Introduction

The relationship between identity and foreign policy is at the center of poststructuralism's research agenda: foreign policies rely upon representations of identity, but it is also through the formulation of foreign policy that identities are produced and reproduced. Understanding foreign policy as a discursive practice, poststructuralism argues that foreign policy discourses articulate and intertwine material factors and ideas to such an extent that the two cannot be separated from one another. It also argues that policy discourses are inherently social because policymakers address political opposition as well as the wider public sphere in the attempt to institutionalize their understanding of the identities and policy options at stake.