Myth and Narrative in International Politics
Interpretive Approaches to the Study of IR
Samenvatting
This book systematically explores
how different theoretical concepts of myth can be utilised to interpretively
explore contemporary international politics. From the international community
to warlords, from participation to effectiveness – international politics is
replete with powerful narratives and commonly held beliefs that qualify as
myths. Rebutting the understanding of myth-as-lie, this collection of essays
unearths the ideological, naturalising, and depoliticising effect of myths.
Myth and Narrative in
International Politics: Interpretive Approaches to the Study of IR
offers conceptual and methodological guidance on how to make sense of different
myth theories and how to employ them in order to explore the powerful
collective imaginations and ambiguities that underpin international politics
today. Further, it assembles case studies of specific myths in different fields
of International Relations, including warfare, global governance,
interventionism, development aid, and statebuilding. The findings challenge
conventional assumptions in International Relations, encouraging academics in IR and across a range of different fields
and disciplines, including development studies, global governance studies,
strategic and military studies, intervention and statebuilding studies, and
peace and conflict studies, to rethink ideas that are widely unquestioned by
policy and academic communities.
Specificaties
Inhoudsopgave
> Silences; Dvora
Yanow.- Introduction: Myth and
Narrative in International Politics; Berit
Bliesemann de Guevara.- PART I – THEORETICAL AND
METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS.- 1. Myth in International Politics: Ideological Delusion and Necessary Fiction; Berit
Bliesemann de Guevara.- 2. Beyond National
Policy-Making: Conceptions of Myth in Interpretive Policy Analysis and Their
Value for IR; Sybille
Münch.- 3. The Precipice of
Myth: Mythology/Epistemology; Robert
Cooke.- 4. Bringing Claude
Lévi-Strauss and Pierre Bourdieu Together for a Post-structuralist Methodology
to Analyse Myths; Catherine
Goetze.- 5. How to Study Myths:
Methodological Demands and Discoveries; Franziska Müller.- PART II – EMPIRICAL
EXPLORATIONS.- 6. Warlords and States:
A Contemporary Myth of the International System; Catherine
Goetze.- 7. Afghanistan and the
‘Graveyard of Empires’: Blumenberg, Under-complex Analogy and Basic Myths in International
Politics; Florian
P. Kühn.- 8. Mutually Implicated
Myths: The Democratic Control of the Armed Forces and Militarism; Katharine
Millar.- 9. Tales and Images of
the Battlefield in Contemporary Warfare; Alastair
Finlan.- 10. The Powerful Myth of International Community and the Imperative to Build States; Katarzyna Kaczmarska.- 11. Global Governance
and the Myth of Civil Society Participation; Charlotte Dany and Katja Freistein.- 12. Myths of the Near Future: Paris, Busan and Tales of Aid Effectiveness; Franziska Müller and Elena Sondermann.- 13. Organising Babylon: the Coordination of Intervention and the Denial of Politics; Stephan Hensell.- PART III – REFLECTIONS.- 14. Mythography: No
Exit, No Conclusion?; Michael Loriaux and Cecelia
Lynch</p>