Warring with Words

Narrative and Metaphor in Politics

Michael Hanne, William D. Crano, Jeffery Scott Mio

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781848725676
• eBook ISBN: 9781317689195
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Scholars in many of the disciplines surrounding politics explicitly utilize either a narrative perspective or a metaphor perspective (though rarely the two in combination) to analyze issues -- theoretical and practical, domestic and international -- in the broad field of politics. Among the topics they have studied are:

• competing metaphors for the state or nation which have been coined over the centuries in diverse cultures;
• the frequency with which communal and international conflicts are generated, at least in part, by the clashing religious and historical narratives held by opposing groups;
• the cognitive short-cuts employing metaphor by which citizens make sense of politics;
• the need for political candidates to project a convincing self-narrative;
• the extent to which the metaphors used to formulate social issues determine the policies which will be developed to resolve them;
• the failure of narratives around the security of the nation to take account of the individual experiences of women and children.

This volume is the first in which eminent scholars from disciplines as diverse as social psychology, anthropology, political theory, international relations, feminist political science, and media studies, have sought to integrate the narrative and the metaphor perspectives on politics.

It will appeal to any scholar interested in the many ways in which narrative and metaphor function in combination as cognitive and rhetorical instruments in discourse around politics.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1 An Introduction to the “Warring with Words” Project
• 2 Mind, Story, and Society: The Political Psychology of Narrative
• 3 Governing Spirits: Body Politic Scenarios and Schemas in the French Revolution Debate
• 4 The Politics of the Past: The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations
• 5 On Narrative, Metaphor and the Politics of Security
• 6 A Conversation with Mark Danner
• 7 Metaphors of International Cooperation
• 8 From Saving Private Ryan to Building Team America: US Presidential Oratory and the Art of Interpellation
• 9 Nation Building Through Historical Narratives in Pre-Independence India: Gandhi, Nehru, Savarkar, and Golwalkar as Entrepreneurs of Identity
• 10 Responses to Metaphors in Politics: Continued Explorations of the Metaphor Extension Hypothesis
• 11 Cognitive Coherence in Politics: Unifying Metaphor and Narrative in Civic Cognition
• 12 Useful Strategies in the War of Words
• Index