Analogy change in international relations: The case of the return of the Cold War and the future of US—China relations

While foreign policy elites used to rely on historical analogies of power shifts to make sense of US-China relations, in recent years the main analogy has changed to the Cold War. This analogy change is puzzling.

First, the appropriateness of the analogy is not clear since many key Cold War features do not apply to US-China relations (consider e.g. China’s deep integration in global economics). Second, the recent deterioration of relations conforms well with expectations based on power shift analogies.

The aim of this research is to understand the phenomenon of analogy change, and specifically the rapid emergence of the Cold War analogy as the main reference point for US-China relations through three distinct stages.

First, the origins of the Cold War analogy are examined by incorporating conceptual history with digital humanities methods.

Second, to assess the appropriateness of the analogy, a comparative historical analysis of current US-China relations with US-Soviet relations is conducted.

Third, by drawing from theories on the role of history in IR, different explanations for analogy change are theorized and examined through a discourse analysis of Cold War discourses including interviews with drivers of the discourse.

The research is important, since it (1) addresses the puzzling case of analogy change (2) nuances our understanding about the emerging new global order and (3) encourages a responsible reliance on analogies in politics.