Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation(Frontiers of the Political: Doing International Politics)

Winner of the 2019 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award from the Mershon Center for International Security How do people make sense of distant but disturbing international events? Why are some representations more appealing than others? What do they mean for the perceiver's own sense of self? Going beyond conventional analysis of political perception and imagining at the level of accuracy, this book reveals how self-conceptions are unconsciously, but centrally present in our judgments and representations of international crises.Combining international relations and psychosocial studies, Dmitry Chernobrov shows how the imagining of international politics is shaped by the need for positive and continuous societal self-concepts. The book captures evidence of self-affirming political imagining in how the general public in the West and in Russia understood the Arab uprisings (also known as the Arab Spring) and makes an argument both about and beyond this particular case. The book will appeal to those interested in international crises, political psychology, media and audiences, perception and political imagining, ontological security, identity and emotion, and collective memory.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Acronyms Preface Introduction PART I: THE DRAWING SELF 1. Perception and Collective Identity 2. Anxiety of the Unknown and (Mis)Recognition 3. A Positive Self PART II: THE PORTRAITS OF OTHERS 4. Imagining Others as Different or Similar 5. Drawing from Memory PART III: ENCOUTERING CRISES 6. Public Perception of the Arab Uprisings 7. Wider Narratives: From the Arab Uprisings to Ukraine Epilogue: Perception as a Relation References Index

About the Author :
Dmitry Chernobrov is Lecturer in Media and International Politics at the University of Sheffield. He earned his PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. He has published on issues of identity and perception, ontological security, social exclusion, diasporas and traumatic memories, media representation of politics, and humanitarian crisis communication.

Review :
Chernobrov’s book is a valuable contribution to the discussion about national crisis perception. The conclusions about the national identity, public opinion, opinion leaders, and the media’s function in public perception of international events seem to me particularly crucial. The advantage of this book is its attempt to show two perspectives of the same event—Russian and Western. This book highlights essential factors in political world events which are usually not touched upon by the media. The role of personal and collective identities, the reactivation of shared images of past historical events, and anxiety of the unknown are described and clearly illustrated. For those wishing to make sense of today's international political climate, I highly recommend reading this timely book. Developing an innovative theoretical framework emphasising the role of (mis)recognition as a means of coping with uncertainty and emergent anxieties, Chernobrov provides a timely and important intervention that fundamentally rethinks the role of perception in public understandings of international crises. For anyone interested in the politics of perception, recognition, emotion and emerging debates about ontological security within international relations, this is a must read. This refreshing and original book persuasively demonstrates that popular understanding of foreign affairs, especially at times of crises, is fundamentally shaped by the public’s own sense of identity, security, and political memory. Exploring Russian and UK perceptions of the Arab Spring, Chernobrov provides excellent evidence that public attitudes of international politics are based primarily on local anxieties, fears, and hopes. In this eloquent interweaving of insights from ontological security theory, social psychology, international relations, media and audience studies, Chernobrov offers an empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated exploration of the intricate relationships between identity, emotion and the perceptions of international others. The distant is domesticated as the societal need for positive self-affirmation shapes the public perception of international events.? This important book tackles significant dimensions of political imaginings and how these are shaped by insecurities, anxieties and histories of identities. While there are many accounts with the ambition to explain public perceptions of international crises, this book offers a very timely and novel approach to conceptions of crises as understood through the logics of ontological security and positive self-affirmation.