Psychologists tout many prosocial benefits of empathy, including helping and moral behaviours, the inhibition of aggression, the encouragement of forgiveness and trust and the reduction of stereotyping and prejudice. Such tendencies work to engender positive, peaceful social relations, and some psychologists have sought to place questions of empathy into the hands of political scientists, asking whether empathy should be seen as an important factor for conflict resolution and peacemaking. Yet empathy is a concept that is not discussed very often in political science literature, and for many political scholars it is assumed that empathy is a factor of little salience for political life. In this dissertation I lay groundwork for what should be a long and robust research program on the possibilities that empathy offers for good effects in political and international life. Specifically in this dissertation I pursue the question "what important, positive role can or should empathy play in efforts to make and maintain peace?" The first third of the dissertation reviews existing literature and practice regarding contemporary peacemaking (i.e., UN peace operations), organizing prominent approaches to peacemaking into three Weberian ideal types ? Peace-through-Power, Peace-through-Justice and Peace-through-Empathy ? and finds that Peace-through-Empathy approaches are used and may even be vital contributions for peacemaking but are largely underemphasized in theory and practice. Second, I conceptualize empathy for political scholarship, breaking empathy into five forms/effects: Perspective-Taking, Humanizing Empathy, Sympathy and Empathetic Identification (all individual psychological effects) and Relational Empathy, which is a quality of social relationships and political structures. The idea of empathy as a quality of structures and not just human psychology is an original contribution to the literature that opens up important new possibilities for research. Finally I look to the recent, relatively successful peace process of Northern Ireland for evidence of empathy at work in peacemaking. I find that Power, Justice and Empathy have all played crucial roles in moving Northern Ireland towards peace, with the Northern Irish often basing peacemaking efforts on what I have called an Empathetic Modus Vivendi.
Western, David S.,
"Power, Justice, Empathy: How and Why Empathy Matters for Peace"
(2008).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0WH2NBD
