No 'fundamental essences' to actors, entities assumed as given

Post-structuralism says the actors, entities, and things we assume are given, and natural in international politics actually depend on how we construct them in our discourses, in particular core political categories like ‘humans’, ‘states’, ‘civilisation’. There are no fundamental essences.

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Themes & Theories in International Relations
7. Representation, resistance, biopower
A. Post-structuralism
F. Identity and foreign policy
No 'fundamental essences' to actors, entities assumed as given
Construction of self/other also operates internally
Critical of IR focus on states, state behaviour, anarchy, sovereignty
Focus on dichotomous identities that value on over the other
Foreign policies constitute the identity of the self
Foreign policy actions = in part about reproducing who we think we are
Understanding the world depends on exclusion of identities/histories
Violence: via material & Ideational construction of boundaries
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