State Militarism and International Conflict

This chapter suggests that state militarism and international conflict are important areas where further integration between social and political psychology needs to take place. It addresses a longstanding problem in both social and political psychology: the dichotomy between the individual and the social. Social psychology and political psychology have tended to make a distinction between the individual and the social, and have thus neglected the extent to which the ideas about the nature of the individual are themselves socially produced. Social psychologists interested in discourse analysis have developed and applied this approach to political psychology. When applying discourse analysis to accounts of military service, the idea that social identity is central to understanding the relationship between individuals and nation-states may only be telling part of the story. States can be understood as social identities (as groups of people), places, and institutions.