so that identity needs a threat – but it makes a difference, that we are talking about human beings rather than abstract concepts. The necessary threat to a collective identity need not be assigned to an individual or another collective. And contrarily; when the identity in question is a human self – individual or collective – the 'others' (the individuals or collectives outside the self) need not be pointed out as existentially threatening. The logical structure of the concept of identity leaves this possibility open – but in social life such pointing out of an enemy is only a temptation, not a necessity.

Another example is the way Laclau conceptualizes 'social antagonism' as the way 'dislocation' is handled: Social life needs some stability. Therefore the constitutive outside – that which is excluded from identity, and that which is therefore both constituting and constantly dislocating identity (Laclau 1990:17) – needs to be domesticated. A primary way of domestication is the very naming of the 'antagonism' by pointing out something – someone, some difference – as responsible for the existential threat (cf. Laclau 1990:50; Clausen et al. 2000:28; cf. Torfing 1999:129ff).

15 What was arguably the first full scale analysis of identity politics in the realm of foreign relations informed by the Derridean perspective, Campbell (1992), actually does find a consecutive series of existential threats in the performance of US identity. For discussions whether this is a necessary result of the theoretical perspective employed or a contingent empirical result, see Hansen (2006:224, n.2); Neumann (1999:24-36).

When compared with Connolly's argument, Laclau's move may in the first instance appear to go in the opposite direction: Connolly says that it is not necessary to blame a specific other for the failure of identity – Laclau says that it is the primary way of handling the problem. Laclau's story, however, does not stop here. Firstly, because the very naming of the threat already represents a domestication of the threat: 'Now, at least, we know what it is that threatens us'. Secondly, because pointing out of some difference as an existential threat cannot stand alone – a countervailing logic necessarily sets in to explain why some other difference is just a matter of degree and not a radical threat to identity (Laclau & Mouffe 1985:129-144).

While the difference of the other is logically constitutive to the identity of the self, this does not necessarily mean that the other is presented as an existential threat. A series of studies in International Relations have showed how others may be 'othered' in less radical ways; as a helper, as someone in need of help, as an apprentice, etc.¹⁶ And within political philosophy Mouffe (2002; 2005) has – as mentioned – developed Foucault's notion of an 'agonistic relation' as an ideal of othering an opponent without denying its right to exist.

Nevertheless, as a potentially damaging extreme possibility, the construction of radically threatening Others needs to be kept in focus when analyzing identity performance. Especially it remains a task for political science to monitor potential degeneration from peaceful relations – whether they are hierarchical or equal – to violence (cf. Baumann & Gingrich 2004a; 2004b; Neumann 1998).

16 I.a. Neumann 1999; Hansen 1998; 2006; Wæver 2002, Rumelili 2007.

1.5.2 Identity articulated by narrating policies for getting the other