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Klein, Lilit Anna

University of British Columbia

The sheer variation in conceptualizations of international order by international relations scholars and practitioners leads to vastly different interpretations of the nature of that order and, from that, the extent to which the international order is under threat. Traditionally, this has been attributed to dissimilar emphasis of empirical developments, theoretical commitments, ideological, organizational, national, and cultural influences. To date, intuition has largely been undervalued as a contributing source to analyses of the international realm. This dissertation investigates the role of moral intuition in shaping scholars’ and practitioners’ conceptualizations of international order to show that the six core moral intuitions identified by moral foundations theory have notable impact on experts’ arguments about the international arena. Drawing on findings from fifty-two interviews of international relations experts, supplemented with archival research, I argue that moral foundations impact scholars’ and practitioners’ conceptualizations of international order, including via their tolerance of change, view of progress, and threat perception. I also posit that they shape, at least to some extent, which theories of international relations scholars adopt and the policies practitioners select into. I present evidence that moral foundations sufficiently overlap with variation in conceptualizations of international order. I complement my interview project with a historical case study of three American statesmen to show how moral intuition can be argued as one of the drivers of their foreign policy preferences during a significant moment of change in the international order at the end of the Cold War. Alongside, in the case study, I take first steps towards establishing that moral intuitions might matter for being selected, or self-selecting, into specific professions and/or administrations. By mapping moral intuition onto conceptualizations of international order, this dissertation contributes to the growing body of international relations psychology literature emphasizing intuition as an important force in the field. This project lays the groundwork for future research to test the impact of intuition against alternative sources of conceptualizations of international order. I also find that experts’ theorizing and decision-making, like laymen’s, is impacted by their moral intuitions, further contributing to scholarship that highlights intuition as an equally important cognition as rational reasoning.

Text

2024-09-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85736

Political Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/