The power of uptake: Negative emotions and the (neo)liberal limits of imagination in transitions to justice and peace

Abstract

To effectively challenge the bland determinism of liberal peace intervention models, scholars and practitioners have called for more courageous and creative peacebuilding approaches. In support of this agenda, the article offers a critical reading of transitional justice scholarship to elucidate the co-constitutive function between the politicization of emotions, their attempted socialization, and the perpetuation of liberal rationalities in transitions to justice and peace. Mobilizing the feminist concept of “uptake” it argues that the liberal vision of peace and its implicit biases toward negative emotions are retained and reproduced in the temporal, institutional, and ideological dimensions of liberal interventions. With its focus on the micro-level, the concept of “uptake” can help us to observe how they shape the emerging emotional environment in transitions. It foregrounds how dominant visions of order assert themselves by providing pragmatic opportunities for reasonable courses of action to shape people’s grievances—thus stifling their potential to inform more challenging practices and conversations. The article aims to support the emergence of a more diverse language and culture of peace by illustrating what a sensitivity for the power of uptake entails and how it can be mobilized to creatively confront the limits of a (neo)liberal vision of peace.

UNTAC officer: “The thing is that they must accept the idea of the election and that means that they must accept the essential quality of an election which is peace. They must accept that there must be no violence. There must be tolerance. They must hear one another’s arguments and think about them.” ¹

UNTAC Newsmagazine: “Traditional music and a song:

. . . do not worry about consequences. Nobody will know what you will have done, you choose your favored candidate vote without fear, UNTAC is here to control and guard them, do not worry, vote freely, vote freely, without any worry.” ²

Letter to Radio UNTAC: “I have received from UNTAC, who has been distributing books from house to house, the 28th and 29th Dialogue on Human Rights, the Key to Long-Term Peace in Cambodia, and the Proportional Representation book and have read it, but I have still not lost my fear; signed: a scared Khmer .” ³

Introduction

When peacebuilders ask people to overcome fear, leave bitterness behind, stop anger from simmering, and strive for more tolerance they are rarely motivated by commonplace assumptions about the benefits of constructive political engagement alone. Instead, these demands are routinely attached to presumptions about the potential of (neo)liberal institutions to transform communities that deal with the legacies of conflict and violence. Despite the fundamental critique of the deterministic logic of political change that underpins the liberal peace, negative emotions do therefore continue to be approached as a problematic “residue of conflict” that has to be addressed, transformed, and overcome in transitions to peace (Petersen, 2017). On an intuitive level, such demands are innocuous enough. Peace and progress alike do necessitate cooperation and trust, and a society that offers freedom from want and fear is always preferable to one mired in conflict and violence.

Yet, as transitional justice (TJ) scholars have convincingly shown, the authoritative renderings of emotions as destructive or constructive can stifle more creative or courageous approaches to emerging challenges and thus undermine the very dynamics and practices that scholars and practitioners deem necessary to build more a more just and inclusive kind of peace (Bargués et al., 2023).

TJ is evidently an imprecise label for a diverse set of policy practices and institutions. However, its “emergence is related to the upsurge of legal institutions” (Brudholm, 2008: 6) and international organizations and institutions have increasingly promoted its processes and tools as integral elements of liberal peacebuilding projects and Western-led efforts to address “post-conflict reconstruction” (Lekha Sriram, 2007). To assess the emotional dimension of guided interventions TJ scholars have overwhelmingly taken advantage of meticulously documented justice proceedings and court transcripts. Based on this data, they have identified the often-subtle normative signals that selectively mark certain emotions as politically relevant (Flam, 2013; Jeffery, 2015; Muldoon, 2008; Ottendörfer, 2019) and highlighted the psychological and public processes by which individuals try to negotiate and comply with the expectations imposed on them as they attempt to frame their own experiences as relevant for reconciliation and peace (Bowsher, 2020; Brudholm, 2008; Cole, 2007: 174; Flam, 2013; Hearty, 2019; Lawther, 2017; Sotelo Castro, 2020). Negative emotions such as anger, fear, or resentment have emerged as particularly suitable to study power relations, as norms and standards around their expressions tend to be gendered, racialized, status-sensitive, and tied to politically or culturally coded norms (Brudholm, 2008; Jeffery, 2015; Muldoon, 2008; Saunders, 2011).

The interpretation and attempted socialization of negative emotions – this is one of the core findings of this scholarship – is deeply intertwined with the pursuit of a specific vision of peace and order (and the related marginalization of alternatives). To understand how dominant ideas of political order continue to assert themselves, it is therefore important to recognize that international interventions do not only change the procedural and institutional context for political change. They also affect the “emotional environment” of social interactions (Mihai, 2016). In focusing on the effects of its legalized projects in particular, the findings of critical TJ scholarship can help us to elucidate the co-constitutive function between the politicization of negative emotions and the perpetuation of liberal rationalities and hierarchies of knowing. While this analytical vantage point has the potential to inform critical agendas in peacebuilding, it has yet to be constructively applied to interactions outside of courtrooms and legal proceedings.

