The problem with performativity: comments on the contributions

This article provides a critical assessment of the contributions to this special issue. As these articles show, it is only once we take theatrical metaphors seriously that what can start to understand international politics. The world really is a stage, on which states are the players. Yet the theoretical prejudices displayed in these articles obscure this fact rather than highlighting it. Poststructuralism, Butlerian theories of performativity, and actor-network theory are constitutionally incapable of discussing the theater. The reason is that real, theatrical, performances are events that audience members interpret by means of their bodies and their imagination.