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"In the Minds of Men …": Social Representations of War and Military Intervention
Abstract
This chapter reviews research on representations of war and military intervention,
primarily situated in two different social psychological research traditions: individual
attitudes and social representations. The former has approached the object of
investigation by studying the cognitive and affective correlates, more general predictors,
and behavioral consequences of individuals’ support (vs. rejection) of war or military
intervention. The latter focuses to a greater extent on contextual and historical processes
that influence the social meanings attached to war and military intervention; in this
approach attitudes are just one (evaluative) component of social representations—and
differences between individuals and groups may be attributed to the various functions
social representations fulfill. We thus adopt the broader social representations approach.
Based on this, the chapter closes by drawing implications for strategies to change
individual attitudes, as well as representations of war and military interventions, and by
offering questions for future research.
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The aim of this study was to explore the structures of socially shared representations of the Israel-Palestine conflict among conflict outsiders. The sample included Swiss residents with differing levels of self-positioning and engagement in the conflict (N = 31). We expected a ‘spillover effect’ of conflict representations from parties in conflicted societies to conflict outsiders. To assess these representations, a Q-methodological approach was used. The analysis revealed four distinct conflict representations, labeled as (1) a hawkishreligious pro-Israeli view; (2) a dovish pro-Israeli view; (3) a conciliatory view; and (4) a pro-Palestinian view. These representations provide evidence for a partial spillover of beliefs to conflict outsiders. The study contributes to the literature on discourses about the Israel-Palestine conflict by empirically discovering its socially shared, systematic structures.
As part of his Social Cognitive Theory, Albert Bandura (e.g. 1986) introduces a process called moral disengagement. Eight different mechanisms are described through which behavior can be disengaged from moral self-control, thus enabling inhumane conduct without negative consequences for the person's self. These mechanisms will be briefly reviewed and the development of a new scale for measuring moral disengagement will be described. An existing measurement of moral disengagement developed by Grussendorf et al. (2002) and McAlister (2000, 2001) will be introduced and criticized. The necessity for the construction of a new scale, its development, psychometric properties and possible weaknesses will be discussed. As a related but conceptually different construct militarism-pacifism is introduced and first results regarding the relationship between the newly developed scale and the militarism-pacifism scale from Cohrs et al. (2002) are reported. First applications of the scale in two different studies will be outlined mainly in reference to properties of the new scale. Finally, critical questions about the construct will be raised and proposals for further research will be given.
As heir to a strong French sociological tradition, the theory of social representations, elaborated by Serge Moscovici in the beginning of the 1960s, has become one of the major theories in social psychology. Mainly European initially, it rapidly brought together a large number of researchers and practitioners worldwide, mainly in the field of social psychology, but also in all other social sciences. These researchers have seen this theory as a flexible conceptual framework that enables us to understand and explain the way individuals and groups elaborate, transform, and communicate their social reality. They have also found in this theory's different developments a vast set of methods and tools, directly applicable to the analysis of a wide range of social issues. Lending itself equally well to qualitative approaches as to experimental applications, studies have multiplied along different lines. Those aiming at making connections between sociorepresenta-tional processes and other processes classically studied in the field of social cognition seem to be the most promising in terms of the theory's future development. This chapter addresses a longstanding tradition of research, covering a period of nearly 100 years of research, from 1893 to 2010.
Social representations provide an underlying structure to the dynamics of peace and conflict. Culturally and temporally specific beliefs about the appropriate deployment of cultural and institutional power determine social and political action. Post-conflict, lay representations of people of other nations persist long after formal hostilities have ended and intra and inter-personal hostility maintained on the basis of collective memory and collective remembering is fuelled by the attribution of cause, agency and essentialism. To investigate their nature and composition, it may be useful to look beyond the mainstream political and cultural sphere and investigate the populist world of comedy, humour, sport and children's play. Social psychology and conflict have a long association! The atrocities committed across Europe that came to light at the end of the Second World War provided a strong impetus for social psychological enquiry. Indeed, the combined work of Adorno et al., Asch, Milgram, Zimbardo and Tajfel arguably comprised an intellectual and emotional response to the events of the Nazi period: each an expression of a desire to understand the psychological roots of the Holocaust. From these studies, a number of social and psychological factors were implicated: the authoritarian personality (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson & Sanford, 1950), social pressure
Bar-Tal’s (1998, 2007) “ethos of conflict” is a powerful concept to account for the socially shared nature of conflict-supporting beliefs in societies involved in protracted conflict. We first briefly review studies on ethos of conflict and its consequences in the Jewish Israeli society and other societies that have used Bar-Tal’s conceptualization. Then we introduce our own approach, which builds on social representations theory (Moscovici, Psychoanalysis: Its Image And Its Public, 1961/1976) and a recent conceptualization of political ideology (Cohrs, Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict, pp. 53–71, 2012). Our approach adopts a more bottom-up strategy that considers specific belief contents related to conflict and can account for qualitative differences within a society. We argue that it is important to go beyond distinguishing between people, who are high versus low on a dimension of ethos of conflict and to identify qualitatively different ideological subgroups in a conflict. To achieve this, we rely on Q methodological techniques. We illustrate the feasibility and usefulness of our approach by summarizing results from studies on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and the Israel–Palestine conflict as represented by conflict outsiders, namely Swiss residents. Finally, we discuss the relative merits and shortcomings of the different approaches to conflict-related shared beliefs, possibilities for their integration, and some suggestions for future research in this area.
