Description
This panel aims to explore East Asia’s foreign policies and political elites’ behaviours in diplomatic exchanges through the lens of emotions. Recent research on emotions has helped us explain how emotions play a significant role in shaping political perceptions and behaviour, how international actors may manipulate or deploy emotions for strategic purposes, and how political struggles can also be fought over the appropriateness of feeling and expressing emotions. Employing various approaches to emotions, this panel attempts to contribute to ‘globalising IR’ by revisiting the processes of decision-making and diplomatic exchanges in East Asia to highlight historically constituted emotional dynamics. In particular, the four panellists tackle different discourses of emotions to provide perspectives on the shared historical-sociological experiences between decision-makers in East Asia.
Connection: This panel will contribute directly to the understanding of the Common Agenda set out by the UN Secretary-General, which includes various themes of preventing conflicts, building trust and boosting partnerships. The panellists will touch on multiple security and trust crises that East Asian states are dealing with, thus suggesting alternatives to the UN’s approach to peace and cooperation.
