German Politics

ISSN: 0964-4008 (Print) 1743-8993 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fgrp20

Germany as a Dividual Actor: Competing Social

Logics and their Political Articulations

Jakub Eberle

To cite this article: Jakub Eberle (2019): Germany as a Dividual Actor: Competing Social Logics
and their Political Articulations, German Politics, DOI: 10.1080/09644008.2019.1620210

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2019.1620210

Published online: 21 May 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 72

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fgrp20
 Germany as a Dividual Actor: Competing Social
Logics and their Political Articulations

JAKUB EBERLE

This article introduces a ‘dividual actor’ approach as a novel way of explaining

German foreign policy. It presents its main tenets and demonstrates its relevance
– both theoretically and in an illustrative sketch of German arms’ exports policy.
The article starts from the observation that mainstream approaches, exemplified
here by civilian power and geo-economic power, struggle to explain the recurring
inconsistencies and tensions in German foreign policy. I argue that this is rooted
in problematic assumptions about actorness, which is seen as coherent and
unfolding linearly over time. As an alternative, I construct the dividual actor fra-
mework and develop it via the concepts of social logics, which capture recurring
patterns in foreign policy, and articulation, which grasps the contingent and pol-
itical moment in decision making. The notion of a dividual actor with multiple
identities provides a theoretical explanation for the recurring inconsistencies in
Berlin’s actions. It also opens space for novel insights, by bridging the analysis
of social patterns with the analysis of how these patterns are reshaped through
political decision-making. Lastly, it offers a way of embracing some empirical
insights of civilian and geo-economic power by incorporating them into a more
open-ended and context-specific framework.

INTRODUCTION

Germany’s increased role in Europe and beyond is accompanied by a renewed interest

in theorising Berlin’s foreign policy. Once again, there is a proliferation of concepts
claiming to explain Germany’s behaviour: civilian power, normal(ised) power,
shaping power, normative power, tamed power, geo-economic power, embedded
hegemon, reluctant hegemon and servant leader are just some among the labels intro-
duced in academic, policy and media discourses. Such accounts provide simple narra-
tives that explain Germany’s actions as a function of a few underlying principles –
norms, values, or interests – stemming from a certain notion of actorness (e.g. multilat-
eral policies as functions of the values of a civilian power). However, Germany’s
foreign policies seem to be constantly puzzling, frustrating and eluding these neat
accounts. From the recurring measures to resolve the Eurozone crisis, through the
crises in Libya and Syria, to relations with Russia and China, Berlin’s policies do not
appear to follow coherent and unidirectional trajectories. Instead, they are often incon-
sistent and even contradictory, prompting recurring debates about the ‘continuities’ and
‘changes’ in what can be seen as an ever unfathomable German foreign policy (for a
recent round see Hellmann, Jacobi, and Urrestarrazu 2015).
German Politics, 2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2019.1620210 © 2019 Association for the Study of German Politics
2 GERMA N POLI TICS

This article addresses the mismatch between the elusive practice of German foreign
policy and the neat yet ultimately failing academic discourse about it. I believe that the
explanatory difficulty that some of the most prominent accounts in the literature face,
exemplified by the theories of civilian and geo-economic power, does not result
merely from the observation that German foreign policy is changing. More importantly,
this recurring failure is rooted in the theoretical choices of civilian and geo-economic
power thinkers, as these are limited by problematic assumptions with respect to actor-
ness and identity, which is seen as coherent and linearly unfolding in time. Conse-
quently, they struggle to appreciate the omnipresent inconsistencies and
contradictions in foreign policy, and do not have much to say about the messy politics
of deciding and implementing foreign policy.
To overcome these problems, I offer a framework based on the notion of a dividual
actor, which rejects the idea of a unified identity. Instead, it appreciates contradictions as
inevitable features of social life that stem from the multiple identities that actors adopt
and negotiate in their actions. The added value is that it brings a fresh perspective on
German foreign policy, enabling us to address some crucial analytical questions.
First, the notion of a dividual actor struggling with multiple identities provides a theor-
etical explication for the recurring inconsistencies in Berlin’s actions. Second, it opens
space for novel insights, because it considers regularities and patterns in foreign policy
as well as how these patterns are compromised and altered in the contingent politics of
policymaking. Third, while rejecting the theoretical basis of the existing scholarship on
civilian and geo-economic power, it offers a way of embracing some of their valuable
empirical insights by incorporating them into the more open-ended and context-specific
dividual actor framework.
The argument follows in three steps. First, I use the civilian and geo-economic
power literatures to demonstrate some of the problems of the mainstream literature
and show that these are rooted in problematic conceptions of actorness. Second, I intro-
duce the notion of a dividual actor and develop it into an analytical framework based on
the concepts of social logics and articulation. Third, I illustrate the utility of this
approach by discussing Germany’s arms exports policy.

