No sympathy for the devil: Emotions and the social construction of the democratic peace
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836717737570 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717737570
Cooperation and Conflict
2018, Vol. 53(3) 320 –338
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836717737570
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No sympathy for the devil:
Emotions and the social
construction of the
democratic peace
Simon Koschut
Abstract
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.
Keywords
Constructivism, democratic peace, emotions
Introduction
This article investigates the emotional underpinnings of the democratic peace proposition.
The latter’s central empirical claim states that democracies have been reluctant to engage
in armed conflict with other democracies, even though they have fought numerous wars
with non-democratic states. Various theoretical accounts have embarked upon explaining
this puzzle, including utilitarian accounts focusing on rational choice, institutional
Corresponding author:
Simon Koschut, Freie Universität Berlin, Ihnestrasse 22, Berlin 14195, Germany.
Email: simon.koschut@fu-berlin.de
737570CAC0010.1177/0010836717737570Cooperation and ConflictKoschut
research-article2017
Article
Koschut 321
accounts emphasizing the pacifying role of domestic and international institutions, and,
more recently, constructivist accounts privileging liberal norms and identities.1
In this study, I will engage with constructivist explanations of the democratic peace.
Constructivists claim that the democratic peace is socially constructed via mutual recog-
nition between liberal subjects. Mutual recognition is based on shared moral attitudes
and cognitive perceptions that construct categories of ‘us’ and ‘them.’2 Oren’s (1995,
2003) seminal constructivist statement on the democratic peace as a ‘peace of our kind’
suggests that this peace is the outcome of the dialectical logic of self–other relationships,
and thus at least implicitly points to the socio-psychological link between cognitive and
emotional categories that constitutes the basis for constructing liberal intersubjectivity.
This speaks directly to an ongoing debate pertaining to the underlying mechanisms that
produce the democratic peace. Scholars are increasingly pointing to significant gaps in
our understanding of these mechanisms (Dixon and Senese, 2002; Hayes, 2011).
Particularly in conventional constructivist studies that center around notions of shared
liberal perceptions and attitudes, the question looms: how are these shared attitudes and
perceptions created and sustained? The prevailing assumption among conventional con-
structivists in International Relations (IR) is that cognition is ‘a property of intentional
actors that generate motivational and behavioural dispositions’ (Wendt, 1999: 224).
However, as many emotion scholars in IR have demonstrated, the claim that ideas,
beliefs, and mental processes of acquiring knowledge have motivational force of their
own is at least questionable.3 Knowing about ‘self’ and ‘other’ certainly influences
thought processes and mental imagery, but it does not necessarily motivate to act in a
certain way. It is when one gets angry at the other that one feels inclined to seek revenge
and embark on retaliatory acts. Conversely, if one sympathizes with members of a group,
one will likely be more trustful and behave in a conciliatory way toward members of that
group. Cognition that lacks emotional input fails to produce a sense of obligation or loy-
alty necessary for collective identification. Conversely, emotion that lacks cognition has
no object, so there is nothing to get angry or sympathetic about.
This article ties together research on the social construction of emotions with scholar-
ship on the social construction of the democratic peace in a novel way. It is argued that the
social construction of the democratic peace is not solely rooted in shared cognitive per-
ceptions and moral attitudes but significantly depends upon collectively shared emotions
that underpin liberal intersubjectivity. More specifically, I suggest that such emotions
form part of the sociocultural structure by which liberal agents choose meaning frames
and interpretations, which help align and sustain their cognitive perceptions and moral
attitudes. In other words, the democratic peace is not solely constructed via cognitive
knowledge about ‘us’ and ‘them’ but is, at the same time, underpinned by corresponding
emotions of sympathy for ‘us’ and anger toward ‘them.’ This summarizes the main argu-
ment put forward here that the theoretical question of how liberals 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 can help
explain why liberal selves construct non-democratic others as enemies.
This article limits its intervention to the theoretical level and will not present new
empirical data. It explores the role of emotions within the constructivist research frame-
work of the democratic peace, thus examining the role of emotions as a theoretical
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