Suchergebnisse

The file associated with this record is under a 12-month embargo from publication in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The full text may be available through the publisher links provided above. ; This article approaches the subject of the global recognition of the term 'Normative Power Europe' in external energy governance by engaging with the concept of strategic narratives. The article considers reactions to the European Union (EU) as a normative energy actor within a tripartite scheme of strategic narrative formation, projection and reception. The definition of a narrative suggests the presence of an actor, an action, a goal or intention, a scene and instrument. Those were identified for the emerging 'Sustainable Energy Europe' narrative and tested in one empirical case study: Twitter communications surrounding the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2013. In its method, our analysis is among the first to explore empirically the EU's social media communication efforts. Answering a call for richer methodologies, which view social media data not as 'quantitative data, rather qualitative data on a quantitative scale', our analysis uses an original methodology and codes the Twitter data using a nuanced qualitative framework. ; Peer-reviewed ; Post-print

During the past decade, we have witnessed a transformation in the role played by China in international climate negotiations, which has provoked increasing academic and policy interest. While most of the current research focuses on normative or empirical analyses of policies, this article provides a comprehensive study of China's climate strategic narratives on both the systematic and national levels. Theoretically, this article situates itself in the 'narrative turn' in international relations. We develop an analytical framework that combines theoretical insights stemming from the strategic narrative with our own identification of the unique features of China's discourse context. We apply this to China's climate strategic narratives by examining China's climate 'discourse coalition', which consists of the government, the epistemic community, and the official media. In doing so, we add to the current research that mainly focuses on the mass media. Methodologically, we critically examine four different sources of China's climate strategic narratives, ranging from leaders' speeches to media reports. This data is triangulated with 21 semi-structured interviews. Overall, we identify three phases of China's climate strategic narratives. On a system level, the strict division between developed and developing countries has been replaced by the narrative of 'a community of a shared future of mankind'; while on the national level, China as the victim of 'ecological imperialism' has given way to the new 'torchbearer' narrative. This research also contributes to a broader understanding on China's domestic politics and its position in global governance. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is viewed by most as symbolic of a new era of Chinese initiative and ambition. But while much attention has focused on how the BRI fits into China's—and specifically Xi Jinping's—grand narrative of national rejuvenation, less has been said about regional narratives—that is, the narratives of China's target audiences. Toward addressing this oversight, I consider the case of Singapore in relation to BRI. Specifically, I give attention to strategic narratives that offer analytic windows into the complex relationships being negotiated between China and Southeast Asian states. Strategic narratives, as instruments of policy, also play roles in constructing the strategic space in which BRI enters, with implications for the opportunities and constraints faced by China in Southeast Asia. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

This article analyses the strategies, goals and impact of the Confucius Institutes (CIs). It examines CIs as an important tool in China's public diplomacy, employed by its government to communicate specific strategic narratives about China to foreign publics, and, in so doing, increase China's soft power. Based on empirical data from CIs in different parts of the world, the article demonstrates that the impact of CIs is hampered both by political/ideological concerns and by a number of practical issues. It is argued that CIs do not present the 'real' China to the world, but rather a 'correct version' of it, which in turn limits their ability to project China's strategic narratives effectively and increase its soft power.

"This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained or lost in thirteen contributing nations. Public attitudes in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe towards the use of military force were greatly shaped by the cohesiveness and content of the strategic narratives employed by national policy-makers. Assessing the ability of countries to craft a successful strategic narrative, the book addresses the following key areas: 1) how governments employ strategic narratives to gain public support; 2) how strategic narratives develop during the course of the conflict; 3) how these narratives are disseminated, framed and perceived through various media outlets; 4) how domestic audiences respond to strategic narratives; 5) how this interplay is conditioned by both events on the ground, in Afghanistan, and by structural elements of the domestic political systems.This book will be of much interest to students of international intervention, foreign policy, political communication, international security, strategic studies and IR in general"--

"This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained or lost in thirteen contributing nations. Public attitudes in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe towards the use of military force were greatly shaped by the cohesiveness and content of the strategic narratives employed by national policy-makers. Assessing the ability of countries to craft a successful strategic narrative, the book addresses the following key areas: 1) how governments employ strategic narratives to gain public support; 2) how strategic narratives develop during the course of the conflict; 3) how these narratives are disseminated, framed and perceived through various media outlets; 4) how domestic audiences respond to strategic narratives; 5) how this interplay is conditioned by both events on the ground, in Afghanistan, and by structural elements of the domestic political systems. This book will be of much interest to students of international intervention, foreign policy, political communication, international security, strategic studies and IR in general"--

The armed conflict that has erupted in Ukraine in 2014 has been affecting the way the states involved interact and how they seek to implement certain narratives in a new regional political context. While Russia has taken a more assertive stance in its neighbourhood through a narrative that seeks to contradict Western values promoted by the European Union (EU), the latter has shown some difficulty in presenting a coherent narrative in the face of developments over the past five years. In this sense, this article proposes to analyse the EU-Russia interaction, using as a case study the incident involving the crash of the Malaysia Airlines civil aircraft MH17. The analytical perspective combines elements of Role Theory - which here focuses on the interaction of states on the basis of certain expectations regarding their internal (national) and external (regional/international) roles - and Strategic Narratives. The differences between issue narratives (including regarding the Bellingcat Investigation Team narrative), system narratives and identity narratives are explored. The argument presented here is that the externalization of the EU issue narrative has emerged in two distinct ways - one more moderate in its official stance as an institution; another more assertive from the point of view of the work done by the East Stratcom Task Force (EATF). This ends up creating some dissonance in the way the European Union designs its narrative, and misalignment with the EU's narrative identity as a role state. ; FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a ...

