Strategic Narratives Research Articles

Value creation through organizational storytelling: Strategic narratives in foreign government public relations

Governments use public relations to promote their interests in international venues like the United Nations. To understand how governments market their value in environments of elite competition, I compare Canadian, Irish, and Norwegian narratives while campaigning for seats on the Security Council. Results of a strategic narrative analysis suggest Ireland told the strongest stories, creating an authenticity as the ‘nation of storytellers’ that maximized its valuation. Norway failed to substantively articulate the motivation behind its foreign policy, likely impacting brand loyalty among stakeholders. Canada had the weakest storytelling, with self-referential narratives lacking a sense of care that discredited, and at times even contradicted, the mutuality of it serving on the council. I posit these varying storytelling approaches contribute to understanding the campaigns’ disparate ROIs. Contextualizing strategic narratives as value propositions expands the interdisciplinarity of government public relations scholarship at the nexus of international relations, public diplomacy, and nation branding. I conclude by operationalizing system, identity, and issue narratives to highlight how practitioners can maximize organizational value through wholistic storytelling.

Intelligence and operational warning: lessons from Ukraine

ABSTRACT This paper examines the challenges of operational analysis as displayed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Despite the tremendous success of strategic warning, analysts grossly over-estimated conventional Russian military capabilities and under-estimated the Ukrainians’ capability and will. Even after observing Russia’s operational capabilities and tactics, analysts again over-estimated Russia’s ability to secure Eastern Ukraine. This study finds that poor understanding of military campaigns is the result of six contributing factors. One, risk management requires tradeoffs based on competing priorities and finite resources inevitably creating blind spots. Two, there can be insufficient collection for operational details due to a focus on strategic requirements or tactical intelligence. Three, an insufficient number of analysts required to cover a breadth of topics leaving them susceptible to challenges like mirror-imaging or single source bias, culminates in poor analysis. Four, Russian and Western external and internal strategic narratives were filled with deception. Fifth, despite ‘need to share’ policies, information stovepipes continue to plague Western intelligence agencies. Finally, a lack of professional wargaming can lead to an analysis-centric view that ignores the valuable expertise of operators and logisticians. Each of these factors contributed to analysts’ poor understanding of the operational level of war in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Internarrativity beyond acceptance: strategic narrative reproduction and Taiwan's ‘Taiwan Can Help’ campaign in the U.S.

ABSTRACT A political actor's strategic narratives will be accepted if they appeal to the target audience's master narratives, but acceptance is not a singular outcome. By building on the internarrativity framework by examining the audience as a narrator and identifying distortions in meaning between two narrative tellings, this paper analyzes the ‘Taiwan Can Help’ campaign as a strategic narrative that was overtly accepted by the U.S. while still being distorted and constrained by the same master narratives that enabled acceptance. The U.S. audience's reproductions of Taiwan's narrative only preserved elements that affirmed its exceptionalist self-identity and threat perceptions while overlooking the particulars of Taiwan's pandemic response model that the original narrative emphasised. This research contributes to the understanding that the discursive environment constrains Taiwan's capability to reach its full potential in projecting substantial influence in US-Taiwan relations, addressing Taiwan's unequal predicament, and garnering political support.

National myths in library space: Case of Ukraine in wartime

Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine actualized the issue of the identity foundations of the people of Ukraine and countering hostile anti-Ukrainian narratives. The purpose of the study was to outline the activities of Ukrainian libraries on countering the spread of Russian national myths and narratives, disclose presented in library space of Ukraine complex of suitable for construction of the Ukrainian strategic narrative key ideas and meanings, which reflect the Ukrainian community's mythologized ideas about itself, its place in the world and its prospects. An anthropological approach, methods of systematization, critical discourse analysis, discussion, external and included observation are applied. Related to the documented historical and cultural heritage key meanings, reflecting the Ukrainian community's mythologized ideas about itself, its place in the world and its prospects, suitable for constructing the Ukrainian strategic narrative and providing the spiritual and value basis of the national idea of the people of Ukraine were defined. It was revealed that decolonization of the library information space, publishing, socio-cultural, and educational activities of Ukrainian libraries in the conditions of the Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine are aimed at debunking such Russian national myths and narratives, as myths about “one people” and “one cradle – the ancient Rus’ state”, “the Great Victory” and the Great Patriotic War, the USSR as a country of prosperity. It was proved that libraries' efforts are directed to the forming and strengthening the informational resilience of users, establishing nation-affirming values and meanings landmarks related to the struggle of the people of Ukraine for freedom, statehood and independence, to periods of national elevation (the Kyivan Rus’ age, the Lithuanian-Polish period, the Ukrainian State of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky), the life-giving force of folk traditions, the pattern of the National Renaissance, the dream of the European future of Ukraine. The obtained results will be useful in the development of state information policy, the politics of memory, and in the practical activities of libraries

