Breaking the ice: Synthesizing discursive and cognitive approaches to foreign policy analysis.

摘要

Because of the fragmentation of the field of International Relations (IR) as a whole and the subfield of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) in particular, theoretical bridge-building and synthesis exercises have become more popular in recent scholarship. As such, this thesis takes as its objective the construction of a synthetic framework that incorporates the subjective phenomena studied by discourse analysis (rooted in postmodern and critical social/linguistic theory) and image theory (rooted in cognitive psychology) with regard to foreign policy. The synthesis speaks primarily to two broader issues. First, it brings together two levels of analysis, the intersubjective and the individual. Second, it allows for a more complete understanding of the process of decision making. Ultimately, the synthesis is premised on the notion that discourse and images are ontologically related such that they are engaged in a mutually constitutive relationship. The thesis concludes with a discussion of concerns for future research.