“Bringing FPA Back Home:” Cognition, Constructivism, and Conceptual Metaphor

Abstract

This article borrows the concept of ''metaphorical framing'' from cognitive linguistics and uses it to engage cognitive foreign policy analysis (CFPA) with social constructivism. By accounting for the mutual constitution of agents and social structures (on one hand), and the interaction of somatic and social meaning (on the other), metaphorical framing narrows the gap between cognitive and constructivist approaches and enriches them both. Though it claims a ''middle ground'' between idealism and materialism, constructivism ignores how the shared meanings that constitute actors are embodied, that is, produced by the evolved human body-brain and its situatedness in the world. Metaphorical framing ''fleshes out'' constructivism, allowing it to theorize the causal micro-foundations of constitutive effects. On the other hand, CFPA brackets the social dimension of meaning. Metaphorical framing accounts for the shared meanings that constitute actors. It explains how these meanings are instantiated in the mind, and how they shape reasoning. Accounting for intersubjectivity in decisionmaking, then, helps CFPA avoid reductionism. While narrowing the gap between two research traditions, metaphorical framing also advances theories of discourse, persuasion, rhetoric, emotion, and decisionmaking. Ultimately, metaphorical framing facilitates theoretically integrative, methodologically pluralist research on the nature and role of meaning in foreign policy.

A Foreign Policy Analysis Perspective on the Domestic Politics Turn in IR Theory

“…Over 20 years later, Houghton reiterated the point that FPA has a “persistent ‘minority status’ within IR: it has not fully engaged with the rest of the discipline and does not appear to fit anywhere within the framework of the contemporary debates going on in IR” (Houghton :26). More recently, Flanik agreed, “FPA is often treated indifferently by nonpractitioners and lacks its own chapter in most IR textbooks, which shoehorn it into approaches (realism and liberalism) that—at best—fit awkwardly with FPA's focus on decision makers” (Flanik :1). What explains this disconnect between FPA and IR?…”

“…Although FPA certainly does focus on agents, its conceptualization of agency incorporates agent–other interactions and agent–structure relations. FPA research draws heavily on social psychology (Flanik :2). Indeed, constructivists and FPA scholars often cite the same social psychological research (for example, Wendt ; Checkel ).…”

“…Generally, FPA research would challenge constructivism for privileging social structures over agency, despite its original aim to challenge (material) structural accounts. Flanik writes that “constructivists endorse co‐constitution in principle, but in practice, much constructivist works favors structure” (Flanik :9). Barnett offers a similar critique: “constructivism has tended to operate with an oversocialized view of actors, treating them as near bearers of structures and, at the extreme, as cultural dupes.…”

Malaysian and Nigerian Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective

“…Certain factors impinge on decision makers' capacity to make decisions, such as the fact that most times decisions are reached in a group context, or put differently agreement is required before a decision is arrived at without proper priming and framing. Another significant problem to this approach is the difficulty of defining the issues that require decision makers' attention (Flanik, 2011). This is obvious as a result of lack of or delay of information, while some information available is most times inaccurate.…”

Tracing the evolution of EU images using a case‐study of Australia and New Zealand

“…The paper positions its inquiry into EU images within the multidisciplinary scholarship of political psychology. In justifying an interdisciplinary analysis between the study of EU (foreign policy) images and cognitive linguistics, particularly conceptual metaphors, this article contributes to EU foreign policy scholarship, answering the call for ‘theoretically integrative, methodologically pluralist research on the nature and role of meaning in foreign policy’ (Flanik, , p. 423). Conceptual metaphors – a cognitive process in which a familiar concept is used to understand a more abstract one – are a means of categorizing and understanding foreign policies and international actors.…”