From Positive to Negative Historical Statecraft: The Shifting Use of History in China’s Diplomacy

Abstract Typically, China has tried to use positive aspects of its history, such as its previous grandeur and its philosophical and cultural heritage, to guide its diplomatic strategic narratives – a kind of historical statecraft. However, this has largely failed to inspire international audiences. Analysis of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ regular press conferences over a twenty-year period reveals there is an observable seeping of more negative aspects of history into China’s diplomatic language during Xi Jinping’s second term. Negative history appears in China’s strategic narratives to highlight changes in the international order by reframing understandings of China and the nature of other major powers. Negative history of this type might afford Xi significant domestic legitimacy, as well as some international supporters, for its assertive articulations; at the same time, however, it reduces China’s ability to win over international audiences and positively disseminate its vision of international order.

Communication Strategies on Twitter: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

ABSTRACT While several studies have explored strategic communication in relation to military intervention, this study analyses communicative strategies in the context of military withdrawals and redeployments. We focus on the case study of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan to analyse which (and how) strategic narratives were discursively mobilised by the US administration on Twitter (now known as X) to seek public support and legitimacy for its operations. Findings suggest that key narratives of securitisation, national interest and responsibility were deployed through macro strategies of transcendence, bolstering, blaming and mitigation. We claim that while early representations of the war in Afghanistan were depicted as an unavoidable mission, the overarching discourse has now shifted to portrayals of the war being unsustainable and no longer needed by the United States.

The concept of strategic narrative in the system of strategic communications

The concept of strategic narrative in the system of strategic communications

Місце та структура конспірології в дискурсі коронаскептиків в Україні

The main objective of the study is to identify the place and structure of conspiracy theories in the communication of Ukrainian coronaskeptics. The methodology included content analysis of 200 videos from the 15 most popular YouTube channels of Ukrainian coronaskeptic bloggers published during the pandemic to identify conspiratorial messages. Message analysis was used to determine their consistency and their place in the overall narrative field. Discourse analysis was employed to define the roles of YouTube channel authors in shaping this field. The results revealed eight most common conspiratorial messages that are consistent with each other and form a single narrative field of a global conspiracy theory. Some of these messages are fundamental, while others are auxiliary. The findings suggest that conspiratorial messages play an important role in the communication of Ukrainian coronaskeptics: they are present in more than half of the analyzed videos, and some authors spread all identified messages. A significant portion of these messages is connected to the Russian strategic narrative and the emerging “sovereign citizens” movement. The significance of the study lies in better understanding the anti-vaccination discourse in Ukraine and creating a basis for developing a counter-narrative that will contribute to more effective combating disinformation and conspiracy theories in the Ukrainian media space.

ПУБЛИЧНАЯ ДИПЛОМАТИЯ КАК ИНСТРУМЕНТ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ВНЕШНЕЙ ПОЛИТИКИ ВАТИКАНА: АНАЛИЗ СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКОГО НАРРАТИВА ПАПЫ ФРАНЦИСКА I

