scholarly journals Practical Geopolitics in Cinematic Narratives of Marvel’s The Avengers Film Franchise

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-22
Author(s):  
Nikola Novak
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
International Politics ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Geographic Space ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Cinematic Narratives

This article implies that cinematic narratives project practical geopolitical discourses by using the example of Marvel Cinematic Universe’s success – The Avengers film franchise. The conceptualisation of imaginary threats in the films that follow the main storyline of the Avengers assembly, determined by the time and the geographic space, give those threats a symbolical manifestation that tends to overlap with the practical geopolitical notions of American foreign policy, as well as contemporary international politics. The interpretative textual analysis of the films’ narratives and their relations to world politics, hence, presents the central methodology of this article. The relation between those two has a capacity to transmit a subconscious message to blockbusters’ consumers about preferable practical geopolitical visions in contemporary world politics. Simply, the paper shows how cinematic narratives form an identity that is deeply securitised and able to capture the Zeitgeist of world’s politics.

On Critical Compassion in the Historical Judgment of Stalin

1981 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-28
Author(s):  
Hayward R. Alker
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
Historical Judgment

AbstractI write my comments on Von Laue's encomium to Stalin's "Tragic greatness" not as a specialist in Soviet affairs but as someone primarily concerned with humanizing the practice and possibilities of contemporary world politics. In reacting to his essay, first let me applaud Von Laue's effort to convey a "compassionate understanding" of Stalin's evil "greatness." Secondly, I shall comment critically on his standards for judging, or refraining from judging, Stalin's political greatness and moral responsibility. Thirdly, I shall address certain issues which these views raise when reapplied to the contemporary Soviet-American foreign policy context from which they originate.

2. American exceptionalism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney ◽  
Jeffrey Meiser
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
American Identity ◽  
American Military ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Identity Formations

This chapter examines how America can be described as different and exceptional. The belief in American exceptionalism is based upon a number of core realities, including American military primacy, economic dynamism, and political diversity. Understanding understanding American exceptionalism is essential for understanding not only U.S. foreign policy but also major aspects of contemporary world politics. The chapter first considers the meaning of exceptionalism, the critics of American exceptionalism, and the roots of American success. It then discusses the liberalism that makes the United States exceptional, along with peculiar American identity formations of ethnicity, religion, and ‘race’. It also explores the role of American exceptionality across the five major epochs of American foreign policy, from the nation’s founding to the present. It concludes by reflecting on the significance of the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 to the story of American exceptionalism, difference, and peculiar Americanism.

A Multilevel World and a Flat Worldview: A Realist and Progressive Synthesis for Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-452
Author(s):  
Vladimir Lukin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Contemporary World

Abstract This article is about the challenges that face Russia when reflecting on her obligations to the UN system, and on the limits of what is possible in trying to ‘master’ globalization. These challenges are not simply practical questions about the choice of foreign policy. They are deeper questions about worldview and how best to understand and navigate contemporary world politics. Several schemes have been presented to help identify and explain the foundations of our contemporary world order: geopolitical frameworks, civilizational ones, and some that are explicitly ideological. In engaging with and critiquing some of the best-known of these frameworks, the article makes the case for a worldview for Russia that is realist and progressive. This worldview recognizes the hierarchy of states and the logic of power politics in a UN-centered world, but it also moves beyond this pragmatic focus to consider the possibilities for a global dialogue of ‘pluralistic convergence’ and peaceful change that is facilitated by Russia.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 207-234
Author(s):  
Gregorio Bettiza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Faith Based

The conclusion has two main objectives. The first is to show how the International Religious Freedom, Faith-Based Foreign Aid, Muslim and Islamic Interventions, and Religious Engagement regimes form a broader American foreign policy regime complex on religion. The second objective is to reflect on the book’s wider implications for the study of religion in international relations and highlight areas for further research. This includes assessing the strength of the book’s theoretical framework in light of ongoing developments under the Trump administration; understanding better the changes occurring to the religious traditions and actors that America draws from and intervenes in around the world; investigating further how the American experience with the operationalization of religion in foreign policy relates and compares to similar policy changes taking place elsewhere; and reflecting more broadly on the implications for international order of the growing systematic attempt by the United States to manage and mobilize religion in twenty-first-century world politics.

Theorizing US Foreign Policy in a Postsecular World Society

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-54
Author(s):  
Gregorio Bettiza
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
World Society ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
American Values ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Micro Level

The chapter presents the book’s theoretical framework, which is grounded in a sociological approach to international relations (IR) theory. It suggests that to explain the causes and shape of the operationalization of religion in US foreign policy attention needs to be paid to the combined effects of macro-level forces represented by the emergence of a postsecular world society, and the mobilization at the micro-level of a diverse range of desecularizing actors who seek to contest the secularity of American foreign policy through the deployment of multiple desecularizing discourses. The chapter then conceptualizes four different processes of foreign policy desecularization—institutional, epistemic, ideological, and state-normative—which take place as religion increasingly becomes an organized subject and object of US foreign policy. Finally, it advances three hypotheses about the global effects of America’s religious foreign policies: they shape religious landscapes around the world in ways that reflect American values and interests; they contribute to religionizing world politics; and they promote similar policies internationally.

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.

Military Assistance for Pakistan

1954 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 738-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Spain
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Military Assistance ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
Specific Implementation

On November 1, 1953 the Karachi correspondent of the New York Times filed a dispatch reporting that discussions of a military alliance between Pakistan and the United States were about to begin. On February 25,1954 President Eisenhower announced that the United States had decided to give military assistance to Pakistan for the purpose of “strengthening the defensive capabilities of the Middle East.” With the President's statement a new and powerful force entered the international politics of South Asia and another landmark of American foreign policy was set up. In the four months which intervened between the newspaper report and the official announcement, most of the important trends and issues in contemporary world politics had touched on or been touched by the U. S.-Pakistan proposal. Internal and external affairs of a dozen countries were affected. Most of the instruments of diplomacy and propaganda were employed to support or oppose agreement. Of primary importance to the United States was the clear and specific implementation of our established policy of supporting regional alliances of free nations to “contain” Soviet aggression and to prevent further expansion. Because of the novelty of the area into which the policy was extended, the speed with which it was implemented, and the precision of the reactions of all parties, American military assistance for Pakistan constitutes an almost ideal case study of international relations in a world in which the movement of events has been greatly accelerated.

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