5. Discourse analysis, post-structuralism, and foreign policy

What the paper says

This chapter provides an introduction to how discourse analysis can be used to study foreign policy. In the study of international relations, discourse analysis is associated with post-structuralism, a theoretical approach that shares realism’s concern with states and power, but differs from realism’s assumption that states are driven by self-interest. It also takes a wider view of power than realists normally do. Post-structuralists hold that states, and other political entities, strive to uphold particular visions of themselves and that they do so through policy discourses. Foreign policy discourse plays a crucial role in the construction of these visions as it draws a line between the state and what makes up its identity on the one hand, and that which is different from, and outside the scope of, the state on the other. Taking poststructuralist assumptions to the study of foreign policy implies a focus on the way that foreign policy decisions are legitimated or undermined within the wider public sphere. Epistemologically and methodologically, to understand foreign policy as discourse implies analysis of texts, and this chapter lays out the most important insights and challenges that come with this form of analysis.