A Comparative Approach to Foreign Policy Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This chapter presents the study's approach to the systematic comparison of foreign policy discourses. This is achieved by focussing on patterns of argumentation which are dissected in two dimensions: firstly, in political science terms (foreign policy role conceptions) and, secondly in linguistic terms (argumentative frames). In this way, the system of categories presented here accounts for arguments in support of an entire spectrum of role conceptions ranging from isolation to global leadership, “measuring” not only whether a country utters a role conception, but also how this is argued for and how frequently this is done in relation to other roles present in the framing. The chapter also presents the selection criteria for official speeches and interviewees on which the main analysis (Chaps. 5 and 6) is based.