Grand Strategy, Strategic Culture, Practice

Abstract

The article produces a model for empirical study of the security and defence policies of states, with a starting point in the literature on strategic culture (e.g. Gray, Klein, Johnston) and grand strategy (e.g. Kennedy, Posen, Kier). We identify two key problems with the literature. First, it only superficially touches base with the social sciences grouped around the concept of culture for a century, namely cultural anthropology and, to a lesser degree, sociology. The literature on strategic culture consequently operates with a reified concept of culture that is outdated elsewhere in the social sciences. Second, in sticking to a reified concept of culture, the literature has not (yet) come up with the kind of dynamic and specific framework for empirical analysis that we are looking for. Instead, it is bogged down in the debate begun in the 1950s on whether behaviour should or should not be treated as part of culture. In order to rectify this, we refashion the concept of strategic culture as a dynamic interplay of potential grand strategy, on the one hand, and specific practices such as doctrines, civil–military relations and procurement on the other. The key source of inspiration for this reconceptualization is the so-called ‘practice turn’ in anthropology and sociology (e.g. Bourdieu, Swidler, Schatzki).