explaining conspicuous consumption 7
of power does not tell us much about the independent qualities of the con-
cept. Prestige and power are not synonymous, and a change in one does
not always translate into an equal change in the other (Kagan 1997 ). As
Johnston ( 2001 , 500 ) notes, many markers of prestige, such as medals or
having your name on a plaque, do not offer clear material rewards. For
prestige to be a meaningful concept we need to explore the independent
components that differentiate it from power. In the absence of such differ-
entiation, a power- centric and prestige- centric approach to international
relations would be indistinguishable — it would matter little whether it
were prestige or power that served as the “everyday currency of interna-
tional relations.”^13
Viewing prestige as a simple extension of power neglects an essential
dimension. Prestige is a social concept; it requires a community, an audi-
ence, to be meaningful (McGinn 1972 , 103 ). A “reputation for power,” be it
a reflection of power or an illusion of power, needs to be shared by members
of a community in order to be considered prestige. O’Neill ( 1999 , 193 )
summarizes this aspect of prestige nicely: “Prestige means that everyone
thinks that everyone thinks the person has the quality. Perhaps no one
admires the person, but if each person thinks the rest do, that constitutes
prestige.... Someone can gain prestige by convincing everyone that he or
she has a good reputation — there is no need to possess the quality in ques-
tion.”^14 Consequently, prestige is a relational concept; it is not a monadic
quality of the actor (Mercer 1996 , 27 ). It describes a subjective reading of
an intersubjective evaluation of an objective (yet potentially manipulated)
quality.^15 For actors to be able to guess other actors’ assessments and to
navigate between the objective, subjective, and intersubjective, the group
needs to have shared understanding as to what characteristics, possessions,
and behaviors would signal desired qualities.
Prestige is not a neutral term that simply measures a quantity of power;
it implies a level of approbation, a positive evaluation of the actor in ques-
tion (McGinn 1972 , 104 ).^16 Collective approbation necessarily assumes the
presence of a community. Functionalist sociological theories, for exam ple,
view prestige as a reward a society grants to actors whose actions provide
societal benefits.^17 As such, prestige includes a normative dimension:
communities reward qualities they view as “good.” Actors need to anti-
cipate what attributes are valued by members of their respective commu-
nities and to direct their behavior accordingly. Thus, in order for a stable
system of prestige to be possible, we have to assume some level of inter-
subjective consciousness among members of the group. Consequently, an
