1. The case study in the context of the study of emotions and passions in international politics
What triggered the interest of the author in the nature, function, and significance of emotions and passions in international relations goes back to what led to World War II and the modalities that the conflict took. In this perspective, two elements principally stand out.
First, there is the aim to better understand the extreme and massive violence of the first half of the twentieth century, domestically and internationally, and the fact that it was accompanied by a whole spectrum of negative emotions and passions expressing and contributing to a systematic disregard for human life. This included the horrors of World War II and the cold reality of the fact that, as John W. Dower puts it, ‘(t)o over fifty million men, women, and children, it meant death. To hundreds of millions more in the occupied areas and theaters of combat, the war meant hell on earth: suffering and grief, often with little if any awareness of a cause or reason beyond the terrifying events of the moment.’Footnote 2
Second, and more generally, there is the attempt to make sense of the fact that actors, individual and collective, seem to find it more difficult, at the international level and in other settings, to treat others well (as individuals or collectivities) well rather than with indifference or even outright disregard. As such, there is the attempt to make sense of the fact that embracing positive values, emotions, and passions of inclusion appears more challenging than endorsing negative values, emotions, and passions of exclusion.
Historians, philosophers, psychologists, and other types of scholars have spent much time and energy reflecting on the human, intellectual, and political puzzles that these two elements constitute. But, interestingly enough, until recently international relations specialists have been less interested in these matters.
To be sure, in the United States, the first generation of post-World War II international politics scholars addressed in their writings the World War II catastrophe and what led to it. This was normal: many of them were continental European émigrés who had to leave their country because of the tragedy that unfolded. Furthermore, their rich academic background, frequently including law and philosophy, made them versed and interested in the complex questions the war posed. However, following this first generation, the following generations of American international affairs academics, essentially homegrown, have been less committed to the examination of these issues. Two major reasons explain this state of affairs: until recently most of them favored almost exclusively a positivist approach to international relations and the problematic conception of rationality it entails;Footnote 3 in addition, coming with a somewhat narrow focus on US‒Soviet Union competition in the environment of the Cold War and the challenges of building a world order around American hegemony, they did not have a deep interest for history in general and its multifaceted characteristics. This distracted them from concentrating on the World War II era, let alone exploring philosophical and psychological questions and their significance in international politics.
In this context, when some room was made for the analysis of the emotional aspects of World War II and its most extreme aspects, international relations specialists have had the tendency to view them as elements of irrationality, including as irrational emotions and passions. There was some truth in this approach. But, while the period was certainly one in which much irrationality and even all out madness was on full display, this approach cannot be seen as exhausting all there is to say on the topic. After all, together with the other traits of the time, irrationality itself is in need of explanation. This is not only important for the World War II years, but for subsequent international relations and general considerations as well. For instance, as can be seen with terrorism in the 2000s, with how it was deployed by terrorists and responded to and handled by major powers (particularly the United States and the Bush Administration), emotions and passions can take a negative and radical turn, and drive the international agenda. In this perspective, understanding how this happens, how it can be mitigated if not completely avoided, and how emotions and passions related to peace can be pushed forward internationally, calls for studying the nature and role of psychology, emotions, and passions in general and in the international context. And it calls for analyzing them in connection with other key components.
It happens that in the past years, a number of international affairs scholars are giving more attention than before to the emotional dimensions of international politics, generating in the process a growing scholarly literature on the topic.Footnote 4 Yet, this new intellectual context in international relations is not necessarily translating into revisiting the study of what led to World War II and the war itself through the angle of emotions and passions. This is all the more troublesome considering the momentous and epochal importance of the atmosphere and events leading up to World War II and the war itself, their defining character for twentieth century international relations, if not for the late modernity. As a follow-up and complement of our two previous articles in the Japanese Journal of Political Science,Footnote 5 this is what this article intends to help accomplish. Obviously, the objective is not to offer here a complete analysis, including from the psychology and emotions/passions standpoint.Footnote 6 Rather it is to bridge some of the arguments made in the two other articles with the specific situation of the World War II period, and show that there can further our understanding of the events that took place, of why and how these events happened.
More specifically, the pieces of the puzzle we tackle are the following: competing interests among big powers played a role in the making of World War II; but, and not separated from this, another element had a serious impact: the sense of psychological insecurity experienced, each in its own way, by Germany and Japan in the context of their quest for recognition by other major powers – Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States – and the implications this had internationally. In connection with their material conditions (internal and international) compared to other great powers, this pushed Germany and Japan to embrace policies that were ultimately self-defeating. It led them to see and assess themselves, others, and the international environment in conflicting terms and, faced with the unwillingness of other big powers to accommodate them to the extent they wanted, to overplay their hand, with lethal consequences all around.
