Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations

Drawing on Freud, Mead, Erikson, Parsons and Habermas, William Bloom relates mass psychological processes to international relations, and provides a rigorously argued answer to the longstanding theoretical problem of how to aggregate from individual attitudes to mass behaviour. Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations is the first psychological study of nation-building, nationalism, mass mobilisation and foreign policy processes. In a bold exposition of identification theory, William Bloom relates mass psychological processes to international relations. He draws on Freud, Mead, Erikson, Parsons and Habermas to provide a rigorously argued answer to the longstanding theoretical problem of how to aggregate from individual attitudes to mass behaviour. With a detailed analysis of the nation-building experience of preindustrial France and England, William Bloom applies the theory to international relations.