Modern scientific research shows that religion increasingly determines the way of life of the societies where traditional confessions have become widespread. The social transformations in the developing and developed states caused by economic modernization and migration processes, as well as the ineffectiveness of the governance models used by the political elites are mentioned as reasons. The world religions adapt to the modern situation and try to influence the socio-political processes. This is also characteristic of the Vatican, the city-state that administers the Roman Catholic Church. An important goal of the Vatican policy over the past decade is to raise the profile of the Catholic Church beyond its traditional sphere of influence. Through the analysis of the strategic narrative of Pope Francis I, the article considers the public diplomacy of the Vatican as a tool to implement its foreign policy. The purpose of the research is to determine the uniqueness of the strategic narrative of the Vatican’s public diplomacy during the early pontificate of Francis I, aimed at transforming the image of the Roman Catholic Church and strengthening its relations with the faithful abroad. Emphasizing the pontiff’s dual role as head of a sovereign state and head of the Roman Catholic Church, the study uses the frame analysis to identify the key ideas articulated in the pontiff’s rhetoric. The results of the analysisshow that Pope Francis I’sspeechesto the public in the early years of his pontificate were based on the ideas of collective responsibility, universal values, and a call to action. An integrated reflection on these three frameworks suggests that the RCC’s public diplomacy efforts go far beyond the Catholic audiences.

Unravelling Conspiracy Theory Within Cultural Semiotics Framework as Narrative and Communication Strategies in Indonesian Social Media

This paper aimed at exploring the meaning-making processes of conspiracy theories echoed by social media influencers as strategic narrative and communication systems. The topic was grounded in a cultural semiotic approach to dissect the aspects of signifier and signified as construed in social media. A nexus-case study was applied to make a deep analysis of meaning-making construction produced and re-produced by the influencers, taking up data triangulation derived from social media, theoretical frameworks, and empirical investigations. The study revealed that meaning was constructed through manipulating signifiers like Covid-19, Lato-Latto, and Dajjal worshipping, which were related to other floating signifiers to create polarization from the audience's perspective. Further, the meaning-making process was ontologically and epistemically baseless. Advanced recommendations are reiterated through this paper to provide a wide range of insight to cope with the issue presented.

The Competitive Securitization of Foreign Policy

The paper explores competitive securitizations of the Russian Federation vs. the European Union in the Georgian political public sphere through deconstruction of the pro-Western and pro-Russian public political narratives. The dis-information incursion and propaganda of the Russian Federation in the societal landscape of Georgia have become the primary tools of the Kremlin to undermine the soft-power policy the EU and the pro-Western agenda. The study reflects on the rotating political discourses on Russia vs. EU through narrative analysis and deconstructs those metanarratives, that securitize the pro-Western and pro-Russian foreign policy discourses and contribute to fragmentation of the political public sphere. The paper reflects on three interrelated clusters – politics, media and civil society – influenced by the pro-Russian strategic narratives tailored across ‘communities of grievances’ to counteract the Western liberal and normative-based agenda. Alternatively, the pro-Western narrative evolves around liberal conceptions, that tries to transform the post-Soviet Georgian society through ‘mental revolution.’ The political discourse analysis – understanding and interpreting meanings – refers to the public speeches of elites and policy documents for deconstruction of narrative structures, as their causal explanations provide insights into the ambiguous and contradictory representations of Russia and the West/EU in the securitized political public sphere in Georgia.

Semiotic approach of strategic narrative: the news discourse of Russia’s coronavirus aid to Italy

Abstract Crucial components of strategic communication include the audience, which plays a decisive role in how any conflict plays out. Strategic narratives are seen as means by which political actors attempt to construct a shared meaning of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors. The article analyzes the news discourse of the Russian media sources RT, Pervyj Kanal, and NTV on Russia’s coronavirus aid to Italy in spring 2020. In the context of media coverage, some methodological questions arise: How should the intentional structuring of narratives, targeting of audiences, and the manipulative intentions of the strategic actor be studied? For this purpose, the article combines strategic narrative theory with Umberto Eco’s concepts of the Model Reader and the Model Author. Analysing the aims and intentionality of the strategic narratives, we postulate the Model Reader as an analytical category that organizes the study of the audience’s interpretation process. The function of the Model Reader is to actualize the codes and intertextual references that the author has strategically planned in the news message, in order to achieve the geopolitical aims of the strategic narratives in question. The analysis of constructing the Model Reader and the Model Author of strategic narratives is complemented by Greimas’ semiotic theory of the narrative and the composition principles of Lotman’s discrete/non-discrete texts.