PROBLEMS WITH ACTORNESS

Conventional accounts of German foreign policy typically focus on defining the type of
actor that Germany is supposed to be. While using different vocabularies, these argu-
ments are all interested in Germany’s identity, explicitly or implicitly. They explain
what Germany does (foreign policy) on the basis of what type of actor they think
Germany is (identity). In this section, I use two of these accounts – civilian power
and geo-economic power – as representative of the literature to demonstrate how
their theoretical assumptions limit their conclusions. There are multiple reasons for
choosing these two. They have both been developed in considerable length, thanks to
a series of books and articles. Both have attracted debates that range beyond academia
and, as such, can claim to have impacted the practice of German foreign policy. Impor-
tantly, the two introduce starkly different arguments with respect to the direction and
determinants of Berlin’s action and, as such, exist at opposite poles of a continuum.
These differences notwithstanding, I will show that their understanding of actorness
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 3
is similarly problematic and limits what can be said and understood within these
frameworks.
Probably the most famous narrative of Germany’s foreign policy is built around
civilian power, as coined by Hanns Maull (Maull 1990, 2000b, 2018) and used
above all by German authors (Harnisch 2001; Tewes 2002; Risse 2004, 2007). Civilian
power refers to a state that strives to contribute to the establishment of an international
order based on liberal norms and cooperative arrangements. More specifically, civilian
powers are committed to multilateralism, international law, anti-militarism and pro-
motion of value-based agendas like human rights or democracy. With respect to post-
Cold War developments, the civilian power thesis emphasises continuity with the
Bonn Republic, arguing that Germany has largely stuck to its benign foreign policy
identity. This is not to say that everything remained the same, as the participation of
German soldiers in military operations demonstrates. However, these alterations are
seen as exceptions resulting from the pressures from the international community.
Rather than changes, they are merely ‘modifications’ (Maull 2000b, 2015; Harnisch
2001; Berenskoetter and Giegerich 2010; Wolff 2013), ‘evolutions’ (Maull 2000a),
or ‘adjustments’ (Longhurst 2004) within the general pattern of continuity.
The civilian power model has been criticised by accounts that prioritise varying con-
ceptions of IR realism, most provocatively the notion of Germany as a geo-economic
power. Building on the conception of geo-economics as a replacement for traditional
geopolitics (Luttwak 1998), the argument suggests that Germany has departed from
its civilian power identity in favour of the pursuit of ‘commercial Realpolitik’ (Szabo
2015, 8), or ‘a realist foreign policy based on the pursuit of economic objectives’ (Kund-
nani 2014, 103). In this view, Germany has adapted to an environment that is still
characterised by the realist assumption of zero-sum competition, but in which the
‘logic of conflict’ has now been translated into the ‘grammar of commerce’ and national
interest is viewed in economic terms (Kundnani 2014, 103). Therefore, it is only logical
for Germany to pursue an ‘economics über alles approach’ at the expense of value-
based agendas in its foreign policy, as demonstrated for instance with reference to
China and Russia (Szabo 2015, 10). Where civilian power envisages Germany as con-
tributing to a post-realist world order, geo-economic power sees a selfish, economically
interested actor following the same old rules, only this time through economic means.
While the two accounts offer different views of the determinants and directions of
Germany’s foreign policy, they are very similar in their theoretical assumptions and
analytical strategies. From the complexity of the innumerable elements that compose
foreign policy, both pick only a few aspects – e.g. civilian norms on the one side,
and economic interests on the other side – and elevate them to defining features of Ger-
many’s supposedly coherent and singular actorness. It is little surprise that the elegant
concepts often fail to account for the complex and often contradictory foreign policy.
Interestingly, some of the leading authors of the two traditions actually acknowledge
that their concepts do not really hold when confronted with empirical observations.
However, they still prefer to stick to their neat academic constructions, regardless of
their explanatory failures. Maull deals with the mismatch between his concepts and
the events they should be able to explain by arguing that Germany’s civilian identity
is still present and has merely lost its influence on foreign policy (Maull 2003, 2015,
2018). Analytically, this amounts to raising a white flag. The concept is salvaged, but
4 GERMA N POLI TICS

it does not help us any more with the task it was constructed for: explaining foreign
policy. With respect to geo-economic power, Szabo evaluates Germany’s policies
towards Russia – supposedly a perfect case for his argument – with the help of five cri-
teria that should define geo-economic powers. Interestingly, he sees merely a single one
as fully applicable (Szabo 2015, 137–38). I would not consider this a particularly posi-
tive result of hypothesis-testing, but Szabo still summarises that ‘[o]ver all the German
approach to Russia has fit this geo-economic model’ (Szabo 2015, 138). Szabo is keen
to stick to his explanation regardless of Germany’s failure to conform to his criteria.
In the remainder of this section, I show that this failure is neither accidental, nor can
it be ascribed only to the changing practices of German foreign policy. Instead, it results
from problematic theoretical assumptions, which limit the conclusions that can be
reached and leave important questions outside of their analytical lenses. In particular,
they do not provide conceptual tools to grasp inconsistency and contradiction, as
they see actorness as more or less coherent in space and time. I develop my criticism
around two problems: (1) the tendency to view identities as singular and coherent
and (2) the reliance on linear and even teleological historical narratives. Together,
these two issues lead to totalising accounts that have little space for the contingent poli-
tics of decision-making, as foreign policies are seen as resulting from the structural
pressures of homogeneous, linearly developing identities.
The first problem is the assumption that there is a coherent and stable state identity.
As Urrestarazu (2015) demonstrates in the context of the German foreign policy debate,
this is an essentialist position that is out of touch with most scholarship on identity in
sociology and cultural studies, which sees identities as multiple and constantly being
renegotiated. A number of examples can be cited to further this argument. Performativ-
ity theory points out that identities are constituted only through repetitive actions (Butler
1993; in IR e.g. Campbell 1998a; Adler and Pouliot 2011). Discourse theory suggests
that both collective and individual identities are split between multiple subject positions
(Laclau and Mouffe 2001; in IR e.g. Diez 2001). Psychoanalytical theory argues that
identities are inherently incomplete and unstable, because our temporary identifications
can never satisfy our only partially conscious affects and desires (Žižek 1989; in IR e.g.
Solomon 2015; Eberle 2017, 2019).
It would be unfair to argue that the two literatures are completely unaware of ten-
sions and contradictions. However, these are seen as secondary, marginal or transitional
phenomena, as irritations that cannot disturb the overall story. Rather than taken
seriously, they are glossed over or explained away. For example, the civilian power tra-
dition explicitly acknowledges that Germany’s identity consists of potentially conflict-
ing principles (e.g. anti-militarism and multilateralism), but it always seems to offer a
smooth way of resolving these conflicts, for instance through reinterpretation of the
meaning of the core imperatives like ‘never again’ and ‘never alone’ (Maull 2000b;
Longhurst 2004) or through mutual neutralisation of conflicting imperatives (Risse
2004, 2007). In this perspective, although tensions occur they can be resolved and
they do not compromise civilian power. Similarly, Szabo points to the contradiction
between the ‘dimension of a trading state and that of a country that emphasizes
human rights, democracy, and global norms’ (Szabo 2015, 17) However, this seems
to be merely the feature of a period of transformation, since for Szabo it is clear that
‘Moralpolitik’ is in decline and that ‘priority [is] given to economic interests over all
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 5
others’ (Szabo 2015, 94, 141). A conflict happens but it is not really significant, since
Szabo is confident in how it will be resolved well before the game is over. In both
accounts, the politics of messy, painful and contingent decision-making is erased
from the picture, as the totalising identities are the ones that truly matter for foreign
policy.
The second problem regards the manner in which histories of German foreign policy
are constructed so that they end up providing depoliticised narratives with a clear origin,
linear development and often even a teleological endpoint (Bach 1999; Hellmann 2009;
Nonhoff and Stengel 2014). Given that the interest of most analysts is in the present, it is
striking how much time is spent on the past. Accounts like those provided by the civilian
and geo-economic power tell a story begins with Adenauer or even Bismarck, which has
a clear and unified actor (Germany), whose behaviour develops in a linear fashion, as it
learns its ‘lessons’ of history. Civilian power is built upon an idealised version of the
history of the Bonn Republic (the most detailed one is Longhurst 2004; for critical dis-
cussions pointing out the problems in this narrative see Kundnani 2014; Urrestarazu
2015); Maull even speaks of West Germany in terms of its supposed ‘blessed heritage’
(2015, 214). Grounded in the liberal belief in history as a march towards progress, civi-
lian power theorists show us the gradual adoption of a peaceful, multilateral and coop-
erative identity, which peaked in the alleged consensus of the 1980s. Similarly, geo-
economic power is grounded in the totalising narrative of the supposedly timeless rel-
evance of national interests, zero-sum games and Realpolitik. Kundnani narrates Ger-
many’s past as a dialectical clash of opposing principles (idealism/realism,
continuity/change, economics/politics etc.), which are eventually resolved in the final
synthesis of Germany’s geo-economic nationalism. However, unlike in civilian
power (or in Hegelian or Marxian dialectics), Kundnani conceives of history as cyclical
and not progressive. Therefore, for him, Germany’s ‘new’ predicament is nothing else
than a variation on the ‘German question’ of 1871–1945. ‘In a sense, […] history has
returned to Europe’ (Kundnani 2014, 112).
In both arguments, decades of disputes, dilemmas and decisions are ordered under
grand narratives, in which over-arching patterns unfold as if by force of historical neces-
sity – be it Germany’s gradual civilisation, or the return of a form of Realpolitik. Fol-
lowing the ‘logic of subsumption’ (Glynos and Howarth 2007; Hellmann 2009),
current events are not evaluated in their own logic, but rather judged in terms of
whether and how they fit into this or that pattern derived from a particular reading of
the past. Again, it is the elegance of a clear-cut story that overrides the complexity of
social action. The politics of decision-making is secondary, as it is now the force of a
linear and monolithic history that takes precedence, in a very similar fashion to the
way in which identity is conceived of in these accounts. Novelty is pushed aside, as
events become merely a testing ground for pre-determined theoretical – or historical
– concepts (Hellmann 2009).

