Chapter 1. Are Strong National Identities Harmful For Peace? -- Chapter 2. Why Can't We Move Beyond the Past? -- Chapter 3. Theories of Identity-Affirmation: Trust, Guilt, and Images -- Chapter 4. National Identity and Trust: Experiments in China, Japan, & South Korea -- Chapter 5. National Identity and Guilt Recognition: Experiments in Japan -- Chapter 6. National Identity and the Ally Image: Surveys in South Korea -- Chapter 7. Application to Policy 1: Security Cooperation -- Chapter 8. Application to Policy 2: Reparation Endorsement -- Chapter 9. Conclusion
As shown by China's relationship to Japan, and Japan's relationship to South Korea, even growing regional economic interdependencies are not enough to overcome bitter memories grounded in earlier wars, invasions, and periods of colonial domination. Although efforts to ease historical animosity have been made, few have proven to be successful in Northeast Asia. In previous research scholars anticipated an improvement in relations through thick economic interdependence or increased societal contact. In economic terms, however, Japan and China already trade heavily: Japan has emerged as China's largest trading partner and China as second largest to Japan. Societal contact is already intense, as millions of Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese visit one another's countries annually as students, tourists, and on business trips. But these developments have not alleviated international distrust and negative perception, or resolved disagreement on what constitutes "adequate reparation" regarding the countries' painful history. Noticing clashes of strong nationalisms around the world in areas like Northeast Asia, numerous studies have suggested that more peaceful relations are likely only if countries submerge or paper over existing national identities by promoting universalism. Pride, Not Prejudice argues, to the contrary, that affirmation of national identities may be a more effective way to build international cooperation. If each national population reflects on the values of their national identity, trust and positive perception can increase between countries. This idea is consistent with the theoretical foundation that those who have a clear, secure, and content sense of self, in turn, can be more open, evenhanded, and less defensive toward others. In addition, this reduced defensiveness also enhances guilt admission by past "inflictors" of conflict and colonialism. Eunbin Chung borrows the social psychological theory of self-affirmation and applies it to an international context to argue that affirmation of a national identity, or reflecting on what it means to be part of one's country, can increase trust, guilt recognition, and positive perception between countries.
As shown by China's relationship to Japan, and Japan's relationship to South Korea, even growing regional economic interdependencies are not enough to overcome bitter memories grounded in earlier wars, invasions, and periods of colonial domination. Although efforts to ease historical animosity have been made, few have proven to be successful in Northeast Asia. In previous research scholars anticipated an improvement in relations through thick economic interdependence or increased societal contact. In economic terms, however, Japan and China already trade heavily: Japan has emerged as China's largest trading partner and China as second largest to Japan. Societal contact is already intense, as millions of Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese visit one another's countries annually as students, tourists, and on business trips. But these developments have not alleviated international distrust and negative perception, or resolved disagreement on what constitutes "adequate reparation" regarding the countries' painful history.
Noticing clashes of strong nationalisms around the world in areas like Northeast Asia, numerous studies have suggested that more peaceful relations are likely only if countries submerge or paper over existing national identities by promoting universalism. Pride, Not Prejudice argues, to the contrary, that affirmation of national identities may be a more effective way to build international cooperation. If each national population reflects on the values of their national identity, trust and positive perception can increase between countries. This idea is consistent with the theoretical foundation that those who have a clear, secure, and content sense of self, in turn, can be more open, evenhanded, and less defensive toward others. In addition, this reduced defensiveness also enhances guilt admission by past "inflictors" of conflict and colonialism. Eunbin Chung borrows the social psychological theory of self-affirmation and applies it to an international context to argue that affirmation of a national identity, or reflecting on what it means to be part of one's country, can increase trust, guilt recognition, and positive perception between countries.
AbstractAre strong national identities in the public an impediment to cooperative foreign policy attitudes? Researchers have proposed the promotion of universalism—and, accordingly, the submergence of existing national identities—as a viable path toward cooperative international relations. Conversely, I suggest that strong national identities can actually encourage public support for cooperative foreign policy. Evidence from field experiments in Japan that integrates psychological affirmation theory and a game measuring social preferences indicates that Japanese who were affirmed of the positive aspects of their national identity held more prosocial attitudes toward their Chinese counterpart in the game, which in turn led to cooperative foreign policy preferences. In contrast, participants who were not affirmed of their national identity exhibited more proself tendencies in the game, which predicted support for militaristic foreign policy. Finally, in contrast to national identity affirmation, national chauvinism, or perceived superiority over other countries, was associated with militant internationalist attitudes.
AbstractAs a way to alleviate interstate aggression, researchers have proposed a submergence of existing national identities and promotion of universalism instead. In contrast, this study suggests that strong national identities can reduce public support for militaristic foreign policy. I examine the mechanism of this relationship, proposing that the affirmation of national identities increases beliefs that the nature of other groups is malleable rather than fixed. The belief of the malleability of group nature opens a possibility for negotiation and peacebuilding between rival states, as conflict with the other side becomes an avoidable option. Integrating theories of political psychology and conflict resolution, I conduct novel survey experiments with a sample of 944 Japanese participants. Results revealed that Japanese respondents who reflected on the positive aspects of their national identity tended to hold lower levels of support for militaristic foreign policy. These effects were transmitted via an increase in beliefs that the nature of groups is malleable and beliefs of war avoidability.
