Metaphorical incarnations of the “other” and Iranian International Relations discourses

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 748-771
Author(s):  
Heidarali Masoudi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Metaphor Analysis ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Nodal Points ◽  
The Us ◽  
Arab States

Iranian International Relations academics have impacted both the official and public discourses on foreign policy issues, and vice versa. More specifically, how the “other” is constructed in Iranian International Relations discourses has an important role in determining how Iran acts in world politics. Assuming that International Relations discourses in Iran are inextricably intertwined with the construction of the “other,” this article aims to investigate how Iranian International Relations scholars use metaphors as linguistic tools for the representation of the “other.” Specifically, this article analyzes the metaphorical construction of the “other” in Iranian International Relations academic texts. Applying metaphor analysis, instances of the “other” have been selected and analyzed. The hypothesis was that there are two different categories of metaphors representing the “other”: first, there are context-oriented metaphorical incarnations that attempt to construct Iran’s “relationship” with others in foreign arenas, considering internal and external opportunities and limitations; and, second, there are essentialist metaphorical incarnations of particular actors, such as the US, Israel and Arab states as the “other.” The analysis shows that body and religion can be regarded as nodal points around which context-oriented and essentialist International Relations metaphorical discourses, respectively, have been articulated. The context-oriented discourse is inspired by realist insights into home-grown Iranian International Relations while the essentialist discourse is influenced by official foreign policy rhetoric and Iranian historical culturalism.

Still the American Century

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 271-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRUCE CUMINGS
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Federal Budget ◽  
The United States ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
American Century ◽  
The Us ◽  
Year 2000

At the inception of the twenty-first century—not to mention the next millennium—books on ‘the American Century’ proliferate monthly, if not daily. We now have The American Century Dictionary, The American Century Thesaurus, and even The American Century Cookbook; perhaps the American Century baseball cap or cologne is not far behind. With one or two exceptions, the authors celebrate the unipolar pre-eminence and comprehensive economic advantage that the United States now enjoys. Surveys of public opinion show that most people agree: the American wave appears to be surging just as the year 2000 beckons. Unemployment and inflation are both at twenty-year lows, sending economists (who say you can't get lows for both at the same time) back to the drawing board. The stock market roars past the magic 10,000 mark, and the monster federal budget deficit of a decade ago miraculously metamorphoses into a surplus that may soon reach upwards of $1 trillion. Meanwhile President William Jefferson Clinton, not long after a humiliating impeachment, is rated in 1999 as the best of all postwar presidents in conducting foreign policy (a dizzying ascent from eighth place in 1994), according to a nationwide poll by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. This surprising result might also, of course, bespeak inattention: when asked to name the two or three most important foreign policy issues facing the US, fully 21 per cent of the public couldn't think of one (they answered ‘don't know’), and a mere seven per cent thought foreign policy issues were important to the nation. But who cares, when all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds?

scholarly journals Chinese Interests in Pakistan: A Study in Regional Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol III (I) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Muhammad Amir ◽  
Muhammad Rizwan ◽  
Saira Bano
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Regional Perspective

The present study is an effort to analyze the mode and intensity of Chinese interests in Pakistan. By examining the policy of pursuit in finding another market in the region, the study aims to understand the current warmth of the relationship between China and Pakistan. Although maintaining a perpetually friendly relationship with China has always been a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy, yet strengthening this relationship into a structured partnership remained a gradual process in the light of their mutual interests. In the politics of international relations, the relationship between countries is a complex interaction of pragmatic national interests, which are multifaceted and could take an alternate course with changing regional and international scenarios. As both Pakistan and China share many common political, economic and strategic interests due to which both are giving their utmost priority to protect their interests related to the other. This paper will investigate the situation where it is commonly believed that China is inevitable by avoiding the vice-versa. No doubt common threats and challenges faced by both the nation is the major cause to unite them in terms of security, political, economic and strategic fronts.

scholarly journals THE GENESIS OF THE US FOREIGN POLICY: THE ORIGIN OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE TOPIC, 1610–1820S

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (73) (2) ◽  
pp. 81-93
Author(s):  
D. V. Dorofeev
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
North American ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us

The research is devoted to the study of the origin of the historiography of the topic of the genesis of the US foreign policy. The key thesis of the work challenges the established position in the scientific literature about the fundamental role of the work of T. Lyman, Jr. «The diplomacy of the United States: being an account of the foreign relations of the country, from the first treaty with France, in 1778, to the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, with Great Britain», published in 1826. The article puts forward an alternative hypothesis: the emergence of the historiography of the genesis of the foreign policy of the United States occurred before the beginning of the second quarter of the XIX century – during the colonial period and the first fifty years of the North American state. A study of the works of thirty-five authors who worked during the 1610s and 1820s showed that amater historians expressed a common opinion about North America’s belonging to the Eurocentric system of international relations; they were sure that both the colonists and the founding fathers perceived international processes on the basis of raison d’être. The conceptualization of the intellectual heritage of non-professional historians allowed us to distinguish three interpretations of the origin of the United States foreign policy: «Autochthonous» – focused on purely North American reasons; «Atlantic» – postulated the borrowing of European practice of international relations by means of the system of relations that developed in the Atlantic in the XVII–XVIII centuries; «Imperial» – stated the adaptation of the British experience. The obtained data refute the provisions of scientific thought of the XX–XXI centuries and create new guidelines for further study of the topic.

