ABSTRACT
This chapter studies both cooperational and conflictual family metaphors for international relations: everything from descriptions portraying international relations as pleasant interactions among state kin to descriptions of international relations as bitter feuds or troubled marriages. After sketching associations that we attach to families 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 family encounters. In addition to demonstrating how family metaphors work in practice, it analyzes recommendations that these metaphors carry with them. It outlines policy choices that seem appropriate among international relatives, parents, partners and siblings – both in the cooperational context of choosing to participate in a well-functioning economic union, for example, and along the conflictual lines of struggling in an abusive postcolonial relationship.
