THE MEANING OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION

Germany’s catastrophic reaction to humiliation engendered by the outcome of World War I was not an anomaly but was representative of a broader pattern of international behavior in which states that have experienced certain humiliating events are more likely to engage in international aggression and intentionally defiant foreign policies. Such states will be more apt to pursue territorial conquest, to intervene in the affairs of other states, to engage in diplomatic hostility and verbal discord, and to pursue advanced weaponry and other symbols of national resurgence. Humiliated states engage in these behaviors because these acts define high international status and because participating in them enables those who identify with the state to overcome humiliation and to thereby regain a sense of collective efficacy and authority. Furthermore, the acts promise to bolster the image of the state in the eyes of others because they demonstrate the state’s distinctive capabilities as well as its intention to restore prior status. Simply establishing the relationship between national humiliation and aggressive, status-seeking behaviors leaves many important questions about the role of national humiliation in international relations unanswered.

“Humiliation” is the emotional response to the perceived undeserved decline of one’s status in the eyes of others. Humiliation is a complex and negative self-conscious emotion, which combines the sense that one has been mistreated with a painful sense of self doubt and helplessness in the face of this injustice. A state of “national humiliation” arises when individuals who identify as members of the state experience humiliation as the overwhelming emotional response to an international event, which they believe has undeservedly threatened the state’s image on the world stage. This definition enables us to make There are two types of international events that are likely to inflict the deepest sense of national humiliation and to have the most significant effects on international behavior. The first one involves the failure of the state to live up to international expectations of how it should perform, given its perceived status. Failure of this sort can take the form of rapid defeat to a state with lesser military capability or the involuntary loss of homeland territory. Such public failures are often perceived as undeserved threats to the status of the state and thereby serve as deep sources of collective outrage and impotence. The second type of humiliating event involves the treatment of the state by others. States whose rights and expected privileges are denied by others are also likely to perceive that the state’s image in the eyes of others has been unfairly undermined by ill-intended others. Allowing others to disrespect one’s sovereignty or to interfere in one’s sphere of influence can generate common knowledge that a state is undeserving of high status while simultaneously engendering a pervasive and potentially constraining sense of powerlessness within the disrespected state.

Humiliated states are more likely to engage in several different foreign policy behaviors intended to bolster the image of the state in its eyes and the eyes of others. These behaviors include, for instance, diplomatic opposition, the pursuit of symbols of high status such as nuclear weapons or colonies abroad, and the use of force against the state responsible for one’s humiliation or against third-party states that were not involved in the original humiliating event.  Humiliated states seek to reestablish their status in the eyes of others. To do this, they engage in actions that define the status they seek to hold. Great powers might project their power and maintain extensive spheres of influence abroad. Those states seeking to assert their regional power status might engage in similar status-seeking actions, but would be expected to do so over more circumscribed areas and for less sustained periods. Humiliated states that already hold low status, by contrast, have fewer options for restoring their sense of efficacy. The behavior of all humiliated states, including great powers, will be constrained by the need for success. Humiliation, like anger, involves a sense of injustice. Humiliation is distinct from anger in that humiliated parties question their ability to assert themselves and to successfully defend their image in the eyes of others. Overcoming humiliation requires the elimination of self-doubt. Humiliated states are motivated by the desire to reestablish both their confidence as well as their image in the eyes of others, and they will seek to prove to themselves and others that they are effective actors on the world stage. They will generally avoid rash actions and will prioritize favorable outcomes. Thus, though revenge might offer the most satisfying path toward status renewal, states may avoid revanchism if they believe repeated humiliation is likely. States that possess sufficient capabilities are more likely to bolster their image in other ways through the projection of power abroad at the expense of weaker, third-party states. Such acts demonstrate the state’s distinctive capabilities as well as its intention to be viewed as a high status state. Most important, such acts serve to demonstrate these qualities to those within the state itself, thereby bolstering confidence in the state.

National humiliation can have significant staying power. Indeed, leaders frequently invoke instances of national humiliation that occurred long in the past.  

Experiments have shown that of all emotions, humiliation is felt the most intensely, generating sensations akin to physical pain that can be conjured with unreduced intensity decades after the original humiliating event. On a national level, a sense of humiliation can persist across generations if humiliation becomes ingrained within national narratives and the self-concept of the state. States often do not respond immediately to a humiliating event with assertive status-seeking acts. The effects of Germany’s humiliation in 1919 arguably became palpable in 1933 with the election of Adolf Hitler on a platform of vengeance-seeking against the Allied powers. We are possibly now experiencing the most intense effects of Russian humiliation first engendered by the fall of the Soviet Union and subsequent Western declarations of victory over the Russian foe. This prompts the question of when exactly humiliation’s effects on international behavior will be most keenly felt. The timing of assertive responses to humiliation depends on whether the state has sufficiently recovered from losses incurred as a result of the humiliating event. The political instability and loss of material capabilities that often follow significant humiliating events, such as defeat in war, limit the state’s ability to achieve success in the aftermath of a humiliating event. They also further erode collective confidence within the state. The restoration of political stability and material wherewithal is a necessary step toward the elimination of national self-doubt. Once states fully achieve domestic recovery, they will be far more likely to engage in assertive acts on the world stage intended to announce their intentions to regain previous status. States that never regain the level of material wealth and political stability they possessed before the humiliating event will be far less likely to assert their status and capabilities following a humiliating event. The renewal of national confidence, therefore, occurs in two stages. Domestic recovery serves as the first step toward the renewed collective confidence of the state. The second stage of recovery takes place at the international level once the humiliated state engages in repeated successful international assertions of its status. Although domestic recovery may provide sufficient self-confidence for states to reassert themselves, only success at these international acts fully enables members of the state to overcome the sense of helplessness, and thereby the humiliation, that the original status-threatening event engendered. Material recovery and political stability are not the only two factors that affect collective self-esteem. Strong and charismatic leaders may be able to instill a  stronger sense of authority in their people than material and political recovery might support. Even in these cases, however, the desire of the state to prove itself on the world stage will be constrained by the fear of repeated humiliation. Such repetition suggests that the original failure of the state was not a fluke but instead accurately represented the state’s appropriate status. Repeated failure would arguably induce more discomfort than a single humiliating event, eventually forcing the state to downgrade its own status expectations, its identity, and its sense of place in the world. States are therefore willing to sit and wait before reasserting themselves on the world stage, biding their time until a sufficient sense of collective efficacy returns