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What are international relations but the relations between people? How can psychology as a discipline and area of study be applied better to understand the relationships between nations? I have often wondered about these questions.
“War represents the failure of diplomacy” is a quotation known well to diplomats and attributed to 20th Century social thinker, cabinet member, and member of Parliament for 47 years, Tony Benn. A similar quotation from Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France during World War I is “"La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaires" or “War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.”
Yes, war and international relations are too serious to be left to military men, statesmen, and lawyers. It is my assertion in my two edited volumes, The Psychology of Peacekeeping and The Psychology of Diplomacy that the social sciences – psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and others – should make greater contributions to understanding international relations and finding methods whereby conflicts between nations can be resolved without resorting to the use or threat of force.
In The Psychology of Peacekeeping, I have brought together statesmen, diplomats, psychologists, United Nations staff, and academics to seek overlaps and synergies among their disciplines. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger sets the theme for the book in the Foreword. Part I is Prevention: Psychological and Social Issues that Can Avert or Lead to War and includes a chapter by former US Ambassador to the UN, Edward J. Perkins, along with a chapter by scholar Paul Kimmel on Cultural and Ethnic Issues of Conflict and Peacekeeping. Part II is Psychological Considerations during Periods of Conflict and includes chapters on Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life by scholars David Fetherstonhaugh and Paul Slovic; Psychological Aspects of Peacekeeping on the Ground by UN peacekeeper Colonel Christian Härleman; and Psychological Ambiguities in Peacekeeping by Professor Thomas Britt, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Military Psychology. One part of the peace-war-peace cycle that is sometimes ignored is the phase following conflict, where the return to peace must be guided and supported. This is covered in Part III Psychological Aspects and Confidence-Building Measures in the Transition from Violence to Durable Peace. Chapters include Humanitarian Intervention, Psychosocial Assistance and Peacekeeping by Professor Michael Wessells; Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and the Contribution of International Peacekeeping by scholars Eileen Borris and Paul F. Diehl; and Treating the New World Disorder by Henry Breed, who spent a full career with the United Nations, including serving on UN peacekeeping missions in Mozambique, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia, and as Assistant to the Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping at UN Headquarters in NY.
The Psychology of Diplomacy examines some of the focused approaches to specific aspects of diplomacy. Among the 13 chapters are Reconciliation between Nations: Overcoming Emotional Deterrents to Ending Conflicts between Groups, by Arie Nadler and Tamar Saguy of Tel Aviv University; The Nature of International Conflict: A Social-Psychological Perspective, by Herbert Kelman, Director of the Program of International Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; The Psychology of Diplomacy as Manifested in the Role of Subregional and Regional Organizations in Preventing African Conflicts, by Betsie Smith, a career diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Africa; Applied Anthropology and Diplomacy: Renegotiating Conflicts in a Eurasian Diplomatic Gray Zone by Using Cultural Symbols, by Ignacy Marek Kaminski, a Polish-born Swedish citizen and permanent resident of Japan, where he teaches Cultural and Applied Anthropology and Intercultural Negotiations and Conflict Resolution at International Christian University, Tokyo, and Warsaw University; and Fiction versus Function: The Persistence of “Representative Character” Theory in the Law of Diplomatic Immunity, by retired military officer and attorney Jeffrey K. Walker.
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