As shown by China's relationship to Japan, and Japan's relationship to South Korea, even growing regional economic interdependencies are not enough to overcome bitter memories grounded in earlier wars, invasions, and periods of colonial domination. Although efforts to ease historical animosity have been made, few have proven to be successful in Northeast Asia. In previous research scholars anticipated an improvement in relations through thick economic interdependence or increased societal contact. In economic terms, however, Japan and China already trade heavily: Japan has emerged as China's largest trading partner and China as second largest to Japan. Societal contact is already intense, as millions of Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese visit one another's countries annually as students, tourists, and on business trips. But these developments have not alleviated international distrust and negative perception, or resolved disagreement on what constitutes "adequate reparation" regarding the countries' painful history. Noticing clashes of strong nationalisms around the world in areas like Northeast Asia, numerous studies have suggested that more peaceful relations are likely only if countries submerge or paper over existing national identities by promoting universalism. Pride, Not Prejudice argues, to the contrary, that affirmation of national identities may be a more effective way to build international cooperation. If each national population reflects on the values of their national identity, trust and positive perception can increase between countries. This idea is consistent with the theoretical foundation that those who have a clear, secure, and content sense of self, in turn, can be more open, evenhanded, and less defensive toward others. In addition, this reduced defensiveness also enhances guilt admission by past "inflictors" of conflict and colonialism. Eunbin Chung borrows the social psychological theory of self-affirmation and applies it to an international context to argue that affirmation of a national identity, or reflecting on what it means to be part of one's country, can increase trust, guilt recognition, and positive perception between countries.
Do voters punish political parties for unsatisfactory performance on issues and traits the parties are expected to excel at? Issue and trait ownership theories stipulate that parties establish reputations regarding policy issues and attributes; voters then reward or punish the party depending on how much voter expectations were met. However, reactions to politicians' performances may vary depending on voters' moral intuitions and party affiliations. Analyzing survey and news data on the 2021 mayoral byelection in Seoul, South Korea, we find that party reputation and the expectation gap affected votes. Also, as moral foundations theory (MFT) suggests, differing moral priorities of liberal and conservative voters explain variation in responses to ethical violations. Our findings suggest the applicability of the party ownership framework and MFT in a newer, non-Western democracy. This study contributes to our understanding of voting behaviour in South Korea, with an emphasis on reputation, expectation gaps and moral intuitions.
How do disasters affect intergroup peace and conflict? Existing research shows that disasters can have opposing effects on how we perceive others: they can exacerbate existing tension in some cases or serve as catalysts for peace and cooperation in others. Yet we know little about the conditions under which we should expect one or the other. In this study, we estimate the impact of disasters on perceptions of out-groups. We combine a dataset of mass disasters with tens of thousands of individual-level survey responses recorded in Round 6 of the Afrobarometer data between 2014 and 2015. Using a difference-in-differences approach exploiting spatial and temporal proximity to disaster occurrences, we estimate the degree to which disasters affect public opinion toward out-groups. As disaster occurrence is plausibly exogenous to interview dates or respondent locations, our approach allows for an improved test of how the shock from disaster can impact public perceptions. Moreover, we show such impact varies by considering the differences in political salience of out-group identities and short- versus long-term differences in the impact on group dynamics. The implications of our findings for understanding the aftermath of past disasters and effects of future disasters on intergroup peace and conflict are discussed.
How do political factors affect foreign aid allocation? Recognizing that aid can be used as inducement, we argue that the US has incentives to provide aid to countries who oppose it a priori at the United Nations General Assembly when it is the sole country that "buys votes" with aid, in order to maximize the number of favorable votes. When there is a rival country trying to buy votes, as was the case during the Cold War, there are incentives for the US to provide aid even to those who support its position already. We empirically demonstrate that the US provides more aid to countries who hold unfavorable positions to the US only in the post-Cold War era.
AbstractResearch has found that affirming national identity can encourage the public's trust toward a foreign adversary. On the other hand, aggressor states have attempted to recategorize identity by promoting a superordinate identity that includes both aggressor and defender states. In comparison with national identity affirmation, we test how effective emphasis of a common identity might be in the context of Russia-Ukraine and evaluate the scope conditions under which such a strategy may backfire. We propose that the effectiveness of the two identity affirmation approaches should differ across people with varying levels of national chauvinism. We expect that high-in-chauvinism individuals will experience more worldview-conflict when exposed to promotion of superordinate identity. Experimental findings on Ukrainians' trust toward Russia in 2020 suggest a policy that emphasizes a common identity can backfire among highly chauvinistic Ukrainians in the Western region. This indicates that recategorizing one's nation as a member of a larger group may fuel resistance among individuals with a sense of nationalistic superiority. By contrast, highlighting Ukrainian national identity boosted trust toward Russia even among the more chauvinistic respondents in the Southeastern region. This study helps identify the scope conditions of identity affirmation as a way to increase trust in international relations.
AbstractHow does political ideology affect the processing of information incongruent with one's worldview? The disagreement in prior research about this question lies in how one's ideology interacts with cognitive ability to shape motivated numeracy or the tendency to misinterpret data to confirm one's prior beliefs. Our study conceptually replicates and extends previous research on motivated numeracy by testing whether monetary incentives for accuracy lessen motivated reasoning when high- and low-numeracy partisans interpret data about mask mandates and COVID-19 cases. This research leverages the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, as Americans are polarized along party lines regarding an appropriate government response to the pandemic.
