The paper claims that visual analyses can easily be integrated in IR theories such as identity theory which have been primarily working with text-based discourse analyses. By proposing an analytical framework for examining images (referring on Panovsky's model in arts) the paper asks how the persistence of pacifism can be understood in the German foreign policy discourse. The constitutive argument draws on images published on SPIEGEL covers between 2001 and 2013 on the war and the German military commitment in Afghanistan.
