The Price of Prestige

4 chapter one

stepping stone in this direction. In order to do so, I first explore the con-

cepts of prestige and conspicuous consumption. This opens the door to

an elaboration of the logic of status symbols in international relations in

chapter 2. To demonstrate the dynamics of conspicuous consumption in

action, the following chapters review three international “luxury com-

modities”: aircraft carriers, prosocial policies, and Big Science projects.

Each of these commodities illustrates different aspects of international

conspicuous consumption.

An application of conspicuous consumption to international relations

relies on three nontrivial analytical moves. First, the theory of conspicu-

ous consumption views prestige as social, hierarchical, and positional.

Sociality accounts for the need for conspicuousness, while the remaining

two elements provide the impetus for spending competitions and for ex-

cessive consumption. Second, the theory relies on a consumption- based

analysis of international relations. While households may spend their

incomes on various combinations of food, housing, and leisure, states use

their policies to “purchase” various combinations of international com-

modity bundles. Some states may decide to buy more “security,” others

may put a premium on purchasing “health.” Once viewed through the

consumption lens, these decisions can be subjected to a broad range of

political- economic theories that are otherwise rarely utilized in interna-

tional relations. Finally, the theory of conspicuous consumption allows us

to circumvent the intractable problem of measurement. As a latent and

multifaceted concept, prestige has proven difficult to measure. The con-

spicuous consumption argument dances around this difficulty by tackling

prestige indirectly. Accordingly, the theory concentrates on one sort of

observable implication of prestige- seeking behavior, one that only makes

sense within a prestige- seeking framework. The remainder of this chapter

elaborates each of these analytical moves in order.

Prestige and International Relations Theory

The State of the Study of Prestige in International Relations Theory

As a facet of power, prestige has always been an important concept for inter-

national relations theory. And yet, until recently, it has mostly been treated

in passing. Classic works of scholars such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, Rous-

seau, and Hobbes, to name a few, are rife with references to the impor-

tance of honor, glory, and prestige as fundamental human motivations.^4