The politics of state recognition: norms, geopolitics and the East Pakistan Crisis

In recent years, IR theorists have observed a resurgence in geopolitical rivalry, much of which is coalescing around cases of contested statehood. Yet, while there is a considerable volume of work on state recognition, the field would benefit from incorporating alternate approaches to geopolitics. A common approach entails treating geopolitical interests as independent variables for comparison against other factors. However, in prioritising the comparison of variables, such work tells us less about how particular geopolitical interests arise in connection to cases of contested statehood. This paper therefore instead proposes a discursive approach to geopolitical interests. Following this approach, theorists will be able to treat grand strategies in a similar manner to the way the recognition scholarship already treats norms – as ideas which shape the dynamics of recognition but seldom point directly to specific recognition stances. By enabling theorists to account for the role of choice, contingency, and contestation in mediating grand strategies, this approach yields more comprehensive explanations of geopolitical interest and state recognition. In advancing its discursive approach to geopolitics and state recognition, this paper engages and extends recent constructivist work on grand strategy. The paper then illustrates the approach using the example of US policy towards the 1971 East Pakistan Crisis.