Express your Self. Expressivism and ontological security

Abstract Recent research has demonstrated the entanglements between the security of Self and IR, yet it remains unclear how ontological security of the IR Self can be created. I argue that ontological security can be attempted through expressivist practices. Informed by perspectives from arts, law, and philosophy, I develop an analytical framework to explain how expressivism relates to ontological security. The implications of this framework for ontological security theory are that it proposes to re-define ontological security as a process of becoming secure, helping to understand how ontological security is expressively asserted. The empirical attainment of the nexus between expressivist practices and ontological security is illustrated by a case study of EU counter-measures adopted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This article makes a twofold contribution. First, it provides a new theoretical distinction, applying expressivism to illuminate how ontological security can be creatively begot, moving beyond the long-standing dichotomy in the ontological security literature of being secure or insecure, and focusing instead on the actuation of becoming secure. Second, it illustrates various expressivist practices, showing how the EU transcended from a civilian power to becoming a global security and emerging criminal justice actor.