Drawing on ideas of the narrative turn in social and cultural studies, this article explores the oral, informal side of communication in contexts of international peacebuilding interventions. It takes urban legends – entertaining stories about events that supposedly happened to ‘a friend of a friend’ and usually contain a moral – as a methodological access road to the study of meta-narratives that underpin interveners' understandings of themselves and the intervention context. Three categories of urban legends/meta-narratives are discussed: legends about ‘the intervened’ whose common thread is barbarianism; legends about ‘the interveners’ which revolve around a meta-narrative of Western/Northern hubris; and legends about intercultural interactions which reproduce a meta-narrative of cultural misunderstandings and intervention failure. Using Scott's idea of public and hidden transcripts, we discuss possible functions of such narrations in the context of interventions.
According to prevailing cognitive models, hawk and dove policy preferences originate in divergent information about the causes of war, not in divergent motivations. However, data from a June 1990 survey of the Council on Foreign Relations and two attentive publics indicate divergent motivations. Hawk and dove policy preferences are associated, for males, with "macho" and "idealistic" self systems respectively. Female hawks and doves are also found to maintain distinctive self-images. While the present data support the contribution of personality to behavior, the contribution of cognition also has some empirical support. A new control systems model of political behavior is presented, subsuming the partial truths of cognition-driven and personality-driven explanations. Origins and dynamics of the hawk personality are briefly explained in terms of social learning and psychoanalytic theories. The article concludes with practical recommendations for reducing militarism at its psychological sources.
It has long been assumed that foreign-policy attitudes of the mass public are random, disorganized, and unconstrained if they exist at all. Further, foreign-policy thinking has not been found to be structured along standard ideological (liberal-conservative) lines, partisan lines, or class lines. We attempt to move the discussion from a question of whether foreign-policy attitudes are structured to a question of how they are structured. We propose and estimate (using a LISREL model) a hierarchically organized foreign-policy belief structure in which specific policy preferences are derived from postures (broad, abstract beliefs regarding appropriate general governmental strategies). These postures, in turn, are assumed to be constrained by a set of core values about the international community.
Previous research shows that a large segment of the U.S. population has maintained factually inaccurate beliefs concerning Iraq for at least a decade after the start of the Iraq war. These beliefs were maintained despite the fact that significant press coverage challenged them, a bipartisan Senate committee denounced them, and no new convincing evidence has surfaced to support them. The authors believe that 2 ideological preferences, authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, provide the motivational mechanisms for individuals to adopt and maintain factually inaccurate beliefs because such beliefs are consistent with their preferences. The authors combine and extend previous research by examining the relationships between authoritarianism and social dominance, the holding of factual misperceptions years after the U.S. military entered Iraq in 2003, and support for the Iraq war and a broader foreign policy of preemption. Using a student sample, they found that those higher in authoritarianism and social dominance orientation held more misperceptions about the Iraq war, which, in turn, predicted support for military engagement in Iraq and for a broader preemptive military policy. The number of misperceptions held partially mediated the effect of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on support for war. These factual misperceptions serve as justifications for individuals to express their preexisting preferences. This bias makes factually inaccurate perceptions regarding support for war relatively immutable once adopted.
The Portuguese colonial war, which took place between 1961 and 1974, has marked the life of many individuals who were recruited by the Portuguese Armed Forces to fight in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. In the present study, through a classical content analysis of five semi-structured interviews conducted with Portuguese war veterans (non-professional and involved in direct armed conflict in Angola between 1965 and 1972), we investigate their representations of the colonial war. More precisely, we analyze their emotional processing of the colonial war, as well as the perceptions these veterans held (at the time of the war) and presently hold about Africans from the former colonies. Furthermore, we also analyze their representations of the process of decolonization of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, as a function of their past experiences in the war. Finally, we analyze the personal consequences that individuals attribute to their experience of the war in the present day. This study represents a first step in our analysis of war veterans' representations of the colonial war and our discussion of results also reflects new lines of research for the future.
The present paper argues for a discourse analytic approach to social psychological peace research and demonstrates the potential of such an approach through a re-specification of the concept of attitudes to war. This is illustrated through an analysis of a series of televised debates broadcast in the UK in February–March 2003 in the build-up to the formal outbreak of the Iraq War. Analysis draws attention to the importance of rhetorical context and function, the inseparability of attitude object and evaluation and the formulation of evaluations as specific or general. Findings are discussed in the context of recent calls for methodological pluralism in social psychological peace research with a suggestion that matters of epistemology stand prior to methodology. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We propose here to establish the theoretical link between the concepts of ‘attitude’ and ‘social representation’. We shall base our proposal on recent conceptions of the notion of attitude, and on a structural approach to representations which account for their evaluative nature. This theoretical proposal will be followed by two experiments. The first showed that attitudes towards objects are based on the evaluative components of the representation of those objects. The second showed that a change in attitude about an object may be accompanied by changes in the evaluative dimension of its representation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Democracy is positively valued. This positive evaluation extends to a democracy’s actions, even if it is to wage war. The authors investigated whether the perceived legitimacy of military interventions depends on the political structure (democratic vs. nondemocratic) of the countries involved and on the aggressor country’s popular support for the government’s aggressive policy. Participants learned that an alleged country planned to attack another. The political structure of both countries was manipulated in the two experiments. The support of the aggressor’s population toward military intervention was measured in Experiment 1 and manipulated in Experiment 2. Both experiments confirmed that military intervention was perceived as being less illegitimate when the population supported their democratic government’s policy to attack a nondemocratic country.
