Geographic Mental Maps and Foreign Policy Change

7The Mechanisms of Change: Communicative Interaction

In this chapter, I will explain how shared geographic mental maps change, namely by identifying the causal mechanisms involved in the process. Mechanisms do not trigger change, but rather they are “the things that are triggered by something else” (Guzzini, 2011: 337). Studying the mechanisms of change is fitting to our agent-centered approach. Identifying the mechanisms involved in changing decision makers’ mental maps contributes to generating more precise and intelligible explanations. Mechanisms have acquired several distinct meanings over the years (Hovi, 2004). Nevertheless, underlying all these diverse approaches to mechanisms is the emphasis on identifying clearly and coherently the ...