A DIVIDUAL ACTOR

If we are to understand the recurring and omnipresent contradictions, inconsistencies

and tensions within German foreign policy, we must overcome totalising accounts
grounded in the assumption that actorness is coherent in space and time. For this we
6 GERMA N POLI TICS

need frameworks that appreciate both regularities that structure identities and shape
foreign policy and the contingency that constitutes ‘the political’ in the making of
foreign policy, where ‘the political’ is understood as the radical moment of taking
decisions in situations where there are too few or too many rules to be mechanically
applied to the situation at hand (Edkins 1999; Zehfuss 2002). In this section, I construct
such an approach by building upon and advocating for the use of insights from two lit-
eratures. First is the poststructuralist and pragmatist scholarship on German foreign
policy, which shares my discomfort with the overtly structural, determinist and depoli-
ticising nature of the mainstream (Bach 1999; Zehfuss 2002, 2007; Baumann 2006;
Hellmann, Weber, and Sauer 2008; Hellmann 2009; Nonhoff and Stengel 2014; Urres-
tarazu 2015). These works highlight the shifting character of structures and rules,
reclaim the ‘situated creativity’ of policy-makers (Hellmann 2009), and emphasise
the ultimately contextual and political nature of policymaking. While they are efficient
in unmasking the contingencies in making foreign policy, more has to be done to sim-
ultaneously capture both contingencies and the still somewhat durable patterns that
seem to stick over time.
For this reason, I turn to the Essex School of discourse theory, in particular the
‘logics of critical explanation’ approach as the second source of theoretical inspiration
(Glynos and Howarth 2007). Also building on poststructuralist and pragmatist roots,
this framework is compatible with the discursive works on German foreign policy
(see Eberle 2019). At the same time, it pushes beyond them by providing an explicit
theorisation of the relationship between regularity and contingency and linking it to a
particular notion of actorness – what I will refer to as a dividual actor.1 This does
not see actorness as inherent and coherent, but rather something that must be constantly
brought into being by repetitive performances of social scripts (Butler 1993). Conse-
quently, actorness and identity (e.g. of a nation-state) is not only a prerequisite for enga-
ging in a particular practice (e.g. foreign policy), but at the same time also an effect of
this practice (Doty 1997). Put simply, to be a foreign policy actor, one needs to keep on
repeating the myriad of actions that constitute foreign policy. As these actions happen in
different contexts, respond to different situations and are even performed by different
people, they are often inconsistent and even contradictory. Since the foreign policy
actor is constituted by these very actions, they become inconsistent and contradictory
– dividual – themselves. To come full circle, this divided identity then generates sets
of conflicting rules for the conduct of foreign policy. Therefore, inconsistencies and
contradictions are not perplexing, irritating and temporary phenomena to be glossed
over or explained away, as in the civilian and geo-economic power traditions, but
rather something inherent to social practice.
The practice of foreign policy brings with itself both continuity and regularity, as
well as contingency, arbitrariness and change. In the following pages, I show that con-
tinuities can be analysed in terms of social logics, which capture broader rules and pat-
terns in foreign policy, but without resorting to a totalising approach that reduces actions
to mere instances of higher-order principles such as monolithic identities or linear his-
torical developments. While always constructed within ultimately contingent contexts,
social logics can achieve a relatively high degree of stability, as actors tend to stick to
repetitive patterns of behaviour to impose cognitive order on their social world (Adler
and Pouliot 2011). While social logics shape foreign policies in a certain direction,
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 7
decision-making is always an instance of a contingent articulation, in which the actor
exercises a degree of freedom in choosing, applying and transforming a particular
social logic (Glynos and Howarth 2007).