Social representations of world history were assessed using the open-ended questions, “What are the most important events in world history?” and “Who are the most influential persons in world history in the last 1,000 years?”Data from six Asian and six Western samples showed cross-cultural consensus. Historical representations were (a) focused on the recent past, (b) centered around politics and war, and (c) dominated by the events of the World Wars and (d) the individual Hitler, who was universally perceived as negative. (e) Representations were more Eurocentric than ethnocentric.(f) The importance of economics and science was underrepresented.(g) Most cultures nominated people (more than events) idiosyncratic to their own culture. These data reflect power relations in the world and provide resources and constraints for the conduct of international relations. The degree of cross-cultural consensus suggests that hybridity across Eastern and Western cultures in the representation of knowledge may be underestimated.
This research examined the support for international military interventions as a function of the political system and the public opinion of the target country. In two experiments, we informed participants about a possible military intervention by the international community towards a sovereign country whose government planned to use military force against a secessionist region. They were then asked whether they would support this intervention whilst being reminded that it would cause civilian deaths. The democratic or nondemocratic political system of the target country was experimentally manipulated, and the population support for its belligerent government policy was either assessed (Experiment 1) or manipulated (Experiment 2). Results showed greater support for the intervention when the target country was nondemocratic, as compared to the democratic and the control conditions, but only when its population supported the belligerent government policy. Support for the external intervention was low when the target country was democratic, irrespective of national public opinion. These findings provide support for the democracy-as-value hypothesis applied to international military interventions, and suggest that civilian deaths (collateral damage) are more acceptable when nondemocratic populations support their government’s belligerent policy.
Peace education is a key for establishing and maintaining a consensual peace. Creating an effective peace education program involves five steps. First, a public education system must be established with compulsory attendance; all children and youth should attend so that students from the previously conflicting groups interact and have the opportunity to build positive relationships with each other. Second, a sense of mutuality and common fate needs to be established that highlights mutual goals, the ‘just’ distribution of benefits from achieving the goals, and a common identity. In schools, this is primarily done through the use of cooperative learning. Third, students should be taught the constructive controversy procedure to ensure they know how to make difficult decisions and engage in political discourse. Fourth, students should be taught how to engage in integrative negotiations and peer mediation to resolve their conflicts with each other constructively. Finally, civic values should be inculcated that focus students on the long‐term common good of society.
This article synthesizes research on the sociopolitical and personality constructs that most frequently correlated with militarism in the published social science research literature between 1931 and 2007. The reviewed research includes diverse definitions and assessment measures for each highlighted construct featured in studies conducted with various types of participants in several different democratic societies. The principal sociopolitical correlates of militarism included conservatism, nationalism, religiosity, patriotism–blind patriotism, and internationalism–worldmindedness. The major personality correlates of militarism were authoritarianism, dominance–power, ethnocentrism, masculinity, and punitiveness. All of these variables, except internationalism–worldmindedness, positively correlated with militarism. Meta-analysis reveals that the correlations between militarism and each set of comparison variables typically yielded an average effect size in the small to medium range.
This study investigated relationships between problem-solving competencies and militaristic attitudes in a sample of 101 college students, Problem-solving competencies for international conflict resolution were assessed by using the Conflict Resolution Strategies Checklist to score essays written about how the President of the United States could respond to a hypothetical conflict between the United States and Iran. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Verbal scores and grades in Introductory Psychology classes were used as measures of more general problem-solving ability. Whereas checklist scores, SAT scores, and class grades were interrelated, measures of problem-solving competency were significantly correlated neither with militaristic attitudes nor with gun control attitudes, Religious/Social Authoritarianism, or Social Dominance Orientation. However, militaristic attitudes were related to Religious/Social Authoritarianism (r = .45) and to Social Dominance Orientation (r = .35). Implications for peace education are discussed.
Interactive problem solving is a form of unofficial diplomacy, centering on problem-solving workshops and related activities with political elites in conflicting societies. Its dual purpose is producing changes in individual participants that are transferred to the policy process. The most relevant criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of interactive problem solving is its contribution to changes in the political cultures of the parties that would make them more receptive to negotiation. The article describes the difficulties in evaluating such changes in political culture, because of the inapplicability of the standard experimental model of evaluation and the ethical and methodological obstacles to the use of procedures that may interfere with the practice of conflict resolution. It then presents two models of evaluation research, based on gradual accumulation of evidence in support of the assumptions of interactive problem solving: the “links-in-the-chain” model, testing by appropriate means each of the steps in the logic of the approach; and the experimental model, using a variety of settings for empirical tests of the assumptions of the approach.
A major question for many Americans following the terrorist attacks of September 11 was how best to respond to the attacks. This study considers some of the primary responses being discussed at the time, and individual differences in beliefs as predictors of support for those responses. Five hundred four undergraduate students indicated their level of endorsement for sending aid to Afghanistan, seeking understanding, increased surveillance and detention, attacking terrorists, and the use of military force. Right-wing authoritarianism emerged as a significant predictor of support for 4 of the 5 responses. Religious fundamentalism, belief in a just world, powerlessness, and universal-diverse orientation were each also significantly related to support for several of the responses to terrorism.
