Sociability, Emotions, and Encounters with the Uncommon Other: World-Making at the Rokumeikan

Abstract Can socializing with an uncommon other contribute to world-making? In answering this question, this article highlights the role of emotions for sociability to exert influence on world politics. So far, neither sociability nor its relations with emotions has received much consideration in International Relations. To contribute to closing this gap, this article demonstrates that during sociability with an uncommon other, a two-part, concomitant emotional process occurs. First, emotional puissance of the moment enables performers to explore communalities, which opens up pathways to challenge past authorities. Second, the multifaceted sensations of these experiences extend to an emotional climate that affects the wider public. By making the public feel their ability to socialize with uncommon others, performers provide the ground to anchor new emotional communities. To substantiate this argument, the emotional contribution of socializing with an uncommon other to the founding of modern Japan is discussed. By focusing on the Rokumeikan, a social club in Tokyo for Japanese and Western elites during the late nineteenth century, it is shown that emotions that circulated during sociability performances there helped to solidify a new Tenno-centered political system in Japan with people in central decision-making positions, whose families had only played minor roles during the Tokugawa Shogunate.