Vicarious trauma and foreign policy

This article explores vicarious trauma (VT), a phenomenon occurring when a subject not directly experiencing a traumatic event or process appropriates, lives through and becomes impacted by it through their exposure to its rendering, arguing that it is a neglected yet important aspect of international politics. Drawing on work in clinical psychology, trauma studies and emergent literature on vicarious identity in International Relations, the article explores the conditions shaping VT, the media through which it may be manifested and its relation to foreign policy. We suggest that while VT is not as visceral as direct trauma, it may be more common, both spatially and temporally. Our main claim is that politics mediates the gap between trauma and VT in foreign policy. While the former is politicized across time and space, VT is an important part of that politicization, one that provides heuristic opportunities for scholars to examine in future studies. We explore several illustrative contexts, including the post-October 7 context and the war in Ukraine, but give extended focus to the case of Belgian refugees in Britain following the outbreak of the First World War, with these cases demonstrating the possibilities and limits of VT in foreign policy.