Competing Metaphors for International Relations

<p>This book examines how the thinking towards international relations of political leaders researchers the media and the public is fundamentally metaphorical in nature: the abstract and far away constantly made concrete and familiar through the imaginative rationality of metaphors. It delves into ten competing structural metaphors: international relations as natural selection as family dynamics as balancing operations as building and constructing as games and play as business and trade as journeys and paths as musical performances as health or sickness and as puzzles and riddles. Drawing attention to the important role of metaphors in grasping this field and providing explanations for its events and motives for its actors this study will appeal to scholars and students of International Relations and World Politics. For experts on metaphor theory or cognitive linguistics this book will offer practical examples and speculate on the concrete consequences of adopting different metaphorical schemes.</p>