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

Abstract

Foreign and security policy have long been removed from the politicalpressures that influence other areas of policymaking. This has led to atendency to separate the analytical levels of the individual and thecollective. Using Lacanian theory, which views the subject as ontologicallyincomplete and desiring a perfect identity which is realised in fantasies, ornarrative scenarios, this book shows that the making of foreign policy is amuch more complex process. Emotions and affect play an important role,even where ‘hard’ security issues, such as the use of military force, areconcerned. Eberle constructs a new theoretical framework for analysingforeign policy by capturing the interweaving of both discursive and affectiveaspects in policymaking. He uses this framework to explain Germany’s oftencontradictory foreign policy towards the Iraq crisis of 2002/2003, and theemotional, even existential, public debate that accompanied it. This bookadds to ongoing theoretical debates in International Political Sociology andCritical Security Studies and will be required reading for all scholars workingin these areas.