scholarly journals How images make world politics: International icons and the case of Abu Ghraib

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
LENE HANSEN
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Abu Ghraib ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Status ◽  
Abu Ghraib Prison

AbstractThis article introduces international icons to the field of International Relations. International icons are freestanding images that are widely circulated, recognised, and emotionally responded to. International icons come in the form of foreign policy icons familiar to a specific domestic audience, regional icons, and global icons. Icons do not speak foreign policy in and of themselves rather their meaning is constituted in discourse. Images rise to the status of international icons in part through images that appropriate the icon itself, either in full or through inserting parts of the icon into new images. Appropriations might be used and read as critical interventions into foreign policy debates, but such readings should themselves be subjected to analysis. A three-tier analytical and methodological framework for studying international icons is presented and applied in a case study of the hooded prisoner widely claimed to be emblematic of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

scholarly journals Discursive Strategies and Sequenced Institutional Change: The Case of Marriage Equality in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110205
Author(s):  
Giulia Mariani ◽  
Tània Verge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Status ◽  
Private Actors

Building on historical and discursive institutionalism, this article examines the agent-based dynamics of gradual institutional change. Specifically, using marriage equality in the United States as a case study, we examine how actors’ ideational work enabled them to make use of the political and discursive opportunities afforded by multiple venues to legitimize the process of institutional change to take off sequentially through layering, displacement, and conversion. We also pay special attention to how the discursive strategies deployed by LGBT advocates, religious-conservative organizations and other private actors created new opportunities to influence policy debates and tip the scales to their preferred policy outcome. The sequential perspective adopted in this study allows problematizing traditional conceptualizations of which actors support or contest the status quo, as enduring oppositional dynamics lead them to perform both roles in subsequent phases of the institutional change process.

Soviet Foreign Policy Factionalism Under Stalin?: A Case Study of the Inevitability of War Controversy

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Paul Marantz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Harsh Discipline ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Strict Adherence ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Important Evidence

AbstractThere has been a great deal of controversy among Western scholars concerning the direction of Soviet foreign policy in the final years and months of Stalin's rule.1 One of the crucial questions at issue is whether or not there were significant divisions of opinion within the Politburo over foreign policy matters. This article attempts to explore this particular question through an examination of a doctrinal controversy that surfaced during Stalin's last years. In one of his most famous works, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, Lenin argued that war was an inevitable concomitant of the capitalist system. He contended that the unending struggle for markets meant that periodic wars among the capitalist powers were unavoidable and inevitable.2 Stalin adhered to this view throughout his long reign, and it was not until three years after Stalin's death, in Khruschchev's speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, that it was finally revised. Yet despite Stalin's strict adherence to the Leninist analysis of imperialism, and despite the harsh discipline that characterized his rule, there is evidence that the official interpretation was being publicly questioned even while Stalin was still alive. Given the nature of esoteric communication in the Soviet Union,and the close connection between doctrinal and policy debates, an examination of the controversy concerning the inevitability of war can provide important evidence having a direct bearing upon our understanding of this period.3

scholarly journals O ENSINO E A PESQUISA SOBRE POLÍTICA EXTERNA NO CAMPO DAS RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS DO BRASIL

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Aurélio Pimenta de Faria
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Graduate Programs ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Theses And Dissertations

The purpose of this article is to analyze teaching and research on foreign policy in Brazil in the last two decades. The first section discusses how the main narratives about the evolution of International Relations in Brazil, considered as an area of knowledge, depict the place that has been designed, in the same area, to the study of foreign policy. The second section is devoted to an assessment of the status of foreign policy in IR teaching in the country, both at undergraduate and scricto sensu graduate programs. There is also a mapping and characterization of theses and dissertations which had foreign policy as object. The third section assesses the space given to studies on foreign policy in three academic forums nationwide, namely: the meetings of ABRI (Brazilian Association of International Relations), the ABCP (Brazilian Association of Political Science) and ANPOCS (National Association of Graduate Programs and Research in Social Sciences). In the fourth section there is a mapping and characterization of the published articles on foreign policy between 1990 and 2010, in the following IR Brazilian journals: Cena Internacional, Contexto Internacional, Política Externa and Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional. At last, the fifth and final section seeks to assess briefly the importance that comparative studies have in the sub-area of foreign policy in the country. The final considerations make a general assessment of the empirical research presented in the previous sections.

scholarly journals Politics, policy-making and the presence of images of suffering children

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-608
Author(s):  
Helen Berents
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Visual Politics ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Political Dimensions

Abstract In 2017 Trump expressed pity for the ‘beautiful babies’ killed in a gas attack on Khan Shaykhun in Syria before launching airstrikes against President Assad's regime. Images of suffering children in world politics are often used as a synecdoche for a broader conflict or disaster. Injured, suffering, or dead; the ways in which images of children circulate in global public discourse must be critically examined to uncover the assumptions that operate in these environments. This article explores reactions to images of children by representatives and leaders of states to trace the interconnected affective and political dimensions of these images. In contrast to attending to the expected empathetic responses prompted by images of children, this article particularly focuses on when such images prompt bellicose foreign policy decision-making. In doing this, the article forwards a way of thinking about images as contentious affective objects in international relations. The ways in which images of children's bodies and suffering are strategically deployed by politicians deserves closer scrutiny to uncover the visual politics of childhood inherent in these moments of international politics and policy-making.