In other words, while not pretending that this argument represents the whole and sole explanation of the path to World War II and its modalities, we argue that this is part of it. As such, the thesis we explore in the article concerns the link that we believe exists, based on the interactions between oneself and others, between lack of peace with oneself and lack of peace with others, between war within and war with others. Indeed, while this thesis applies to individual relations among people and their identities, it also shapes the collective relations of states and countries, what we could present as their relational identities and their effects. That the consequences of this can be disastrous in international affairs is evidenced by the level of destruction brought about by World War II. This thesis is tackled in the next section by examining why and how Germany and Japan's sense of psychological insecurity, fueled at the same time by features within themselves and concerning their relations with the outside world, and their interactions, was manifested in relation to their drive for international recognition as great powers, with this state of affairs ultimately contributing to bring about all-out war.
2. Psychological insecurity and the quest for recognition in world politics
Usually, when there is a reference to the notion of ‘insecurity’, at the international and national levels, it is meant to designate tangible material threats to which an actor is exposed. Internationally, the term ‘insecurity’ is for instance utilized when a country's interests are at stake because of competition among states, risks of war, or, more generally, unfavorable international distribution of power. In this perspective, looking at Germany and Japan and the world they found themselves in during the second half of the ninteenth century, it is true that their situation was materially challenging. It was uncertain for Japan, and somewhat fragile for Germany. In Japan, in Northeast Asia, the imperialist policies of the major powers of the time were a problem for the preservation of its independence. As for Germany, it was not forgetting that, over the course of history, its geopolitical centrality but also vulnerability at the heart of Western continental Europe had exposed it to the dangers coming from the rivalries and wars of big European powers, with the risk of being conquered and occupied. Both, therefore, had good reasons to be mindful and fearful of state-power competition in their respective regions.
That said, Japan and Germany would not have been so sensitive to the concrete, or material, threats they were facing if these had not been accompanied by, and dovetailed with, feelings of psychological, or emotional, insecurity. In this regard, in addition to their position in the international distribution of power, their own ambition to be respected by acquiring prestige and emulating the great powers of the period and reaching similar status and stature, which was going to orient their policies in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early ones of the twentieth century, played a role. In a way, rather than strengthening them psychologically, it weakened them. Indeed, this attitude was particularly unsettling psychologically considering the pressures it was introducing on themselves and their relations with other powers. To reverse the material and immaterial international balance of power and introduce terms more to their liking, Japan and Germany were asking a lot of themselves and the world order. Internally, it entailed for their sense of collective self and identity to go through drastic changes. Internationally, it implied carving room for themselves, which established powers, eager to preserve their interests and privileges, were uncomfortable allowing. In this context, three factors were especially challenging for the type of recognition and validation Germany and Japan yearned for. They were: being latecomers as modern nations, having to experience rapid and deep societal transformation (and the stress associated with it), and having to face the reluctance of major powers to accept them as members of their club.
Germany and Japan as latecomers
What about the fact that Germany and Japan were latecomers as modern nations? Concerning Germany, it was in January 1871 that the formal unification of German-speaking Europe took place, which prior to 1806 and the abdication of Emperor Francis II had included more than 300 independent states in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Interestingly, the official unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation-state occurred at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France, after the French capitulation in the Franco-Prussian War, with the proclamation of Wilhelm I as German emperor.
As for Japan, although the establishment of the Tokugawa regime at the beginning of the seventeenth century played a key role in unifying it, when the Tokugawa period ended in 1867 with the resignation of Hitotsubashi Keiki, the last Shogun or military leader, it was not a modern nation.Footnote 7 Japan had lived in isolation,Footnote 8 to the point that by the nineteenth century, it had become more insular than it was in early Tokugawa times and had fallen far behind the West. It is only following Commodore Perry's arrival in 1853, which after forcing Japan to sign the 1854 Treaty of Peace and Amity with the United States and open commercially to the worldFootnote 9 triggered the restoration of imperial rule in 1868 and the Meiji revolution,Footnote 10 that Japan started to modernize. As a consequence, compared to older big powers such as Great Britain, France, Russia, and even the United States, this late entrance on the international scene must have been humbling, intimidating and a source of much psychological trepidation for Germany and Japan.
The stress of change
Another source of anxiety was the extent to which, in order to be at the level of the major powers, Germany and Japan had to catch up and, in the process, change and adapt, nationally and internationally. In this perspective, for them the challenge was to find a balance between, on the one hand, the still valuable features of their history and identity and the imperative to tailor and mobilize them for the demands of international competition, and, on the other hand, the necessity to leave behind and dispose of what was viewed as a handicap and a burden. While engineered to make the two countries competitive and stronger, this process was destined to produce traumas, hence the tensions it created and, ultimately, its ambiguous nature and outcome.
