The Psychology of Atrocity

Studies have shown us that 74% of states instigating war will lose, yet no leader takes their country to war expecting to be defeated.  Why do statesmen ignore lessons of history and experience and continue to instigate armed conflict against the odds?  Regardless of who will come out ahead, a conflict almost invariably entails atrocities: land-mining, fire- and drone-bombing causing death of civilians in large numbers; massacres, torture, killing of prisoners; destruction of fields, industry, housing.  How do nation states present these events to the public, and how does the public metabolize all of this, while keeping an image of their country, and themselves, as moral?

Richard Ned Lebow, Professor of International Political Theory in the War Studies Department of King’s College London, and Emanuele Castano, Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research in New York, will debate these points and more in an informal discussion chaired by Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, The audience is encouraged to join the debate.

Richard Ned Lebow is Professor of International Political Theory in the War Studies Department of King’s College London, Bye-Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge and the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor (Emeritus) of Government at Dartmouth College.  He was formerly professor of strategy and the US Naval and National War Colleges and served as scholar-in-residence in the Central Intelligence Agency.

In an academic career spanning six decades, he has published over 20 books and 200 peer reviewed articles. Among his recent publications are A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge, 2008), winner of the Jervis-Schroeder Award for the best book in international relations and history and the Susan Strange Award for the best book of the year; Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations (Princeton, 2010); Why Nations Fight: The Past and Future of War (Cambridge, 2010) and The Politics and Ethics of Identity (Cambridge, 2012), winner of the Alexander L. George Award for the best book of the year by the International Society of Political Psychology.  He has three books that have just appeared: Franz Ferdinand Lives: A World Without World War I (Palgrave-Macmillan), Constructing Cause in International Relations (Cambridge) and, co-authored with Simon Reich, Goodbye Hegemony! Rethinking America’s Role in the World (Princeton).

Emanuele Castano is Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research in New York.  His previous appointments include St. Andrews University and the University of Kent, Canterbury. He is the author of numerous book chapters in both psychology and international relations, and has published extensively in top-tier scientific journals of social and political psychology. His research on the effects of cultural artifacts on Theory of Mind, published in Science in 2013, received worldwide attention. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), and private foundations. He has consulted with governments and NGOs on issues of collective identity, intergroup violence and morality, and in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross he conducts research on the behaviour of combatants in war.