Studying IR through culture and emotion Flashcards
Emotions at the hear of human, existence, world politics and IR
Emotions at the heart of IR
Fear, greed and trust (Sasley 2013)
Who embodies emotions?
State, leaders and groups
Examples, Shame and guilt with German and Japanese foreign policy
Emotional turn in IR
Rationality is less relevent
Identities and emotions go hand in hand
‘Inside out’ perspective, all state policy is caused by emotions driving policy
Biological or cultural
Do humans have instincts to act in a certain way no matter what culture they are a part of, others argue that culture dictates how we act in certain settings.
Neither just one or the other, Koschut argues that cultural institutions structure different emotions but evolutionary process can never be overlooked.
Emotions and Affect
Affective activity operates beyond preconceived social categories of emotions and embodied experience.
‘Low level of every day fear’ felt after 9/11 and October 7.
Affect is a instinctual response to a phenomena without even knowing.
It is unconscious, below the surface, you can sense a mood. For example some countries have feelings of victimhood without anyone talking about it.
Affective communities
These are communities that are unified through shared patterns of emotional meaning and understanding. Hutchison 2018.
Israel is a affective community coming together around the feeling of fear.
Hutchinson argues that experience of trauma results in more visible affective communities, there is a significance of memory that shapes future behaviour.
Bush invaded Iraq and said ‘Freedom is not Americas gift to the world, Freedom is Gods gift to the world, we are just helping spread it’, this feeling/affect that we are capable of doing it and it is our duty to civilise and educate.
Jacques Lacan argues affect as an experience that lies beyond the realm of discourse, emotion results when affects are articulated within discourse as recognisable signifiers.
Affect is subconscious level, you don’t even realise you do it.
Affective communities are taking shape in Israel, it took place in America after 9/11.
Challenges in accesing emotions
- How do you study and access emotions, how do you enter someone’s mind and find out what they are thinking. It is a very subjective phenomena.
- Surveys, interviews, you can theorise.
Independant variables
Emotions present on their own among a community. Ethnic group A is better than B. Lead to genocide or conflict.
Dependant variables
Result of a phenomena, fear was the result of 7 October attacks of Israel, bombing of Gaza and 9/11 attacks on USA.
Is culture relevant
IR theories are primarily developed in the west, in a individualised neo liberal culture. That is why theories reflect this background and not there’s.
IR either ignores culture or a tightly integrated neatly bounded and clearly differentiated. Culture makes human beings who they are, and therefore shapes theory.
Cultural unity is important to make strong societies.
There is no room in western understandings of theory for the non west, there is no need to learn of the other side.
Patriarchal cultures
Iraq war, Saddam Hussein, why didn’t he open his doors to the UN and prove has has no weapons of mass destruction? From a American mindset they have something to hide. However opening your doors and submitting to the demands of USA would make him look weak, his whole persona is being a tough man that stand up to the enemy.
Qatar world cup, everyone spoke about human rights and LGBTQ rights. However this is part of a broader system of oppression, UK buy its gas from Qatar, supporting a system of oppression.
Peace deals with the Taliban, peace negotiations and conflict resolution has to be done with the culture of the other start.
Humanitarian aid work
Thinking about the state as a person
US being humiliated by 9/11
Israel angry at Palestine for trying to recognise it as a state
Russia remembering how it suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union and reminiscing it.
This is a case to broaden the set of tools we have to study IR, move away from the mainstream. Being critical of and through them.
There has been a neglect of emotions in mainstream IR according to Simon Koschut. Despite many early writers that shaped liberalism and realism incorporated emotions into analysis as it helped drive human and therefore international behaviour.
Hans Morgenthau claimed that fear is what drives nations-states into war
Wolfers argues that nations want to ‘satisfy their pride and heighten their self-esteem’.
Western problems seen by western authors are seen by western toolkits, western conflicts in non western areas are not understood by western authors
