Browsing by Author "Hirvi, Outi"

The objective of the research is to study how the geopolitical situation during and after the Cold War can be distinguished in the national security strategies and discourses of the United States of America. The end of the Cold War has been understood as a turning point in the study of geopolitics. This represent a transition to an era where the influence and meaning of individual states has diminished, and the world has moved into the era of globalization. The objective of the study is to determine how these changes can be detected in the foreign policy of the United States and the geopolitical discourses. Other specific research questions include how the United States perceives itself in world politics during and after the Cold War and how the difference is visible in the comparison of the national security documents and the public speeches of the presidents. The data that has been chosen for the study represents the National Security Strategies of the United States from the years 1950, 1987, 2000 and 2010. These documents are compared to the State of the Union Addresses from the corresponding years. The research method that is used is critical discourse analysis, which is used with traditional discourse analysis to reveal the power relations behind the discourses. Tabulation is used in the quantitative analysis to study the effects of globalization in the vocabulary. The changes in the discourses and highlighting different values indicate that alternating political goals transform the discourses that are used. The effect of globalization is detected in the altered way of speaking about enemies and allies, about the organizations and alliances that states form and about the economy. The change in the position of the President is present in the documents especially through discourses and argumentation strategies. Compared to traditional and critical geopolitical studies, the documents indicate that the research tradition should place more emphasis on the economy and how it has affected international relations and international security. The significance of economy as a pacifying element is highlighted in the results of the document. The documents indicate that the United States has strived to promote capitalism from the beginning of the Cold War which has created an interdependent political system, which makes conflicts between these states less likely. These changes are visible already before the end of the Cold War, and therefore this specific event does not represent a dramatic shift in the discourses.