LAUSR

Actors in international politics have been driven predominantly by two (maybe three) logics of social interaction: fighting, bargaining, and some arguing. Yet, if international politics is characterized by a lack of determinate laws unlike its domestic corollary, it would be unrealistic to expect leaders to simply rely on a singular mode of evaluating facts based primarily on cognition and interests. In turn, I offer quarreling to address this gap. As a type of affective social interaction based on the subjective validity of one’s feelings and thus one that goes beyond mere disagreement to disapproval, quarreling tries to establish who is right about what is right. I establish a theoretical framework based on Kant’s intuitions of a quarrel (streiten) and in so doing clarify both the purpose and utility of quarreling: to demand assent for one’s feelings (in the absence of established rules and norms) and expose an underlying contention involving values.