Emotional Choices How the Logic of Affect Shapes Coercive Diplomacy

Why do states often refuse to yield to military threats from a more powerful actor, such as the United States? Why do they frequently prefer war to compliance? International Relations scholars generally employ the rational choice logic of consequences or the constructivist logic of appropriateness to explain this puzzling behavior. Max Weber, however, suggested a third logic of choice in his magnum opus Economy and Society: human decision-making can also be motivated by emotions. Drawing on Weber and more recent scholarship in sociology and psychology, Robin Markwica introduces the logic of affect, or emotional choice theory, into the field of International Relations.

Robin Markwica is a Max Weber Fellow in the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute and a Research Associate in the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford.