ABSTRACT
This chapter studies both cooperational and conflictual music metaphors for international relations: everything from descriptions portraying international relations as harmonious concerted action to descriptions of international relations as constantly sounding the voice of battle drums. After sketching associations that we attach to music 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 singing, playing instruments and dancing to music. In addition to demonstrating how music metaphors work in practice, it analyzes recommendations that these metaphors carry with them. It outlines policy choices that seem appropriate in the context of orchestras and bands – both in the cooperational version of skillfully using the different instruments of diplomacy and along the conflictual lines of provoking discord among nations.