Social Logics as Patterns in Practice

Social logics are concepts that help us capture the regularity and patterning of social
practice, through which actors also achieve and maintain a particular identity – just
like the state achieves its identity as a state by engaging in the patterned practices of
foreign policy (Campbell 1998b; see Eberle 2019 for an extended elaboration of
social logics). While it is problematic to a priori assume continuity between actions
undertaken in different contexts, it can be observed that social life is characterised by
repetitive behaviour and therefore, it is notably structured (Adler and Pouliot 2011).
Applying this argument to foreign policy analysis, deciding twice about a particular
problem – for example regarding Germany’s participation in a military intervention –
is never quite the same. Just consider the examples of Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003
and Libya 2011. There were important differences in terms of the situation on the
ground, the legal status of the planned mission, the coalition that was about to
perform it or the justification that was offered. However, actors also responded to the
situation by invoking routines that guaranteed a degree of familiarity: the same insti-
tutions were activated (e.g. Federal Government, Bundestag, military staff), similar con-
cepts and narratives were used in the discussions (e.g. need to uphold international law,
desire to act multilaterally and as a loyal ally, commitment to human rights) and, given
Germany’s relative political stability, often the very same people were involved in the
debates (e.g. Angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier).
Social logics help us conceptualise these elements of continuity, as they capture
what holds a practice together. They describe the rules that govern it, the actors that
can legitimately participate in it, the identities that these actors adopt, the relations
that are constructed between them, the institutions that are involved or the key words
and narratives that are used to justify it. Put simply, through social logics, we capture
what makes a practice ‘tick’, how it coheres and, therefore, why it makes sense for
an analyst to speak about something as meaningfully hanging together (Glynos and
Howarth 2007). To give an example, social logic of ‘market’ accounts for the constella-
tion of actors who adopt the identities of ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’, follow the rules of mon-
etary exchange, trade objects or services understood as ‘commodities’ and pursue
particular strategies of behaviour (Glynos and Howarth 2007, 136). In a similar
fashion, it is possible to speak about ‘German foreign policy’, even though, strictly
speaking, it is only an abstract generalisation that refers to a large number of disparate
speeches, documents, decisions, as well as diplomatic, economic and military actions
conducted by different people in different places around the world.
Apart from capturing the regularities in foreign policy, social logics can also help us
grasp and explain the fundamentally divided and potentially contradictory character of
actorness. As long as an actor engages in a multiplicity of foreign policy practices across
different contexts, there is no reason to assume that those should be governed by the
same social logic. And as long as identities are also constituted within these social
logics, they are also ultimately context-dependent. States are involved in different prac-
tices in different contexts all the time. Germany’s foreign policy consists of negotiating
8 GERMA N POLI TICS

directives in the Council of the European Union, providing development assistance in

South America, intervening in Mali or supporting trade in China. As already mentioned,
these activities are carried out in different places, with different partners, interests and
objectives. Therefore, it would be very surprising if they all followed the same rules
or patterns, as the mainstream thinking represented above all by civilian and geo-econ-
omic power suggests. Sometimes there is little trouble with holding these social logics
and the multiple identities of a dividual actor together. At other times, for example in the
case of arms exports that will be discussed later, different logics clash and these clashes
may not be resolved, leading to inconsistent, contradictory and even erratic behaviour.
Sometimes actors are conscious of the clash of different logics of action. This can be
seen in Joschka Fischer’s (2011) reflections on the contradictions between his deep
commitment to Atlanticism and his opposition to the Iraq war. This would typically
lead to a deliberate and strategic attempt at reconfiguring the logics by crafting a new
relationship between them. At other times, the degree of reflexivity would be much
weaker and actors would be simply muddling through.
Delineating something as belonging to a particular practice governed by a certain
social logic is ultimately an act of judgment on behalf of the researcher. This places
the dividual actor approach firmly within the interpretive camp in social research, one
that is much closer to the hermeneutical tradition than to positivist social science
(Glynos and Howarth 2007; see also Hollis and Smith 1990). Generalising that an
action, a decision or an event can be seen as being informed by a particular social
logic is not based on some essentialised or inherent properties, but rather on meanings,
as given to it by the participants and interpreted by the researcher. Therefore, we cannot
simply subsume a foreign policy action as being driven by the overarching rules or prin-
ciples of a totalising identity or a linear unfolding of history. Instead, we need to observe
the action first and look at the meaning it is given by those participating in it. As ana-
lysts, we can then observe and identify certain ‘family resemblances’, understood as
commonalities between phenomena that cannot be deduced and formalised a priori
(Wittgenstein 2001, §67). Once two situations share a family resemblance, we can pro-
visionally group them together under a particular social logic. However, these general-
isations must always be considered as provisional, open-ended, amenable in different
contexts and inevitably influenced by the situatedness of the researcher. Social logics
thus offer a weaker and more reflexive form of generalisations, which are inherently
sceptical to the notions of coherent actorness or linear historical developments. Conse-
quently, these weak generalisations allow for the inclusion of the messy politics of
decision-making, as captured in the concept of articulation.