This article aims to facilitate the emergence of such a critical perspective on the intersections of emotions and power in peacebuilding. It mobilizes the concept of “uptake” to generate a sensitivity for the politicization of emotions and its (often-inadvertent) effects on the desired principles of openness or inclusivity in the context of peacebuilding interventions. Originally developed in feminist scholarship (Campbell, 1994; Frye, 1983), the concept of “uptake” serves to illuminate the otherwise opaque social mechanisms that determine to what extent emotional expressions can take effect in their intended context. With its micro-level perspective, it focuses specifically on the links between political order and the power of others to interpret emotionally charged claims by acknowledging or denying their political dimension. Social and political hierarchies determine how expressions are translated, both in direct interactions and through the collaborative efforts of dominant interpreters to direct people to the social resources deemed more suitable to express their claims and concerns. The motivation to provide or deny uptake is therefore not one of personal preference or character, but rather determined by dominant norms, values, and institutions. As such, a focus on uptake helped feminist scholars (Campbell, 1994; Frye, 1983; Holmes, 2004) to elucidate the more profound disciplinary effects that come to bear on members of society’s subordinate or marginalized groups. I argue that the concept is suitable as a heuristic for researchers and practitioners alike to observe how (they as) peacebuilders interact with the targets of their interventions and how they collaboratively shape the emotional environments in which they enact their reforms.

The article proceeds in three parts. The first foregrounds the biased assumptions about emotions that have informed key writings on liberal order and liberal peace. It demonstrates that much of the value that liberal interventions assign to their institutions and resources remains attached to these ideas. The second part turns to TJ scholarship on the politicization of emotions. Despite the studies’ different ontological or epistemological commitments, I suggest that their recommendations comprehensively call for more sensitivity to the importance of “uptake” in guided transitions. As a liberal vision of peace rests on assumptions about emotions, its biases manifest in the identification and attempted socialization of “politically relevant emotions” (Mihai, 2016: 85). Reconciliation processes and the language and practice of human rights are therefore not merely political and legal institutions. They are also social resources that are explicitly designed and offered to facilitate more constructive and reasonable behavior. The concept of uptake is suitable to demonstrate why the socialization of negative emotions through such resources simultaneously promotes a very specific vision of peace while undermining practices conducive of alternative understandings of a peaceful order. The final part confronts the challenge of mobilizing such a vantage point to observe how social interactions can contribute to shaping the emotional environment in fluid and heterogeneous peacebuilding contexts. To illustrate some key elements, I draw on a unique collection of archival records that document key communication processes between interveners and the Cambodian public during the 18 months long UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in the early 1990s. Here as elsewhere, a sensitivity for the power of uptake can cast a new light on the significance of emotions in peacebuilding interactions and the profound role they play in shaping valid and valued visions of peace.

The liberal (peace) bias toward negative emotions

Liberal peacebuilding interventions have undergone extensive reforms over the past two decades. Documents published by key institutions like the United Nations or the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding have increasingly focused on revamping their discourse and mechanisms to become more attuned to the needs and voices of communities affected by conflict. These efforts show that international organizations are at least partially responsive to the more fundamental concerns about inclusivity and local agency raised in the critical peacebuilding literature (Lemay-Hébert and Kappler, 2016; Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2016; Richmond, 2004). Yet, at their core, key institutions and mechanisms of peacebuilding and transitional justice interventions remain grounded in the principles developed in Western political thought. As such, much of the value and purpose assigned to them remains attached to its foundational ideas about the nature of a peaceful political order. To assess the effects of these deeply held convictions for contemporary peacebuilding interventions, this first section foregrounds how foundational thinkers defined key characteristics of peace and stability by drawing on assumptions about emotions (Crawford, 2000)—their perceived character, their desirability, and their responsiveness to management and control.

Negative emotions in a peaceful liberal order: foundational assumptions

In reviewing the philosophical and sociological principles underpinning the process of enlightenment Linklater (2014: 574) argues that “modern attitudes to ‘negative’ emotions, such as anger” can be traced to European imaginings of civilization and their self-images of superiority. Emotions were equated with the raw and uncultured side of human nature. People’s ability to exercise restraint and subordinate emotion to reason has hence been presented as a precondition for society’s ongoing advancement toward a world governed by the rule of law and democracy. Jahn (2005: 602) summarizes Mill’s thoughts on the necessary preconditions for political liberalization as follows: “If a people is too rude to control its passions, to forgo private conflict, too proud not to avenge wrongs done to them directly, it is not ready for self-government.” The benefits of the liberal economic system are conceived in similar terms. As Paris (2004: 158) notes, Keynes advanced the idea that the competitive nature of capitalism provided an inherent safeguard against “dangerous human proclivities” by diverting them “into comparatively harmless channels by the existence of opportunities for money making and private wealth.” Without those, Keynes warned, they “may find their outlet in cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and other forms of self-aggrandizement.”

