Beyond national interest: role of ethics and emotions in world politics

The language of world politics has become remarkably predictable. Every military strike, diplomatic initiative, economic sanction, or strategic partnership is justified in the name of national interest. Television debates and commentaries have a common vocabulary — power, deterrence, balance of power, strategic autonomy, and security. It almost appears as though International Relations has become an emotionless discipline, focused on power concentration, where morality and ethics have little place. Yet the defining geopolitical crises of recent years tell a very different story.

International Relations, both as an academic discipline and as a practice of diplomacy, has been largely shaped by Western intellectual traditions, with much of academic research originating in the United States of America. No wonder, famous IR scholar, Stanley Hoffman, in his article, argued that IR is an American Social Science. It is difficult to refute Hoffman’s argument because initially the modern international order emerged when European powers dominated much of the world, leaving the Global South with little role in designing the institutions, norms, and rules that continue to govern global politics. However, the discipline itself acquired its modern identity after the Second World War, with the U.S. based scholar, Hans Morgenthau’s Realism becoming the dominant framework for understanding international affairs. Realism portrays the international system as anarchic and argues that states, in the absence of a central authority, are compelled to pursue their national interests. Although the theory is far more nuanced than its popular interpretation suggests, public discourse has reduced it to two defining ideas—anarchy and national interest. Over time, Realism travelled from classrooms to newsrooms, becoming the default language through which foreign policy is interpreted.