ABSTRACT
This chapter studies both conflictual and cooperational journey metaphors for international relations: everything from descriptions portraying international relations as numerous dead-end tracks to descriptions of international relations as presenting a wide variety of pathways in the direction of an attainable goal. After sketching associations that we attach to journeying and paths 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 traveling towards a destination. In addition to demonstrating how journey metaphors work in practice, it analyzes recommendations that these metaphors carry with them. It outlines policy choices that seem appropriate in the context of international roads and routes – both along the conflictual lines of choosing the overtaking lane for faster countries and in the cooperational version of helping each other along the path of nonviolence or the democratic road.
