Ontological security and the dynamics of anxiety: toward a typological theory of change

Abstract

Do states alter or maintain established routines and narratives about self-other relations (for example, friend-enemy distinctions) in their pursuit of ontological security? Moving beyond the ontological security studies (OSS) scholarship’s undifferentiated understanding—which straddles both outcomes of change and continuity—and building on recent critical OSS insights into the distinction between everyday (normal) and existential (neurotic) anxiety, each of which has significantly different effects on state behavioural responses, this article seeks to develop specific and differentiated theoretical scope conditions that facilitate or constrain change. Engaging with the theoretical contributions of OSS scholarship, I argue that the manifestation of different kinds of anxiety depends on ‘the relative importance of otherness in one’s self-conception’. Building on this concept, I differentiate three distinct types of bilateral relationships—interdependent, independent, and hierarchical—in the context of ontological security-seeking. Each type is associated with specific conditions under which different forms of anxiety, and subsequent patterns of change or continuity, are manifested. To illustrate these theoretical points, the article examines empirical examples corresponding to each type. In doing so, it demonstrates that the ontological security-seeking dynamics at play in each type are significantly different and identifies which relationships and their constitutive actors are more susceptible to change—that is, the cultivation of new routines or narratives about self-other relations.