ABSTRACT
This important text offers a full and detailed account of how to use discourse analysis to study foreign policy. It provides a poststructuralist theory of the relationship between identity and foreign policy and an in-depth discussion of the methodology of discourse analysis.
- Part I offers a detailed discussion of the concept of identity, the intertextual relationship between official foreign policy discourse and oppositional and media discourses and of the importance of genres for authors' ability to establish themselves as having authority and knowledge. Lene Hansen devotes particular attention to methodology and provides explicit directions for how to build discourse analytical research designs
- Part II applies discourse analytical theory and methodology in a detailed analysis of the Western debate on the Bosnian war. This analysis includes a historical genealogy of the Western construction of the Balkans as well as readings of the official British and American policies, the debate in the House of Commons and the US Senate, Western media representations, academic debates and travel writing and autobiography.
Providing an introduction to discourse analysis and critical perspectives on international relations, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of international relations, discourse analysis and research methodology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Part I|69 pages
The theory and methodology of discourse analysis
part Part II|113 pages
A discourse analysis of the Western debate on the Bosnian war
chapter 7|29 pages
Humanitarian responsibility versus ‘lift and strike'
Tracing trans-Atlantic policy discourses
chapter 8|28 pages
Writing the past, predicting the future
Travelers, realism, and the politics of civilization
chapter 9|28 pages
The failure of the West?
The evolution of the Genocide discourse and the ethics of inaction