Игри на еманципация в международните отношения
Emancipation games in international relations

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I try to identify the basic problems depriving the notion of universal moral neutrality of its expected potential for normative impartiality in recent debates on IR. My main thesis is that, paradoxically, neutrality diminishes along with the assertion of certain normative values as a framework independent from the very process of political interaction. This reverse relation is the result of contradictory meanings of the morally signifi cant notions of power, emancipation, and normative mediation in the fi eld of IR. In the sake of a viable concept of neutrality these notions should be given more minimalistic philosophical interpretation than contemporary notion of human rights admits. That invites us to rethink neutrality. I propose that this can be done by a tool-framework analysis, which postulates that any set of normative values can function as a framework and at the same time as a tool of interaction, thus allowing us to estimate the impact of the value framework on the whole process of interaction. I oppose this kind of analysis to philosophical approaches which assert normative mediation as equivalent to 'autonomy', thus resting – even in the attempt for deep contextualization of universal normative notions - on particular value ontology, and not estimating therefore the essential impact of the framework upon the structuring of political interactions. Basic concepts of the tool-framework analysis are neutrality equilibrium (expressed by the reverse proportion of interest-driven and interest-neutral political actions and dispositions); relative identities (as opposed to global identities) and the drama triangle (originally invented by transactional analyst Stephen Karpman for the description of complex personal power relations as part of Eric Berne's game analysis). I then use this apparatus to analyze what I name 'emancipation games': confl icting normative claims based on the notions of autonomy, emancipation, and normative mediation in a normative framework defi ned by contradictory Westphalian and Human rights imperatives. Finally, the hope is expressed that recurrent game patterns and their explication could lead in the long run to a shared normative language and thus to a common normative environment.

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