Energy security under Obama

Abstract

This chapter reviews recent literature assessing and characterises how others see Barack Obama's foreign policy and its likely legacy by considering on the way any 'Obama doctrine' and its potential significance. Clearly, the assessments of academics, commentators and the media will have their own weight in contributing to Obama's legacy. The chapter argues that it is important to consider the ways in which the administration itself seeks to characterise its own foreign policy and its own foreign policy legacy. It explores constructions of the major successes and failures of his presidency, as well as the grounds upon which these evaluations are made. The chapter focuses on the efforts to situate his administration's record historically that include explicit and implicit comparisons with previous administrations and uses of temporal metaphors and other discursive figures. It also focuses on the wider importance of claims relating to time and history within the administration's efforts to shape its historical legacy.