How do individuals navigate international politics and mitigate the anxieties it elicits in the everyday? Giddensian literature on ontological security suggests that (collective) internalized routines and narratives provide a sense of certainty and stability that enable individuals to “go on” with their daily lives. This article adopts a Kleinian psychoanalytical approach to show that when faced with anxiety about their internalized narratives being ruptured, individuals do not necessarily, as Giddens suggests, fall into “chaos.” Rather, they rely on psychodynamic defense mechanisms such as denial and idealization to protect their sense of self and, by extension, maintain a sense of ontological security. The article investigates everyday practices of how people cope with anxiety related to international politics. It focuses on the case of the European Union by analyzing the reactions to political cartoons of participants from eighteen focus groups conducted in Belgium, France, and Italy. The findings provide, in turn, a deeper understanding of individuals’ everyday defense mechanisms in response to threats to collective narratives of being and belonging. The article thereby advances our theoretical and empirical knowledge of how international politics can affect individuals’ everyday life and sense of self as well as shape political behavior and attitudes.

中文翻译：

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应对焦虑：国际政治、身份叙事和日常防御机制

个人如何驾驭国际政治并减轻其在日常生活中引起的焦虑？吉登斯关于本体论安全的文献表明，（集体）内化的惯例和叙述提供了一种确定性和稳定感，使个人能够“继续”他们的日常生活。本文采用克莱因精神分析方法来表明，当面临内化叙事被破裂的焦虑时，个体并不一定像吉登斯所说的那样陷入“混乱”。相反，他们依靠否认和理想化等心理动力学防御机制来保护他们的自我意识，并进而维持本体论的安全感。这篇文章调查了人们如何应对与国际政治相关的焦虑的日常做法。它通过分析在比利时、法国和意大利进行的十八个焦点小组的参与者对政治漫画的反应，重点关注欧盟的案例。反过来，这些发现可以更深入地了解个人的日常防御机制，以应对对存在和归属的集体叙事的威胁。因此，本文增进了我们对国际政治如何影响个人日常生活和自我意识以及塑造政治行为和态度的理论和经验知识。