EIS · Empathy and International Security

This MSCA research project ‘Empathy and International Security' (EIS) uses an interdisciplinary approach combining international relations theory, history, and political psychology to ask: How can a more nuanced understanding of empathy inform more human-centric approaches to security? Despite growing awareness of the importance of empathy in international relations, no research has yet examined the tensions inherent in the concept, or how it can be used to both alleviate and transform, or perpetuate or entrench, insecurity. EIS addresses this gap. To answer this question, I examine the multifaceted nature of empathy through four distinct case studies. I use two interconnected episodes from the Cold War (Modernization and Vietnam war) to reveal that empathy is not a novel concept, but one whose meaning and application has changed over time. I will then turn to the case of recent refugee flows into Europe and the response to the global pandemic to analyze empathy's significance to contemporary security challenges and political leadership. Using a qualitative research methodology that draws on archival materials, discourse analysis and elite interviews, I compare and contrast these cases to demonstrate how empathy connects with ideas of power, interests, politics, security and gender as part of an original conceptual framework and typology. EIS combines the expertise at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and the Centre for War Studies (CWS) on human-centric approaches to international security, with my experience as a qualitative scholar on empathy in IR, and my fifteen years experience in international security policy and politics. It will combine academic research and theory development, with an applied and policy-relevant approach to make an innovative contribution to growing debates about the importance of empathy in creating more sustainable solutions to contemporary security challenges, in line with the priorities of Horizon 2020.