Framing Foreign Policy in India, Brazil and South Africa

This book analyses the India, Brazil, South Africa Dialogue Forum
(IBSA), focusing on the communalities and differences in the way foreign policy
is conceptualized in its member states. Utilizing 83 interviews with foreign
policy makers and experts, as well as the analysis of 119 foreign-policy
speeches, the author traces key shifts in official foreign policy discourse. In
order to evaluate the degree of support for key IBSA Dialogue Forum concepts
within national discourse, the author also examines the interplay between
official and broader societal discourses on foreign policy. This analysis
combines political science factors (foreign policy role conceptions) with
linguistic factors, thus enabling a qualitative and quantitative comparison of
different framings of foreign policy. Extensive empirical material collected
during six months of field research in India, Brazil and South Africa allows
the author to present a differentiated account of their alleged like-mindedness.