Stimmung and ontological security: anxiety, euphoria, and emerging political subjectivities during the 2015 ‘border opening’ in Germany

• Published in: Journal of international relations and development Vol. 25; no. 4; pp. 1101 - 1125
• Main Author: Gellwitzki, C. Nicolai L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01.12.2022; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Anxiety; Area Studies; Arson; Borders; Case studies; Development Studies; Emotions; Euphoria; International Relations; Migration; Ontology; Original Article; Political Science and International Relations; Political Science and International Studies; Politics; Security; Xenophobia; Germany; Anxiety; IR theory; Migration crisis; Public moods; Euphoria; Ontological security
• ISSN: 1408-6980; 1581-1980
• DOI: 10.1057/s41268-022-00278-8

This article draws on Heidegger’s notion of Stimmung (mood, attunement, atmosphere) to further develop the study of public moods in IR. To that end, it synthesises two recent developments in ontological security studies (OSS), the decentred Deleuzian approach that emphasises the role of affective environments in subjects’ sense of and search for ontological security and Heideggerian readings of anxiety as (public) mood. The developed framework maintains OSS’ conceptual focus on anxiety whilst centring the locus of analysis around dynamic affective environments rather than individual subjects. This framework allows for exploring the relationship between anxiety and the radical agency, emerging political subjectivities, and intense (positive) moods it can facilitate. The empirical added value of this framework is illustrated through an analysis of the public mood of anxiety that preceded and enabled the “border opening” in Germany during the so-called migration crisis and the subsequent euphoria it engendered.