The theory and practice of law, for its part, is explicitly assigned with the task to define what constitutes proper and appropriate human judgment and conduct. As such, legal practice and institutions contribute to naturalizing ethical and moral distinctions between different emotions and their respective impact on rational or irrational thought and conduct. It is important to note that managing or controlling negative emotions in the context of a stable order does not merely entail their suppression. Kahan and Nussbaum (1996) argue that the law is ambivalent toward emotion. Negative emotions like anger or resentment may feed into destructive impulses, but simultaneously have an important moral and evaluative function as they sensitize people to social norms (Kahan and Nussbaum, 1996; Posner, 2000). Liberal political, economic, and legal institutions and mechanisms are therefore expected to facilitate rational or “civilized” conduct by either channeling destructive impulses into productive avenues (Solomon, 1999), or by fostering people’s ability to hold negative emotions “in check by ‘higher’ emotions such as compassion” (Linklater, 2014: 575).

The pervasiveness of the idea that political stability and progress “requires less emotion and more reason” (Hughes, 2009: 205) is nicely illustrated by the fact that Nussbaum (2015: 1) deemed it necessary to assert that “all societies are full of emotions. Liberal democracies are no exception.” In the context of interventions, peacebuilders expect that liberal political and legal institutions will over time rationalize and thus stabilize political engagement. Strong proponents of liberal peacebuilding bring these assumptions most poignantly to the fore. In the early 1960s, Woodrow Wilson believed that democracy would be beneficial to international peace and stability by promoting the “ascendancy of reason over passion” (Wilson, 1986: 90). In his influential defense of interventionism, Roland Paris espouses the same core belief. Indeed, his famous slogan of “institutionalization before democratization” promotes what amounts to a deliberate project of regulating the emotional other through a more careful introduction of rational models, to develop the reasonable mindsets necessary for a stable political order. For instance, by advising against the holding of early elections, to “allow passions to cool with the passage of time” (Paris, 2004: 189).

Openly enthusiastic defenders of the liberal peace are arguably a minority now. Still, as it remains the dominant model, it is not difficult to find examples of how similar presumptions about the problematic intersections of negative emotions and a peaceful political order continue to inform the purposeful design of peacebuilding policies (Travouillon, 2021). One particular pertinent example are the United Nations’ interventions designed to address communal conflicts under the umbrella of human security (Richmond, 2006). These interventions’ professed goal to facilitate lives free from want, fear, and indignity entails an explicit framing of people’s negative emotions as politically salient targets of interventions. This orientation is emphasized if they can be rendered legible through the lens of legalized and neoliberal concepts like “protection” and “empowerment” (Miraftab, 2004; Sovachana and Beban, 2015). Emotions are also more likely to be politicized if addressing the perceived origin or reference object of people’s grievances aligns with interveners’ preconceived development goals (Hughes, 2007; Sovachana and Beban, 2015). While only indicative, these examples demonstrate that peacebuilding interventions routinely entail a selective marking of certain emotions as political—both for their character and the targets of their expressions—that remains intimately tied to the valorization of (neo)liberal institutions and mechanisms.

Negative emotions and the power of uptake in guided transition: lessons from Transitional Justice

The potentially problematic implications of a programmatic focus on people attitudes and the pathologizing of their “negative emotions” as obstacles to peace and stability have evidently not remained unnoticed in the liberal peacebuilding scholarship. Scholars like Moon, Mitchell (2011), Pupavac (2004), and Hughes and Pupavac (2005) have offered extensive critiques of the disempowering consequences that a therapeutic prioritization of people’s mental states over the realities of their economic and political deprivation entails. However, policy-oriented scholars and practitioners who engage directly with individuals that suffer from poverty or have been victimized by oppressive regimes may find it difficult to reconcile the critical renderings of such abstract macro-level power dynamics with the concrete support they offer to appreciative communities. ⁴ In this regard, the focus on the micro-level facilitated by a summative reading of TJ analysis into these hidden power dynamics and the heuristic of uptake that this article aims to mobilize, can offer a less rigid analytical perspective. It recognizes that peacebuilders may feel attached to a vision of change that, even if partially shaped by political and ideological convictions, is grounded in a more cognizant manner in simple and intuitive guiding narratives (peace as overcoming the past), personal observations (suffering of others), or professional identities (helpers). Instead of removing “power” from the analysis, such recognition of agency merely recognizes, with a nod to Foucault (1980: 98), that power circulates, moves, and is employed and exercised through heterogeneous structures and networks.

Transitional justice scholars have paid attention to the ephemeral and enduring effects of a broad range of emotions and emotional dispositions such as hope, trust, or forgiveness (Ottendörfer, 2019; Saunders, 2011). I still hold that the discipline’s most pertinent insights into the politicization of emotions stem from its engagement with negative, or “dark emotions” (Jeffery, 2015: 39), such as anger, fear, grief, or resentment. Negative emotions are widely perceived as unambiguous, if not universal expressions of problematic dispositions and attitudes. As such, references to their presence or persistence in a community are inextricably linked to peacebuilders’ own sense of purpose and the policies and reforms they defend as necessary and appropriate. In contrast to motives like happiness or reconciliation, which tend to denote desired endpoints of interventions (Mitchell, 2011: 1638), negative emotions provide concrete guidance for action by signaling problems that need addressing in the here and now.