7. Liberalism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Dunne
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
The Core ◽  
Global Problems

This chapter examines the core assumptions of liberalism regarding world politics. It explores why liberals believe in progress, what explains the ascendancy of liberal ideas in world politics since 1945, and whether liberal solutions to global problems are hard to achieve and difficult to sustain. The chapter also considers central ideas in liberal thinking on international relations, including internationalism, idealism, and institutionalism. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges confronting liberalism. Two case studies are presented: one dealing with imperialism and internationalism in nineteenth-century Britain, and the other with the 1990–1991 Gulf War and its implications for collective security. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether democracy is a better system of government and whether it should be promoted by peaceful and forceful means.

Of Friends and Foes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Crescenzi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cycle Of Violence ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
War And Conflict ◽  
Global Arena ◽  
Over Time

Reputations abound in world politics, but we know little about how reputations form and evolve: namely, how do countries form reputations? Do these reputations affect interstate politics in the global arena? In this book, Crescenzi develops a theory of reputation dynamics to help identify when reputations form in ways that affect world politics, both in the realms of international conflict and cooperation. A reputation for honoring one’s obligations in a treaty, for example, canmake a state a more attractive ally; on the other hand, a reputation for war and conflict can triggermore of the same, leading to a cycle of violence that exacerbates security challenges. These processes of cooperation and conflict are linked by a common use of the information held in each state’s reputation. In each case, states use reputational information in an attempt to resolve the uncertainty they face when crafting foreign policy decisions. Crescenzi usesablendof historical andempirical analysis to show how reputations matter in world politics, demonstrating that over time and across the globe, reputations for conflict exacerbate crises, while reputations for cooperation and reliability make future cooperation more likely.

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 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.

scholarly journals In search of enemies: Donald Trump’s populist foreign policy rhetoric

Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 026339572093537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonny Hall
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
New Perspective

This article asks how Donald Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric during his presidential campaign and presidency has affected US foreign policy in the area of overseas counterterrorism campaigns. Looking at two case studies – the May 2017 Arab Islamic American Summit and the US role in the counter Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) campaign, it is argued that Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric has failed to accurately describe or legitimate his administration’s counterterrorism strategy, as per the conventional wisdom. Instead, Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric has largely been aimed at creating a sense of crisis (as populism requires) to mobilise his domestic base. In making this argument about the purpose of Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric, not only does the article contribute a new perspective to the extant literature on elections, rhetoric, and US foreign policy, but also to the burgeoning scholarship on governing populists and their foreign policies. Although these findings could be unique to Trump, the article’s novel framework – combining International Relations and populism scholarship to elaborate on how the foreign arena can be used to generate a state of perpetual crisis – can hopefully be applied in other contexts.

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.

scholarly journals Oliver Tambo’s International Policy: Unique Features of the South African Foreign Policy Process and Personality Factor

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-301
Author(s):  
Alexandra Alexandrovna Arkhangelskaya
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
World Politics ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
External Representation ◽  
Personality Factor ◽  
Leading Role

The aim of the work is to develop an understanding of the role of Oliver Tambo as the actual head of the foreign policy department of South Africa during the period of implementation of the policy of apartheid and the process of decolonization of the African continent. The author’s thesis is that the African National Congress (ANC) foreign policy during the period of South Africa’s activities as a state supporting racial segregation was of the nature of external representation. The development of foreign policy was identical to the formation of a new state. The uniqueness of the analyzed situation is expressed in the fact that for the first time in history, international relations were established not only by a party that does not politically agree with state ideology, but also does not show its loyalty to any political blocs. The theses presented by Oliver Tambo in the conditions of the Cold War were democratic, consistent with the principles of civil choice and were not identified as the need for armed confrontation. It is these aspects that enabled the transition of power to the radical majority to avoid prolonged civil wars or conflicts involving international armed groups. The basis of the methodology is the understanding of the international process during the liberation of Africa and the choice of allies for this process by representatives of the leading world powers. The author uses the historical method and the method of direct oppositions of the position of Oliver Tambo and a significant number of ideological proposals from the leading world powers of the time under investigation. The article shows that the activities of Oliver Tambo fully comply with the regulations and traditions in the performance of their functions by the foreign affairs ministries. The author argues that the leading role of the ANC and O. Tambo in particular is to ensure the preservation of stability in the socioeconomic development of South Africa with the transit of power in the 1990s and the preservation of the pace of development of South Africa in the 2000s. The work examines the period from the appointment of O. Tambo to the post of Secretary General of the ANC to his death. It is noted that, in addition to the revealed features of O. Tambo’s activities for South Africa for the general theory of international relations, the above facts showed how to build cooperation with non-institutional actors in world politics.

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