ABSTRACT
This chapter studies both conflictual and cooperational game metaphors for international relations: everything from descriptions portraying international relations as zero-sum competition among states to descriptions of international relations as children's games or role-play. After sketching associations that we attach to games in general, it gives examples of expert usage relating to international relations: excerpts from IR theories, speeches of foreign policy leaders and media coverage of world news operating with the terms and logic of games and playing. In addition to demonstrating how game metaphors work in practice, it analyzes recommendations that these metaphors carry with them. It outlines policy choices that seem appropriate among international players, actors and competitors – both along the conflictual lines of fiercely trying to outdo other contestants in a survival game and in the cooperational context of playing the game of sovereign states according to mutually approved rules.
