Realism, emotion, and dynamic allegiances in global politics

Abstract

This article appeals to classical realism for new insights into the role emotions play in shifting the terrain of political allegiance in global politics. Although undetected in readings emphasizing rational statecraft, realists such as Hans Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr were centrally concerned with human emotions and their political impact. While following the intellectual currents of their time in regarding emotions as fixed impulses, these realists' deep appreciation for the contingencies of history also led them to cast emotions as socially conditioned mechanisms of adaptation. By revisiting the texts of classical realism, this paper develops a fresh account of how emotion responds to and engenders change in the social world -in particular, change in the location of political allegiances. I then show how Morgenthau and Niebuhr applied these ideas not only to the nation-state but also to the most vexing transnational phenomena of their time -communism and liberal internationalism. In conclusion, the paper speculates that these reflections on dynamic allegiances at the transnational level offer realists and other international relation theorists insight into the emotional appeal, adaptability, and organizational complexity of contemporary non-state movements and actors.

Crisis, Values, and the Purpose of Science: Hans Morgenthau in Europe

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The Empathic Foundations of Security Dilemma De‐escalation

“…Nearly two decades ago Neta Crawford () observed that “realist and idealist discourse about emotions—what has been said and not said about anger, fear, love, empathy, the desire for revenge, and so on—has shaped the discipline in important respects” (p. 156). This call to investigate the emotional underpinnings of key theories and concepts in IR has since been taken up by a number of scholars (e.g., Kertzer & McGraw, ; Ross, ; Solomon, ). However, of the emotional categories Crawford () identified, comparatively little has been said by IR scholars about empathy (key exceptions include Head, , ; White, ).…”

Making Human Rights Emotional: A Research Agenda to Recover Shame in “Naming and Shaming”

“…Beyond intentionality, various theories of NGOs' human rights advocacy implicitly suggest that NGOs have distinct emotional centers and are part of processes with (unexplored) emotional bases (Clark, ; Finnemore, ; Keck & Sikkink, ; Ross, ). Thus, the conception of NGOs as principled agents part of like‐minded transnational advocacy networks (TANs) (Keck & Sikkink, ) echoes Koschut's () conceptualization of NSAs as “emotional communities.” We also know that depending on their institutional identities, not all NGOs approach shaming or emotional exchanges similarly.…”