Discourse Analysis of Foreign Policy

Discourse analysis of foreign policy is an interpretive method that examines how language constitutes the identities, threats, and interests that make particular foreign policies appear necessary and legitimate. Rather than treating speeches as data to be counted, it asks how states represent themselves and others — friend and enemy, civilized and barbaric, self and threat — and how those representations enable and constrain policy. Associated with poststructuralist IR (David Campbell, Lene Hansen, whose Security as Practice (2006) offers a systematic framework), it shows that foreign policy and identity are mutually constituted through discourse.