Ontological Crisis and the Compartmentalization of Insecurities

Abstract

This article explores state responses to a major ontological crisis, which produces insecurities requiring contradictory foreign policy responses. I propose that leaders in such dire situations may respond by compartmentalizing insecurities, articulating distinct narratives relevant to different insecurities. Such a split might seem inconsistent for leaders within the same government, but it can enable them to navigate a precarious crisis by exploiting the state’s internal complexity to address the contrasting insecurities that a crisis generates. I explore this approach by analyzing Georgia’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which created a major ontological crisis in Georgia. Its two most prominent leaders (the president and the prime minister) reacted by consistently voicing contradictory positions about the country’s foreign policy. This divergent messaging becomes comprehensible when we see them as responses to different concerns: one responding to deep ontological insecurities over Georgia’s relationship with other states, its place in the international system, and the coherence of its dominant autobiographical narrative; the other responding to the threat of war and related existential concerns at the individual and collective levels. Problematizing the state as a unitary actor, this article demonstrates how unpacking its constitutive agents can help us better understand how leaders navigate complex ontological crises.