Reviewing research on determinants of war attitudes, antiwar knowledge is identified as an underresearched predictor of attitudes toward specific wars. In this article, the joint effects of specific antiwar knowledge and generalized attitudes (militarism–pacifism, authoritarianism, and diffuse political support) on evaluation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military intervention in Yugoslavia are investigated in a sample of 165 German university students. While the generalized attitudes related strongly to positive evaluation of the war, antiwar knowledge related only weakly to negative war attitudes. Further analyses showed that the role of knowledge was more pronounced in individuals whose generalized attitudes predisposed them to be war critics. The findings are discussed with regard to implications for promoting more peaceful attitudes among the public. Recommendations for future studies regarding methodological variations and research questions are given.
Through the cognitive process of moral disengagement, people make excuses for inflicting suffering on others while maintaining a clear conscience. The "Peace Test" scale to measure moral disengagement in support for war was tested in surveys of medical, university, and secondary school students in 21 nations. The scale showed acceptable reliability and was a valid predictor of opinions about specific military threats. Although the survey sites were not representative of nations, mean scale scores among high school students were related to national levels of defense spending. Moral disengagement is a valid tool for peace psychologists because it can help evaluate education efforts to increase support for peace.
The United Nations General Assembly has described intervention as dictatorial inter-ference in the political independence and territorial integrity of a sovereign state. Traditionally, intervention was prohibited by international law. This principle of non-intervention, its justification and possible exceptions to it have been much discussed.
Armed conflict, on domestic or foreign soil, impacts people’s daily lives and shapes policy around the world. Millions live with the threat of terrorism, whether from random sources or known enemies. And the acceptability of torture is debated by politicians and public alike.
The International Handbook of War, Torture, and Terrorism synthesizes historical backgrounds, current trends, and findings from the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS), administered in forty countries over nine global regions. Contributors examine the social, cognitive, and emotional roots of people’s thinking on war and national security issues, particularly concerning the role of governments in declaring war, invading other countries, or torturing prisoners. By focusing on the cultural traditions and colonial histories of broad regions rather than of individual nations, the book demonstrates how context shapes ordinary citizens’ views on what is justifiable during times of war, as well as more nebulous concepts of patriotism and security. The Handbook:
• Introduces the PAIRTAPS and explains the methodology for analyzing responses.
• Defines war-related concepts from the unique perspectives of Western Europe, U.K./U.S., Middle East, Gulf States, Russia/Balkans, Africa, Latin America, South/Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
• Provides an integrative summary of definitions and points of view.
• Situates results in terms of social engagement/disengagement theory.
• Considers implications for peace and reconciliation.
As a reflection of the changing global landscape, the International Handbook of War, Torture, and Terrorism deserves to be read by a wide range of researchers in peace psychology, political science, sociology, and anthropology.
A Starting Point for Risk ComparisonsRisk Comparisons as a Means of Risk CommunicationProcedural Challenges Framework: What is to be Kept in Mind when Determining the Systems Limit Options for CRA?Risk Categories: What Influence Do They Have on Comparisons?Attributes: What Influence Do They Have on Comparisons?Assessment of the Attributes: What Influence Does the Measure of a Risk Have on Comparisons?Comparisons: What Influence Does the Nature of the Comparison Have on the Comparison?CRA Negotiations Under Conflict Pitfalls in the Evaluation of One's Own Position and InterestsPitfalls in the Evaluation of Other PartiesPitfalls in the Evaluation of SuggestionsPitfalls in the Evaluation of Outcomes Framework: What is to be Kept in Mind when Determining the Systems Limit Options for CRA?Risk Categories: What Influence Do They Have on Comparisons?Attributes: What Influence Do They Have on Comparisons?Assessment of the Attributes: What Influence Does the Measure of a Risk Have on Comparisons?Comparisons: What Influence Does the Nature of the Comparison Have on the Comparison? Pitfalls in the Evaluation of One's Own Position and InterestsPitfalls in the Evaluation of Other PartiesPitfalls in the Evaluation of SuggestionsPitfalls in the Evaluation of Outcomes
This article discusses the relationship between hegemony and resistance using the framework of the social representations
theory (SRT). It starts by describing hegemony and resistance as dyadic processes that emerge from the work of representation
and shows how SRT encompasses both the hegemonic nature of representations and their potential to transform by presenting
empirical studies of gender and race. In the second part of the article an explanation of hegemony and resistance from a social
representations perspective is developed, one centred around notions of similarity, consensus, "possibility of difference" and
alternative representations. In the end, an analogy between systems of representation and geographical environments is made
in order to emphasise the dynamic nature of the forces that shape our social life.
This chapter first introduces the concept of ideology, how it is distinct from similar concepts, and how its content can be described. Ideologies are defined as socially shared systems of beliefs about the ideal arrangement of society. The chapter then reviews research on the relations between ideology and violent conflict at the individual, group, and societal levels of analysis. It suggests that: at the individual level, ideological beliefs of authoritarianism and social dominance are related to variables associated with violent conflict; at the group level, ideological groups (groups based on shared ideological beliefs) engage in collective action, which can spur violent conflict once a legitimate target of violence is identified; and at the societal level, particular ideological climates can make societies more prone to engage in violence. Finally, the chapter proposes an integrative multilevel framework for understanding the role of ideology for violent conflict, and identifies directions for future research.
