Constructing wars.

Abstract

Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed Makes mouths at the invisible event,Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor's at the stake.-Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1609In his monumental play Hamlet, Shakespeare (1609/1992) displays one of his most brilliant insights: that human beings do not need "great causes" to fight-they can wage war over the most seemingly minor issue; they can manufacture a great "argument" and "causes" out of nothing and magnify group-based differences to justify violence against outgroups. This trend is reflected in the contents of the current issue of the journal. In addition to three major articles, two Brief Research Reports, one book review essay, and one book review, we have a Special Section on democracy and security that includes six brief articles and an introduction.The three major articles are on the theme of how individuals move in the direction of radicalization and terrorism (Milla, 2019), become passive bystanders and witnesses of conflicts and violations of human rights (Passini, 2019), and retain fluid social representations of past conflicts (Bouchat et al., 2019). In all three articles, the meaning and significance of conflict is changing and socially constructed, not static and fixed. The jihadi willing to sacrifice the self to inflict harm on others, the bystander remaining as a passive onlooker in the face of violence and human rights violations, and remembrances and reconstructions of the "Great War"-these all depend on subjective and changing interpretations. Although the meaning of conflict can be changing in the minds of perpetrators of aggression, unfortunately the consequences of such aggression for victims is all too real and in important respects continual. Two Brief Reports examine the psychological consequences of terror on Pakistani (Ehsan, Riaz, & Khalily, 2019) and Yezidi (Msall, 2019) victims.The Special Section on democracy and security is highly timely, because we are witnessing the same increasing tensions between security and democracy in different countries around the world, with serious detrimental consequences for human rights and civil liberties. Again, the manufacturing of meaning plays a central role: particularly how threat is magnified and interpreted, by authoritarian leaders (who tend to be Editor's Note. Continue the conversation by submitting your comments and questions about this article/book review to PeacePsychology.org/peaceconflict. (The Editor of PeacePsychology.org reserves the right to exclude material that fails to contribute to constructive discussion.