Ideology is so powerful it makes us believe that war is rational, despite both its brutal means and its devastating ends. The power of ideology comes from its intimate relation to language: ideology recruits all semiotic modalities, but language is its engine-room. Drawing on Halliday’s linguistic theory – in particular, his account of the “semiotic big-bang” - this book explains the latent semiotic machinery of language on which ideology depends. The book illustrates the ideological power of language through a study of perhaps the most significant and consequential of our ideologies: those that enable us to legitimate, celebrate, even venerate war, at the same time that we abhor, denounce and proscribe violence. To do so, it makes use of large multi-register corpora (including the British National Corpus), and the reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Australian, US, European, and Asian news sources. Combining detailed text analysis with corpus linguistic methods, it provides an empirical analysis showing the astonishing reach of our ideologies of war and their profoundly covert and coercive power.

"Instead of proposing another theory of war, their goal is a more modest one of raising the theoretical consciousness of historians. Specifically, they argue that '1) ideology does influence theory, 2) historians do have ideologies as well as theories . . . about which they are not always conscious or consistent, and 3) we can better understand, compare, and evaluate what historians are saying when we comprehend their ideological and theoretical perspectives.' They attempt then, to classify historical interpretations of war according to their ideological/ theoretical orientations, however covert." --Perspective "Nelson and Olin .. . are concerned with enhancing history's social utility by advancing its capacity to produce generalizations that can explain or predict events and are subject to empirical testing. Their exploration of historical generalization focuses on an issue itself of the highest importance, the causes of war; but their aim is also to create a model for historical generalization applicable to other issues. They argue that to understand generalizations in history, one must recognize their roots in theory, and that historians' theories in turn proceed from their own ideologies. To demonstrate, they survey theories about the causes of war that have come out of conservative, liberal, and radical ideologies. . . . any historian will profit from this rigorous approach to the problem." --Choice "Learned and suggestive, this book clarifies much of what is already known, and points toward new ways of understanding."--Library Journal

"Instead of proposing another theory of war, their goal is a more modest one of raising the theoretical consciousness of historians. Specifically, they argue that '1) ideology does influence theory, 2) historians do have ideologies as well as theories . . . about which they are not always conscious or consistent, and 3) we can better understand, compare, and evaluate what historians are saying when we comprehend their ideological and theoretical perspectives.' They attempt then, to classify historical interpretations of war according to their ideological/ theoretical orientations, however covert." --Perspective "Nelson and Olin .. . are concerned with enhancing history's social utility by advancing its capacity to produce generalizations that can explain or predict events and are subject to empirical testing. Their exploration of historical generalization focuses on an issue itself of the highest importance, the causes of war; but their aim is also to create a model for historical generalization applicable to other issues. They argue that to understand generalizations in history, one must recognize their roots in theory, and that historians' theories in turn proceed from their own ideologies. To demonstrate, they survey theories about the causes of war that have come out of conservative, liberal, and radical ideologies. . . . any historian will profit from this rigorous approach to the problem." --Choice "Learned and suggestive, this book clarifies much of what is already known, and points toward new ways of understanding."--Library Journal

This volume examines the cultural and ideological dimensions of the Cold War in Turkey. Departing from the conventional focus on diplomacy and military, the collection focuses on Cold War's impact on Turkish society and intellectuals. It includes chapters on media and propaganda, literature, sports, as well as foreign aid and assistance.

Winner, 2023 Joseph Fletcher Prize for Best Edited Book in Historical International Relations, History Section, International Studies Association Ideology drives American foreign policy in ways seen and unseen. Racialized notions of subjecthood and civilization underlay the political revolution of eighteenth-century white colonizers; neoconservatism, neoliberalism, and unilateralism propelled the post–Cold War United States to unleash catastrophe in the Middle East. Ideologies order and explain the world, project the illusion of controllable outcomes, and often explain success and failure. How does the history of U.S. foreign relations appear differently when viewed through the lens of ideology? This book explores the ideological landscape of international relations from the colonial era to the present. Contributors examine ideologies developed to justify—or resist—white settler colonialism and free-trade imperialism, and they discuss the role of nationalism in immigration policy. The book reveals new insights on the role of ideas at the intersection of U.S. foreign and domestic policy and politics. It shows how the ideals coded as “civilization,” “freedom,” and “democracy” legitimized U.S. military interventions and enabled foreign leaders to turn American power to their benefit. The book traces the ideological struggle over competing visions of democracy and of American democracy’s place in the world and in history. It highlights sources beyond the realm of traditional diplomatic history, including nonstate actors and historically marginalized voices. Featuring the foremost specialists as well as rising stars, this book offers a foundational statement on the intellectual history of U.S. foreign policy.

How do ideologies shape international relations in general and Middle Eastern countries' relations with the United States in particular? The Clash of Ideologies by Mark L. Haas explores this critical question. Haas argues that leaders' ideological beliefs are likely to have profound effects on these individuals' perceptions of international threats. These threat perceptions, in turn, shape leaders' core security policies, including choices of allies and enemies and efforts to spread their ideological principles abroad as a key means of advancing their interests. Two variables are particularly important in this process: the degree of ideological differences dividing different groups of decision makers ("ideological distance"), and the number of prominent ideologies that are present in a particular system ("ideological polarity"). The argument is tested in four case studies of states' foreign policies, primarily since the end of the Cold War: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. As the argument predicts, ideological differences in these cases were a key cause of international conflict and ideological similarities a source of cooperation. Moreover, different ideological groups in the same country at the same time often possessed very different understandings of their threat environments, and thus very different foreign policy preferences. These are findings that other prominent international relations theories, particularly realism, cannot explain. Clash of Ideologies goes beyond advancing theoretical debates in the international relations literature. It also aims to provide policy guidance on key international security issues. These prescriptions are designed to advance America's interests in the Middle East in particular, namely how U.S. leaders should best respond to the ideological dynamics that exist in the region.

How do leaders perceive threat levels in world politics, and what effects do those perceptions have on policy choices? Mark L. Haas focuses on how ideology shapes perception. He does not delineate the content of particular ideologies, but rather the degree of difference among them. Degree of ideological difference is, he believes, the crucial factor as leaders decide which nations threaten and which bolster their state's security and their own domestic power. These threat perceptions will in turn impel leaders to make particular foreign-policy choices. Haas examines great-power relations in five periods: the 1790s in Europe, the Concert of Europe (1815–1848), the 1930s in Europe, Sino-Soviet relations from 1949 to 1960, and the end of the Cold War. In each case he finds a clear relationship between the degree of ideological differences that divided state leaders and those leaders' perceptions of threat level (and so of appropriate foreign-policy choices). These relationships held in most cases, regardless of the nature of the ideologies in question, the offense-defense balance, and changes in the international distribution of power.