Articulation as the Political Moment

Articulation conceptualises the political moment when foreign policies are contingently
decided and performed through the actors’ exercise of agency. Through articulation, we
can specify and develop the notions of ‘situated creativity’ and ‘situated construction’ of
identity that is present in some of the discursive accounts of German foreign policy
(Hellmann 2009; Urrestarazu 2015). The actor doing the articulation is always
already situated, that is, entangled within the existing social logics through which
they interpret the situation in question, perform their identity within it and identify
the rules that are supposed to govern their policy. However, social logics cannot
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 9
exhaust policies, because the novelty of the situation at hand as well as the already dis-
cussed openness and multiplicity of social logics means that there is rarely a single
unambiguous set of rules in place. Through contingent – and therefore, ultimately pol-
itical – articulation of a policy, the actor overcomes the uncertainty of the situation,
reconstructs their identity and imposes cognitive order on the environment. On the
one hand, articulation can thus be approximated to a ‘moment of madness’, an eruption
of creativity through which arbitrary decisions are taken between conflicting social
logics, rules and identities. On the other hand, it also always bears the marks of the
actor’s situatedness within already existing social logics: ‘The madness of the decision
is […] a regulated one’ (Laclau 1996, 57).
Therefore, articulation can be defined as ‘political construction from dissimilar
elements’ (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, 85). What makes it political is the contingent
way in which certain rules and identities are chosen over others, remoulded or even side-
lined in the process of making foreign policy. This aspect of radical agency, of not
deciding merely about a ‘correct’ mechanical application of certain unquestioned
rules, but rather about the rules themselves, is what defines the political as ‘the
taking of decisions in a contingent and “undecidable” terrain’ (Glynos and Howarth
2007, 114), as opposed to mere rule-based, depoliticised administration in the name
of existing principles (Zehfuss 2002). The political moment of contingency in articula-
tion, one largely neglected by the civilian and geo-economic power traditions,2 brings
the possibility that things can always be different and opens the path for appreciating the
struggles for novelty in foreign policy decision-making. At the same time, foreign
policy is always constructed from the pre-existing ‘dissimilar elements’ in the form
of rules and identities provided by different social logics of foreign policy. Through
articulation, the dividual actor attempts to impose coherence and consistence on both
the environment upon which it acts, and on its own identities. Sometimes this may
succeed, such as when one social logic gains at least a temporary upper hand over
another. At other times, this may not be the case, as different social logics may be so
difficult to reconcile that an actor gets stuck in a perpetual identity crisis, just like
Germany with respect to the use of force (Stahl 2012).
Conceptualising policymaking as a creative and political articulation of social logics
helps us view the perplexing and contradictory instances of Germany’s behaviour in a
different light and contribute to the existing scholarship in three ways. First, the notion
of a dividual actor juggling their multiple, context-specific identities, provides a theor-
etical explication of the recurring inconsistencies and contradictions. Second, this opens
avenues for novel insights into German foreign policy. Whilst scholarship based in
more traditional perspectives, such as civilian or geo-economic power, focuses on
broader trends and structures, the framework offered here enables us to see how
these structuring principles get remoulded and compromised in the practice of policy-
making. Third, the approach reclaims some of the valuable empirical insights of the
existing literatures. Theoretical critique does not mean that we should discard the civi-
lian and geo-economic power literatures completely. Rather, the dividual actor approach
enables us to examine reconstruction of the identities of a civilian and geo-economic
power – as well as many others – in their issue-specific contexts. I will demonstrate
this point in the remainder of the article.
10 GERMA N POLI TICS

CLASHING SOCIAL LOGICS IN GERMANY’S ARMS EXPORTS POLICY

This section offers a brief discussion of Germany’s arms exports policy in order to
demonstrate how the analytical framework can be used in practice to explicate what
otherwise seems as a perplexing case. Arms exports present one of the most interesting
and most complex issues in foreign policy of the Federal Republic. While selling arms is
highly unpopular in the public, Germany ranks among the top five suppliers in the
world, its exports have steadily grown and large scale deals have been made with
countries as problematic as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates
(Chase 2017). It is a field that is highly controversial and one where Germany’s
record appears strongly inconsistent. Due to its positioning at the intersection of
broader policy sectors – security on the one hand, and foreign trade on the other
hand – we can also expect that multiple social logics will be present. All of this
makes arms exports a good case for the dividual actor approach. Still, the purpose of
the following paragraphs is merely illustrative, as it is beyond the scope of this
article to offer a detailed examination. Instead, relying on secondary literature, policy
reports and newspaper sources, I demonstrate what conclusions could be reached if
we approach the problem through the perspective advocated in this article. After
briefly showing the limits of what geo-economic and civilian power perspectives can
reveal, I analyse Germany’s arms exports through the dividual actor lens.
At first sight, Germany’s arms exports appear to support the geo-economic power
argument. Doing business with regimes with horrific human rights records – which is
subject to the approval of the Federal Government – appears in stark contrast with
Berlin’s commitment to promoting and defending human rights. It is then only under-
standable that Kundnani sees arms exports as ‘a kind of a blind spot in the Federal
Republic’s “civilian power” identity’ and as support for his thesis that Germany has
become ‘the purest example of a “geo-economic power” in the world’ (Kundnani
2014, 101, 105). Similarly, providing a quantitative analysis of arms exports in
1992–2013, Platte and Leuffen even find out that ‘lower levels of human rights seem
to increase the chances of receiving German MCWs [major conventional weapons]
as well as the amount of arms exported’ (Platte and Leuffen 2016, 575). In short,
arms exports appear to provide evidence for the ‘economics über alles’ approach in
which human rights and democracy do not really play a role, and for the prevailing
of ‘commercial Realpolitik’ over ‘Moralpolitik’ (Szabo 2015). Thus, it is easy to find
evidence using Germany’s arms export policy to support the predetermined claim
that Germany is a geo-economic power.
At the same time, however, there is a substantial amount of evidence to back up the
very opposite argument, namely that Germany’s civilian power credentials are actually
becoming more pronounced in its arms exports policies. This is true especially for
Merkel’s second grand coalition (2013–17), in which the then SPD chairman Sigmar
Gabriel pushed for a more restrictive policy. This stance was already articulated in
the preamble of the coalition agreement (CDU, CSU, and SPD 2013), which explicitly
linked arms exports to Germany’s responsibility for human rights. Gabriel himself made
it clear that he would be ‘much more careful’ in authorising arms exports than his pre-
decessors (oll 2014). Rhetorical commitments were followed in practice, as Gabriel’s
ministry was reportedly willing to block export deals, earning criticism from both the
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 11
defence industry and the CDU/CSU (Büschemann and Hickmann 2014; Hickmann and
Ott 2014). Rules for weapons sales were tightened by a series of concrete measures, e.g.
introducing a stricter regime for the sale of surveillance technologies and forbidding the
issuing of new licence agreements for the manufacturing of German-designed small
arms in third countries (Moltmann 2015; Mutschler and Wisotzki 2016). The coalition
also strengthened parliamentary control and increased transparency of the process of
issuing export permits. A reasonable case can therefore be made that German arms
exports policy has in fact become more in line with civilian power rules.
Therefore, if we analyse Germany’s arms exports under the assumption that states
have a singular coherent identity unveiling in a linear fashion, we end up in the well-
known blind alley of debates about German foreign policy: there seems to be enough evi-
dence to support radically opposite claims (Hellmann 2009). However, a different
picture starts to emerge as soon as we stop seeing the case study merely as grounds
for proving that Germany is this or that kind of power. Instead, we may start looking
for family resemblances in discourse and practice and try to piece together the different
social logics that structure the actions that we are interested in, bearing in mind that there
may be multiple, even contradictory social logics at play. While we could easily come up
with new labels for these multiple social logics, it indeed appears that there are family
resemblances with the arguments brought by the civilian and geo-economic literatures.
Therefore, I propose that, for the specific context of arms exports, we reconceptualise
civilian and geo-economic power as two of the simultaneously present identities of
Germany as a dividual actor. By relieving the two concepts of the burden of having to
account for the totality of Germany’s practices and reconceptualising them as open-
ended and contextual ‘weak’ generalisations, we can appreciate their partial empirical
conclusions. German arms exports policy can then be seen as characterised by a recurring
clash between the social logic of civilian power, emphasising democracy and human
rights, with a commercial interest-based social logic of geo-economic power.
Interestingly enough, such an argument is supported by much of the descriptive and
policy-oriented work on German arms exports. Most analysts working in the field are
not interested in theorising, but are well aware that Germany’s policy is ridden by ten-
sions, contradictions and ambivalences (Borchert and Thiele 2014; Moltmann 2014;
Mutschler and Wisotzki 2016). Some even generalise along lines very similar to the
divide between civilian and geo-economic power. Typically, this means arguing that
Germany’s arms exports are driven by competing framings or understandings of the
whole issue, of which the normatively-laden political aspect (analogical to civilian
power) is one, and the other is the economic element (similar to geo-economic
power) (Moltmann 2014). Analysing the problem in terms of competing social logics
of civilian and geo-economic power thus also helps us connect academic discussions
about the character of Germany’s actorness with existing empirical research on arms
exports.
As soon as the dilemmas of German arms exports policy are foregrounded and
reconceptualised in terms of competing social logics, we can proceed to analyse particu-
lar policy decisions in terms of the contextual articulation of these logics. This allows us
to see inconsistencies and contradictions, just as that between the more restrictive
approach and the simultaneously growing exports to non-allied countries, in terms of
painful negotiations of conflicting identities. We can track empirically how these
12 GERMA N POLI TICS

