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- Title
Emotional Labor and the Power of International Bureaucrats.
- Authors
Nair, Deepak
- Abstract
This article advances a theory on the power of international bureaucrats and bureaucracies in world politics. It argues that bureaucrats become powerful when they stage emotionally calibrated performances as "servants" before state principals and carve out space for action through "whispering," "propagating," cultivating patrons, and building coalitions in the backstage of official interaction. These "servant" performances involve what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls "emotional labor"—the management of feelings in work performances. I develop a theory of emotional labor that suggests why international bureaucrats manage emotions as they perform as servants and why some bureaucrats with prized sociological profiles are empowered on the back of "confident" servant performances. In contrast to principal–agent, constructivist, and psychological accounts, this is a micro-sociological explanation for bureaucratic power. I evaluate this theory with an ethnography of the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—a "least likely" case for bureaucratic power under prevailing theorizations. I also demonstrate how the ASEAN case is a sharper instance of a more general phenomenon. This article advances the study of emotions and emotional labor, the role of social class in shaping competent practice, and the debate on the power of bureaucrats and international organizations in international relations.
- Subjects
EMOTIONAL labor; EMOTIONS -- Social aspects; INTERNATIONAL relations; CIVIL service; POWER (Social sciences); COALITIONS; SECRETARIATS
- Publication
International Studies Quarterly, 2020, Vol 64, Issue 3, p573
- ISSN
0020-8833
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/isq/sqaa030