Transitional justice scholars’ analyses inform two important observations. First, that a lack of reflection on the emotional dimension of their reforms can harm or undermine otherwise progressive goals of these interventions, and second, that greater responsiveness to the needs and demands of societies emerging from conflict is not merely reliant on recovering the moral content of emotions previously deemed problematic or unproductive to achieve stated aims. Instead, these studies alert us to the fact that the inclusiveness of institutions and mechanisms relies in no small part on our ability to identify intersections between emotions and power. I argue that these findings and recommendations comprehensively call for greater sensitivity to the importance of “uptake” for emotional expressions. By drawing attention to the micro-level this analytical focus can elucidate how power works through the politicization and (attempted) socialization of emotions through (neo)liberal institutions and mechanisms in the context of fluid and heterogeneous peacebuilding interactions.

Political power and the possibility of uptake

Originally developed in feminist scholarship, the concept of “uptake” serves to illuminate the otherwise opaque social mechanisms that determine to what extent emotional expressions can take effect in their intended context. In her account of the obstacles that women and marginalized groups face when they try to raise their voice and challenge conditions experienced as discriminatory or oppressive, Campbell (1994: 55) alerts us to the fact that there is “an unequal distribution of the social resources that we use to give form to our feelings.” Her conceptualization of the intersections between emotions and power presupposes an understanding of them as socio-political phenomena. It entails an approach to emotions as constituted by “a social context rather than internal psychological conditions alone” (Hutchison and Bleiker, 2008). Building on Marilyn Frye’s observation that emotional expressions can only be successful if they receive social “uptake,” Campbell (1994: 57) argues that political power works to “license and encourage” people to express themselves in specific ways. This ensures that dominant orders remain adaptable, yet stable. Gendered differences and societal hierarchies, for example, can be constantly updated by socializing women to express themselves through refined bodily gestures, facial expressions, and seek status ascribed through private forms of social interaction, while encouraging men to express themselves by participating in powerful institutions and their discourses (Campbell, 1994: 57). In contexts of uneven hierarchies, social norms and members of dominant groups who act as powerful interpreters discourage or dismiss emotionally charged expressions that are communicated through alternative resources.

Societal demands to channel grievances through specific symbolic and social resources can impose additional burdens on those who intend to challenge their position in subtle but significant ways. Repeated dismissals and the reinforcement of normative constraints in response to emotionally charged complaints, for instance, signal that in addition to insisting on the importance and validity of their concerns members of subordinate groups first need to establish a legitimate place from which to speak to deserve being heard. This means that people’s emotionally charged efforts to describe their grievances or challenge their status (in however mundane ways) are routinely received by suggesting that their claims would be heard or could take effect if the aggrieved used the proper institutional channels, language, or espoused a “more reasonable” attitude. The tendency for members of subordinate groups to be persistently directed toward more “appropriate” or more “promising” ways to give form to their grievances is not only hindering in that it is time-consuming as proper skills, access, and allies must be found and acquired. In imposing such demands, interpreters furthermore often undercut and stall the very processes of communication that allow people to recognize grievances as shared and structural rather than personal. This serves to strip much of the political potential from people’s emotionally charged claims. The continued provision of uptake does therefore play a crucial role in reinforcing dominant groups’ sense of self and place, while a persistent denial of uptake for emotionally charged claim can have profoundly disempowering and discouraging effects on members of subordinate groups.

Uptake and the (neo)liberal limits of imagination in transitions to peace

In their assessments of the impact that liberal institutions and mechanisms have on the quality and character of peace and justice, TJ scholars have paid close attention to the emotional dimension of power in both its liberating and restricting functions. Organizing their insights as a comprehensive call for more attention to the importance of uptake can highlight how the dominant liberal idea of political order manifests in biased views of negative emotions as obstacles to reconciliation and peace. With a focus on micro-level interactions, these studies draw attention to the impact that these assumptions have in organizing purposeful interactions between peacebuilders and communities emerging from conflict. They can also show why or how even well-intended mechanisms or projects may have exclusionary rather than inclusionary effects, as they reproduce dominant ideas of order and power and thus work to dismiss or undermine the constructive and creative interactions necessary to develop valid alternatives.

In adapting the concept of “uptake” it is crucial to note that peacebuilders act as interpreters when they politicize and attempt to socialize emotionally charged expressions in support of an envisioned (not an existing) order—and probably most frequently because they believe that this order will confer benefits to others (not themselves). It is also necessary to acknowledge that their participation in a liberal peacebuilding project does evidently not “prime” peacebuilders to interpret observed emotions in a uniform or strictly binary manner. Beliefs and values, cultural or institutional norms can all play a part in forming one’s judgment about problematic or desirable emotions and the appropriateness of their expression.