tensions are temporarily ‘resolved’ in practice, for instance by constructing certain

types of weapons as more problematic and therefore making them subject to a more
careful examination, while keeping the overall policy intact. For instance, Germany
has traditionally distinguished between giving a considerably freer hand on the
export of naval weapon systems, as opposed to land-based systems, with the justifica-
tion that these cannot be used to suppress domestic resistance (Brzoska 2007, 657).
Similarly, in 2016 minister Gabriel highlighted the decrease in exports of the ‘particu-
larly dangerous’ small arms to claim success of his restrictive agenda, even though the
overall volume of all arms sales went up and reached record levels (Die Zeit 2016).
These are only two examples of the contingent articulations, through which actors try
to temporarily restore order between conflicting social logics that guide their actions.
As even this brief look at arms exports policy demonstrates, these conflicts are
hardly resolved by a clear prevailing of one identity over another, as the civilian or
geo-economic power literatures envisage. Therefore, approaching German foreign
policy in terms of competing social logics enables us to capture these struggles, incon-
sistencies and contradictions and reclaim their political moment rather than explain it
away as an exception or irritation.

CONCLUSION

This article made the case for an approach that appreciates the complex, ambiguous and
often contradictory nature of actorness and policy action. I have argued that the utility of
most existing literatures on German foreign policy, especially civilian and geo-econ-
omic power, is limited by problematic assumptions. To overcome them, I outlined a
dividual actor framework, which disaggregates grand narratives about the nature of Ger-
many’s identity and highlights the contextual, contradictory and political character of
identities and foreign policies. Turning to the multiplicity of different social logics
that may be present at the same time helps explain otherwise perplexing cases of Ger-
many’s foreign policy, such as arms exports. Viewed through the dividual actor lens,
policy is not driven by a singular coherent identity, but constantly renegotiated
between different, often conflictual logics.
The dividual actor approach is not limited to Germany, as it is surely not the only
state struggling with contradictory policies or taking painful decisions between different
principles. The Obama administration’s policy on Syria would be one of the best recent
examples. There were major disputes on how to negotiate the commitments to human
rights and the Responsibility to Protect, the ambition to remain a great power
shaping world events, and the desire not to make things worse by getting entangled
in yet another war. These came to the fore most prominently in Obama’s multiple
changes of heart on intervention after the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons
(Goldberg 2016). As long as we avoid the temptation to impose predetermined logics
on different contexts, looking at different states will generate comparative knowledge
and help calibrate the framework. Having said this, there are specificities to the
German case, which make it particularly interesting from a dividual actor perspective.
As decades of debates on German foreign policy show, the Federal Republic is perhaps
particularly prone to experiencing a recurring identity crisis (Stahl 2012), as it may be
too often trying to reconcile too many different rules and principles. For example,
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 13
countries like France and Britain do not appear torn between the logics of ‘anti-militar-
ism’ and ‘multilateralism’ (Crawford and Olsen 2017) when pondering a military inter-
vention. All actors are conflicted and contradictory at times, but Germany seems to face
its dividualities more often than many other states.
While I have provided a sketch of what empirical research grounded in the concepts
of social logics and articulation may look like, much more work needs to be done to
prove such framework in practice (see Eberle 2019). Before moving to other states,
German foreign policy offers plenty of other opportunities for that. Apart from a
more in-depth study of arms exports policies, other fitting cases would include the con-
flicting tendencies in Germany’s relations with Trump’s America, Russia and China, the
clashes between political and economic imperatives in development assistance, or the
inconsistencies in defending rule of law in relations to ‘illiberal’ EU members. Appre-
ciating the contestations within these – and many other – policy fields would provide a
more plastic image of German foreign policy than relying on elegant but constantly fru-
strated notions, such as those of Germany as a particular type of ‘power’.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Alister Miskimmon, Ingo Peters and participants of editorial workshops

in Prague and Berlin for their comments and suggestions.

