States have emotions too
An affect-centred approach to South African foreign relations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5724918 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bianca Naude (0000-0002-8870-1690, University of the Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, South Africa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 475-493 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South African Journal of International Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1022-0461 • E-ISSN: 1938-0275 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10220461.2016.1269244 |
| OpenAlex | W2573479435 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Building on established scholarship in international relations theory, notably Alexander Wendt's assertion that ‘states are people too’, this paper explores South African foreign policy decisions that are routinely dismissed as being ‘schizophrenic’, and makes two claims: first, that existing scholarship fails to adequately address causal factors of South African foreign policy and, second, that we need to turn to emotions and affect to do so. As such, the theoretical framework adopted for the purposes of the paper treats ‘state-level’ affect as a central explanatory factor, in contrast to established scholarship on emotion theorisation, which treats states as ontologically subordinate to their constituent members and thus subject to the private affects and cognitions of the individuals that make decisions on behalf of the state. Existing literature on collective emotion seems to support the possibility of state emotion. This notion of transsubjective emotionality facilitates the argument that states have emotions too, and that these emotions condition not only identities but also actions in international relations
Assertion · Economics · Epistemology · Foreign policy · International relations · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Scholarship · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |