Narrative power: How storytelling shapes East Asian international politics (original) (raw)
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Asian Perspective, 2019
"POWER" REMAINS A CENTRAL, IF NOT INDISPENSABLE, CONCEPT IN THE SOCIAL sciences and humanities. In no discipline is this clearer than international relations (IR), where the distribution of power is believed to explain many outcomes in international politics, particularly the propensity for war and peace (Mearsheimer 2010; Friedberg 2011). The importance of the concept notwithstanding, academic and policy debates about international power have long occurred within overly restrictive conceptual boundaries, focusing on the distribution of power defined as tangible assets to explain international politics at the expense of other ways in which power is exercised. Even though this materialist theory of power has failed to help us understand some of the most conspicuous international developments of recent decades, it continues to permeate the literature about international politics. There are few places in the world where power is as crucial to shaping international dynamics as in East Asia. The critical question of whether a power shift is ongoing in the region, from Japan and the United States to China, is a central preoccupation of contemporary IR. Given the actors that are involved, the region is arguably the epicenter of a possible global power shift from the West to the East, and from the North to the South. In the East Asian region, a power shift has been seen as impending for more than two decades (Betts 1993; Friedberg 1993; Roy 1994). Today, the concept of a regional power shift is widely accepted both among scholars and observers outside of academia (Shambaugh 2005; Mearsheimer 2010; Layne 2018). A consensus has emerged that there has been a redistribution of capabilities among the major players in the region, although there are different opinions about the extent and outcome of such power shift (Li and Kemburi 2014; see also the Asian Perspective special issue "The East Asia Power Shift: A Critical Appraisal," vol. 38, no. 3, 2014; of particular interest is the introduction by Linus Hagström and Bjorn Jerden). This special issue goes beyond materialistic power theory to examine the role and impact of narratives themselves in the (apparent) power shift in East Asia. It investigates the extent to which the narratives produced and spread by key actors succeed in producing effects on third [End Page 215] parties, exploring if and how they succeed in shaping their preferences, interests, and identities regarding contested issues in East Asia. Its focus is on the narratives about China, Japan, and the United States. The underlying idea is that it is the narrative(s) that ultimately define(s) the dynamics of the East Asian security setting and IR more broadly, creating a framework for what actions are possible, when, and for whom. In short, it is ultimately the victorious/dominant narratives that themselves define what is seen as legitimate and illegitimate, what is normal and abnormal, and ultimately what is within the realm of possibility and what is not. Special emphasis is put on third parties, as it is they who are the audiences and ultimately the judges of what narrative to accept or is most attractive. For example, the fact that narratives about a more "assertive" and "threatening" China have received increased attention and acceptance is limiting China while at the same time opening new space for Japan and US foreign policy, as they are perceived as important to manage China's purported rise. This special issue starts with an article by Mikael Weissmann titled "Understanding Power (Shift) in East Asia: The Sino-US Narrative Battle about Leadership in the South China Sea." Weissmann analyzes competing US and Chinese narratives about the South China Sea. He argues that the practice of calculating power shifts in terms of changing distribution of material capabilities is inadequate. The article aims to complement existing literature by taking ideational and normative dimensions of power into account. The article asks what the Chinese narrative of power and leadership in the South China Sea looks like and how it is perceived by others in comparison with the dominant US narrative. Weissmann concludes that while a "hard" power transition is ongoing, China's preferred narrative has yet to become widely accepted and...
Narratives in International Studies Research
2021
Narrative research is a trending topic in international studies, with a growing body of literature adopting limited insights from narratology, sociolinguistics, and related fields to construct new insights into the workings of international relations. These studies are mainly concerned with questions about how narratives can be used to shape future policy courses, or how they impact the identity of agents and actors. The proliferation of studies using “narratives” in international studies research has been widespread since the 2000s, following a series of puzzles raised by scholars writing on language and discourse more broadly, ever since the late 1980s as part of the “linguistic turn” in the field. The adoption of narrative theory into international relations research presents a series of important questions about the methodological implications of taking narratives seriously. These include inquiries into the extent to which scholars see themselves as contributing to current socia...
In Forging the World: Strategic Narratives and International Relations (Eds.), Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin and Laura Roselle. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, pp.110-133, 2017
Forging the World: Strategic Narratives and International Relations brings together leading scholars in International Relations (IR) and Communication Studies to investigate how, when, and why strategic narratives shape the structure, politics, and policies of the global system. Put simply, strategic narratives are tools that political actors employ to promote their interests, values, and aspirations for the international order by managing expectations and altering the discursive environment. These narratives define "who we are" and "what kind of world order we want. "
Narrative and the Possibilities for Scholarship - International Political Sociology
International Political Sociology, 2018
This article explores the recent expansion of narrative approaches in International Relations (IR) and the conceptual and political possibilities it brings about. Instead of suggesting a set of criteria through which we should evaluate narrative texts, we investigate what they are already doing in IR scholarship. We show that the space narrative writing delineates through the encounter between text and reader/reading potentiates critique and engages complexity in ways that are often not available in other forms of IR scholarship. Concretely, we examine themes around openness, contradiction, ambiguity, fracture, surprise, and the ungovernable aspects of social and scholarly life.
