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Since the 1990s, US policy in Azerbaijan has gone through several important shifts in the areas of energy, security and democracy promotion. How can we make sense of these decisive shifts in the orientation of US policy? In this paper, I identify major shifts in US policy in Azerbaijan based on relative weight given to energy, security and democracy issues. I divide US policy into four different time periods: 1994 to 2001, 2001 to 2007, 2007 to 2015 and 2015 to present. I analyze the changes that took place in US policy in the dimensions of energy, security and democracy. Then, I provide plausible explanations that can account for shifts in US policy. To do so, I utilize foreign policy analysis theory that focuses on domestic and international parameters that bring major foreign policy shifts. My explanation is not monocausal, and focuses on several factors that have influenced US policy in Azerbaijan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the alleged conspiracy by the U.S. and U.K. governments to invade Iraq in 2003, the national security state in both countries has been subjected to intense scrutiny by news organizations around the world. This scrutiny has been fueled in part by what some describe as the development of a “networked fourth estate” (Benkler 2011) involving ad hoc alliances between professional journalists, citizen journalists, hackers, and leakers. On the surface, this attention challenges radical conceptions of a “power elite” remaining in the shadows and impervious to accountability exercised through the media. Amid cultural chaos (McNair 2005) and seemingly ubiquitous displays of adversarial journalism without fear or favor, how far are powerful interests still able to control the agenda and manipulate outcomes? The article presents findings in relation to a single case study involving critical coverage of the national security state and a particular aspect of containment that emerged. It concerns how the controversies were resolved through an apparent spectacle of accountability that suggested a resolution eschewing the need for further scrutiny or sanction. The paper further contends that this element of story “closure” warrants renewed attention in the study of news framing and ideological power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]