Most students of international politics assume that states’ foreign and security policies are calculated expressions of rational self-interest. Those of a “realist” bent privilege national interest and systemic pressures and constraints, such as the international distribution of power; “liberals” privilege the interests of powerful domestic actors; Marxists privilege the interests of economic classes; a few privilege the interests of specific individuals, primarily national leaders. Almost everyone assumes that narratives do not matter—that they are outcomes or epiphenomena of policy, not causally significant permissive conditions or constraints.
Krebs disagrees. In this fascinating and erudite book, he argues that no foreign or security policy is possible that is inconsistent with a dominant social narrative about what is important and what is prudent. A dominant narrative is “a realized hegemonic project,” “a social fact, not an object of active political challenge” (5).1 In “routine times,” debates about policy take place within the...