Modern military training exercises often include an information warfare component. Combat manoeuvres and weapon tests may be combined with large-scale information operations, including attempts at mass deception and cultivation of fear via strategic uses of narratives in media. The ways in which fear is constructed in strategic narratives deserve more detailed discursive analysis. In this article, the authors use the largest recent Russian war games on NATO's eastern borders, the 'Zapad 2017' military exercise, as an example to show how to interpret fear narratives. They identify and analyse three strategic narratives that were formulated by Russian official spokespeople in relation to the exercise and uncover some of their underlying meaning-making tendencies: the logic of antithesis, affirmation through negation and the rhetoric of moral victimhood. Their analysis sheds new light on the uses of fear discourses that are more sophisticated and indirect than straightforward threats or (rhetorical) demonstrations of power to inflict damage.

The article deals with the problem of media displaying strategic narratives in the context of the domination of the antagonistic discourse in the relations between Russia and the West. The issue is becoming ever more urgent since the conflict component is being intensified on the global stage, which prompts the eagerness of a number of countries to impose their interpretation of what is happening as the only correct version, by means of promoting public agreement. On the example of several foreign online media the specific features of the narrative of confrontation are shown. Its structural elements are indicated, its particular properties are revealed. It is argued that the content of the constructed narrative is accusatory rhetoric, lying on the plane of foreign policy interstate relations. Several models of media representation of strategic narratives are characterized. The narrative of confrontation is revealed to have involved, besides the states and political leadership, people criticizing government, as the oppressed. It is emphasized that the main tool for constructing the narrative of confrontation is the use of discursive practices of constructing the "Other", characterized by negative and evaluative semantics, which actualizes the image of the "alien" as an external enemy. Some topics are defined as the "framework" of the narrative in question; due to significant differences in the interpretation of events related to them, they sharpen the contradictions with the "Other" as with the discursive target. It was found that important conditions favorable to the functioning of the narrative of confrontation in the media are the elitist-official nature of the majority of news, as well as the declaration of the information war. It is concluded that the reliance on the same strategic narratives in journalistic materials acts as a factor of discursive limitation of the spectrum of evaluations of socially significant events, phenomena and processes, and the state of conflict of interpretations intensifies the antagonistic nature of the narratives broadcast in the media, activating the symbolic struggle between them for the exercise of discursive power.

Contributing to the 'narrative turn' in International Relations and offering an answer to the question 'What makes a strategic narrative efficient?', this article adds to the methodological theorization of the formation and projection phases of the narrative's lifecycle. We suggest that the impact of the constructed image in the narrative can be reinforced by the interplay of at least three projection properties: (1) content accentuation and priming, through iterations; (2) content contextualization, through historical and cultural resonance with the consumers' memories; and (3) content verbalization, through narrative tactics that evoke a range of the consumers' involved attitudes to the framed image. These properties, being intrinsic ingredients of the projected content, tend to enhance emotions. In our work, they get traction in the antagonistic narrative tailored by the Russian propaganda to depict Ukraine orientated towards the European Union (EU). The empirical case study analyses articles published on the Russian e-news platforms portraying the EU granting Ukrainians visa-free travel to the Schengen area in 2017, a milestone in Ukraine–EU relations. We define Russia's narrative, created in reaction to this event, as antagonistic and consider it to be a precursor of the aggressive narrative crafted/employed by Russia to justify its 2022 military assault on Ukraine's sovereignty.

Contributing to the 'narrative turn' in International Relations and offering an answer to the question 'What makes a strategic narrative efficient?', this article adds to the methodological theorization of the formation and projection phases of the narrative's lifecycle. We suggest that the impact of the constructed image in the narrative can be reinforced by the interplay of at least three projection properties: (1) content accentuation and priming, through iterations; (2) content contextualization, through historical and cultural resonance with the consumers' memories; and (3) content verbalization, through narrative tactics that evoke a range of the consumers' involved attitudes to the framed image. These properties, being intrinsic ingredients of the projected content, tend to enhance emotions. In our work, they get traction in the antagonistic narrative tailored by the Russian propaganda to depict Ukraine orientated towards the European Union (EU). The empirical case study analyses articles published on the Russian e-news platforms portraying the EU granting Ukrainians visa-free travel to the Schengen area in 2017, a milestone in Ukraine–EU relations. We define Russia's narrative, created in reaction to this event, as antagonistic and consider it to be a precursor of the aggressive narrative crafted/employed by Russia to justify its 2022 military assault on Ukraine's sovereignty.

There is a significant 'action gap' between what scientists argue is necessary to prevent potentially dangerous climate change and what the government, industry and public are doing. This paper argues that a coherent strategic narrative is key to making meaningful progress. It does this by first analysing a number of narratives which have been used to try and create audience buy-in on the need for action on climate change, and those that argue that no action needs to be taken. A framework is then proposed for how compelling and unifying strategic narratives on climate change might be constructed. It is suggested that the unifying strategic narrative could address the complex range of actors who need to be engaged, provide a coherent explanation for government strategy, and harness the drivers of behavioural change needed to meet the challenge. Research into climate change strategic narratives is nascent, but the authors believe that there is much to be gained from pursuing and intensifying this research.