Political insults in the East Asia Island Conflicts

A visit to a small island in the Sea of Japan (otherwise referred to as Eastern Sea) by South Korea's president provoked a diplomatic spat between the leadership of Japan and South Korea. Young people fried eggs on the eternal flame near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ukraine, deepening divisions within the country and mutual offenses among its population. Both incidents are perceived examples of politically motivated insults that escalated into surprisingly significant clashes.

While the field of conflict analysis has looked extensively at the dynamics of insults between individuals, it has largely ignored the more complicated dynamics of insult committed between groups, often of uneven political and social power. In her newly published book (Oxford University Press, 2014) under the same title, Karina V. Korostelina offers a novel framework for analyzing the ways in which seemingly minor insults between ethnic groups, nations, and other types of groups escalate to disproportionately violent behavior and political conflict. Insult can take many forms. Yet, as her book shows, it is always a social act mutually defined between groups, and it has the power to destabilize and redefine social and power hierarchies. Korostelina identifies six different drivers of political insults, producing a theoretical model for analyzing intergroup insult and conflict. She uses her model to explore each of the incidents above, among other recent conflicts, to explicate the complicated dynamics that figure within them. She concludes with practical suggestions for analyzing and resolving complex conflict situations.

Karina V. Korostelina is an Associate Professor and Director of the Program on History Memory and Conflict at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, GMU. She is also is a Chair of the Peace Culture and Communication Commission of the International Peace Research Association. Professor Korostelina is a social psychologist whose work focuses on social identity and identity-based conflicts, intergroup insult, the nation building processes, the relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim populations, role of history in conflict and post-conflict societies, conflict resolution and peace building. She has published more than 90 articles and chapters and is author or editor of thirteen books..