Ordering the Islands? Pacific Responses to China’s Strategic Narratives

Abstract Metropolitan powers are concerned that China is seeking to influence Pacific Island countries and reshape Pacific Islands’ regional order in its favour. But there is a risk that the effectiveness of China’s efforts has been overinterpreted by metropolitan powers. In this article we analyse the effectiveness of one element of China’s activities: the deployment of narrative power. We do this by examining the reception and role of China’s strategic narratives in the Pacific Islands. We analyse how China’s strategic narratives have been interpreted, adopted, and/or instrumentalised by Pacific Island countries and leaders using case studies of three key regional states: Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Samoa. We conclude that while Fijian, Solomon Islands, and Samoan leaders have incorporated elements of China’s strategic narratives into their discourse, they have done so using their own interpretations and, at times, instrumentalised those narratives for their own purposes. We conclude that this suggests that narrative power is more limited than it is often assumed. However, we acknowledge that narrative power may have indirect effects, with China’s narratives in the Pacific Islands region, as well as their instrumental adoption by Pacific Island countries, motivating changes in the policies and narratives of metropolitan powers.

Manufacturing consensus: China’s strategic narratives and geoeconomic competition in Asia

China’s attempt to build geopolitical influence through economic instruments has become a critical facet of US-China competition. How can rising powers convince follower states to join alternative (geoeconomic) initiatives created and/or led by the rising powers, in the shadow of potential rebuke from the hegemon? This article theorizes how rising powers can use strategic narratives to ameliorate the follower states’ concerns of antagonizing the hegemon for aligning with alternative initiatives. We argue that rising powers can control the narrative through “two-front narration”: simultaneously telling the hegemon that they seek limited changes, while telling follower states that they do not have to worry about crossfire because the rising powers-hegemon relations are non-zero-sum. By sending the right messages to different audiences to induce motivated reasoning, rising powers can manufacture the appearance of consensus among multiple audiences to help follower states hedge, while blunting the formation of containment coalitions. We adopt a mixed-methods approach to substantiate our theory: (1) text analysis of China’s messaging about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from 2008 to 2016; (2) case study of the rhetorical action-reactions between China, the United States, and the follower states on the relationship between the TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; and (3) parallel case study of the rhetorical action-reactions between China, the United States, and the follower states on the relationship between the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and multilateral development banks such as the World Bank. Our analysis has implications for theories of strategic narratives in international politics and debates about geoeconomic competition/hedging in Asia.

The Global Maritime Fulcrum as A Strategic Narrative: A Critical Examination of Its Emergence, Conveyance, and Decline in Indonesian Strategic Discourse

In 2014, President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo declared he would lead Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation on earth, to become a ‘global maritime fulcrum’ (GMF). His announcement was taken as a sign of Indonesia’s commitment to be a more active participant in regional maritime security. This nascent maritime vision, however, suffers from endogenous flaws, ranging from personal leadership to widespread bureaucratic deficiencies, culminating in its recession from Indonesian political discourse. This paper seeks to understand how and why the GMF receded from political discourse through the lens of strategic narrative. It finds that technocratic appeal serves as a stronger legitimating method of the GMF compared to other forms, which is due to agential preferences aligning with domestic structural conditions, resulting in development narratives being favoured over maritime-related narratives. The relationship results in government priorities being skewed towards the infrastructure aspect of the GMF at the cost of the other aspects. To demonstrate this argument, this paper analyses an original dataset of 267 speeches and statements, both in English and Indonesian, delivered by key government officials related to formulating and implementing the GMF concept from 2014 to 2021, in addition to relevant policy documents.

Connecting Soft Power, Message Framing, and Political Actors’ Involvement in Online Media: The Case of ASEAN

The research aims to examine media message framing in the selected Southeast Asia countries (Indonesia and the Philippines) surrounding events focusing on ASEAN’s 50th anniversary in 2017. The research explores the relations between media framing and ASEAN’s soft power, taking an interdisciplinary research approach combining political communication studies and international relations. The concept of soft power is divided into (a) strategic narrative and message framing and (b) state and non-state actors’ involvement in the communication process. The research uses qualitative content analysis and utilizes Atlas.ti software to conduct the coding process of online news items as the primary data. The main findings are as follows. First, ASEAN is portrayed with a rather positive tone on economic and socio-cultural issues. Second, ASEAN is portrayed on balance in a negative tone on political-security issues. Third, ASEAN state actors deliver more positive statements about ASEAN. Fourth, ASEAN non-state actors depict more negative statements about ASEAN. This research argues that positive news about economic and socio-cultural issues will likely enhance ASEAN’s soft power. On the other hand, communication with a negative tone about political-security issues may hinder the development of the institution’s soft power. ASEAN’s soft power is influenced by the communication of both state and non-state actors.

