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"This book develops a discourse theory of crisis and change in global politics. Crisis is conceptualized as structural dislocation, resting on difference and incompleteness. Change is seen as the continuous but ultimately futile effort to gain a full identity. The incompleteness and contingent character of the social represents the most important condition for democratic politics to become possible and for a theory of crisis and change to become conceivable. In this new understanding, crisis loses its everyday meaning of a periodically occurring event. Instead, crisis becomes an omnipresent feature of the social fabric. It represents the absence of ground, of social foundation, and it rests within the subject as well as within the social whole. "--

The paper tries to shed light on the conceptual link between international crises like the one following September 11, 2001, the Asian financial crisis of 1997/1998, the end of the Cold War or major international conflicts, and processes of change in the international system. It argues that cultural structures rest on their continuous instantiation through social practices, thereby making them coterminous with process. Process is constituted by meaningful acts of social agents, and can thus only be grasped by analysing meaning. Meaning is transmitted by language. Meaningful language is never reducible to individual speakers; it is a social act. In the paper, I call this process discourse. Linking Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with the theory of hegemony developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I will finally be able to show how hegemonic discourses serve as the nexus between crises and cultural structures and how they make cultural change possible. -- Crisis ; change ; discourse ; poststructuralism ; hegemony ; international politics

In order to provide a lens to the issue of international security cooperation after 11 September 2001, this paper will examine the question of how collective action in international relations becomes possible. The author maintains that it is possible to understand, if not explain, a fair amount of inter-state collective action by analyzing the culture of the international system. Using discourse analysis as a tool, the analysis addresses the underlying ideas, norms and identities that constitute the relationship between the United States and Japan on the one hand and Germany and the United States on the other hand as it evolved since September 2001. As a result, the paper argues that even if the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have led to strong pressure on states like the United States, Germany and Japan to form a collective identity, rivalling identities have yet not given way.

"Poststructuralist Ethics and International Relations" published on by Oxford University Press.

The analysis focuses on the centrality of the mind and the mental, and their relationship with the notion of discourse in International Relations theorizing. While many forms of discourse theory are linked with anti-materialist idealism, the article develops an alternative argument, that is, that discourse theory should primarily be situated 'beyond the mind'. The analysis starts with a discussion of prominent International Relations work on ideas and discourse and argues that that a large segment of International Relations work is insufficiently clear on these crucial notions. I therefore contend subsequently that this state of the art is reflected in how the philosophy of science and the philosophy of the mind have been treated in prominent International Relations work by following a particular version of Cartesian rationalism. It is on this basis that the article proposes to transcend the antinomies between mind and world as well as ideas and materiality by advancing a political ontology that stresses a particular concept of discourse in the final section. On that basis, it will become possible in the conclusion to summarize a path towards International Relations beyond the mind that engages in the study of the political more seriously.

Nie zuvor standen Südkorea und Japan dermaßen im Licht der Weltöffentlichkeit wie im Sommer 2002. Durch die gemeinsam ausgetragene Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft traten die nicht immer problemfreien Beziehungen zwischen den ostasiatischen Nachbarstaaten einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit ins Bewusstsein. Für beide Länder hieß es, der Welt zu zeigen, dass man zur Zusammenarbeit in der Lage ist, dass historisch bedingte Animositäten hintangestellt und ein prächtiges Sportereignis auf die Beine gestellt werden könnte. 2002 wurde zum Jahr des nationalen Austausches zwischen beiden Ländern deklariert, die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft sollte das Signal für bessere, gleichberechtigte und freundschaftliche Beziehungen sein.

Die koreanische Halbinsel ist weltweit der einzig verbliebene Schauplatz des Kalten Krieges. Nirgends ist eine Grenze zwischen zwei Staaten dermaßen undurchlässig und militarisiert; nirgends sonst zeigt der ideologische Antagonismus des Ost-West-Konflikts noch heute seine symbolhafte Wirkung so stark wie an der Grenze zwischen Nord- und Südkorea. Rund 1,5 Mio. Mann Bodentruppen stehen sich hier gegenüber. Nach der Desintegration der Sowjetunion vor zehn Jahren und dem Wegfall der damit verbundenen perzipierten kommunistischen Bedrohung ist die Situation auf der Halbinsel – neben den Unwägbarkeiten, die durch die Spannungen in der Taiwan-Straße immer wieder auftreten – der vorrangige Instabilitätsfaktor in der Region. Vor allem Japan weist in Verteidigungsweißbüchern und außenpolitischen Berichten immer wieder auf seine Besorgnis hinsichtlich der zukünftigen Entwicklung in Korea hin (Bôeichô 2000: 34; MOFA 2000: Kap. I, B3).