Domestically, to be able to compete with the other great powers, the two countries had no choice but to go through structural transformations in a short period of time. For Japan, the first two decades of the Meiji era, from 1868 to 1887, were epoch-changing and epoch-making:
(P)olitical developments included centralization, conscription, tax reform, the movement for parliamentary government, and the drafting of a constitution. Social change, too, had been considerable, with the legal leveling of the classes, compulsory elementary education, westernization, leaps in material culture, and increased stature for the rural agricultural elite. Industrialization on a strong agrarian base, an aggressively entrepreneurial private sector . . . Japan's capitalist economy began to take shape during the same period. There would be accelerations and setbacks, but by 1890 the direction of the economy was clearly set. Equally under way was the development of the national infrastructure: railroads, communications, financial institutions.Footnote 11
In Germany, the internal changes were fast and profound as well. For instance, from the 1870s onward, industrialization, urbanization, and modernization were taking place a good deal quicker than in Britain and France.Footnote 12 Among other things, this came with a rapid increase in the working class population and the invention, as part of the ‘West['s] most thorough industrialization process’,Footnote 13 of the compulsory state-operated and state-subsidized social security system.
By the end of the nineteenth century, these transformations had allowed Japan and Germany to strengthen their positions. Nevertheless, they also had their downsides. Nationally, as they were fundamentally altering German and Japanese societies, changes were introducing massive uncertainty.
For example, in Germany during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, the question of German identity was a contested issue. As Ernst B. Haas puts it:
Germans could never agree whether a primordial ethnicity or loyalty to the state defines their collective identity; the adoption of social imperialism and the practice of selective upward mobility did not suffice to mute class conflict; ethnic minorities were not sufficiently assimilated; the ‘democratizing’ reforms of Wilhelm II were all rhetorical . . . One could be a German because of one's descent from German stock – the primordial tie of Blut und Boden. In German history this position is known as völkisch (ethnic). One could also be German by virtue of being a loyal subject of the sovereign – the state and its constitution define citizenship – which meant that a popular-parliamentary view should prevail. Or one could seek a formula that somehow combined both positions. If so, one had to offer a conception that dealt simultaneously with the cultural roots of identity and the constitutional role of the Kaiser.Footnote 14
The reorganization of Japan was equally unsettling for the Japanese people and what had been the balance of their society. As the transition to an industrial economy progressed and techniques, practices, and institutions borrowed from the West supplanted local skills, customs, and wisdom, historical and cultural dislocation became part of life. Even those who had embraced the need to modernize (i.e., Westernize) Japan, be it the Meiji leadership or the younger generation, had to recognize this. The brusque evolution between old and new, traditional and modern, Japanese and Western, produced identity confusion and psychological self-doubt about the sense of place and the course to be followed.Footnote 15 Relatedly, and more dramatically yet, the strategy of imitation, implying the superiority of Western civilization, tended to undermine Japan's own self-image. Rather than providing the self-assurance and dignity that a positive national identity requires, it pointed to the loss of cultural autonomy and authenticity of the new Japan and weakened Japanese self-confidence and self-esteem. Consequently, for the novelist Natsume Sōseki, one of the most penetrating writers of the Meiji period, the outside-in impact, or the ‘external enlightenment’Footnote 16 of Japan by the West amounted to nothing less than the endangering of Japan's spiritual existence. In his novel Sore Kara (And Then), the hero, Daisuke, a young well-to-do intellectual, gives a pessimistic assessment of the society in which he lives:
A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile. They get an education that's stripped to the bare bone, and they're driven with their noses to the grindstone until they're dizzy – that's why they all end up with nervous breakdowns. Try talking to them . . . They haven't thought about a thing beyond themselves, that day, that very instant. They're too exhausted to think about anything else; it's not their fault. Unfortunately, exhaustion of the spirit and deterioration of the body come hand-in-hand. And that's not all. The decline of morality has set in too. Look where you will in this country, you won't find one square inch of brightness. It's all pitch black.Footnote 17
From the international standpoint, Germany and Japan's predicament was not any easier. To begin with, as countries that previously had not been central actors in the international system, they had to learn the rules of the game that had been conceived, imposed, and dominated by others. This meant making sure as much as possible that these would not limit them to second-class nations, if not worse.
Despite the fact that German-speaking entities had been involved in the international relations of the European continent for a long time, thinking and acting as ‘one’ was a novelty for the new Germany and, therefore, challenging. For Japan, as a non-Western country, having lived behind closed doors for more than 250 years, the learning curve was even steeper.Footnote 18
This helps understanding why Germany and Japan felt it so important to assert themselves militarily. In this regard, it was particularly significant that Germany prevailed in the 1870–1 Franco-Prussian War, and that Japan emerged victorious in the 1894‒5 Sino-Japanese War as well as in the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War. These military victories contributed to release the heavy pressure Germany and Japan experienced from having so much to prove. It showed that the two nations were catching up, and catching up fast. However, although these successes gave them some breathing space, at the same time they were creating new problems. These made it all the more difficult for Japan and Germany to achieve the type of recognition and validation, the type of ease (material and psychological) they were seeking from attaining preeminence in the international system.