Organizational Identity presents the classic works on organizational identity alongside more current thinking on the issues. Ranging from theoretical contributions to empirical studies, the readings in this volume address the key issues of organizational identity, and show how these issues have developed through contributions from such diverse fields of study as sociology, psychology, management studies and cultural studies. The readings examine questions such as how organizations understand who they are, why organizations develop a sense of identity and belonging where the boundaries of identity lie and the implications of postmodern and critical theories' challenges to the concept of identity as deeply-rooted and authentic. Includes work by: Stuart Albert, Mats Alvesson, Blake E. Ashforth, Marilynn B. Brewer, George Cheney, Lars Thoger Christensen, C.H. Cooley, Kevin G. Corley, Barbara Czarniawska, Janet M. Dukerich, Jane E. Dutton, Kimberly D. Elsbach, Wendi Gardner, Linda E. Ginzela, Dennis A. Gioia, E. Goffman, Karen Golden-Biddle, Mary Jo Hatch, Roderick M. Kramer, Fred Rael, G.H. Mead, Michael G. Pratt, Anat Rafaeli, Hayagreeva Rao, Majken Schultz, Howard S. Schwartz, Robert I. Sutton, Henri Taijfel, John Turner, David A. Wherren, and Hugh Willmott. Intended to provide easy access to this material for students of organizational identity, it will also be of interest more broadly to students of business, sociology and psychology.
The present study investigates the relationship between the foreign policy orientation of Irish neutrality and national identity using a social representations approach (Elcheroth, Doise, & Reicher, 2011; Moscovici, 1961/76). In four focus groups conducted in the Republic of Ireland, 22 participants discussed vignettes in which hypothetical conflicts were described. The findings pointed towards the dynamic relationship between neutrality and Irish national identity and more generally to the importance of macropolitical phenomena for identity construction. The process of categorization was key to participants' decision making regarding the hypothetical conflicts; the decision to support or oppose the Irish state's involvement in the conflicts frequently revolved around a reconsideration of the boundaries of the ingroup. Furthermore, social representations were laden with the possibility of social change; the construction of neutrality as morally ambivalent, motivated by pragmatism rather than principles, opened up a space for younger participants to resist dominant, pragmatic interpretations of the policy and offer alternatives. Theoretical and empirical implications of the findings are discussed. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the critical potential of extending a social representations approach to issues of political psychological significance.
How do Americans decide whether their country should use military force abroad? We argue they combine dispositional preferences and ideas about the geopolitical situation. This article reports the results of a representative national survey that incorporated five experiments. Findings include the following: (1) Respondent dispositions, especially isolationism versus internationalism and assertiveness versus accommodativeness, consistently constrained policy preferences, whereas liberalism-conservatism did not; (2) features of the geopolitical context-the presence of U.S. interests, relative power, the images of the adversary's motivations, and judgments about cultural status-also influenced support for military intervention; and (3) systematic interactions emerged between dispositions and geopolitical context that shed light on when and why ideological disagreements about the use of force are likely to be amplified and attenuated by situational factors. Our results are consistent with a cognitive-interactionist perspective, in which people adapt broad predispositions in relatively thoughtful ways to specific foreign policy problems.
Debates over initiating war with Iraq turned to a considerable extent on which of two analogies from the past were most relevant: World War II or the Vietnam War. Along with three other theoretical conditions, the debate provided an unusual opportunity to develop and assess important implications of Mannheim's theory of generational effects. National data gathered before the war and during the war indicate that generational experience had a significant effect on which analogy was chosen as more relevant and that the analogy chosen had, in turn, a strong relation to support for or opposition to the war. However, the translation of generational experience into final support for or opposition to the war was weak. Reasons for the weak relationship are discussed.
La première édition de La psychanalyse, son image et son public était une thèse. Cette seconde édition est, je l’espère, un livre. De l’une à l’outre j’ai modifié le style, le mode d’exposition des faits et des idées, éliminé des indications techniques et théoriques qui n’intéressaient qu’un cercle restreint de spécialistes ou qui sont devenues monnaie courante. Ce travail de réécriture correspond, bien entendu, aussi à une évolution personnelle et intellectuelle vis-à-vis des rites d’initiation universitaire et de la science. Lors de sa parution, la thèse a provoqué un malaise. Des psychanalystes surtout ont vu d’un mauvaise œil la tentative de prendre la psychanalyse comme objet quelconque d’étude et de la situer dans la société.
2
J’ai été frappé alors, et je le suis toujours, par le fait que les détenteurs d’un savoir, scientifique ou non, croient avoir le droit de tout étudier — et en définitive de tout juger — mais estiment inutile, voire pernicieux, de rendre compte des déterminismes dont ils sont le lieu, des effets qu’ils produisent, bref d’être étudiés à leur tour et de regarder le miroir qu’on leur tend en conséquence. Ils y voient une immixtion intolérable dans leurs propres affaires, une profanation de leur savoir — veut-on qu’il reste sacré ? — et réagissent, suivant leur tempérament, avec mépris ou mauvaise humeur. Ceci est vrai de la plupart des scientifiques, ceci est même vrai des marxistes. C’est pourquoi nous n’avons pas de sociologie de la science, ni du marxisme, ni de la psychanalyse. Je me suis cependant aperçu qu’en dix ans, du moins en ce qui concerne la psychanalyse et les psychanalystes, les attitudes ont beaucoup changé dans un sens favorable à un travail tel que celui-ci.
