Symbolic Statecraft: Reactive and Projective Renaming in International Relations

Abstracts State renaming has received scant attention from International Relations scholars. This article advances a theoretically grounded typology explaining why and when states intervene in their own symbolic foundations through official name changes. I argue that renaming is not a residual outcome of political transformation but a performative mechanism through which states manage disruptions in self-identity narratives or pursue deliberate projects of identity redefinition. It operates along two logics. Reactive renaming emerges in moments of identity rupture—postcolonial transition, regime collapse, or ideological reorientation—when ontological insecurity renders symbolic intervention salient. Projective renaming is forward-looking, occurring without acute rupture, as states proactively assert status, redefine roles, or reposition themselves within international hierarchies. Through comparative analysis of Zimbabwe, Türkiye, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Macedonia, and Afghanistan—and three contrasting cases of unresolved or stalled renaming (India, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Kazakhstan)—I show how renaming functions as an instrument of identity repair, status and role-seeking, and regime legitimation, and identify the scope conditions under which it becomes politically realizable. By theorizing symbolic acts as mechanisms of state-making rather than epiphenomenal gestures, the article advances our understanding of how states actively construct political subjectivity and hierarchy in international relations.