Essay in Political Science, Advanced Course, by Christoffer Hagström “The Bush Administration´s view on international cooperation and international law and political-theoretical traditions influence on the administration´s foreign policy” Supervisor: Jan Olsson The purpose of this paper is to analyze the American foreign policy, particularly with regard to international cooperation and international law. The two following research-questions are used in order to fulfil the purpose: (1) what is the Bush-administrations´s view of of the place for international cooperation and international law in American foreign policy?, and (2) how does the administration´s foreign policy correspond to dominant political-theoretical thought-traditions? The traditions used are: liberalism, realism and neoconservatism. The sources of the study mostly include literature and policy-documents. The author conducts qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the Bush-administration´s policy document National Security Strategy of the United States from March 2006. First the document is summarized based on different criteria followed by categorizations of ideas connected with realism, liberalism and neoconservatism in the document. In the quantative analysis value-words that are appropriate for the various traditions is chosen. The frequency of those words can be seen as indications of the influence of the traditions in the thoughts of the Bush-administration, but is mostly seen as a complement to the qualtative analysis. The main conclusions of the paper are that the Bush-administration most often wish to act according to international law and to cooperate with other actors internationally in the long run, it may even be necessary. In the short run however, it may act outside the parameters of international organizations and international law in order to accomplish foreign policy-goals. Matters related to the security of the American state and people is considered much more important than international cooperation and law. Liberalism seems to be the tradition that has most affected the Bush-administration´s foreign policy. It is followed shortly thereafter by realism and neoconservatism seems to have had the least influence on the the thought-traditions. All of the them has been active in the making of the foreign policy.

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Historically, the USA and Russian Federation have been two world powers that used to compete for a dominant power position in the bipolar world and spread influence on less developed countries. Relationships between the USA and Russia have mostly been complex and tense,with several escalation periods during the Cold War. Relationships between the USA and Russia in the 21st century can also be characterized by complexity and ambiguousness. The issues emerged in the process of power struggle created more tension between countries. This study aims to research framing Russia in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America issued from 2002 to 2022. The thesis also includes a history of USA-Russia relationships, and a historical review of the National Security Strategy issued since 1986. The theory that is chosen for the research is social constructivism. Within a single case-study design,I use the framing analysis method to apply to data gathered from the empirical materials –original texts of the National Security Strategy of the United States of America that are total seven within the mentioned period. Along with other conclusions, I found a tendency of negative framing after 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and the persuasive presence of such positive frames as partnership and development, and negative frames – threat, regress, economic impact and competitive nature of relationships between countries. The degree of attention of the USA towards Russia switched periodically from being reasonably even in four issues of the National Security Strategy to bringing Russia in focus. The USA brought Russia to the most attention in 2022 and was least concentrated on Russia in the 2021 report.