HISTORY TIMELINE ESSAY

History timeline Essay

History timeline Essay

IN THE DECADES FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II,

American foreign policy communication was dominated by the rhetorical forms demanded by the logic of the Cold War (Hinds & Windt, 1991). Because foreign policy rhetoric both reflects and shapes public values (Cherwitz, 1987; Dow, 1989; Hogan, 1985; Newman, 1975; Wander, 1984), this dominance was particularly important, as the rhetorical forms of the Cold War structured American thinking about the United States as a nation as well as its relationship to other countries. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, those rhetorical forms have lost most of their suasory force (Blumenthal, 1990). No new formulation of America's place in the world has succeeded the Cold War paradigm, and American foreign policy consequently has appeared to lose much of its former coherence. The Cold War provided a simplifying mechanism, or "orientational metaphor," that organized "a whole system of concepts with respect to one another" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1988), and allowed American interests to be easily communicated to and understood by the mass public (Hinds & Windt, 1991). We now lack that mechanism, which means that there is no simple, shared understanding of the priorities and preferred means for conducting international relations. In the absence of a definitive orientational metaphor ordering political reality, events are interpreted individually rather than as part of a cohesive and stable pattern.

This essay examines the ways in which two very different political actors, George Bush and Bill Clinton, attempted to construct a new foreign policy consensus by blending the rhetorical forms of the Cold War with other foreign policy metaphors. These hybrids have not proven persuasive as justifications for American actions in foreign policy.

FOREIGN POLICY DRAMAS

In focusing on the metaphors that order the political realities relevant to foreign policy, a dramatistic perspective is useful because that orientation concentrates on the interplay between a rhetorical act and the societal values which that act represents (Hollihan, 1986). As Hollihan notes, "foreign policy dramas situate events by providing credible historical accounts and visions of the future.... To win and sustain support, rhetorical dramas must be consistent and must corroborate people's beliefs and expectations regarding the fulfillment of dramatic form" (p. 379).

Dramas contain sets of what Ivie (1974) calls "vocabularies of motives," or justifications for action. For Ivie, these vocabularies are particularly important, for people do not respond to "objective facts," but to their images of situations. As Lippmann (1922) points out, definitions precede observations, not the other way around. With those definitions come judgments (White, 1981). Thus, each drama brings a unique interpretation of the American role in world affairs, and each interpretation entails both ideological and practical consequences. A drama will be persuasive to the extent that it appears to present an accurate picture of events as well as a plausible plan for action. Presidents will be seen as successful foreign policy actors to the extent that they espouse a persuasive ...