Banal modernity: a logic of hierarchization in International Relations

What kind of everyday expectations arise from an aspiration for modernity, and how do they inform hierarchy-building in International Relations (IR)? This article proposes a theory of banal modernity as a logic of hierarchization in IR. It argues that actors of IR often hierarchize reality by evaluating their relative status against the imaginaries of modernity in the mundane and quotidian aspects of everyday life. Moreover, varied hierarchization practices in contemporary contexts (in their intersecting forms), for example, those based on race, class, gender, ethnicity and so on, are often informed commonly by banal modernity – it offers the vocabulary and grammar that facilitate these practices. Through its first case, this article reveals a desire to showcase banal modernity, propelling Chinese elites to launch nationwide, massive-scale, civilizing campaigns to encourage hygiene, orderliness and civic manners among citizens, especially in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The second case accordingly demonstrates how banal modernity is expected from racial(ized) Others, in highly similar ways. As an attempt at global IR theory building, banal modernity has multiple implications for scholarly understandings of hierarchy in IR, agency of non-Western actors and the politics of the everyday in IR.