7

A closer look at the concept of the international field is very useful for understanding how the state is constructed with and against other states. As a study of France’s military intervention in Mali shows, the specific logic of this field - which manifests itself in the form of an international division of political labor - contributes, even without any direct interaction, through the spaces of possibility it offers according to the position occupied within it, to shaping the representations and calculations of the actors involved, to forming institutions and national fields and, ultimately, to orienting the content and results of foreign policies. Such an analysis, by the very fact of the difficulties it raises, asks general questions about the place and nature of field effects. This article stresses that the observation of field effects can be used to construct the very structure of the field, provided that we avoid any reification of the latter. It also argues that field effects are more extensive and varied than is usually thought. Finally, it invites us to distance ourselves from empiricism and break with circular reasoning.