Trust, Deception and Uncertainty in International Diplomatic Conflicts

This paper examines the psychological micro-foundations of trust as a psychological strategy that manages uncertainty and provides an empirical investigation of trust as a practice of affective diplomacy in international conflict. We use data from in-depth interviews with Indian and Pakistani senior officials and opinion formers regarding the India-Pakistan relations in 1998-99, analyse it using Cognitive Affective Maps (CAMs), and identify four pathways towards cooperative and conflictual outcomes in India-Pakistan diplomatic interactions. One of these pathways is best explained by our model that examines the affective ambivalence of trust and shows how the psychological state of trust becomes possible in an anarchic international environment. This paper advances our understanding of trust beyond existing approaches that see it as either cognitive risk calculation or a state of emotional certainty.