prestige, an actor may still feel disrespected either way.
Fourth and ultimately, another notion closely linked to the role of respect is justice. Justice and injustice designate an emotional feeling, for example, aroused by the absence of respect, and mark an independent field of research [28] at the same time. While justice research, mainly covering the field of political and social psychology, encompasses a whole range of issues such as (relative) deprivation (Crosby, 1976; Olson et al., 1986) and prosocial behavior (Batson, 1998; Krebs & Miller, 1985), distributive and procedural justice are most relevant for the project at hand. Distributive justice research roughly suggests three principles relating to resource distribution that actors are found to particularly desire: need, equality and equity (Miller, 2001, p. 528). That said, justice perception is a highly subjective matter based on the cognition and consequential assessment of certain behavior or development. Key indicators of distributive justice include calls for (or concerns of) fairness and equal treatment. In addition, procedural justice focuses less on outcomes while placing a stronger emphasis on procedure, particularly of legal nature. For instance, citizens participating in legal proceedings strongly care, as several studies indicate, about formal (structural) and less formal (interpersonal) aspects of fair legal procedure and equality, especially in terms of their legal rights (Bies, 1987; Leventhal, 1976; Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler, 1990).
In sum, several concepts and theoretical approaches are closely related to the respect conceptualization provided. They all have in common certain elements and propositions. Similarly, a perceived lack (or depreciation) of any of them is expected to arouse negative sentiment. At the same time, yet, respect, regardless of several commonalities, differs from all other concepts in some regards. Among the most unique features of respect is the significance it attributes to both the material and self-evaluative dimensions of respect and derived needs and expectations alike, the special emphasis it places on social status considerations and effects thereof and, lastly, the emphasis on the subjective question of adequacy of external conduct.
2.1.1.2 Respect: Applicability Beyond the Individual Level
In recent years, the concept of respect has gradually been applied beyond the individual level to the collective and governmental level as well. In doing so, respect is increasingly been operationalized-usually in the context of associated emotions and the role of recognition-into a feasible concept of IR and FPA research (Fikenscher et al., 2015; Wolf, 2011). While it is generally agreed that states and institutional (state) bodies, unlike individual human beings, do not have feelings per se (Wight, 2004), a variety of research suggests that states, naturally comprised of individuals and groups of individuals, can be associated with both individual and collective feelings nonetheless (Neumann, 2004). According to this viewpoint, government staff tends to, besides bearing the individual set of emotions and identities held by every [29] human being, identify with the state it is working for and the citizens its government represents. That said, such identification processes are capable of generating collective emotions as well. As Sasley puts it, “studying states-as-groups allows us to consider the state as the psychological – emotional group – changing its members to think, feel, and react similarly so that we can speak of ‘state’ emotions” (2011, p. 465). In a similar vein, Hymans reasons, “states are not gigantic calculating machines; they are hierarchically organized groups of emotional people” (2010, p. 462). Moreover, government officials are commonly engaged in interpersonal meetings with their respective counterparts from other countries, for instance in the context of state visits, international conferences, international negotiations and the like. Thus, studies suggest that these officials, in fact, experience feelings such as injustice, anger or unfair treatment aroused by their counterparts’ behavior not just as personal affronts but also as affronts to the state or government they are working for or are associated with (Steinberg, 1996; Taylor, 1993). In this regard, Lindemann observes an “‘affective’ and even […] ‘identity’ value that an abstract institutional entity – even if it is highly ‘fictitious’ – can possess for officials of such an institution” (2010, p. 18)23.
In addition, emotions such as fear, distrust, injustice or anger are not merely attributes of given actors, but, likewise, can be “institutionalized in the structures and processes of world politics“ (Crawford, 2000, p. 119), hence strongly operate on the collective, international level. Apart from collective emotions, research on nationalism provides another explanation as to why emotions matter beyond the interpersonal level. Accordingly, even in non-democratic political systems, government officials as an entity need to act upon strong (emotional) pressure exerted by predominant domestic groups in order to maintain their political legitimacy. In other words, contempt felt by certain influential domestic groups and society when confronted with discrimination and disrespect may be viewed as non-recognition and, hence, may be acted upon by the ruling elite on the former’s behalf. Similarly, government officials may absorb and utilize such domestic sentiment as an instrument to achieve specific political ends. Although in such cases individual state representatives do not necessarily ‘feel’ such sentiment themselves, it can play a vital role nonetheless.
Departing from this bulk of research, the author argues that disrespect, just like emotions at large, can be experienced on a collective group level if, on the [30] one hand, a significant share of members of that group agrees on common attributes and self-worth conceptions and, on the other hand, interprets other groups’ (particularly states’) behavior toward itself as inadequate consideration and recognition thereof (cf. chapter 2). This reasoning is further underpinned by Taylor & Brown who found that state representatives are keen to obtain external recognition of that states’ (self-ascribed) position (Taylor & Brown, 1988) and identity (‘view of itself’). In this light, national respect shall be understood as the respect receiving state’s perception of adequate recognition of its self-ascribed self-worth conceptions by a respect-granting state as expressed by the latter’s behavior and attitude (Wolf, 2011). As a result, a link between a state’s self-evaluated significance and external conduct is strongly presumed24. Accordingly, the pursuit of international respect can be regarded as the quest of institutionalized collective groups and state actors to obtain a level of adequacy that corresponds to the self-perceived significance and status of their reference group or state. As such, status, from a social identity perspective, is not corresponding to a state’s power capacities (Baird, 2011). Similarly, a state’s status satisfaction is not necessarily contingent on the distribution of relative power capabilities (Woolforth, 2008), but on perceived status attribution by external actors. Respect, thus, not only relates to a state’s self-conceived status, identity and self-worth but directly deals with expectations regarding the recognition thereof to be manifested in external actors’ observable behavior. In this vein, states, similar to individual actors, aiming at the adequate recognition25 of their:
“[P]hysical presence, their social importance, their point of views, ideas and values, their interests and needs, their achievements, abilities, merits and advantages and their rights“ (Wolf, 2011, p. 10).
Contrariwise, the perceived lack or inadequacy of such adequate recognition triggers the experience of national or collective disrespect26.
[31] In general, two dimensions of national respect can be identified: an intrinsic, identity and emotion-related dimension, on the one hand, and a rather material and instrumental one, on the other hand. Hence, respect may encompass both a sentiment (intrinsic value) desired for psychological self-evaluative and self-affirmative reasons and an instrument (means to an end) utilized as a “practical bargaining tool” (Nathan & Scobell, 2012, p. 25). The underlying logic regarding the instrument dimension is that actors whose ideas, values and viewpoints are adequately considered are particularly capable of successfully safeguarding their interests. For instance, they may succeed in finding supporters of their own concerns and objectives. This, in turn, potentially alleviates the likelihood of scenarios in that actors are met by others with confrontation27. While many studies tend to ignore the sentiment dimension, the author of this project places special emphasis on it and considers neglect thereof as insufficient. This viewpoint
