#12102. Reputation crisis management and the state: Theorising containment as diplomatic mode

August 2026publication date
Proposal available till 29-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

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Journal’s subject area:
Political Science and International Relations;
Sociology and Political Science;
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Abstract:
This article theorizes containment as a diplomatic response mode for states when faced with potentially harmful attacks on their international identity and reputation. Despite widespread agreement in International Relations (IR) scholarship that identities matter in the context of state security, studies of crisis management have paid little attention to ontological security crises. Scholarly literature on public diplomacy has concerned itself mainly with proactive nation branding and reputation building; work on stigma management has privileged the study of how ‘transgressive’ states respond to identity attacks by recognising, rejecting or countering criticism. First, the paper notes that states do not perform as uniform entities when faced with ontological security crises – government representatives, bureaucratic officials and diplomats have varying roles and action repertoires available to them. Second, it argues that containment is a key but under-theorised part of the diplomatic toolkit in crisis management. Unpacking containment as a crisis management response mode, we combine insights from IR scholarship on emotions and diplomacy with insights on therapeutic practices from social psychology.
Keywords:
containment; crisis management; Diplomacy; emotions; ontological security; statehood

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