3
Au centre de ce livre est le phénomène des représentations sociales. Depuis la première édition, de nombreuses études tant de terrain que de laboratoire lui ont été consacrées. Je pense notamment à celles de Chombart de Lauwe, Hertzlich, Jodelet, Kaës d’un côté et à celles d’Abric, Codol, Flament, Henry, Pêcheux, Poitou de l’autre. Elles ont permis de mieux saisir sa généralité et de mieux comprendre son rôle dans la communication et la genèse des comportements sociaux. Mon ambition était cependant plus vaste. Je voulais redéfinir les problèmes et les concepts de la psychologie sociale à partir de ce phénomène, en insistant sur sa fonction symbolique et son pouvoir de construction du réel. La tradition behavioriste, le fait que la psychologie sociale se soit bornée à étudier l’individu, le petit groupe, les relations informelles, ont constitué et continuent à constituer un obstacle à cet égard. Une philosophie positiviste qui n’accorde d’importance qu’aux prédictions vérifiables par l’expérience et aux phénomènes directement observables s’ajoute à la liste des obstacles.
4
Cette tradition et cette philosophie empêchent, à mon avis, le développement de la psychologie sociale au-delà des limites qui sont les dermes aujourd’hui. Quand on s’en rendra compte et que l’on osera franchir ces limites, les représentations sociales, j’en suis convaincu, prendront dans cette science la place qui est la leur. En outre, elles seront un facteur de renouvellement des problèmes et clés concepts de la philosophie qui doit sous-tendre le travail scientifique. Là encore, les jeux ne sont pas faits. Au contraire ils sont à refaire et la crise que traverse la psychologie sociale le montre à l’évidence.
5
Il y va de l’intérêt de bien d’autres domaines de recherche concernant la littérature, l’art, les mythes, les idéologies et le langage. Enfermés dans des cadres dépassés, prisonniers de préjugés quant au pecking order des sciences, les chercheurs dans ces domaines se privent des moyens que, dans son état actuel, la psychologie sociale met à leur disposition. En France notamment ils se réclament, sous l’emprise du structuralisme, d’une orthodoxie saussurienne, tout en oubliant ce que Ferdinand de Saussure a entrevu avec précision : « La langue est un système de signes exprimant des idées, et, par là, comparable à récriture, à l’alphabet des sourds-muets, aux rites symboliques, aux formes de politesse, aux signaux militaires, etc. Elle rat seulement le plus important de ces systèmes. On peut donc concevoir une science qui étudie la vie des signes au sein de la vie sociale ; elle formerait une partie de la psychologie sociale et par conséquent de la psychologie générale ; nous la nommerons sémiologie (du grec semeïon, « signe »). Elle nous apprendrait en quoi consistent les signes, quelles lois les régissent. »
Mais le lecteur n’a pas à se soucier de ce passé, de cet état de la science, des projets flottant autour du livre. Pas plus que je ne m’en soucie. En faisant l’étude d’abord, en lui donnant forme ensuite, je me suis enrichi et j’ai eu du plaisir. Tout ce que je souhaite c’est que, en lisant ce livre, il lui arrive la même chose.
The article suggests the use of social representations theory to provide a positive approach to peace research and a theoretical framework for understanding peace movements. Studying peace, war and conflict in this perspective enables exploration of these concepts as objects socially constructed, elaborated and shared by different groups. Four groups of activists are compared with people not belonging to any association, in order to investigate the existence of particular social representations of peace, war and conflict. As in previous cross-cultural research, an independent social representation of peace emerges only among activists. The social representation of war is also different in the two groups: non-activists see it as frightening, whereas activists see ways of tackling it. The greatest difference between the two groups is in the social representation of conflict. Conflict is assimilated to war for non-activists, whereas activists represent it as more manageable and normal. The results support the idea of understanding peace activism as a particular form of coping – community coping – based on the group as a whole, rather than on individual capacity to manage problems. At a theoretical level, the article discusses the importance of linking social representations to practice and group identification. At a practical level, it suggests that support for pacifism will be only transient and superficial until these underlying differences in representations can be changed.
American presidents use images of savagery to identify and construct America’s adversaries, especially prior to and during some form of armed intervention. During the Cold War, presidents used images of modern savagery to craft a Soviet enemy and its proxies. In the post-Cold War world, Bill Clinton did not have the luxury of a monolithic enemy to organize American foreign policy. He faced a threat environment that was more complex, transnational, and diffuse. Within this environment, I argue Clinton used images of primitive and modern savagery to define America’s adversaries. An analysis of Clinton’s discourse reveals that his use of both of these rhetorical forms broadened how presidents construct America’s enemies. Moreover, the use of both images of savagery provided a rhetorical flexibility that was needed for the threat environment of the post-Cold War world. This essay contributes to deeper understandings of presidential rhetoric in general and crisis rhetoric in particular.
Bill Clinton's response to the Somalia situation demonstrates the development of a kind of presidential war discourse in the post‐Cold War era. Clinton's rhetoric hosts a re‐articulation of an image of an imperial savage, a primitive “other.” This form is contrasted with the image of the modern savage, another common construct used to represent American adversaries. In considering this rhetorical continuity, the reader is asked to recall the heritage of the form, so as to better identify its essential character and grapple with the cultural implications of its re‐emergence in the post‐Cold War era.
