Czech Discourse on Missile Defense and National Interest

Abstract

The presented analysis empirically examines the Czech discourse on Missile
Defense (part one) and situates this object of study into the context of a
more theoretically and conceptually oriented (though with important
practical repercussions) discussion of the utility and possible uses of the
category of national interest (part two). The period spanning from January
2007 to August 2008 is investigated. In part one, two crucial dynamics are
investigated: first, we pose the question of how the issue got into the Czech
Republic in the first place and how the Czech government framed it;
second, we tackle the question of how the issue subsequently got exported
from the country and was presented as an international issue. We will
approach the internalisation of the issue by the means of a thematic
discourse analysis; the externalisation of the issue will be analysed through
the means of a content analysis. Additionally, the Czech societal debate
about the issue is examined through an analysis of metaphors. As for part
two, the findings are inserted into a procedural conceptualisation of
national interest in order to connect the theorisation of foreign and security
policy with its practice and to find out whether or not the issue can be
regarded to be in “the Czech national interest”. Three criteria of national
interest are employed: relevance, consensus, and external acceptability. As
the discussion makes clear, the issue in question has not been “in the Czech
national interest” as far as the framework used. The cardinal reason for
such an inference consists in the significant divergence between the
governmental interest, which was hegemonically securitised and
unreasonably presented as the alleged Czech national interest, and the
public interest, which consistently opposed the installation. Followingly, the
article ends with some concluding thoughts.