In:
European Journal of International Relations, SAGE Publications, Vol. 14, No. 4 ( 2008-12), p. 589-618
Abstract:
While `world opinion' is a staple in political discourse, the concept has received little attention in IR. Locating it along the `realist—idealist' divide, existing studies have conceptualized `world opinion' empirically, as an aggregative or intersubjective phenomenon, annexed or opposed to state sovereignty, and embodying a normative standard. Drawing on Luhmann's conception of public opinion and Foucault's governmentality approach, this article reconceptualizes `world opinion' discursively (functionally and semantically), as a medium of communication that enables post-sovereign forms of international governance irrespective of an inherent normativity. The alternative conception of `world opinion' is illustrated in the discourse of the emerging United Nations in the early 1940s. In this context, `world opinion' addressed problems concerning the failure of the League of Nations, total war, and threats to `civilization'. With public opinion research as a technical backdrop, `world opinion' underwrote governmentalities of international policing, welfare and rights liberalism, post-colonial pastoralism, and pedagogical panopticism in response to these problems.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1354-0661
,
1460-3713
DOI:
10.1177/1354066108097554
Language:
English
Publisher:
SAGE Publications
Publication Date:
2008
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1482719-0
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1235052-7
SSG:
8
SSG:
3,6
