The Geopolitics of Emotion - interesting perspective on country personalities

The Geopolitics of Emotion; How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope are Reshaping the World by Dominique Moisi provides an interesting perspective on the how we should look at the personalities of countries. The premise that the cultural personality will affect how a country will react to a given situation. Understanding their emotions is a useful perspective in today's geopolitical environment. The reaction of countries to news or policy shifts of their neighbors is not just about real rational responses to self interest but could be driven by fears. A trade tariff may be based on the fear of losing strength and not just the fact that a country is undercutting prices. Moisi has a more nuanced view than those who describe the differences in countries as a clashes of culture. He would argue that a country or culture has a emotional component that may cloud its view of other countries. Its perception of itself will effect how it interprets the actions of other countries.

The developed countries like Europe and the US may have the emotion of fear. The fear of losing its identity and the fear of "others" who are culturally different. The Arab and Muslin world could be driven by the emotion of humiliation from exploitation in the past and a belief that they have been excluded from the global boon of economic progress. Asia is driven by the emotion of hope as it seizes the opportunities from strong growth. Finally, there are some countries that have a combination of these emotions which make then extremely sensitive and difficult to understand. This work does not lend itself to quantification and it is simplistic in trying to fit countries into a limited set of emotions, but Moisi provides a different viewpoint that can help understand the actions of other countries.