The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships

The Passion of World Politics Neta C. Crawford Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships Theories of international politics and security depend on assumptions about emotion that are rarely articulated and which may not be correct. Deterrence theory may be fundamentally ºawed because its assumptions and policy prescriptions do not fully acknowledge and take into account reasonable human responses to threat and fear. Similarly, liberal theories of cooperation under anarchy and the formation of security communities that stress actors’ rational calculation of the beneªts of communication and coordination are deªcient to the extent that they do not include careful consideration of emotion and emotional relationships . Further, it is no wonder that postconºict peacebuilding efforts too frequently fail and wars reerupt because peace settlements and peacebuilding policies play with emotional ªre that practitioners scarcely understand but nevertheless seek to manipulate. Systematic analysis of emotion may have important implications for international relations theory and the practices of diplomacy, negotiation, and postconºict peacebuilding. International relations theory has lately tended to ignore explicit consideration of “the passions.”1 Even realists, who highlight insecurity (fear) and nationalism (love and hate), have not systematically studied emotion. Why this ostensible neglect?2 First, the assumption of rationality is ubiquitous in interInternational Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Spring 2000), pp. 116–156© 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 116 Neta C. Crawford teaches political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her most recent book is Neta C. Crawford and Audie Klotz, eds., How Sanctions Work: Lessons from South Africa (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999). I thank Jill Breitbarth, Jacklyn Cock, Joshua Goldstein, Peter Katzenstein, Margaret Keane, Lily Ling, Rose McDermott, Jonathan Mercer, Linda Miller, Peter Uvin, anonymous reviewers, and respondents at a Brown University seminar for helpful comments. I am especially grateful to Lynn Eden for her insightful suggestions. 1. An exception is an excellent paper by Jonathan Mercer entitled “Approaching Emotion in International Politics,” presented at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, California, April 25, 1996. Mercer argues that international relations theory ignores emotion. I think emotion is implicit and ubiquitous, but undertheorized. 2. Other exceptions include L.H.M. Ling, “Global Passions within Global Interests: Race, Gender, and Culture in Our Postcolonial Order,” in Ronen Palan, ed., Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories (London: Routledge, forthcoming); Nancy Sherman, “Empathy, Respect, and Humanitarian Intervention,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 12 (1998), pp. 103–119; Robert Jervis, Perception national relations theory.3 As Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye say: “Both realism and liberalism are consistent with the assumption that most state behavior can be interpreted as rational, or at least intelligent activity.”4 James Fearon, while granting the possibility of “emotional commitments,” concentrates on “the problem of explaining how war could occur between genuinely rational, unitary states.”5 And although Kenneth Waltz argues that “one cannot expect of political leaders the nicely calculated decisions that the word ‘rationality ’ suggests,” and Hans Morgenthau remarked that “the possibility of conand Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 356– 381; Irving Janis and Leon Mann, Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conºict, Choice, and Commitment (New York: Free Press, 1977); Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” Signs, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Summer 1987), pp. 687–718; J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: A Feminist Perspective on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); James G. Blight, The Shattered Crystal Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile Crisis (Savage, Md.: Rowman and Littleªeld, 1990); Steven Kull, Minds at War: Nuclear Reality and the Inner Conºicts of Defense Policymakers (New York: Basic Books, 1988); Ralph K. White, Fearful Warriors: A Psychological Proªle of U.S.-Soviet Relations (New York: Free Press, 1984); Yaacov Vertzberger, The World in Their Minds: Information Processing, Cognition, and Perception in Foreign Policy Decisionmaking (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 176–180; Neta C. Crawford, “Postmodern Ethical Conditions and a Critical Response,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 12 (1998), pp. 121–140; and Margaret Hermann, “One Field, Many Perspectives: Building the Foundations for Dialogue,” International Studies Quarterly...