Norbert Elias's Processes Sociology: Beyond Realism versus Cosmopolitanism, a Long-Term Global Approach to International Relations

This paper is about the contribution to a global long-term approach in IR offered by the German born sociologist Norbert Elias (1897-1990). It demonstrates that the civilizing processes sociology draws a “realist cosmopolitanism” by considering (post-)national integration in Europe and beyond. Elias seems to have many things in common with realists (Morgenthau, Carr) and neo-realists (Waltz). First, he focuses on state, described as a “survival unit”. Second, he points the contrasts between the domestic pacification and the higher levels of violence in IR that both derived from state building. Moreover, Elias gives great importance to “double-bind” (Herz’s “security dilemma”) to characterize IR. Finally, he attributes a first role to the globalisation. Conversely, Elias is mainly interested in what happens inside states and considers that long-term (de)civilizing processes concern all governance levels. In addition, an historical approach cannot agree that anarchy (for instance) is an invariant feature of IR. Finally, Elias firmly believed in the emancipating “mission” of social sciences. According to him, a “reality congruent” sociology thus aims at unveiling interconnectedness and “chains” that have been alienating individuals and states for centuries. At the end, this paper shows how Eliasian sociology should contribute to enable people to recognize humanity as the ultimate and only real survival unit