FUNDING

The research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation grant no. 16-17670S:
‘Identities and Practices of a Dividual Actor: Interpreting Germany’s Current Foreign
Policies’.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jakub Eberle is Researcher at the Peace Research Center Prague/Charles University

Center of Excellence. He focuses on IR Theory, International Political Sociology and
German Foreign Policy. He is the author of the monograph Discourse and Affect in
Foreign Policy: Germany and the Iraq War (Routledge) and his work appeared in jour-
nals including International Political Sociology, Foreign Policy Analysis and Journal of
International Relations and Development. He is also Senior Researcher at the Institute
of International Relations Prague.

NOTES

1. Glynos and Howarth, as well as other works in the Essex School tradition, use the psychoanalytical
notions of the ‘split subject’, or the ‘lacking subject’. I introduce the alternative term ‘dividual actor’
for two reasons. First, because it aligns more clearly with the familiar IR language of actorness.
Second, because I am borrowing only a small part of the more complex conceptualisation of the ‘split
14 GERMA N POLI TICS

subject’, which works also with the categories of affect, desire, and the unconscious (Eberle 2017). Raunig
(2016) reviews different uses of dividualism and dividuality.
2. This is not to say that all authors are completely unaware of the problem. Maull and Harnisch (2001), for
instance, call for incorporating theories of decision-making into civilian power frameworks. To my knowl-
edge, however, this has not been developed further.

ORCID

JAKUB EBERLE http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5349-5578

REFERENCES

Adler, Emanuel, and Vincent Pouliot. 2011. “International Practices: Introduction and
Framework.” In International Practices, edited by Emanuel Adler, and Vincent
Pouliot, 3–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bach, Jonathan. 1999. Between Sovereignty and Integration: German Foreign Policy
and National Identity after 1989. Hamburg: LIT Verlag.
Baumann, Rainer. 2006. Der Wandel Des Deutschen Multilateralismus: Eine Diskursa-
nalytische Untersuchung Deutscher Außenpolitik. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Berenskoetter, Felix, and Bastian Giegerich. 2010. “From NATO to ESDP: A Social
Constructivist Analysis of German Strategic Adjustment after the End of the
Cold War.” Security Studies 19 (3): 407–452.
Borchert, Heiko, and Ralph Thiele. 2014. “Rüstungsindustrie Im Umbruch: Schrump-
fende Heimmärkte Und Aggressive Schwellenländer Erfordern Rüstungspolitischen
Gestaltungswillen.” Zeitschrift Für Außen-Und Sicherheitspolitik 7: 365–387.
Brzoska, Michael. 2007. “Rüstungsexportpolitik.” In Handbuch Zur Deutschen
Außenpolitik, edited by Siegmar Schmidt, Gunther Hellmann, and Reinhard
Wolf, 650–659. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Büschemann, Karl-Heinz, and Christoph Hickmann. 2014. “Neue Front.” Süddeutsche
Zeitung, July 29.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York
and London: Routledge.
Campbell, David. 1998a. National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in
Bosnia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Campbell, David. 1998b. Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Poli-
tics of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
CDU, CSU, and SPD. 2013. “Deutschlands Zukunft Gestalten: Koalitionsvertrag
Zwischen CDU, CSU Und SPD.” https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/_
Anlagen/2013/2013-12-17-koalitionsvertrag.pdf;jsessionid=
AC8B295400338D9A1E33D0A47F1ABF4B.s4t2?__blob=publicationFile&v=2.
Chase, Jefferson. 2017. “German Arms Exports - What You Need to Know.” Deutsche
Welle, October 29. http://www.dw.com/en/german-arms-exports-what-you-need-
to-know/a-41160691.
Crawford, Beverly, and Kim B. Olsen. 2017. “The Puzzle of Persistence and Power:
Explaining Germany’s Normative Foreign Policy.” German Politics 26 (4): 591–
608. doi:10.1080/09644008.2017.1364365.
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 15
Die Zeit. 2016. “Gabriel Verteidigt Anstieg Bei Waffenexporten.” June 4. http://www.
zeit.de/wirtschaft/2016-07/ruestungsexporte-waffen-bundeswirtschaftsminister-
sigmar-gabriel-schwarz-gelb.
Diez, Thomas. 2001. “Europe as a Discursive Battleground.” Cooperation and Conflict
36 (1): 5–38.
Doty, Roxanne Lynn. 1997. “Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Pro-
blematique in International Relations Theory.” European Journal of International
Relations 3 (3): 365–392.
Eberle, Jakub. 2017. “Narrative, Desire, Ontological Security, Transgression: Fantasy
as a Factor in International Politics.” Journal of International Relations and Devel-
opment. doi:10.1057/s4126.
Eberle, Jakub. 2019. Discourse and Affect in Foreign Policy: Germany and the Iraq
War. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Edkins, Jenny. 1999. Poststructuralism & International Relations: Bringing the Politi-
cal Back In. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Fischer, Joschka. 2011. ‘I Am Not Convinced’: Der Irak-Krieg Und Die Rot-Grünen
Jahre. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Glynos, Jason, and David Howarth. 2007. Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and
Political Theory. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Goldberg, Jeffrey. 2016. “The Obama Doctrine.” The Atlantic, no. April. https://www.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/.
Harnisch, Sebastian. 2001. “Change and Continuity in Post-Unification German
Foreign Policy.” German Politics 10 (1): 35–60.
Hellmann, Gunther. 2009. “Fatal Attraction? German Foreign Policy and IR/Foreign
Policy Theory.” Journal of International Relations and Development 12 (3):
257–292.
Hellmann, Gunther, Daniel Jacobi, and Ursula Stark Urrestarrazu. 2015. “„Früher,
Entschiedener Und Substantieller”? Die Neue Debatte Über Deutschlands
Außenpolitik.” Zeitschrift Für Außen- Und Sicherheitspolitik, no. Sonderheft.
Hellmann, Gunther, Christian Weber, and Frank Sauer. 2008. Die Semantik Der Neuen
Deutschen Außenpolitik: Eine Analyse Des Außenpolitischen Vokabulars Seit Mitte
Der 1980er Jahre. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Hickmann, Christoph, and Klaus Ott. 2014. “Kampfansage.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sep-
tember 20.
Hollis, Martin, and Steve Smith. 1990. Explaining and Understanding International
Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kundnani, Hans. 2014. The Paradox of German Power. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Laclau, Ernesto. 1996. “Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony.” In Deconstruction
and Pragmatism, edited by Chantal Mouffe, 47–67. London and New York:
Routledge.
Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards
a Radical Democratic Politics. London and New York: Verso.
Longhurst, Kerry A. 2004. Germany and the Use of Force: The Evolution of German
Security Policy 1990–2003. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
16 GERMA N POLI TICS

