Dyskursywne ujęcie tożsamości państwa w stosunkach międzynarodowych
Discursive Approach to the Identity of the State in International Relations

Summary/Abstract: The issue of the identity of state participants in international relations since the 1980sbegins to return to scientific reflection on international relations thanks to the changesthat constructivism has brought to the international relations science75. Its view onthe ontological dimension of international reality allows for the analysis of issuessuch as identity, discourse, norms and values in international space, which haveso far remained on the margins of theoretical reflection of mainstream paradigms,such as neorealism or neoliberalism.Thanks to the so-called constructivist turn, identity has become one of the mostimportant issues through which the international reality is analyzed. However,the multitude of constructivist interpretations of international reality, expressedin the existence of several of its varieties (the article adopts a dual division intotraditional and critical constructivism) is a source of multiple interpretationsof the phenomenon of state identity within this paradigm. This multiplicity is atthe same time a source of constructivist problems with the category of identity:a way of examining and explaining, as well as ambiguity in terms of definition.It is worth paying attention to the discursive approach to identities offered byresearchers representing critical constructivism, referring in this aspect to theachievements of the poststructuralist tradition of language studies. Here, the identityof the state appears as a impermanent, processual and contextual phenomenon,agreed and shaped by means of language. This approach to the identity of the stateconstitutes a challenge for those stuck in the positivist or behavioral traditionof scientific paradigms of the international relations science.

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