In search of psychological validation
Here the root of the problem was twofold. First, as their emulation of the great powers was putting Germany and Japan on a collision course with the likes of Great Britain, France, the US, and even the Soviet Union, these great powers could only be made nervous and unwilling to recognize the rising powers as full-fledged peers. Second, in the process, the threshold for recognition and psychological validation as great powers grew only higher, more tense, and challenging for Germany and Japan. Over time, what had initially developed as a position of increasing strength (at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century) was gradually transformed, from the 1910s onwards, in a position much more perilous, with Japan and Germany cornered in their ambitions and more and more inclined to hope for the best while gambling their way into preeminence. This would grow worse in the late 1930s and in the first part of World War II.
At the beginning, indeed, the big powers marveled at the ability of Germany and Japan to rapidly progress on the domestic and international planes. On the other hand, after a while, as their rise turned Germany and Japan into a source of geopolitical competition, it made the major powers uncomfortable. They were open to live with the ascent of the two countries, but only up to a point. From their point of view, it had to be within ‘reason’, so to speak, so that they would continue to have an edge and be in a commanding position. Accommodation was possible as long as Germany and Japan were disposed to function as junior partners (i.e., acknowledging the overall leadership of the great powers). This could include imperialist cooperation in taking advantage of weak powers, which Germany and Japan were happy enough to do since they were eager to become imperialist nations themselves. But it did not entail harming the interest and predominance of the great powers. Nor did it mean accepting Germany and Japan as full members of their club. This is to say that the established powers had no intention to release what Germany and Japan coveted the most: membership to the great power club. Yet, second-class status would not do for the rising powers. They had parity in mind, if not surpassing the big powers.
As a result, in time tensions were unavoidable. The more Germany and Japan pushed forward, the more the major powers became defensive, and the more they became defensive, the more Germany and Japan felt frustrated about their standing in the world and alienated by the international system and its main custodians and beneficiaries.
A brief account of the facts at the core of the evolution of the relations among Germany and Japan and the great powers, the conflictive turn that it gradually took, illustrates this state of affairs.
Following its victory over France in 1871, one of the key aims of imperial Germany was to achieve world power status. The acquisition of a colonial empire and altering the European balance of power by expanding on the continent were core aspects of this ambitious agenda, known as Weltpolitik.Footnote 19 German scholars of geopoliticsFootnote 20 and intellectuals such as Max Weber, in helping to formulate the idea of ‘liberal imperialism’, contributed to this policy.Footnote 21 The appropriation of colonial possessions started in the 1880s.Footnote 22 But it is not until the first years of the twentieth century that Germany considered itself sufficiently strong to take on the great powers themselves.Footnote 23 By then, it was controlling a larger percentage of European industrial might than did any other state, including Great Britain, and its army was seen as the most powerful in the world. In this perspective, the assumption was that the formidable navy it was building would be able to challenge the British command of the oceans and serve as a crucial tool for the pursuit of its Weltpolitik.Footnote 24 Nevertheless, Great Britain, France, and, eventually, the United States got in the way. By defeating Germany in World War I, they crushed its plans to expand further and install its hegemony in Europe. Subsequently, in part because the Versailles Treaty in 1919 did not solve anything,Footnote 25 Germany under Hitler and the Nazi regime tried again to upset the status quo in the context of World War II, but without success either.
What about Japan? Initially, after it signed the equal treaties that in the 1880sFootnote 26 reversed the unequal ones that had been imposed on it at the time of its opening to the world, Japan found some common ground with the Western powers. It aligned itself and cooperated with them, including through imperialist policies of its own. It is in this perspective that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was established in 1902.Footnote 27 As Charles A. Kupchan argues, ‘Tokyo was attracted by the prospect of British protection as well as London's backing for Japan's continental ambition. In return, Britain was able to retain effective naval supremacy in the region.’Footnote 28 The Alliance also contributed to the development of an understanding with America. In a series of agreements, the latter acknowledged Japan's position in Northeast Asia, in 1905 acquiescing to the Japanese protectorate of Korea.Footnote 29
But as Great Britain and the United States came to progressively see Japan's foreign policy as dangerous for their interests and the status quo, the relations soured. During World War I, Japanese appetite for expansion, geared in particular towards an extension of its rights and holdings in China, aroused the distrust and suspicion of British and US leadership. In London, the predominant view was that Japan was using Great Britain's misfortunes in Europe to pursue its imperial ambitions in the Far East.Footnote 30 In Washington, President Woodrow Wilson reached the conclusion that the American people must be the champions of the sovereign rights of China, resulting in the United States' role as protector of the new Chinese republic brought into existence in 1912.Footnote 31
The aftermath of World War I, rather than marking an improvement of relations, confirmed the growing tensions. That was all the more the case considering that the post-war conception of international order, as a distinctive product of President Wilson's ideas, was at odds with Japan.
