Obliged to hate: The successful stigmatisation of anti-war voices in Azerbaijan
In this short video extract, Cesare Figari Barberis and Mirkamran Huseynli discuss the key arguments from their new Review of International Studies article - Obliged to hate: The successful stigmatisation of anti-war voices in Azerbaijan
Want to know more? You can read the full article at DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210525000191
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Abstract
In International Relations (IR) scholarship, there is a growing body of research on the connections between emotions, stigma, and norm violations. It is often presumed that for stigma imposition to be successful, norm violators should feel shame. We argue instead that the emotional dynamics that inform the management of stigma are more complex and involve overlooked emotions such as anxiety, sadness, and hopelessness. We substantiate this by analysing the successful stigmatisation of anti-war voices in Azerbaijan during the 2020 Karabakh war. While the vast majority of the Azerbaijani population supported the war, a small minority contested its legitimacy and the related emotional obligation to express hatred against Armenians. However, these anti-war voices became stigmatised as ‘traitors to the homeland’, and were ultimately pushed to self-silence. We contribute to the growing IR scholarship on emotions and stigma in two ways. First, we show how successful stigmatisation of norm violators may involve emotional dynamics that go beyond shame. Second, we discuss the power of emotion norms of hatred, which, especially in times of war, can push ‘ordinary people’ to pro-actively and vehemently stigmatise norm-violators. In conclusion, we elaborate on the potential future implications of stigma on peacebuilding activities between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Photo by Ali Nurmemmedov on Unsplash