Yet, as so succinctly put by Paffenholz (2021: 379), to finally move beyond liberal peacebuilding’s determinism and linearity it is “crucial for those engaged in peacebuilding to participate in critical reflections of their own assumptions, biases, traditions and practices.” Importantly, this entails that peacebuilders must leave their comfort zones, stop offering authoritative solutions to all observed problems, and instead become more “courageous friends” (Paffenholz, 2021: 379). These statements underscore that we should not exclusively focus on the macro-level of institutions and their programs to understand the persistence of bland and universal “templates, formulas and one-size-fits-all solutions” (De Coning, 2018: 304). Instead, it is necessary to turn more decisively, systematically, and creatively to “the neglected sites and practices of the international” (Solomon and Steele, 2017: 270; see also Bleiker, 2021).

This article wants to highlight that one key element of such a shift in attention to the microlevel is to scrutinize more closely where bodies and the discourses of powerful institutions intersect (Hutchison, 2019; Hutchison and Bleiker, 2014; Koschut et al., 2017; Solomon and Steele, 2017). By sharpening our attention for the consequential entanglements of political order, emotion, and peacebuilding practices, the simple and intuitive heuristic of “uptake” can make a small but hopefully constructive contribution to understanding why, in an era of often-announced turns and shifts to more flexible and creative forms of pragmatic, perpetual, or postliberal peacebuilding, alternative visions of peace are still rarely articulated or recognized (Rusche, 2022).

Biased interpreters: the politicization of negative emotions in guided transitions to justice and peace

The concept of uptake emphasizes that powerful interpreters can collaboratively foster the reproduction of their preferred order not through overt forms of punishment and coercion, but by upholding distinctions of reasonableness and through the related promotion of particular social resources to express grievances in more suitable, acceptable, or promising ways. The work of critical TJ scholars can demonstrate how these dynamics play out in the context of guided transitions to peace and justice. The liberal vision of peace and stability and its implicit biases toward “negative emotions” are retained in the temporal, institutional, and ideological dimensions of transitional justice interventions. Taken together, they converge to inform the role, purpose, and projects of practitioners and leaders. As “strong advocates” for specific healing or reconciliation paradigms peacebuilders act as interpreters as they promote and sustain the liberal vision of change through messages that emphasize the superior normative, ethical, moral, therapeutic, and material benefits of expressing grievances in clearly defined temporal and institutional boundaries.

Western societies’ narrative construction of history as a gradual process of civilized advancement, for instance, is retained in conceptualizations of the liberal peace as a state that is predicated on the successful overcoming of the past. TJ interventions are therefore embedded in Western normative notions of “time, associated with progress and linearity” (Mueller-Hirth and Oyola, 2018). As such, the teleological dimension of transitional justice implies a “a future-oriented approach to the past,” as its “ultimate aim of transitional justice is to create the conditions for a sustainable peace” (Gready and Robins, 2014: 350). This core orientation introduces a bias toward the temporal dimension that implicitly attaches itself to many negative emotions. Bitterness or resentment, for instance, are conceived of as “backward-looking dispositions” that trap people in the past (Eisikovits, 2004: 34). Similarly, scholars who assessed the impact of “truth-telling” in transitional justice processes often describe the destructive impact of collective trauma in terms that operate through presumptions of an ideal, linear timeline toward healing. Peacebuilders routinely approach feelings like hopelessness, despair, or grief both as symptoms of ongoing suffering, as well as embodied memories of past suffering that refuse to stay in their designated place. As such, emotional and temporal dimensions and the presumptions informing both tend to become mutually reinforcing. For instance, in evaluations of people’s progress as stalling or reversing because “painful past feelings” (Martín-Beristain et al., 2010: 49) keep them from moving on. This in turn marks such lingering feelings and hence those who express them, as in need of continued intervention and care.

The institutional context of TJ remains deeply grounded in the conviction that societal transformation requires liberal institutions with their standardized procedures to moderate between the interests of the individuals and those of the state. Due to the legalized character of TJ processes, these interventions do therefore tend to reproduce the ambivalence toward negative emotions that characterize legal proceedings in liberal democracies more generally. Expressions of anger or grief, for example, are valid, even necessary elements of these proceedings. They converge to establish that a community has been wronged and violated and are therefore important to form judgments and define accountability (Jeffery, 2015: 43). To promote healing and reconciliation, it is likewise important to instill “a sense of collective guilt [and shame] in groups of perpetrators and bystanders” (Karstedt, 2021: 467). Negative emotions are furthermore recognized to motivate people’s pursuit of justice (Barceló, 2018: 498; Mihai, 2016)—in particular among those who feel like they have nothing else to live for. However, the emphasis on routine procedures, and the key role assigned to the importance of guidance and supervision in establishing the parameters of change reinforce an organismic view of negative emotions outside of such fixed and stable institutional contexts. Here, identified grievances are routinely described as festering, growing, and contributing to breeding conflict or outbreaks of violence. ⁵ Others prepare the ground for interventions with the observation that people’s anger, guilt, or shame “make a toxic brew” (Durrheim and Murray, 2022: 67). As with the temporal dimension of order the use of such emotional terminology is not simply a fanciful embellishment of political language, but rather indicative of ingrained presumptions about the nature of order and peace and the key role assigned to liberal institutions in channeling and transforming people’s dangerous or destructive raw inclinations (Brudholm, 2008: 8; Flam, 2013: 374).

In the context of Western-led interventions, justice and peace are ideologically codified in universal and universalized concepts. Emphasis on the importance of widespread acceptance of human rights as a precursor for peace and stability, or frequent reminders that people benefit from the support of “the international community,” for instance, can introduce and perpetuate biases against negative emotions in quite powerful and profound ways. In a context of global inequity and ingrained hierarchies, nations subject to interventions do feel a teleological push to show their gratefulness and prove their worth to an international audience (Travouillon and Bernath, 2021). This dependency entails demonstrating that their communities and country have transformed and are sufficiently emotionally stable to merit developmental aid and attract foreign investment (Flam, 2013: 373; Saunders, 2008: 52). Entrenched grievances, emerging resentments, or anger and disappointment at the outcomes of transitional justice processes are therefore routinely sidelined and dismissed to craft internationally intelligible narratives of resilience, reconciliation, and closure.

Uptake denied: the (de)politicization of negative emotions in transition

TJ scholars have identified, criticized, and sought to rectify these biases from a diverse range of theoretical commitments and with varying foci on their detrimental moral, therapeutical, or political impact. Campbell’s (1994) account of uptake helps us to foreground how these biases work to support the use of the templates offered by the liberal model, while discouraging or undermining the practices and processes of communications necessary to push for alternative ways to address the grievances brought about by violence and conflict.

Despite their stated ambitious goals, the project of transitional justice operates under significant political and financial constraints. In implementing its principles and projects, those who design and implement these interventions are therefore necessarily and continuously engaged in finding a “compromise between what is (morally or theoretically) right and what works” (Saunders, 2011: 121) Biased assumptions about negative emotions and their institutionalization in liberal visions of justice and peace have powerful effects precisely because they coalesce so intuitively into compelling motives for the most pragmatic, promising, or reasonable courses of action in the here and now. From the point of view of those charged with helping, observed expressions of negative emotions demarcate clear wants and needs. The institutions and mechanisms of liberal interventions for justice and peace, for their part, provide immediate opportunities and concrete guidance to express anger, resentment, and grievances for the possibility of catharsis, relief, reconciliation, or reparations.

Yet, as Campbell’s account of uptake so powerfully demonstrates, it is precisely the encouragement to express emotions through those social resources that are intimately attached to a preferred vision of order—“and opportunities for action are such a resource” (Campbell, 1994: 55)—that undermines or forecloses the possibility for them to take effect in alternative forums. She emphasizes that emotional expression, “as the public articulation or discrimination of our psychological lives through language and behaviour” helps to “form or individuate psychological states.” Expressions do not “just reveal or disclose [these states] to others” (Campbell, 1994: 49). In Campbell’s account this explains why the repeated failure to secure “uptake” has such far-reaching political consequences: By encouraging someone to express their anger or resentment in a more appropriate or promising course of action and use a more suitable language to relate grief or outrage, powerful interpreters take part in the individuation of these grievances. This interactive dimension alters the very relationship that a person has with their own emotional experience, meaning that they cannot simply “tap into” the same emotional experience under conditions of greater autonomy in a different context and for a more independently defined purpose. The persistent denial of uptake for emotional expressions forged in the context of deeply meaningful and formative experiences can therefore feed into a sense of isolation and exhaustion.

TJ scholars have repeatedly formulated their criticism of the disempowering effects of the dominant (neo)liberal institutions and mechanisms in terms that align with Campbell’s account of the intersections between bodies, emotion, and power. TJ’s critique of the interventions’ healing paradigm with its emphasis on truth-telling and forgiveness, for example, has drawn attention to the fallacy of the presumption that grievances are merely expressed and not formed in interactions with others. Muldoon (2008: 302–303) summarizes this critique most poignantly, when he states that the treatment of

story-telling as a one-way process in which “victims” simply express their anger and reveal their suffering to others, [makes] it seem as if truth commissions (and the public that stands behind them) do not play an active role in evaluating the self-understanding, including the complex emotional responses, of those giving testimony.

This active role of the audience is, as previously demonstrated, significantly shaped by the temporal, institutional, and ideological dimensions of the liberal intervention project. Recommendations to victims to “[cool their indignation] to present a rational and therefore compelling case against the perpetrator in the public arena” (Flam, 2013: 371), the encouragement to tell their stories to “provide a piece of the evidence” (Brudholm, 2008: 26), and the request to recognize that “grief and anger ‘has had their time’ and that it is more reasonable to accept loss and begin to look ahead” (Brudholm, 2008: 5) are all manifestations of the ways in which dominant discourses and a (neo)liberal vision of peace assert themselves with and through people’s most intimate struggles.

The repeated failure to secure uptake for their emotional expressions has enduring effects on people’s relationships to their most formative experiences and hence an impact on how they engage with the transformations instilled by the broader political reforms. Bowsher (2020) argues that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) selective validation of people’s emotional experiences conditioned an affective response that supported an individualized rendering of suffering, ultimately undermining the solidarity and type of “political activity and agency” (Bowsher, 2020: 59) necessary to engage in a more structurally and socially oriented critique of political violence and its legacy. Similarly, Saunders’s (2008: 51–52) observes that the key role assigned to the TRC as a liberal state-building exercise came to bear on TRC witnesses in the form of pressure to engage in “an obligatory exchange of particular facts and visceral testimony for a national idiom of reconciliation and respect for human rights.” Once people’s suffering was given form in an “internationally standardized language” (Saunders, 2008: 57) it was easily co-opted by other authorities, yet increasingly unrecognizable to those whose bodies continued to grapple with their pain. Such processes of alienation and isolation run counter to the demands of any sustainable peace for communal conversations that can engender feelings of empathy, solidarity, and compassion.

Emotion, power, and a new sensitivity for the power of uptake in peacebuilding

Reading the critique of TJ scholars through the heuristic of uptake can convincingly demonstrate why the politicization of emotions in the context of (neo)liberal interventions so frequently depletes them of their true political potential. As a practice of intervention, however, liberal peacebuilding has a much broader focus and is arguably less intimately concerned with the management of people’s grievances. In addition, researchers and practitioners will be hard-pressed to find analytical equivalents to the stable institutional context, clearly defined roles, and well-preserved qualitative data on communication processes that is provided by the courtroom interactions TJ scholars so frequently rely on. In this last part, I do therefore want to demonstrate how researchers and practitioners can sensitize themselves to the power of uptake. Without constraining the concept in all too rigid analytical guidelines, I think that paying closer attention to some decisive elements of peacebuilding interactions can facilitate the empirical observation of and reflection on the consequential entanglements of emotions, power, and the persistent dominance of a liberal vision of peace.

The analysis is grounded in my work with archival records on the UN mission to Cambodia. The collections document communication practices among UNTAC officials and the Cambodian public through internal reports and planning documents, scripts for the human rights campaign, and Khmer-language letters to Radio UNTAC, sent by members of the Cambodian public. ⁶ These records are suitable to illustrate some key dynamics that we can turn our attention to in order to observe and assess the character of an emerging emotional environment and the vision of peace it supports.

First, the concept of uptake sensitizes us to the biases that inform the politicization of negative emotions in the context of guided transitions to peace. Confidential UNTAC field reports that were exchanged between the different units, for instance, confirm that the observation of emotions through the prism of liberal norms and values played a crucial role in shaping UNTAC officers’ interpretation of their mandate in the field. People’s frustration about political violence and corruption was widely referenced. One officer described being “astounded by the immediate, spontaneous and stark frankness with which groups of soldiers and officers expressed their bitterness, profound resentment, anger and mistrust, most often against their leaders.” ⁷ Importantly, these authoritative diagnoses of people’s “sullen mood[s]” ⁸ noticeably increased a sense of purpose and urgency that merged with beliefs in the value of liberal institutions as solutions to the observed problems. “In a lawless frontier without legal or other avenues to complain about malpractices or to seek redress, and in an area where weapons of all sorts abound, angry or desperate soldiers sometimes take the law in their own hands,” an officer observed, before reiterating that the soldiers still “hope that the elections will facilitate [their] return” and escape a situation they “bitterly resent.” ⁹

Second, the concept of uptake can draw our attention to the subtle interplay between the politicization and attempted socialization of negative emotions during transitions and the visions of peace encouraged by these practices. A comprehensive analysis of the popular Dialogues, a key element of UNTAC’s human rights campaign, for example, demonstrates how the commitment to a liberal peace influenced the framing of negative emotions and the concomitant insistence on the right way to take charge of them. Distributed by radio and video-screenings throughout the country, the Dialogues featured everyday interactions between Cambodians and UNTAC officials. The scripted plays rested as much on information about legal principles as they did on emotionally compelling narratives of personal and national transformation. Negative emotions were routinely presented as signaling a lack of restraint or education unbefitting of a developed and mature democratic nation:

Nephew:

“Stop fighting! We can resolve this. Why do you argue, tell me? . . . Don’t break the laws or violate human rights. If not, we will lose everything.”

Uncle:

“Of course! If the people don’t know or know little about laws [there will be] chaos like with [these children here] playing football. Well, now they play with rules. If they know rules, they won’t argue again.” ¹⁰

These encouragements to more reasonable behavior were tied to linear conceptions of time and progress. To grow as a person and nation, the Cambodian audience was repeatedly encouraged to leave fear, anger, and resentment behind: “Don’t worry sister [we have to speak up] We cannot always live in fear.” ¹¹ Importantly, human rights education and the new liberal institutions were not only offered as requisites of a democratic order, but more encompassing as social resources that would facilitate constructive behavior in the political as well as private sphere, as illustrated with scripted conversations about fair salaries or women’s rights. Conversation invariably centered on distinctions between the violence of the country’s wartimes and a future where “laws are in accordance with human rights [and] individuals and authorities behave in accordance with those laws.” ¹² The liberal peace that the protagonists in these scripted plays alluded to did therefore have little substance in the present. Instead, it manifested as a longing for a future Cambodia, a Cambodia that would have finally overcome its past and with it the “remnants of past suffering.” ¹³

