Political psychological rationalization

Political psychological rationalization (PPR) is a phenomenon seen in political warfare and election campaign rhetoric, meant to displace a perceived fault, short coming, mistake, or problem from one political actor, and attach it to another political actor, generally an opponent. While not truly rationalization in the context of psychology—where a problem, short coming, mistake, or fault is justified and allowed to endure—PPR maintains the negative connotation of the original flaw, transfers that connotation to a target actor, and then seeks to destroy the flaw (and consequently the actor) through association with said flaw, but with a political purpose and focus. Political psychological rationalization exploits a number of psychological principles to manipulate the perceptions of different actors including groupthink, cognitive dissonance, and other forms of psychological manipulation. An example of PPR would be "Candidate A" accusing "Candidate B" of having an onerous tax policy for not cutting taxes while Candidate A had already raised taxes previously in his or her career, but having accused Candidate B of having an onerous tax policy is seen as being in favor of cutting taxes. Use of PPR can also run the risk of backfiring against the broadcaster if knowledge of hypocritical behavior on the part of the displacing political actor becomes known. In cases where this has happened, the original negative association can become reoriented back to the initiating political actor. As tool of political warfare, PPR has been used by a wide array of factions, ideologies, actors, and regimes including fascists, communists, religious extremists, electoral campaign rhetoric, and non-governmental organizations.

Psychological influences in PPR

As a tool of political warfare, PPR utilizes a number of psychological and sociological concepts, but is not truly rationalization in a classical psychology context. While in psychology, rationalization is generally an internal (and usually subconscious) coping mechanism used to justify actions and decisions arrived at through alternative logic paths—but in a political context, rationalization is usually an external (and almost always conscious) justification used to create a specific association for the target audience. In theory, a political actor using PPR could exploit the phenomenon of group think (whereby an idea has unfounded credibility because many members of a particular group adhere to it in a desire to maintain cohesion) to rationalize a particular political position. In some cases, PPR might also be a defense mechanism against being branded with a negative image by an opponent through active exploitation of cognitive dissonance, creating alternative messages to rationalize a real or perceived inconsistency in policy or a previous attack by an opponent. Due to the highly subjective nature of both broadcaster and target audience perceptions, it is difficult to definitively label a particular messaging campaign as being an example of PPR.

Use of PPR in American electoral campaign rhetoric

"Daisy" advertisement

One of the most controversial examples of PPR in American electoral rhetoric is President Lyndon Johnson’s use of the Daisy ad against Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign, which was used to create an image of his opponent as belligerent and reactionary in foreign affairs. The ad depicted a small girl counting the petals on a daisy. The camera slowly zooms in on the girl while the counting by the girl is replaced by a loudspeaker counting down to zero, at which point the picture changes from the girl counting petals to a nuclear explosion. Johnson’s voice is then overheard saying,

"These are the stakes – to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die."

The ad also urged people to vote for President Johnson. While no intended target of the ad was ever specified, the implication was that if one voted against Johnson, they would be voting for nuclear war. The ad was only ever aired once due to intense negative reaction from the public, but the association with nuclear war followed Senator Goldwater for the rest of the election. President Johnson by default became associated with moderation and peace, even though he had endorsed the domino theory as John F. Kennedy’s vice-president in 1961, creating a predisposition to expanding the Vietnam War in 1965 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Use of PPR during the Cold War

A protracted political warfare campaign was waged between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, in which both sides made extensive use of PPR. One particular example of American use of PPR during the Cold War is the fallacy of the "missile gap". Claims that the Soviet Union was outpacing the United States in production numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and would soon be at a disadvantage, surfaced during the late 1950s and had peaked by the election of 1960. Although it had been disproven by the intelligence community, political elites continued to use the missile gap for their own gains. In this case however, the objective of PPR was not so much to demonize the Soviet Union (in fact, that had already been rhetorically established), but to create a perceived US deficiency to spur US action on the issue. Since any evidence invalidating the missile gap theory was classified, no cognitive dissonance was required to defend the rationalization that the US needed more strategic weapons, and group think could be harnessed to keep the conversation centered on strategic weapons, as opposed to other fronts on which the US could be countering the Soviets. The reality of this rationalization is that there was indeed a missile gap during this time period, but in favor of the United States.

Examples of PPR in contemporary international relations

The use of PPR has become prevalent in the public diplomacy campaigns of religious extremists, particularly radical Islamist groups. While rhetorically attacking the United States and its allies as being "crusaders" out to impose their ideals on the Muslim world, many groups claiming to resist that trend blame the state of the Muslim world immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on a failure of the umma to resist as well, leaving only the jihadist groups left to carry on the struggle, like Al Qaeda. By claiming to resist a perceived invader, these groups can then associate themselves with an image of benevolence while demonizing the United States—despite committing many of the same excesses of which they accuse the United States, such as labeling other Muslims "infidels" who support the US, and imposing (theological) norms onto populations that do not necessarily share them.

Political psychological rationalization also continues to factor into modern public diplomacy efforts as a means to predispose target audiences to a message from a broadcasting actor. Aspects of PPR can be seen in the current media campaign surrounding China's peaceful rise, and how certain actions taken by the Chinese government are portrayed in both official statements and the larger news media. A commonly repeated theme is that China’s military modernization and expansion is a reflection of growth in the Chinese economy and presence abroad. This is a rationalization in response to a perception that the expanding nature of the Chinese military will result in increased Chinese aggressiveness. By using the term "peaceful rise" and seeking to portray the military expansion as part of a country’s natural development, China is attempting to displace the fear (other countries) and perceived aggression (by China) and displace the negative implicated with its military growth and attach them to nations attempting to challenge China by creating the image that anyone who worries about China is merely paranoid or jealous of China’s development. In repeated use of this rationalization, China is conditioning observing parties to think that the "peaceful rise" is the norm, using group think to delegitimize opponents and cognitive dissonance to rebut any mention of inconsistencies in official messaging from the Chinese government.

See also

Propaganda

Political argumentation

Political sociology

Rhetoric

Public diplomacy