Russian strategic narratives, 2022–2023

Russia, in its competition with the liberal world for establishing the dominant discourse—alongside hard power military means—deploys soft power, leveraging the allure of illiberal values to forge foreign policy alliances, undermine the credibility of international institutions, and reshape the global order. Russian strategic narratives delineate the political objectives of the Russian government. In a contest for discursive authority with other global actors, Russia presents its vision of a new world order—a world partitioned among major powers—where Moscow holds the authority to determine the fate of peoples in the “Greater Eurasia” region, including Europe

Disinformation as a danger to international security: An exploration of the implications in the Italian context

Abstract Before the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, Russia dedicated substantial resources to build a complex ecosystem of disinformation aimed at justifying the invasion of Ukraine as a legitimate and necessary decision. This disinformation manifested through an integrated approach involving various influence operations, including the corruption of agents and state officials, the use of financial projects such as RT and Sputnik, and the management of profit-driven economic operations through state-owned companies. The main objective of these operations was to influence public opinion in the involved countries, impact political processes, especially in democracies, and undermine the development of evidence-based policies, posing significant risks to international security and stability. The objective of this article is to examine the effects of disinformation in Italy with reference to its impact on public opinion. The research question focuses on the relationship between the different themes that constitute the complexity of disinformation about the war in Ukraine and the effect they have. The hypothesis to be tested is that fake news has a direct impact on the formation of public opinion, influencing the public discourse itself. For the purpose of the research, the frequency of recurring themes and their relational structure will be evaluated to determine if there are coherent disinformation narratives among them. Furthermore, key meta-narratives present in Italy will be highlighted, aiming to fuel a coherent system of beliefs. The expected results support the thesis that disinformation and fake news represent significant geopolitical tools in the struggle for power and status in the international community, through the projection of strategic narratives. Ultimately, this phenomenon highlights the centrality of disinformation in the management of international relations and its ability to influence global public discourse.

What is the value of digitalization? Strategic narratives in local government

The intensified use of digital technologies in the public sector, which is commonly referred to as “digitalization,” is associated with the pursuit of a range of values. Values reflect notions of desirability, and they are expressed in strategic government documents. In this paper, we argue that the study of narratives in policies is important since they constitute starting points for the operationalization of strategic intent. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of the narratives of the digitalization strategies that have been articulated by Swedish local government. We applied a theoretical framework that consists of four value ideals (professionalism, efficiency, service, and engagement), and we combined it with directed content analysis to analyze the strategies in question. Most of the statements in the strategies anticipate beneficial outcomes of digitalization and articulate few risks. The most common value proposal refers to the congruence between values of improved service and increased efficiency, while engagement values are less common. Moreover, the strategies draw on a repository of general and identical optimistic statements, which we refer to as the “parrot syndrome.” In addition, the methods that are used to evaluate values lack specificity. These findings contribute to the literature on the discursive landscape of digitalization by a comprehensive analysis of the value positions that are articulated in local government strategies. The paper concludes with three proposals for further research, namely to perform similar studies in other contexts, to study the enactment of digitalization strategies, and to investigate the aforementioned “parrot syndrome.”

Going nuclear: The development of American strategic conceptions about cyber conflict

ABSTRACT Futurist depictions of cyber-attacks in coming wars often portray them as bolts out of the blue that will cause immense damage to a nation’s warfighting capacity and create chaos among its populace by crippling its essential services. However, those depictions are based more on prophecy than they are on historical realities. The historical development of conceptions about cyber operations explains how those themes came to dominate national security discussions about cyber in the United States. Rather than being self-evident, the themes are a result of the application of early cyber efforts to strategic operations, advocacy that focused on doomsday scenarios to draw attention to cybersecurity problems, and the ease with which cyber threats were tied to the primary strategic narratives of American national security during their development.