ABSTRACT
The two previous chapters have shown how, firstly, the US–British relationship has alternatingly been portrayed as a ‘friendship’ and a ‘partnership’ in the British official foreign policy discourse since 1945 and, secondly, these representations were largely reflected in diplomatic practices both at the front and the back stage of the international political scene. In this chapter and the next, I examine whether these insights are equally applicable to the study of amicable relationships between other states, also in cases where representations of ‘partnership’ and ‘friendship’ have been less clearly articulated and consistent than in the US–British case, and where everyday practices are more low-key. Here I focus mainly on how Britain and the British–Norwegian relationship has been portrayed in Norwegian parliamentary debates since 1945, with a view to examining (in chapter eight), whether these are reflected at the level of diplomatic practice.
