In social psychology, shame is defined as a painful feeling of self-reproach that arises when people notice a discrepancy between their thoughts, feelings, or behavior on the one hand, and important norms and expectations on the other hand. Psychologists have found that shame is associated with a negative judgment of the self and that this sentiment is often related to the presence of an audience, real or imagined. In world politics, shaming recalcitrant states into alignment with international norms has long been a tool various actors employ in pursuit of their goals. States participating in international regimes are routinely asked to submit reports, take part in mutual evaluation exercises, and confess to poor performance in international fora. Rather than mere window dressing, practices relying on social incentives to policy commitment may result in obligations that impose significant material and non-material costs and bind state national security behavior in unexpected ways.
Extant literature in International Relations (IR) and Political Science struggles to understand the micro-level mechanisms that trigger processes of compliance or resistance to international norms as a result of shaming. Most contributions on the effects of naming and shaming tend to focus on policy effectiveness or lack thereof, without understanding the causes that lead state officials to be affected by shame or resist it. Hence the question remains, do states feel 'ashamed' and can they be 'shamed' into action? No study exists in IR to date that seeks to explain this variation systematically, both within and across countries and levels of analysis.
In order to fill these gaps, this project develops an innovative theoretical framework to understand and test the influence of shame on state foreign policy behavior from a cross-country, multi-level perspective (individual and aggregated responses). The study's main objective is to answer the following core research questions: 1. What emotional states and action tendencies are triggered by shaming strategies? 2. Under what conditions do these strategies encourage decision-makers to align their preferences with international norms? 3. What actors are the targets of such strategies and how does their reaction affect their and their organization's decision-making process and outcome?
From a societal and policy perspective, this analysis can provide crucial insights into the topical issue of what power international institutions have to affect change in world politics. It helps to shed light on whether and how moral campaigns and international enforcement strategies employed in current global governance arrangements, of which the European Union is a key actor and promoter, can succeed in influencing policy decisions. Additionally, this study helps uncover to what extent state foreign and national security bureaucracies have internalized some key normative obligations and principles of international society.