Stating, among other things, that the international system should be founded on the institution of collective security, based on universal law and not the balance of power, on morality and not national interest, Wilson's ideas gave pride of place to self-determination and the sovereign rights of all people. On paper, this meant the end to cooperative imperialism and of military and political expansion. More specifically, this amounted to a substantial effort to contain further extension of Japanese power, especially in China.Footnote 32 This flew in the face of what had been Japan's commitment to national power since the beginning of the Meiji period. It was foreign as well to Japanese values, in the context of which the idea that a nation, let alone an international order, could be governed by abstract principles equally applicable to all societies was hardly credible.Footnote 33 Moreover, it appeared eminently hypocritical. Indeed, this did not prevent Western powers, Great Britain to start with, from continuing to enjoy the benefit of their colonies. Neither did it stop racial discrimination against non-Westerners. In this regard, for Japan, the rejection of the racial equality clause at the Versailles Treaty negotiationsFootnote 34 and, in America, the enacting of the new Immigration Act of 1924, which in effect singled out the Japanese for no further migration to the United States,Footnote 35 were insulting and showed deep prejudices. For Tokyo, this was an indication of the double standard approach of the West.
Ultimately, from Japan's standpoint, Anglo-American cooperation had now become a concerted operation directed, contrary to the rhetoric put forward, at engineering a racially biased and unequal ‘pax Anglo-Americana’ – an Anglo-Saxon order geared towards hegemony over dominions and the containment of rising powers. In this context, with the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1923, it is as if a line had been drawn in the sand between the two camps, each of them increasingly preparing for a confrontation. And since in the 1930s, not to give up its expansionist policies became more than ever a question of national honor for Japan, war loomed larger and larger on the horizon. In the words of Henry Kissinger and Kenneth B. Pyle:
As Kissinger observed, ‘No nation will submit to a settlement, however well-balanced and however ‘secure’, which seems to totally deny its vision of itself’. The US insistence on Japan's withdrawal from China was completely at odds with the vision that Japanese leaders had of Japan's place in the world. The loss of status and prestige was such a blow to the national self-image that the leaders believed the demands jeopardized Japan's survival.’Footnote 36
3. From psychological insecurity to the psychology of war
Before we go further, we need to mention two elements. First, as alluded to earlier, to highlight the psychological/emotional dimension of the interactions of Germany and Japan with other powers and the impact it had on the possibility of war does not mean that this dimension is the sole factor that led to war. It is only one among many factors. But its significance and the fact that it has tended to be overlooked justify the attention that we give to it in this article. Second, to refer to this psychological dimension as part of the causal mechanisms accounting for the actions and policies of Germany and Japan does not imply some sort of revisionism aiming at minimizing German and Japanese responsibility in World War II.Footnote 37 After all, events did not have necessarily to unfold the way they did and it was mainly the decision of these two countries to handle international competition the way they did and to choose the path of violence. But, if anything, the psychological and emotional contexts that contributed to war and its modalities have the advantage of also shedding light on the question of the role of the great powers in the years preceding World War II, a matter often glossed over. In this perspective, the approach shows that the big powers' part of the story is not entirely a positive one. In particular, the premium that they put on their international preeminence regardless of the costs, either for people under their domination or concerning the tensions this generated with rising powers, points to their own responsibilities.
That said, let us now examine how Germany and Japan moved from a psychology of insecurity to a psychology of war. In this regard, the fact of the matter is that as their interactions with the outside world became more and more tense, German and Japanese conception and psychology of themselves, others and the world, came to display (each in their own style) a deepening and intensifying gap between ‘we’ and ‘them’, which took a more and more dividing toll. They did so through systems of thought, belief and representation including emotions and passions that, dovetailing key aspects of their inherited history and culture and the political idiosyncrasies, ideologies and needs of the period, were oriented both inward (domestic policy) and outward (foreign policy). The two orientations worked jointly and, as such, proved to be a recipe for disaster for the two countries and the world.
The inward-looking psychology of Germany and Japan in pre-World War II
The inward-looking dimension of Germany and Japan's systems of thought, belief, and representation prior to (and during) wartime celebrated how these countries were different and somehow superior. This is to say that they were prone to elevate themselves and, concomitantly, downgrade others. In this context, and not surprisingly, the internal features of their culture and their contemporary developments were not entirely separated from their interactions with the rest of the world. From this standpoint, in the pre-World War II environment, three elements came to play a significant role. First, there was the sense of insecurity, if not of inferiority vis-à-vis the more established as well as more modern great powers. Second, there was the frustration and resentment experienced by Germany and Japan as they felt that their rights as rising nations were not being sufficiently appreciated and recognized, not being given a ‘proper place’Footnote 38 internationally. Third, knowing the great powers to be formidable adversaries, there was the need to psychologically mobilize their culture and their distinctive and differentiating traits in comparison with others. Stressing the uniqueness, unity and internal solidarity, and spiritual strength of the national polity by calling upon traditional and ‘modern anti-modern’ values was a component of this inward (although in large part responding to the international environment and directed to the pursuit of outward goals) dynamics and agenda.
