A Comparative Analysis of U.S. Foreign Policy and the Roles of Ideology, Narrative, and the State of Exception
Open Access
- Author:
- Baumgartner, Erin
- Area of Honors:
- Global and International Studies
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Lior Betzalel Sternfeld, Thesis Supervisor
Jonathan Eran Abel, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- United States
Chile
Afghanistan
Iraq
Operation Condor
War on Terror
Ideology
State of Exception
Foreign Policy
Military-Industrial Complex
9/11
Narrative
Comparative Analysis - Abstract:
- Within this comparative analysis, I will assess the role of intervention of the United States government in two carefully chosen case studies. The first concerns Latin America during the Cold War, with a focus on Operation Condor and the Chilean dictatorship. The second case will consider the War on Terror, specifically from its declared onset following 9/11 to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. My analysis will begin with a comprehensive description of both of these cases, as well as a preliminary look at how the cases were portrayed by the US government. I will then move onto an assessment of factors which, I will argue, establish strong parallels between the two cases. These factors include ideological binaries, ulterior motives, labelling of the narrative and double standards, media, and militarism and the CIA. I will bring these factors together to assert that they all comprise a paradigm which the US has operated within again and again to maintain its own economic prosperity and its status as global hegemon, regardless of the consequences. Finally I will examine the theory of the state of exception and apply it to the case studies at hand and to the general paradigm I see the US government employing. My analysis will end with an evaluation of the current state and situation of the countries involved in both of my case studies, express why an in-depth analysis of the paradigm I am arguing for is so important, and provide recommendations for how foreign policy can (and should) proceed differently in the future.