Outrage balancing: A theory of aggressive foreign policy with evidence from the Pacific War

Abstract

Why do leaders sometimes pursue aggressive policies driven by outrage rather than by rational calculation? Although anger has long been recognised in international relations as a source of conflict, existing accounts under-theorise its causal impact on state behaviour and overlook insights from evolutionary psychology. Drawing on recalibrational theory, I develop outrage balancing, a new theory of aggressive foreign policy, defined as an anger-driven response to perceived injustice whereby leaders adopt punitive policies to recalibrate an adversary’s disregard for their welfare. I specify the conditions under which outrage arises and demonstrate how it produces disproportionate, risk-prone, and morally framed foreign policies that diverge from rational expectations. As a plausibility probe, the article re-examines Japan’s 1941 decision to enter the Pacific War, arguing that the Hull Note acted as the proximate trigger, provoking elite outrage and shifting preferences toward war.