Mixed Emotions

Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict

Ross Andrew A. G.

In recent years, it's become increasingly clear that emotion plays a central role in global politics. For example, people readily care about acts of terrorism and humanitarian crises because they appeal to our compassion for human suffering. These struggles also command attention where social interactions have the power to produce or intensify the emotional responses of those who participate in them.

From passionate protests to poignant speeches, Andrew A. G. Ross analyzes high-emotion events with an eye to how they shape public sentiment and finds that there is no single answer. The politically powerful play to the public's emotions to advance their political aims, and such appeals to emotion also often serve to sustain existing values and institutions. But the affective dimension can produce profound change, particularly when a struggle in the present can be shown to line up with emotionally resonant events from the past. Extending his findings to well-studied conflicts, including the War on Terror and the violence in Rwanda and the Balkans, Ross identifies important sites of emotional impact missed by earlier research focused on identities and interests.

About the Author

Andrew A. G. Ross is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and affiliated faculty with the Center for Law, Justice, and Culture at Ohio University. He lives in Baltimore, MD, and Athens, OH.

Reviews

"This is a big, bold book on an important subject. Andrew A. G. Ross advances novel arguments about emotion as a social process and illustrates his argument through three fascinating case studies. The big picture he draws is compelling and raises large, important questions about how we currently understand global politics. Potentially pathbreaking, the book opens a new field of inquiry which scholars in the field are just beginning to explore in a systematic way" – Janice Gross Stein, University of Toronto

"In this engrossing, utterly persuasive study, Andrew A. G. Ross elucidates a political theory of mixed and fluid emotions. From mirror neurons to collective agency, from microsociology to mass media, he shows how emotions not only suffuse social life in every conceivable setting but also unsettle it in politically significant ways. With Ross's help, students of social construction can finally move beyond language and identity to processes of embodied interaction" – Nicholas Onuf, Florida International University

"'Mixed Emotions' makes a pathbreaking contribution to an increasingly important scholarly debate: the study of emotions in international politics. Drawing on case studies that range from protest movements to terrorism and from ethnic conflict to transitional justice, Andrew A. G. Ross convincingly reveals how the 'circulation of affect' spreads collective emotions over time and across spatial boundaries" – Roland Bleiker, University of Queensland

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