Rage, rancour and revenge: existentialist motives in international relations

Emotions are gaining an increasingly prominent role in the study of International Relations. As a relatively new frontier, there is still considerable work to be done in streamlining various efforts into a systematic study. These efforts have largely circled on describing the cognitive and action potential of specific emotions, such as anger, fear and trust. This thesis is concerned with an extreme emotion, the emotion of rage. I stress the action potential of revenge, as well as the cognitive elements at play here, most specifically the issue of abrupt changes to morality. I use both Greek and Nietzschean philosophy to construct a binary approach to rage that acknowledges both the violent and bloody manifestation - we still witness today - as well as the silent, non-violent rancour that searches for an opportune moment before exploding into action.