Honor in International Relations

The concept of honor has an extensive anddistinguishedlineage in the study of international relations, although contemporarytheoryhas lost sight of its importance. This study begins to remedy thatsituation.It does so by first setting out the place of honor in relation to anumber ofother related concepts, like prestige and status. It then outlines atheory of “negativehonor,” and situates this in relation to existing theoretical andempiricalaccounts of honor-related variables. This theory draws on extant workin socialpsychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and otherfields, to setout hypotheses on why, how, and when political leaders of states mightrespondto certain kinds of challenges in a way that constitutes honor-seekingbehavior. The second part of the paper tentatively sets out one way toempirically evaluate these hypotheses. While unsuccessful, thisprovides ablueprint for further research and a number of soon-to-be-implementedrefinements.