Discursive methods in policy analysis have tended to fall into one of two “camps”: either “agent-centered” approaches that treat discourse as strategic; or a “structure-based” approach that treats discourse as constitutive of identities. Similarly, gender-studies have struggled between approaches that treat women as politically-empowered agents, and (post)structural approaches in which discourse constitutes categories of masculinity and femininity, thus rendering “woman” problematic. The choice between Habermas and Foucault is usually presented as the crucial guide for one’s methodological orientation, yet researchers (particularly from gender studies, although not exclusively) have long recognized that this is a false choice. Therefore, methodological approaches are required that sufficiently account for both levels. Merging insights from gender studies, linguistics, and cognitive psychology, I argue for a dynamic approach to foreign policy analysis that makes use of conceptual metaphor theory. Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980, 1999) theory describes the use of metaphor both as purposeful, strategic rhetoric employed by actors, as well a deeply embedded aspect of language that gives rise to our ability to reason with a partly-constructed reality. My empirical work centers around a feminist discourse analysis of American foreign policy, using conceptual metaphor to make sense of argument as both agentic and structural. I add depth to the argumentative approach by showing how metaphor is strategically employed by policy-makers, which can be compared according to the sex of the speaker. This leads to an analysis of how reality is constructed by metaphorically equating abstract concepts to concrete objects, and the power relations these largely subconscious linguistic tools simultaneously create and hide. My focus is on “gendered” metaphors found in American foreign policy discourse (i.e. “sister democracies”), and the consequences not only for policy but also for their gendering effects, i.e. constituting appropriate categories of masculinity and femininity.