To begin with, let us review the case of Japan. In this regard, indicating how the country is unique has always been a Japanese passion. Highlighting what makes it different has been a way to put it in a class of its own as well. Reluctance of being compared to others for fear of not being ranked high enough is to some extent part of this attitude. Consequently, it is no surprise that when interactions with the international environment denied Japan of the type of recognition and validation it was seeking and compromised its self-esteem, celebrating its distinction and how this made its identity and value irreducible to others' views became essential for Japan's sense of self.
This was all the more the case considering that one of the pillars of Japanese modernization entailed the cultivation of its specificity through a reconstruction of the conception of the national community in traditional, semi-archaic, and semi-mythological terms that gave centrality to the figure of the emperor.Footnote 39 Connecting the past and the present in order to project Japan into a renewed future, it symbolized divinity, government, and people, and their fusion, and was instrumental for tying Japanese uniqueness to the pursuit of harmonious unity. In this perspective, in contrast with the individualism, divisive politics, materialism, and hedonistic behavior that for Japan characterized in part the West, the imperial system helped to conflate state and civil society within the broader national community.Footnote 40 Contributing to the reduction of the autonomy of the social arena and the indexing of the individual self on the collective one, it ensured that the Japanese were ‘subjects – responsible, active, subjects serving the state, to be sure – but not sovereign citizens in whose hands decisions of state ultimately lie.’Footnote 41 The amalgamation of spiritual authority with political power that the emperor represented made ‘serving’ all the more imperative for the people of Japan. During the war, this became a central aspect of the near-mystical purity of the imperial war and, if necessary, of dying in battle.Footnote 42
Needless to say, the authoritarian regime that dominated the Japanese landscape from the 1930s until 1945 benefited from this system. It was useful because the manner in which the imperial system organized Japan's uniqueness and unity was geared towards people feeling bound and proud to carry duties set from above.Footnote 43 But it was useful also because of the direct access the military enjoyed to the emperor,Footnote 44 the ‘centre of all authority and the fountainhead of all virtue’.Footnote 45 Furthermore, it allowed the Japanese authoritarian regime to echo and capitalize on some of the long-term distinctive features of Japan's collective identity and consciousness. As S. N. Eisentadt argues:
Japan can be seen as the model nation-state, as indeed it has always been, in one way or another, coterminous with the Japanese collective identity, which was constructed . . . in terms of ‘sacred particularity’ . . . Two closely interconnected facts are of special importance here, in the context of the analysis of the military regime of the 1930s. First, this political and ethnic or national identity or collective consciousness, couched in sacral-primordial terms, developed early in Japanese history – even if, for long periods, it was limited to some elite groups – and did not constitute a point of continuous internal ideological and political struggle. Second, unlike in Europe, this collective consciousness did not develop within the framework of a universalistic civilization with strong transcendental orientations. Even if its development was greatly influenced by its encounter with Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism it refused, as it were, to cope with the problem of the relation of its primordial ‘ethnic’ symbols to membership in such universalistic civilizations. The confrontation with universalistic ideologies . . . was seemingly resolved by the denial of these ideologies – albeit a highly principled, ideological denial of their universalistic and transcendental components . . . At the same time this concept of nationality entailed a very strong tendency – which has played an important role in Japanese society from the Meiji up to the contemporary period – to define the Japanese collectivity in terms of incomparable uniqueness, couched very often in semi racial, genetic terms, or in terms of some special spirituality . . . (I)n Japan . . . (such spirituality) was presented in terms of the unique spirituality of the Japanese collectivity or nation, often defined in highly exclusive, particularistic terms. This attitude, asserting the distinctiveness of Japanese nationhood, could easily develop in extreme nationalistic directions – and was indeed characteristic of nationalistic trends throughout the modern era – but in some form it was probably prevalent in much of Japanese society.Footnote 46
Now, what about Germany? As a way to cope psychologically with its injured pride, in the 1930s Germany relied increasingly as well on the idea that it was unique and uniquely united. It did so by radicalizing and idealizing its estrangement from the modern West, all the while continuing to work as much as possible at modernizing itself, for instance on the (military) industry front. In this perspective, the type of conservative German nationalism that had developed in the nineteenth century, itself having deep historical roots,Footnote 47 played a key role. Considering the people (Volk) as an organic body and ethnicity as the ultimate definer of identity and, therefore, of belonging and membership, it led to conceive the national community in autochthon and exclusionary terms. Already during the Wilhelmine empire, one of the central tropes of this form of nationalism was to present German culture as a third way beyond, on the one hand, Western ‘civilization’ and, among other things, its individualism, and, on the other hand, ‘barbarism’ in the East,Footnote 48 which made Slavs and Jews the targets of its racism.
