Politics without a Centre: Ontological Security and the State in a Wider Europe

The aim of this paper is three-fold. First, it engages with the literature on “transition” that has dominated the debate about political development and transformations of the state for at least three decades and places this within the discussion of political and policy “convergence”. It starts from the premise that focusing on unidirectional political change, that is, the extent to which regimes are transformed from non-democratic to consolidated democracies, may not provide a useful way to understand changing forms of governing and security. Second, it frames this discussion on transformations of the state and its consequences for security with the concept of ontological security. Third, the project examines the extent to which there have been changes to the fundamental elements of ontological security of the modern state and their consequences for state development. The paper will inquire into whether convergence is taking place and whether it is towards something we argue can be described as “politics without a centre”. It looks into changes in politics, polities and policies in non-democratic and democratic regimes to explore whether they reflect different trajectories for some of the political epicentres of modern politics, especially, states and political representation. The approach is comparative, using different cases – Italy and Central Asia - that reveal similar outcomes as a way to explore the political, social and economic factors that drive political change in contemporary forms of governing.