Political psychology of emotion(al) norms in European Union foreign policy

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article uses political psychology to understand how emotions such as fear, anger, hate and passion fuel the construction of emotional norms in foreign policy, and why this is important to the contributing articles to this Global Affairs special issue (SI) on emotion(al) norms in EUropean foreign policy. It argues that the SI sets out a significant stage in the political psychology of emotions from IR to the EU over the past 50 years. The value of the SI's theoretical contribution to the field is demonstrated by using the political psychologies of individual cognitive psychology, social psychology, social construction, psychoanalysis and critical political psychology to allow for engagement with the broader inter-discipline. The article concludes that the SI has made an original and interesting contribution in terms of empirically multileveled, theoretically emotional, and methodologically discursive approaches to the understanding of the political psychologies of emotional norms in EU foreign policy.