Chernobrov, Dmitry. 2020. Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

How do people make sense of distant, but disturbing international events? Why are some representations more appealing than others? What do they mean for the perceiver’s own sense of self? Going beyond conventional analysis of political imagining and perception at the level of accuracy, this book reveals how self-conceptions are unconsciously, but centrally present in judgments and representations of international others.
Combining international relations and psychosocial studies, Dmitry Chernobrov shows how the imagining of international politics is self-affirming and is shaped by the need for positive societal self-concepts. The book captures evidence of self-affirming political imagining in how the general public in the West and Russia understood the Arab Uprisings and makes an argument both about and beyond this particular case. The book will appeal to those interested in perception and political imagining, ontological security, identity and emotion, collective memory, international crises and political psychology.