Construction of dominant geopolitical discourse in US foreign policy a case study of central Asia since 2001

Abstract

This thesis, taking Central Asia since 2001 as a case study, and deploying discourse analysis as its key research method, sought to examine the ways in which dominant geopolitical discourse on Central Asia has been constructed in the U.S. foreign policy against the backdrop of competing geopolitical visions of the leading institutions and intellectuals of the statecraft. The key argument put forward in the thesis has been that dominant geopolitical discourse on Central Asia in the U.S. foreign policy is what the leading institutions and intellectuals of statecraft are making of it in discursive practices. The analysis attempted in the thesis has shown that such geopolitical visions of the leading institutions and intellectuals of statecraft remain fluid, especially in times of geopolitical transition and reordering. Consequently it becomes rather difficult to exercise options or choices with regard to how Central Asia could possibly be approached, understood and analyzed, There is therefore no final, uncontested narrative of what Central Asia truly is or would truly become in the U.S. foreign policy in the years and decades ahead. newlineThis thesis has also made an attempt to evolve an analytical framework to understand the various factors and forces that help construct a dominant geopolitical discourse out of various competingnarratives. It has also examined the same construct by applying an alternative perspective . This study has shown that the so called national interest of the United States in Central Asia is in fact a multi-layered and complex category. The thesis argues that the dominant geopolitical discourse in the U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia under Bush since 2001 was constructed amidst plurality of visions in the statecraft. The War on terror discourse provided the non-Eurasian U.S. a larger rationale and opportunity for enlarging its geopolitical and military-strategic interests in Central Asia newline