Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations

Drawing on Freud, Mead, Erikson, Parsons and Habermas, William Bloom relates mass psychological processes to international relations.

William Bloom (Author)

9780521447843, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 March 1993

208 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.31 kg

'… a very stimulating book.' International Affairs

Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations is the first psychological study of nation-building, nationalism, mass mobilisation and foreign policy processes. In a bold exposition of identification theory, William Bloom relates mass psychological processes to international relations. He draws on Freud, Mead, Erikson, Parsons and Habermas to provide a rigorously argued answer to the longstanding theoretical problem of how to aggregate from individual attitudes to mass behaviour. With a detailed analysis of the nation-building experience of preindustrial France and England, William Bloom applies the theory to international relations.

1. The problem stated and a review of politically applied psychological theory
2. Identification theory - its structure, dynamics and application
3. Nation-building
4. The national identity dynamic and foreign policy
5. Identification and international relations theory
6. Conclusion - appraisal, prescriptions, paradoxes.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]