Revisiting State Personhood and World Politics: Identity, Personality and the IR Subject

Breathing fresh air into debates surrounding foreign policy and interstate relations, Bianca Naude presents a holistic theory of states as collectives of people that cannot be reduced to their individual constituents.

Moving among current research on the ontological status of the state alongside important arguments in support of the state personhood thesis, Naude begins by exploring Freud’s personality theory and the ways in which this theory has evolved over time in response to newer insigh...