On top of the frustration experienced by Germany prior to World War I in its quest for great power status, the resentment that came to typify the German atmosphere after the war built on and exacerbated this state of affairs. The sense of humiliation in Germany associated with the belief that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair furthered an all the more pressing need to end its terms since Germans continued to have big power ambitions. The economic and social difficulties encountered by the country and their emotional toll, including in the context of the 1929 Great Depression and the collapse of the international trading system, also called for the psychological compensation that was pursued in the celebration of a unique and unified Germany.
This situation, encouraging the discredit of parliamentary institutions and political parties, served as fertile ground for Hitler. His obsessive and paranoiac views put forward and cemented the centrality of extremist interpretations of aspects that had become part of German conservative nationalism, as such qualitatively transforming this nationalism. ‘(P)lebiscitary cesarism’ and ‘ethno-racist chauvinism’, to use Philippe Burrin's expressionsFootnote 49, established as core features of the national culture of the time, emerged as essential to Germany's cult of uniqueness and unity. In this ‘holist universe of the tribe, with its exclusivism and brutal morality’,Footnote 50 the Jewish ‘difference’Footnote 51 was unacceptable and, consequently, to be eliminated.
Projecting a psychology of war
What Kenneth B. Pyle writes about Japan applies to Germany as well, for they shared a similar predicament:
To win recognition that would be truly satisfying, Japan . . . would have to discover how to live in an order of its own creation, governed by its own norms . . . Driven in their national life by a complex psychology of ambition, pride, self-doubt, and anger, the Japanese came to believe that their goals could only be fulfilled when they were strong enough to create their own international order.Footnote 52
As far as their deep-seated national feelings of anxietyFootnote 53 were connected with tense international relations, they could not be inward oriented without turning also outward. In this regard, as the international system reached a breaking point, the radicalization and idealization of the German and Japanese collective/individual self, including the self-aggrandizement that this constituted, was accompanied externally by others (collective and individual others) being more and more devaluated. This amounted to a kind of ‘manifest destiny’Footnote 54 implying that the world had to be remade on the basis of their values.
Yet, the German and Japanese sense of manifest destiny was never self-assured, optimistic, unreflective, and self-righteous, the way the American one has tended to be. In fact, more often than not it was lacking self-confidence, relatively self-aware of the dubious character of its claims, quite gloomyFootnote 55 and even morbid,Footnote 56 oscillating between phases of exhilaration and of desperation, and it factored in defeat and even national destruction as a real possibility.Footnote 57 But, in the meantime, before Nazi Germany and authoritarian Japan would experience annihilation, they would bring devastation to others as their philosophy meant all rights for themselves and hardly any for others.
The German and Japanese ‘war within’, that is the fixation on and uneasiness about themselves that internal conditions combined with interactions with the outside world contributed to generate, and the disregard this brought about for others, translated into an external war. In this context, three elements came to be closely interrelated. They are the rationale for war, the nature and modalities of war, and the intellectual and psychological method of evasion of responsibility.
Rationale for war started with the disqualification of the international system. It was comprised of two aspects. On the one hand, echoing Darwinist beliefs, Nazi Germany and authoritarian Japan saw international politics as a struggle for survival. For them, contrary to the position of hegemonic powers, the international system, its organization, institutions and norms, including international law, and dominating actors had little to do with justice and much to do with the powerful doing whatever it took to stay on top.Footnote 58 On the other hand, while stating that might is everything in international affairs, they still identified with the language of right: they argued that they were treated as second-class international citizens and that their rights were not respected.Footnote 59
This disqualification of the international system as all about power did not only give them a reason to take matters into their own hands in order to challenge the status quo. It also allowed them to define the nature of the war they were embarking on in defensive terms. And as they presented the wars they were initiating as acts of self-defense, they felt they could not be viewed and certainly did not consider themselves as real aggressors. Going to war was not a choice but an existential necessity, a question of life and death. In this perspective, Germany and Japan, each in its own way, were prone to see themselves as pushed to act by the attitude and policies of the other side, as reacting to a situation in which history and the great powers had cornered them.
Ultimately, one can argue that Japan and Germany, far from seeing themselves as perpetrators for the violence they were launching, saw themselves in a significant part as victims. Furthermore, as victims, they could not be responsible for the violence they were deploying. Rather it was the other side that had to be blamed.
In this regard, the big powers, as the primary underwriters and beneficiaries of the international order, had a major responsibility; their self-righteousness did not make them any less guilty; it only showed their hypocrisy, working essentially for themselves and, in the process, wronging others while claiming to care about the greater good.
Even worse, especially with Nazi Germany, victims were said to be responsible for their own victimization and demise. The culture of paranoia and resentment of the Nazi elite, and the lack of identification, empathy, and solidarity with others that came with it, reducing its moral imagination to no one but itself, at the same time made Jews its absolute target and portrayed them as having a part in their own annihilation. In particular, since they were at the core of the conspiracy to humiliate and destroy Germany, they were the architects of their own death.Footnote 60
As for authoritarian Japan, the combination of its victim-mentality with its own brand of racist tendencies and the fact that it continued in the midst of challenging them to be impressed by the big powers and the status they enjoyed, made it inclined to be dismissive of the weak and the weakened. In relation to China, the fact that this country had once been a dominant force in the region and was now seen as backward and inferior, encouraged Japan's blindness to the crimes its was committing against its population.
