THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN SELF IN RELATION TO VENEZUELAN OTHERS THROUGH U.S. FOREIGN POLICY DISCOURSES (2001-2019)

Date

2024-2-13

Author

Dinçer Akan, Deniz Pelin

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This thesis focuses on the inherent relation between foreign policy and identity formation through difference. By adopting the Poststructural international relations theory and discourse analysis methodology, this thesis aims to provide an alternative interpretation of U.S. foreign policy towards Venezuela during the leftist-populist administrations of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro by mainly focusing on the construction of American identity concerning various Venezuelan Others; Chávez and Maduro regimes as the dangerous Others, the Venezuelan people, and Juan Guaidó as friendly Others. Through an extensive reading of the foreign policy texts, the author determined three key events (2008, 2015, and 2019) as three crucial turning points in the relations between the U.S. and Venezuela. The key events coincided with the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, and Donald J. Trump. The discourse analysis of these three events (based on the hegemonic and basic discourses) explicitly exposed the symbiotic relation between the employment of discourses of danger with identity formation (including the constitutions of the American Self and the Venezuelan Others). It also provided the answer to how these constitutions enable specific foreign policy actions towards Venezuela while simultaneously making other actions unthinkable.

Subject Keywords

U.S. Foreign Policy, Discourse Analysis, Poststructuralism, American Identity, Venezuelan Politics

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/108404

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis