ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book begins with a paradox: despite playing a central role in scholarship on emotion and affect, the concept of experience has faced little scrutiny. It outlines a communitarian methodology for studying emotion in world politics. The book describes the study of emotions on familiar terrain for International Relations (IR): patterns of international interaction. It explores the intersection between emotion and collective memory. The book examines the most intimate social context possible: the experimental laboratory. Long skeptical of studying affective phenomena, the field of IR is witnessing renewed interest in emotion. Practices at the level of formal state institutions are not the only conduit for the circulation of emotions in world politics. Thus, as Jackson notes, “Every scientific methodology worlds in a distinct way, and every methodology limits itself to the near side boundary of what it takes to exist”.