In the end, Germany and Japan's point of view was that even if they were going to be defeated, their honor would be safe. As Hitler put it, Germany would have brought down as many Jews as it could in its fall.Footnote 61 As for Japan, at least it would have tried to stand its ground. Interestingly, after World War II, Germany and Japan did not stop entirely considering themselves as victims and, as a result, being reluctant to take responsibility for their acts.Footnote 62
4. Towards a psychology of peace and international peace in general
One of the ideas that triggered the interest of the author in the topic addressed in this article is that both for individual and collective actors, war within is likely to come with, if not bring war with others; in contrast, peace within tends to go hand in hand with peace with others. Another way to say this is: in every terrorist, there is a terrorized actor; on the other hand, inner peace tends to be echoed by peace with others, serenity within is likely to nurture serene relations with others.
As we have seen in the article, the fact that interactions with the outside world can contribute to forms of internal identity uneasiness and that this situation is associated with the dynamics of emotions and passions (positive and negative, inclusive and exclusionary) is part of the equation.
In this perspective, while our attempt to make sense of emotions and passions in international politics has principally been aimed at achieving a more accurate conception of their place in international life and, as a result, of international politics in general, it has carried an additional message. That is, a better analysis of international affairs, one that factors in emotions and passions, is not simply a matter of better theorization, it is also a matter of generating practical benefits ‒ it can help identifying what can help making the world better. In way of conclusion, we therefore highlight four suggestions through which developing further the approach explored in the essay could enhance a psychology of peace, and, subsequently, international peace.
1. We began this article by indicating that more scholarly work is now being done on the nature and role of emotions and passions in international relations. However, in light of how this is key in order to be able to orient them in the right directions, much more needs to be done in this area. This entails systematically reviewing and revising the misleading assumptions that mainstream international relations, and, more generally, social sciences have about emotions and passions and their place in the processes of thinking, deliberating, and deciding at the individual and collective levels.
2. Being more aware of the connection between the nature and evolution of values, rights and, for that matter, justice, on the one hand, and the nature and evolution of emotions and passions, on the other hand, is another important task. To be sure, this connection has to some extent been examined philosophically in the past. But, under the influence of positivism, it has been largely overlooked if not disqualified until recently in the various domains of the social and legal sciences.Footnote 63 In the process, it is the capacity to fully analyze and understand as much as we should how values and rights come to be, in which terms they are defined, how and to whom they extend, and how they change, that is undermined. A theory of values and rights, and of justice that does not encompass their links to how emotions and passions (based on whether these are positive or negative, inclusive or exclusionary, and in which measure) enter into the creation of logics and spaces of identification and belonging or of rejection is destined to remain incomplete.
3. For a better understanding of emotions and passions to lead to an improvement of the world, including of international life, it is required to go beyond simply referring to the correlation we noted earlier between peace within and peace with others, and, conversely, between war within and war with others. This calls for addressing (more than has been the case in this article) the two following questions for individual and collective actors: How does one achieve peace with oneself, so that peace is facilitated with others? How does one generate and nurture emotions and passions of peace with oneself and in relation with others?
4. It may be that part of the answer to these questions lies in the fact that the psychology of peace in general and the psychology of international peace more specifically amount to conceiving peace (and some form of happiness) not as a situation of total stability and stillness, but rather as one of ‘socialized instability’,Footnote 64 and one in which dynamic and evolving emotions and passions are guiding actors to morally and existentially address, cope with, learn from, and be strengthened by the challenges that life and history do not fail to throw at them. Here the objective is not to be egotistical. It is to be present to oneself, others, and the world in the most reconciled and open fashion possible. This can happen only if the dynamics and evolution of emotions and passions, rather than expressing and being at the service of conflicts and negative/reactionary energy and values, are animated by reconciliation concerns and positive and life-affirming/life-celebrating energy and values. In the end, it leaves us with the task of thinking about the kinds of requirements, institutional among others, which, at the local, national, and international levels, can be best suited for actors, both individual and collective, to pursue and achieve positive and life-affirming/life-celebrating energy and values. Needless to say, much more work needs to be done to elucidate this human and intellectual puzzle.
About the author
Jean-Marc Coicaud joined Rutgers University in 2011. He is Professor of Law and Global Affairs, and Director of the Division of Global Affairs. He is a Global Ethics Fellow with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. In the spring of 2013 he served as the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University. Jean-Marc Coicaud has 14 published books (single-authored, co-authored and co-edited), and more than 70 chapters and articles in the fields of comparative politics, political and legal theory, international relations, and international law. Currently Dr Coicaud is working on a book titled International Legitimacy and Global Justice, for which he is under contract with Cambridge University Press.
