Fairy Tales and International Relations

This book offers a critical engagement with contemporary IR textbooks via a folklorist approach. There are two parts of the folklorist approach developed, one addressing story structures via resemblances to two fairy tales, and the second engaging with the role of authors via framing gestures. In the first part, story structures are explored via Donkeyskin and Bluebeard stories which the book argues resemble some structures in textbooks that define how it is permissible to tell stories about IR. In the second part, the role of authors is explored via their framing gestures within a text, drawing on a number of fairy tales. This book will be of great interest to students and teachers of IR.