Great Power Politics and Strategic Narratives
2010
Great powers use strategic narratives to establish and maintain influence in the international system and to shape the system itself. This is particularly the case in periods of transition in the international system when challengers to hegemonic powers emerge. Strategic narratives are an important tool which must be considered alongside material resources as a determinant of whether emerging great powers are able to shape a new systemic alignment. Strategic narratives are a tool through which great powers can articulate their interests, values and aspirations for the international system in ways that offer the opportunity for power transitions that avoid violent struggle between status quo and challenger states. Complicating this picture, however, is a complex media ecology which makes the process of projecting strategic narratives an increasingly difficult one. Analysis of international political communication within this media ecology is central to evaluating how strategic narratives are projected and the interactions that follow. We argue that empirical analysis of the formation, projection and reception of strategic narratives in that media ecology offers a framework through which to generate important findings concerning power transition, domestic and international legitimacy, and recognition and identity - important because many international relations scholars thus far failed to take into account the difference such narratives make, and can make.
Project brief future of regional narrative building in northeast asia
Future of regional narrative building in Northeast Asia
The UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs has launched the "Futuring peace in Northeast Asia" program with the objective of engaging young people in discussions surrounding regional peace and security. This initiative, spanning two years, is collaboratively designed and facilitated by Youth Champions hailing from the region. Supported by UNESCO, in partnership with foraus, and with contributions from the National Assembly Futures Institute of Korea, the project is rooted in the principles of the United Nations Youth, Peace, and Security agenda. It emphasizes Futures Literacy, a methodology aimed at fostering dialogue on future scenarios and devising innovative strategies. The primary aim is to provide youth with enhanced platforms to express their insights on peace and security matters to policymakers, thereby promoting greater representation of youth perspectives in high-level policy dialogues.
Political Storytelling: From Fact to Fiction (Global Dialogues Special Issue)
Facts don’t speak for themselves they need to be told. And how and who tells them has significant implications. Recent political events such as the global refugee crisis, the Greek-EU bailout negotiations and the Russia-Ukraine crisis are apt examples of the malleability of facts, showing that truth itself is contested. Since these political events lack an ‘ultimate source of evidence’ (Rorty 1999: 151), the only way to transform vague descriptions into meaningful, coherent interpretations of ‘reality’ is to utilize the persuasive power of storytelling with all its intended and unintended consequences. [...] Cooperation always requires understanding and appreciating each other’s realities. In the context of international relations, this also entails a certain degree of agreement upon facts. In order to achieve global cooperation on any given subject, the parties must first agree on the definition and problematization of the solution to the issue at hand. Making sense of common problems requires a shared view not only on arguments and interests, but also on shared forms of narration. Even though this agreement is not a complete consensus, a policy area with a relatively concordant, intersubjectively constructed number of facts is needed to begin cooperation. Such concordance is possible when registers are shared, similar to what Hannah Arendt calls ‘common world’: A shared and public world of human artifacts, institutions and settings that provide a relatively permanent context for our activities. Understanding politics as a practice of collective storytelling, in which the role of fiction and narrative is a constitutive element instead of being ‘mere rhetoric’, is still under-theorized. From a narrative point of view, the boundaries between reality and fiction are always blurry. Thus, an important but largely ignored part of this common world is shared imageries, which are expressed or represented in stories, myths, legends, and literatures. Complex realities need complex ways of representation. A theoretical engagement with the importance of meaning-giving practices as constitutive elements of politics should not halt at the analysis and the critique of simplifying and simplified versions of the ‘real’. The equally important question is: How and from which sources do we develop alternative and inclusive modes of narration? Against this background, this Global Dialogue focuses on narrative and fiction as a critical, albeit under-researched, element in the social sciences. Despite increasing interest, and the linguistic turn in the social sciences, the role of fiction and narrative in explaining, representing and inventing identities and frames as well as giving meaning to political practices has been largely absent. In order to begin to change this, this publication brings together different disciplines from the social sciences and development studies to literature and cultural studies to reflect on these various matters. This multi-disciplinary publication is the result of a workshop that took place in Duisburg in May 2015, which also sought to expand on how academic work in the social sciences is analyzed, written, and presented. The contributions are inspired and expand on this spirit and the various issues discussed at this event. For the sake of coherence, the texts are ordered in terms of the medium they analyze and the audiences they address.
Myth and Narrative in International Politics
2016
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2021
Today, soft power has become one of the pillars of foreign policy of governments. Increasing access to digital media has increased countries' capacity to harness soft power. In the field of digital media, Twitter has been welcomed by a wide range of politicians and has found a special place in the political equation; As many as 97% of the UN member states are members of this global network. In the meantime, following the narrations on Twitter or creating them in this environment is a platform that can change the function of the narrations; Therefore, the reaction of narrators on Twitter can be a criterion for the effectiveness of political narratives and its effect on soft power. The main question of the present study is what effect do political narratives have on the power of diplomacy? And how has Twitter contributed to the reflection of these narratives? The method used in this article is content analysis of three selected narratives based on maxqoda software on Twitter. Narr...