Public opinion can permit or encourage retaliatory aggressive state policies against vulnerable but threatening out-groups. The authors present a model in which public support for such policies is determined by perceived threat from and dehumanization of the target group. This two-factor model predicts Israeli Jews' support for two retaliatory aggressive policies: the more hypothetical notion of Palestinian population transfer and concrete, coercive actions toward Palestinians. The authors find (1) that threat and dehumanization are distinct constructs, each having unique contributions to explaining support for aggressive retaliatory policies, (2) that threat and dehumanization significantly explain support for aggressive retaliatory policies when respondents' hawkishness, socioeconomic status (SES), and education level are taken into account, and (3) that the association of hawkishness and SES with support for aggressive retaliatory policies is largely mediated by threat perception. Results are highly consistent across two studies, suggesting the two-factor model may be useful for understanding support for aggressive action in situations of asymmetric conflict.
To study how attitudes and social psychological processes influence decisions about war and peace, a 15-question scale was developed to measure moral disengagement in support for military action. In a survey of 128 secondary school students in the USA and Finland, the scale demonstrated acceptable reliability (0.85-0.90) in different gender and national groups. US students were less morally engaged than Finnish students and males were less morally engaged than females. Scale scores were strongly related to the students' support for US and NATO military actions in Iraq and Yugoslavia. In a second study, 73 US university students participated in a brief, randomized experiment comparing the effects of contrasting communications on moral disengagement in support for military action. After completing a pretest survey, the students were randomly assigned to persuasive communications favoring either moral disengagement or resistance to moral disengagement. Immediately after they received these communications, the students were given the opportunity to give new answers to the survey questions about moral disengagement and approval of specific military actions. Analyses of pretest data confirmed the reliability of the scale and its ability to predict opinions about the US and NATO bombing campaigns in Iraq and Yugoslavia. Analyses of change scores showed increasing moral disengagement in one group and decreasing moral disengagement in the other group, in accordance with the type of communication that was provided between surveys. The groups also differed significantly in their changes of opinions about the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and in their subsequent willingness to sign letters of praise or protest for their US Representative's congressional vote against the bombing.
Behavioralists have tended to neglect the study of ethics as unimportant to an understanding of political behavior and its various manifestations, such as international conflict. In our analysis we examine the attitudes of a sample of retired American military officers toward war and war waging issues in order to infer the more fundamental nature of the ethical constraints that are embedded within the decision making of these individuals. Three fundamental dimensions of ethical thinking are apparent. These concern constraints on the use of force as a policy tool, the legitimacy of force and force planning, and the sensitivity of individuals to the risks present in the international system. In order to justify our interpretations, we present a detailed question by question analysis of the factor weights of each survey item. Finally, we speculate on the types of ethical tensions that will arise within the military when these three fundamental factors of ethical evaluation come into conflict.
International Security 28.1 (2003) 110-141
In their study of gender differences in public reactions to the 1990-91 Persian Gulf crisis and war, Virginia Sapiro and Pamela Conover analyzed a number of American survey items dealing with hypothetical security policies as well as concrete questions involving the use of military force and its consequences. The results were clear: Although a gender difference on the more abstract, hypothetical questions was weak or nonexistent, when the analysis turned to the specific questions of using force against Iraq and the civilian and military casualties that could result, the differences became large indeed. Sapiro and Conover concluded that "when we moved from the abstract to the concrete—from hypothetical wars to the Gulf War—the distance separating women and men grew, and on every measure, women reacted more negatively. These gender differences are some of the largest and most consistent in the study of political psychology and are clearly of a magnitude that can have real political significance under the right circumstances."
Less than ten years later, as NATO warplanes continued their attacks against Serbia, the Christian Science Monitor reported that the gender difference in public opinion concerning the war over Kosovo was far smaller than it had been in previous wars: "As debate persists in America over how much to use force, fewer women are 'doves.'" After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Council on Foreign Relations conducted a survey on defense issues and reported that "women's opinion on defense policies has been transformed" because their views of defense spending and missile defense (among other issues) now closely resembled those of men.
What explains the disappearance of such yawning gender differences over U.S. defense issues? One might speculate that the Gulf War was unique, a dramatic, highly publicized occurrence accompanied by considerable discussion of potential casualties and a polarized political leadership. That public opinion would polarize in such a context is not surprising. The Kosovo war, in contrast, began with President Bill Clinton's stated intention to avoid using ground troops, thus lessening the fear of casualties. One might also speculate (as does the Christian Science Monitor) that the war over Kosovo involved humanitarian and other issues that convinced women of the moral necessity of using force to halt the atrocities being carried out by Serbian forces—many against women. And of course, the attacks of September 11 brought near unanimity to the view of citizens and leaders alike that military force was necessary to protect the United States from grievous harm. One does not expect gender polarization under such conditions of near-universal consensus.
However plausible such speculation, there is no basis in the social science literature for favoring one or the other of these arguments, because scholarly knowledge of gender differences on national security issues rests on sparse evidence. For example, Bruce Jentleson's research on a "principal policy objectives" framework has produced robust findings on the determinants of overall public support for the use of military force. To my knowledge, however, there has been no attempt to extend that framework to an analysis of differences within the general public. In addition, scholarly research on gender differences and the use of force are concentrated on three major conflicts: the Korean, Vietnam, and 1991 Persian Gulf Wars. These are important cases, but they are also unique—they are wars after all—and therefore potentially unrepresentative. Finally, with the partial exception of Lisa Brandes's analysis of surveys during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, there is to my knowledge virtually no research on the historical evolution of gender differences on the use of force. Of course, the lack of data over time makes it difficult to sort out the degree of constancy or variability in gender differences. Perhaps not surprising, therefore, the standard monograph on public opinion and U.S. foreign policy concludes that "the evidence reviewed here neither wholly refutes nor strongly confirms the gender gap thesis."
