Author Description

?Pub Inc The end of the Cold War was followed by a seemingly endless period of transition, accompanied by academic literature and predictions of revolutions in military affairs, the demise of the state and the over-turning of Westphalian order. Absent from political discourse have been new metaphoric systems and frames that adapt to the changing realities of the international system. Our political conceptions remain dominated by key metaphoric systems such as the STATE AS A CONTAINER, and the STATE AS A PERSON. As several authors have suggested, we are facing a crisis of metaphor, and continue to understand new realities through traditional metaphoric concepts. This study investigates how successfully our metaphoric concepts are keeping pace with the changing realities of the international system. The study focuses on the role and implications of architectural metaphor in international political discourse, particularly as concerns the interventions conducted by the international community in the affairs of sovereign states. Nation-building is taken as the seminal intersection of a relationship between international relations, war and architecture. In juxtaposing the theory and practise of nation-building onto our dominant metaphoric systems, we can judge to what degree ideas and reality are converging or remain anachronous. It concludes that while our metaphors are roughly keeping pace with realities, that international relations theory is perhaps facing the same crisis as modern architecture.