Publication
Title
Ritual and authority in world politics
Author
Abstract
The contributions to this Forum on Ritual and Authority in World Politics examine the role that ritual performances play in the constitution of positions of authority and the maintenance of relations of authority in historical and contemporary international relations. The Forum takes as its point of departure three related observations: (i) that recent years have witnessed a remarkable upsurge of interest in ritual as a recurring feature of international practice, but (ii) that this recent interest in ritual has not extended, thus far, to the study of international authority, (iii) in spite of political anthropologists' long-standing claim that the performance of ritual is absolutely crucial to the production of authority. The performance of ritual grounds, makes tangible and enhances various forms of authority, including forms of international authority, historical and contemporary. The contributions to this Forum demonstrate the veracity of that claim in five different empirical contexts-Byzantine diplomacy, early modern cross-cultural encounters, British imperialism in India, military lawyering in America's armed forces, and the casting of ballots in Crimea and the US-and attempt also to explain precisely how it is that ritual served to undergird and stabilise authority in these various instances.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Cambridge review of international affairs / University of Cambridge. Center for International Affairs. - Cambridge
Publication
Abingdon : Routledge journals, taylor & francis ltd , 2022
ISSN
0955-7571
DOI
10.1080/09557571.2021.1975647
Volume/pages
35 :1 (2022) , p. 2-30
ISI
000697429600001
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Beyond Contractualism: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of the Sources of International Authority.
Publication type
Subject
Law 
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 05.10.2021
Last edited 02.10.2024
To cite this reference