Strategic culture as a (discursive) institution: a proposal for falsifiable theoretical model with computational operationalization

Abstract

ABSTRACT In spite of theoretical and methodological diversity, the three generations of the strategic culture literature failed to overcome the main challenge of the approach – to account for change in behavior – due to two fallacies: Conceptualizing strategic culture as homogenous on the national level and continuous on the temporal level. However, the recent emergence of fourth generation in the literature offers prospects for overcoming them. The article presents a new, falsifiable theoretical model that pursues this aim. Thus, it begins with discussion of the promise and pitfalls of the fourth generation. Next, the alignment of strategic culture with new institutionalism is explored. This is followed by an introduction of discursive institutionalism and its potential for advancing the fourth-generation theory building. Then, a new falsifiable fourth-generation discursive-institutionalist strategic culture model is presented. The concluding section discusses the operationalization of the model via network analysis using social data science methods.