Jakub Eberle: Discourse and Affect in Foreign Policy. Germany and the Iraq War

Abstract

Foreign and security policy have long been removed from the political
pressures that influence other areas of policymaking. This has led to a
tendency to separate the analytical levels of the individual and the
collective. Using Lacanian theory, which views the subject as ontologically
incomplete and desiring a perfect identity which is realised in fantasies, or
narrative scenarios, this book shows that the making of foreign policy is a
much more complex process. Emotions and affect play an important role,
even where ‘hard’ security issues, such as the use of military force, are
concerned. Eberle constructs a new theoretical framework for analysing
foreign policy by capturing the interweaving of both discursive and affective
aspects in policymaking. He uses this framework to explain Germany’s often
contradictory foreign policy towards the Iraq crisis of 2002/2003, and the
emotional, even existential, public debate that accompanied it. This book
adds to ongoing theoretical debates in International Political Sociology and
Critical Security Studies and will be required reading for all scholars working
in these areas.