Emotional Choices: How the Logic of Affect Shapes Coercive Diplomacy

Abstract

The realm of international politics is deeply shaped by emotion. Lately, the presidency of Donald Trump has lent new credence to the notion that consequential foreign policy decisions can be rooted in affective impulses. Perhaps surprisingly, traditional International Relations (IR) research has given short shrift to emotion as a central factor in international politics. More recently, a burgeoning emotions literature in IR has taken up the challenge of explaining key phenomena in world politics like war and intervention from an emotion-based perspective.

With Emotional Choices: How the Logic of Affect Shapes Coercive Diplomacy, Robin Markwica joins the “veritable affective revolution in International Relations” (8–9). His book identifies a central puzzle in interstate relations: the “curious failure of military might to afford success in coercive diplomacy” (2). Conventional IR theories have failed to take emotions seriously in explaining why weak target states defy the coercive threats of their stronger opponents even when the former end up paying dearly for their defiance. Complementing rationalist, cognitivist, and constructivist accounts of coercive diplomacy, Markwica develops a new action model: the logic of affect. Based on the proposition that human decision making is culturally molded by “emotion norms and identities” (59), the logic of affect examines the role of five discrete emotions—fear, anger, hope, pride, and humiliation—in the behavior of states targeted by coercive threats. Markwica shows how the appraisal and action tendencies of these five emotions shape choice behavior, adding to our understanding of when and why target states defy or concede to coercive demands.

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Notes on contributors

Payam Ghalehdar

Payam Ghalehdar is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. His research examines the causes of regime change and the role of emotions in foreign policy decision making. E-mail: [email protected]