How has the sentiment around the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) changed over time? Scholars have debated far and wide whether the political norm enjoys widespread discursive acceptance or is on the brink of decline. This article contends that we can use sentiment analysis as an important indicator for norm validity. My analysis provides three crucial insights. First, despite the well-known fear of some scholars, R2P is still frequently invoked in Security Council deliberations on issues of international peace and security. Second, overall levels of affirmative language have remained remarkably stable over time. This finding indicates that R2P is far from being obliterated. Out of 130 states, 4 international organizations (IOs), and 2 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) invoking the norm, 65% maintain a positive net-sentiment. Third, zooming into Libya as a case illustration of a critical juncture, we see some minor tonal shifts from some pivotal member states. Adding the fact that interest constellations within the Permanent Five are heterogeneous concerning the third pillar of R2P, future military interventions, sanctioned under the norm, seem unlikely.

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After more than 25 years of scholarship, the deliberative turn in international relations (IR) theory is ready to be revisited with a fresh perspective. Using new methods from automated text analyses, this explorative article investigates how rhetoric may bind action. It does so by building upon Schimmelfennig’s original account of rhetorical entrapment. To begin, I theorize the opposite of entrapment, which I call rhetorical hollowing. Rhetorical hollowing describes a situation in which actors use normative rhetoric, but instead of advancing their interests, such rhetoric fails to increase their chances of obtaining the desired outcome because the normative force of their rhetoric has eroded over time. To provide plausibility to both entrapment and hollowing, I present two mechanisms by which language is connected with action in the United Nations Security Council. Finally, I run a series of time-series-cross-section models on selected dictionary terms conducive to entrapment or hollowing on all speeches and an original Security Council resolution corpus from 1995 to 2017. The research shows that while mentioning ‘human rights’ is consistently associated with increased odds of authorization of force; the word ‘terrorism’ is associated with a decrease of odds for intervention. This finding suggests that some terms may not only entrap or hollow but also normatively backfire.