Empire in disgrace : (post-)imperial Belgium and the politics of shame

Abstract: This PhD thesis aims to gain insight into how the politics of shame manifest itself on the state level. A wide range of observers note the presence of shame in contemporary world politics but International Relations (IR) literature has generally refrained from theorizing on this emotion. However, recent contributions that surround the notion of ontological security have engaged with the term ‘state shame’. The current dissertation presents several critiques on how this concept has been conceived in this literature and argues for a more grounded notion based on works in feminist studi... Mehr ...