The third element the concept of uptake encourages us to consider is whether the social resources promoted by powerful interpreters devaluate alternative ways of shaping grievances and human connections for peace. Implemented at the height of global confidence in the promise of a liberal peace, the mission’s leadership was clearly driven by a strong belief in the self-evident benefits of liberal institutions and knowledge. “[Cambodians] want to see their lives change,” one UNTAC human rights officer asserted enthusiastically, “and I think that they see human rights as a mechanism for social change.” ¹⁴ Indeed, hundreds of letters that Cambodians sent to Radio UNTAC during the mission show that they recognized liberal institutions as authoritative and potentially transformative resources in the country’s quest for peace. The radio, one letter writer observed, was offering the people an “internship” to learn how to constructively address their experiences of poverty and injustice. This idea was echoed in letters that made apologetic references to the persistence of people’s anger and fear despite UNTAC’s reform efforts. Others embraced the new language and the possibility it provided to redefine their roles and purposes, for instance, by labeling efforts to address violence in their communities as “human rights activism.”

Whether such statements are indicative of more profound social dynamics and whether the authoritative insistence on the new liberal resources undermined the possibility for people’s grievances to partake differently in shaping the emerging peace is evidently much more challenging to establish. Yet, some elements of the discussions that Cambodians documented and initiated by means of their letters are striking in this regard. Knowing that some of the letters would be read on air, many Cambodians expressed their visceral anger about the everyday indignities experienced by the poor. The frequent choice of proverbs to decry the ongoing subordination to corrupt powerholders, who “harvest rice without planting the seeds,” for example, showed that the sharing of anger and resentment was tied to deep and engaging analysis of Cambodia’s social and political context. Self-composed poems with dark titles like “The Absolute Power of the Police” were invitations to partake in the lived experiences tied to emotions like anger and fear. By choosing to express themselves through poems, proverbs, and humorous or sarcastic language, the people rendered their fights for dignity visible as relational processes that facilitated critical observations about status, opportunity, and self-worth in the emerging order. As such, these letters also convey the recognition that peace was not an abstract, future state predicated on “overcoming,” but something to seek and hold on to amid the injustice and suffering that persist; something that could be meaningfully experienced in even the briefest moments of relief brought about by the recognition of someone’s compassion and communal bonds of solidarity.

It is all but impossible to find traces of these experiences in the mission’s official records and accounts. Here, people’s ideas and desires are routinely condensed in uniform expressions of gratefulness for the end of the war and somewhat naïve hopes in a future with peace and prosperity. Recognizing the power of uptake can therefore contribute to the ongoing fight for a more diverse language and culture of peace (Lyytikäinen et al., 2021; Stavrevska et al., 2022). It can help us to demonstrate where or how the lack of space and visibility afforded to such complicated emotions is indicative of more powerful biases and the resulting lack of authority that these emotional experiences and expressions have in shaping the interactions that ultimately define the outcomes of guided transitions to justice and peace.

Conclusion

The simultaneity of the widely accepted critique of liberal peace model and the persistent dominance of its templates has heightened attention for the limiting power of deeply engrained biases. This article traced the intersections of emotions and power in an intervention context to scrutinize how dominant discourses assert themselves through embodied interactions in interventions for justice and peace. The analysis of transitional justice scholars provided opportunities to observe how the emotional underpinnings of a liberal vision of peace powerfully shape how interveners perceive and communicate the value of liberal reforms. The feminist concept of “uptake” helped to foreground how power works to encourage the shaping of grievances in a manner that routinely depletes them of their true political potential.

Any attempt to highlight intersections between the macro- and microlevel remains necessarily schematic. Rather than providing a conclusive judgment of the transformative potential of (neo)liberal intervention practices per se, the article’s main aim was to generate a sensitivity to the consequential nature of the entanglements of emotions and power. It encourages an active reflection on the possibilities and limits they denote. Such reflections should evidently only accompany, not replace the ongoing critical engagement with the impact of global hierarchies and the modes of their maintenance and reproduction. Indeed, acknowledging the complexity of emotions for the purpose of countering biases and stereotypes is always challenging (Krystalli and Schulz, 2022). Calling attention to their presence, importance, or creative potential may unduly romanticize them and thus provide a distorted account of people’s experiences and choices that is just as essentializing or totalizing.

Yet, if the task that peacebuilding currently faces is one of questioning more thoroughly how biases come to bear on practices then a sensitivity for the intersections of emotion and power has much to offer. It can sharpen our attention for the moments in which peacebuilders’ urges to offer authoritative solutions become greatest and the implications of resisting them most consequential. By mobilizing the concept of uptake, this article suggested to courageously turn to the sites where intervention practices converge to politicize and socialize negative emotions. It is here where we may find the most promising opportunities for innovation, change, and a different kind of peace.