Simon Koschut

Emotional (security) communities: the significance of emotion norms in inter-allied conflict management

What do Al-Qaeda , Human Rights Watch, and NATO have in common? They can all be understood as emotional communities. Emotional communities are ‘groups in which people adhere to the same norms of emotional expression and value – or devalue – the same or related emotions’. This article develops a conceptual framework for a particular type of emotional community in world politics: a security community. It is argued that emotion norms – the expression of appropriate emotions in a given situation – stabilise a security community during inter-allied conflict. The argument is illustrated by an empirical case study of NATOs military intervention in Libya in 2011. The article shows how the conceptualisation of security communities as emotional communities has significant implications for the study of regional peace and security.

Transatlantic conflict management inside-out: the impact of domestic norms on regional security practices

This article explores the impact of domestic norms on regional security practices in a pluralistic security community in the transatlantic area. A security community is considered to be ‘a group which has become integrated, where integration is defined as the attainment of a sense of community, accompanied by formal or informal institutions or practices, sufficiently strong and widespread to assure peaceful change among members of a group with “reasonable” certainty over a “long” period of time’ (Karl W Deutsch, Sidney A Burrell, Robert A Kann, Maurice Lee Jr, Martin Lichterman, Raymond E Lindgren, Francis L Loewenheim and Richard W Van Wagenen (1957) Political community and the North Atlantic area: international organization in the light of historical experience (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press)). Recent studies have aligned the concept of security community with the practice turn in International Relations theory. Although practice theory is able to explain peaceful conflict resolution within a security community, this article shows that its explanatory power is significantly weaker when it comes to military interventions outside the security community. The article theoretically and empirically investigates this argument by using the empirical case of extraregional conflict management in Afghanistan. The importance of domestic norms in constructing and perceiving regional security practices in out-of-area operations emphasizes the ‘local’ over the ‘regional’ as a crucial driver behind the emergence of a regional actors understanding of security and thus for the formation and consolidation of regional peace.

Friendship and international relations

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. A Framework for the Study of International Friendship Andrea Oelsner and Simon Koschut PART II: CONCEPTIONS 2. Friendship, State and Nation Graham M. Smith 3. Friendship, Security and Power Felix Berenskoetter 4. The Sources of Affect in Interstate Friendship Lucile Eznack and Simon Koschut 5. Friendship and International Order: An Ambiguous Liaison Evgeny Roshchin PART III: PRACTICES 6. Franco-German Friendship: A Dynamic Perspective Antoine Vion 7. German-Polish Ties: Special Relationship, Friendship or Reconciliation? Lily Gardner Feldman 8. The Construction of International Friendship in South America Andrea Oelsner 9. Social Forums and Friendship: A New Way of Contemplating the Notion of Friendship in International Relations Caroline Patsias and Sylvie Patsias 10. Friendship in International Treaties Heather Devere PART IV: CONCLUSION 11. Conclusion Simon Koschut and Andrea Oelsner

A Framework for the Study of International Friendship

In recent years, International Relations (IR) has seen the introduction of more focused research on the concept of friendship in international politics. Indeed, although the term ‘friendship’ has never been absent from IR, its application has been somewhat loose and without a clear definition or systematic analysis. It has often been used to describe non-confrontational or harmonious interstate relations in empirical studies, but studies have fallen short of giving the concept of friendship thorough analytical consideration.1

The Structure of Feeling – Emotion Culture and National Self-Sacrifice in World Politics:

Why do individuals sacrifice themselves to defend a nation-state? This article emphasises the link between emotion and culture by investigating the affective reproduction of culture in world politics. Building on the tradition of Émile Durkheim, it introduces the concept of emotion culture to IR. Emotion cultures are understood as the culture-specific complex of emotion vocabularies, feeling rules, and beliefs about emotions and their appropriate expression that facilitates the cultural construction of political communities, such as the nation-state. It is argued that emotions provide a socio-psychological mechanism by which culture moves individuals to defend a nation-state, especially in times of war. By emotionally investing in the cultural structure of a nation-state, the individual aligns him/herself with a powerful cultural script, which then dominates over other available scripts. The argument is empirically illustrated by the case of the so-called Japanese kamikaze pilots.

Regional order and peaceful change: Security communities as a via media in international relations theory

The security community concept generally inhabits a rather small niche in the study of International Relations, as the logic of community fundamentally challenges the prevailing logic of anarchy. In this article, it is argued both on ontological and theoretical grounds that the concept’s intellectual heritage and depth transcends the boundaries of existing theories. In this sense, the concept of security community serves as a via media by linking different strands of International Relations theory together and by bridging various theoretical gaps. This argument will be developed in two steps. Firstly, it will be shown that the security community framework developed by Karl W Deutsch is deeply rooted in International Political Theory without belonging to one particular branch. By locating the concept in International Political Theory, an exercise that has been neglected by the security community literature; it will be secondly demonstrated that the concept of security community takes the middle ground between specific strands of International Relations theory, as these strands are ultimately based on concepts of moral philosophy.

Speaking from the Heart: Emotion Discourse Analysis in International Relations

How can emotions be studied in discourse? Constructivist and poststructuralist approaches in International Relations often emphasize the importance of language in the construction of reality, identity, and power relations. It is argued here that the inclusion of emotions as an additional category of analysis for intersubjectivity expands the scope of meanings that emerge from discourse analysis. Integrating research on emotions within discourse analysis, this chapter develops a methodological framework for studying emotions in discourses based on three steps: (1) selecting appropriate texts, (2) mapping the verbal expression of emotions, and (3) interpreting and contextualizing their political implications. The methodological framework is empirically illustrated using the conflict between NATO and Russia over the annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

No sympathy for the devil: Emotions and the social construction of the democratic peace

Constructivists claim that the democratic peace is socially constructed via mutual recognition between liberal subjects. Mutual recognition is rooted in shared moral attitudes and cognitive perceptions, thereby creating liberal intersubjectivity. What is largely missing from these accounts is the fact that shared meanings and identities are not solely rooted in cognitive perceptions and moral attitudes but significantly depend upon shared emotions that underpin and reproduce intersubjectivity. Building on interdisciplinary insights from social constructivist emotion theories, it is argued here that collectively shared emotions provide a way by which liberal subjects choose particular meaning frames and interpretations, which help align and sustain mutual attitudes and perceptions in constructing categories of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Accordingly, the theoretical question concerning how liberal democracies recognize each other as friends can be more fully answered by the high degree of emotional convergence among them. Moreover, I suggest that it is precisely this emotional convergence that underpins the way liberal selves construct non-liberal others as their enemies.

‘Successful’ Disintegration: The German Security Community

This chapter is concerned with the formation and subsequent disintegration of the German Confederation. It builds a historical narrative showing how the established normative order of the German pluralistic security community was gradually replaced by a new normative order among the German states following the external ‘shock’ of liberal-democratic revolutionary change in Europe. The case of norm erosion in the German security community exposes norm conflicts between a group of transnational norm challengers and norm leaders, on the one hand, as well as normative conflict among the norm leaders themselves (in particular the two core states, Prussia and Austria), on the other hand.

Security Community Disintegration: An Analytical Framework

This chapter develops a coherent analytical framework about normative change in a security community. This framework suggests that the path of security community disintegration is similar to its formation but under opposing signs. First, the normative order of a security community includes the norm of common values, the norm of multilateral practice, and the norm of communication. Second, the nature of agency in a security community is framed as a conflict between norm leaders and norm challengers. Third, disintegration involves three levels of change (external, social and internal, normative). Finally, the path of disintegration can be analytically traced via four stages (dysfunction, decline, denial, disintegration).