ABSTRACT
The premise of this volume is that language constitutes and maintains the context in which international politics occurs. Language is therefore political. It expresses and produces power in the course of representing the "realities" according to which we live and make choices. But just how much of a difference does paying attention to this language-power nexus make for understanding particular international political behaviors and outcomes? In this essay, I make the case that it can matter a lot. In particular, I explore the puzzle of how the Suez Crisis was resolved among the western allies without even the threat of violence. Scholars have long struggled to understand that outcome and have only arrived at partial and incomplete explanations. Yet, as I argue here, when those partial explanations are embedded in a broader account that is attentive to the language-power nexus, it becomes possible to finally gain satisfying purchase on this previously intractable puzzle.