Luttwak, Edward N. 1998. “From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics: Logic of Conflict,

Grammar of Commerce.” In The Geopolitics Reader, edited by Gearóid Ó Tuathail,
Simon Dalby, and Paul Routledge, 25–30. London and New York: Routledge.
Maull, Hanns W. 1990. “Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers.” Foreign
Affairs 69 (5): 91–106.
Maull, Hanns W. 2000a. “German Foreign Policy, Post-Kosovo: Still a ‘Civilian
Power’?” German Politics 9 (2): 1–24.
Maull, Hanns W. 2000b. “Germany and the Use of Force: Still a ‘Civilan Power’?” Sur-
vival 42 (2): 56–80.
Maull, Hanns W. 2003. “Auf Leisen Sohlen Aus Der Außenpolitik.” Internationale
Politik, no. 9: 19–30.
Maull, Hanns W. 2015. “Deutsche Außenpolitik – Verantwortung Und Macht.” In
„Früher, Entschiedener Und Substantieller”? Die Neue Debatte Über Deutsch-
lands Außenpolitik (ZFAS Sonderheft 6/2015), edited by Gunther Hellmann,
Daniel Jacobi, and Ursula Stark Urrestarazu, 213–238. Heidelberg: Springer VS.
Maull, Hanns W. 2018. “Reflective, Hegemonic, Geo-Economic, Civilian … ? The
Puzzle of German Power.” German Politics. doi:10.1080/09644008.2018.
1446520.
Maull, Hanns W., and Sebastian Harnisch, eds. 2001. Germany as a Civilian Power?
The Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic. Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Moltmann, Bernhard. 2014. “Wirrwarr Statt Klarheit: Rüstungsexportpolitik in Koali-
tionsverträgen Und Regierungserklärungen (1998–2013). HSFK-Report Nr. 7/
2014.” HSFK.
Moltmann, Bernhard. 2015. “Wende Mit Begrenzter Wirkung: Die Rüstungsexportpo-
litik Der Großen Koalition Seit 2013. HSFK Standpunkt 4/2015.” HSFK.
Mutschler, Max M., and Simone Wisotzki. 2016. “Waffen Für Den Krieg Oder Waffen
Für Den Frieden? Die Ambivalente Rolle von Klein- Und Leichtwaffen in Gewalt-
konflikten.” In Friedensgutachten 2016, edited by Margret Johannsen, Bruno
Schoch, Max M. Mutschler, Corinna Hauswedell, and Jochen Hippler, 140–151.
Berlin: LIT Verlag.
Nonhoff, Martin, and Frank A. Stengel. 2014. “Poststrukturalistische Diskurstheorie
Und Aussenpolitikanalyse. Wie Lässt Sich Deutschlands Wankelmütige Aussen-
politik Zwischen Afghanistan Und Irak Verstehen?” In Diskursforschung in Den
Internationalen Beziehungen, edited by Eva Herschinger, and Judith Renner, 39–
74. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
oll. 2014. “Gabriel will weinger Waffenexporte.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 19.
Platte, Hendrik, and Dirk Leuffen. 2016. “German Arms Exports: Between Normative
Aspirations and Political Reality.” German Politics 25 (4): 561–580.
Raunig, Gerald. 2016. Dividuum: Machinic Capitalism and Molecular Revolution.
South Pasadena: Semiotext(e).
Risse, Thomas. 2004. “Kontinuität Durch Wandel: Eine ‘Neue’ Deutsche
Außenpolitik?” Aus Politik Und Zeitgeschichte, no. 11: 24–31.
Risse, Thomas. 2007. “Deutsche Identität Und Außenpolitik.” In Handbuch Zur
Deutschen Außenpolitik, edited by Siegmar Schmidt, Gunther Hellmann, and Rein-
hard Wolf, 49–61. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
GERMANY AS A DIVIDUAL ACTOR 17
Solomon, Ty. 2015. The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Stahl, Bernhard. 2012. “Taumeln Im Mehr Der Möglichkeiten: Die Deutsche
Außenpolitik Und Libyen.” Zeitschrift Für Außen-Und Sicherheitspolitik 5 (4):
575–603.
Szabo, Stephen. 2015. Germany, Russia, and the Rise of Geo-Economics. London and
New York: Bloomsbury.
Tewes, Henning. 2002. Germany, Civilian Power, and the New Europe: Enlarging
NATO and the European Union. New York: Palgrave.
Urrestarazu, Ursula Stark. 2015. “Neue Macht, Neue Verantwortung, Neue Identität?
„Deutschlands Rolle in Der Welt” Aus Identitätstheoretischer Perspektive.” In
„Früher, Entschiedener Und Substantieller”? Die Neue Debatte Über Deutsch-
lands Außenpolitik (ZFAS Sonderheft 6/2015), edited by Gunther Hellmann,
Daniel Jacobi, and Ursula Stark Urrestarazu, 173–196. Heidelberg: Springer VS.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. The German Text, with a
Revised English Translation. 3rd ed. Malden, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell
Publishing.
Wolff, Jonas. 2013. “Democracy Promotion and Civilian Power: The Example of Ger-
many’s ‘Value-Oriented’ Foreign Policy.” German Politics 22 (4): 477–493.
Zehfuss, Maja. 2002. Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality.
Vol. 83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zehfuss, Maja. 2007. Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London and New York: Verso.