The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon whereby hostages develop irrational sympathy toward their captors even to the point of defending their captors in subsequent investigations and criminal trials. While this applies to individuals or small groups, the Oslo syndrome applies to whole national populations.
In The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People under Siege (Smith and Kraus Global, 2005),Kenneth Levin describes a “psychological response common among chronically besieged populations, whether minorities subjected to defamation, discrimination and assault or small nations under persistent attack by their neighbors. People living under such stressful conditions often choose to accept at face value the indictments of their accusers in the hope of thereby escaping their predicament.”