Given the importance of gender differences to electoral politics, and the apparent importance of gender on issues of national security, this gap in the scholarly literature is lamentable. The purpose of this article is to close the gap...
Although previous studies have examined U.S. public support for the use of military force in particular historical cases, and have even made limited comparisons among cases, a full comparison of a large number of historical episodes in which the United States contemplated, threatened, or actually used military force has been missing. An analysis of U.S. public support for the use of military force in twenty-two historical episodes from the early 1980s through the Iraq war and occupation (2003-05) underscores the continuing relevance of Bruce Jentleson's principal policy objectives framework: the objective for which military force is used is an important determinant of the base level of public support. The U.S. public supports restraining aggressive adversaries, but it is leery of involvement in civil-war situations. Although the objective of the mission strongly conditions this base level of support, the public is also sensitive to the relative risk of different military actions; to the prospect of civilian or military casualties; to multilateral participation in the mission; and to the likelihood of success or failure of the mission. These results suggest that support for U.S. military involvement in Iraq is unlikely to increase; indeed, given the ongoing civil strife in Iraq, continuing casualties, and substantial disagreement about the prospects for success, the public's support is likely to remain low or even decline.
The present study examined the relation between disengagement of moral self-sanclions and support of military force. The modes of moral disengagement included moral sanctioning of lethal means, disavowal of personal responsibility for detrimental effects accompanying military campaigns, minimization of civilian casualties, and attribution of blame and dehumanization of one's foes. The respondents were drawn nationally through a random digit dialing interview system. Partway during this nationwide study the country experienced the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 terrorist strikes raised the level of moral disengagement for the use of military force compared to the pre-strike level. The higher the moral disengagement the stronger the public support for immediate retaliatory strikes against suspected terrorist sanctuaries abroad and for aerial bombardment of Iraq. Moral disengagement completely mediated the effect of the terrorist attack. Moreover, moral disengagement completely mediated the effect of sociodemographic factors on support of military force against terrorist sanctuaries and partially mediated the effect on military force against Iraq.
The question of gender associations with moral reasoning and values has received a great deal of attention since Gilligan first published In a Different Voice in 1982. Various authors have argued that women are less hierarchical, more relational, more caring, more empathetic, and more concerned about not harming others than men. Yet, these claims have been questioned by other scholars. Data from a small survey of college students are used to address this question. We found that, in examining students' narrative justifications of their opinion on a particular question of military intervention, gender was related to the type of justification used in a manner consistent with the arguments of Gilligan. We argue that “objective” tests are less likely to detect this difference than content analyses of narratives. The different bases of judgments have implications for political opinions as well as interpersonal interactions.
This article examines the rhetorical action of the Western major powers in defining two important international confrontations, the 1990-91 war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf and the 1992-95 conflict among the Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The leaders of the United States, Great Britain and France constructed the efforts of the anti-Iraq coalition as a `just war with a new world order as its goal' but represented the Bosnian strife as a `cruel and meaningless slaughter that outside forces can do very little about', and thereby selected appropriate policies for dealing with the situations. In their statements in the Gulf, the Iraqi president was made the ultimate enemy, dangerous and evil, who had to be crushed in order to make the world safe again. As to Bosnia, the evanescent enemies left the Western powers bewildered and unwilling to dictate any solutions. Besides framing the conflicts as heroic battles or tragic feuds, the Western leaders employed various metaphors to make the distant events and their policies seem significant and coherent. The apparently harmless and light-hearted comparisons with children's stories, card games, business deals, and sports competitions induced forceful action in the Gulf; by contrast, paralleling the situation with sad dramas, horrible nightmares, violent natural catastrophes, and treacherous morasses made decisive interference impossible in Bosnia. The Gulf metaphors made clear to all the folly of leaving the princess in the lurch, not playing a winning hand, passing up the chance for a great investment, or canceling the Cup Final. In Bosnia, the metaphors made it unthinkable to dash onto the stage to defend the scapegoat, act on the visions of a frightening dream, stand in the way of the whirlwind, or try to cross the quicksand.
The literature about 24 peaceful peoples was examined to determine if their ways of conflict resolution differ from the approaches to conflict found in other, more violent, societies. While the strategies for managing conflicts employed by these peoples are comparable to those used in many other small-scale societies, their world-views of peacefulness and the structures they use to reinforce those world-views do distinguish them from other societies. Several common notions about conflict and conflict resolution that are asserted by Western scholars can be questioned in light of the success of these societies in peacefully resolving conflicts: namely, that violent conflict is inevitable in all societies; that punishment and armed force prevent internal and external violence; that political structures are necessary to prevent conflicts; and that conflict should be viewed as positive and necessary. The contrary evidence is that over half of the peaceful societies have no recorded violence; they rarely punish other adults (except for the threat of ostracism); they handle conflicts with outside societies in the same peaceful ways that they approach internal conflicts; they do not look to outside governments when they have internal disputes; and they have a highly negative view of conflict.