scholarly journals Trump, Populism, and American Foreign Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Wojczewski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Lacanian Psychoanalysis ◽  
Self And Other

Abstract Employing a discursive understanding of populism and combing it with insights of poststructuralist international relations theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, this article examines the conceptual links between foreign policy and populist forms of identity construction, as well as the ideological force that populism can unfold in the realm of foreign policy. It conceptualizes populism and foreign policy as distinct discourses that constitute collective identities by relating Self and Other. Identifying different modes of Othering, the article illustrates its arguments with a case study on the United States under Donald Trump and shows how the Trumpian discourse has used foreign policy as a platform for the (re)production of a populist-nationalist electoral coalition. Unlike common conceptions of populism as an ideology that misrepresents reality, the article argues that the discourse develops its ideological appeal by obscuring the discursive construction of social reality and thereby promising to satisfy the subject's desire for a complete and secure identity.

scholarly journals Images, emotions, and international politics: the death of Alan Kurdi

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Adler-Nissen ◽  
Katrine Emilie Andersen ◽  
Lene Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis

AbstractHow are images, emotions, and international politics connected? This article develops a theoretical framework contributing to visuality and emotions research in International Relations. Correcting the understanding that images cause particular emotional responses, this article claims that emotionally laden responses to images should be seen as performed in foreign policy discourses. We theorise images as objects of interpretation and contestation, and emotions as socially constituted rather than as individual ‘inner states’. Emotional bundling – the coupling of different emotions in discourse – helps constitute political subjectivities that both politicise and depoliticise. Through emotional bundling political leaders express their experiences of feelings shared by all humans, and simultaneously articulate themselves in authoritative and gendered subject positions such as ‘the father’. We illustrate the value of our framework by analysing the photographs of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian-Kurdish boy who drowned in September 2015. ‘Kurdi’ became an instant global icon of the Syrian refugee crisis. World leaders expressed their personal grief and determination to act, but within a year, policies adopted with direct reference to Kurdi's tragic death changed from an open-door approach to attempts to stop refugees from arriving. A discursive-performative approach opens up new avenues for research on visuality, emotionality, and world politics.

Securitizing Culture in Chinese Foreign Policy Debates

Asian Survey ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
China’S Rise ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
China's Rise ◽  
Policy Elites

The tendency for Chinese foreign policy elites to securitize culture in international relations by portraying it as a zone of intense contestation with other states suggests that China’s rise will be rocky. Some seek to defend China’s cultural autonomy from American hegemony, others, to establish Chinese domination over weaker states.

Sources of the study of international relations: projection in time and eternity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Людмила Терновая ◽  
Lyudmila Tyernovaya
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Political Time

International relations develop at the intersection of political time in history and historical time in politics. At the same time, they are revealed as a specific text in which truth is combined with fiction. A variety of sources help to understand where the truth is contained in the presentation of the events of international life, and where lies are hidden. The monograph describes both traditional sources of studying the foreign policy of States and world politics, and sources that can be attributed to non-traditional, allowing to bring closer the realities of international life in their everyday sense. It is intended for specialists in international relations. It may also be of interest to anyone interested in the history and modern realities of international life.

Still out in the cold? Russia’s place in a globalizing world

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 343-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rutland
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Security ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Per Se

This article examines some of the implications of current debates in international relations for Russian foreign policy. The focus is on Russian foreign policy analysis and not the international relations debates per se. The article begins by discussing the way Russian policy is fractured along the dimensions of security, economics and cultural identity – each corresponding to a different geopolitical vector. The second half discusses how recent developments in international security impact on Russian foreign policy debates.

scholarly journals Mathematical evaluations of development and use of western countries` military capacity (on the example of Germany)

2021 ◽  
pp. 226-244
Author(s):  
Philipp Trunov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
War Machine ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Given ◽  
First Time

We can face the fact that the factor of military power has been gaining increasing influence in the world politics. In this regard one of key tasks of international relations` studies is the exploration of armed forces` building of the countries in the dynamics. The creating a three-dimensional picture of these processes is difficult without the use of mathematical indicators, which show the key features and “narrow places” of the development and the usage of war machines’ potential of the key countries in the world arena. In this article the focal case of these studies with the usage of mathematical assessments is the Bundeswehr. The reason of the given choice is the changing German role and place in the Euro-Atlantic community and the world arena as the whole. Germany has been trying to become the status of full-fare world power. One of the inherent features of this process is the growing of the Bundeswehr`s potential that had begun in the second half of 2010-s and has had the perspective by the middle 2030-s. The article presents mathematical indicators that allow to show a more voluminous assessment of the progress of building the Bundeswehr's potential and German military budget (both in general and in terms of articles of spending and other specific indicators) in comparison with other largest NATO member states. The research paper also examines the indicators that make it possible to “highlight” the peculiarities of the Bundeswehr’s usage outside and inside the NATO zone of responsibility as well as issues the evolution of the foreign (allied) military presence on the territory of the FRG. The author tries to conclude the generalizations of German “war machine” development, basing on 11 mathematical indicators, 6 of which introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

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