Romantic Narratives in International Politics

Narrative power: how storytelling shapes East Asian international politics

“…The existing literature argues that narratives must draw on deeply sedimented or institutionalized master narratives or discourses already accepted by the target audience in order to appear commonsensical and become dominant (Ewick and Silbey 1995;Spencer 2016). The term 'master narrative' (or 'grand narrative', 'metanarrative' and 'big story') is often associated with the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard.…”

“…Existing research suggests that narratives are performative. By ascribing qualities, dispositions and intentions to actors, they construct their identities and, by extension, their interests (Ringmar 1996a;Spencer 2016). In these narratives, the identity of the Self typically emerges through its juxtaposition with spatial or temporal difference, or Others (Rumelili 2004;Gustafsson 2016; Hagstr€ om and Hanssen 2016).…”

“…It has been used simply as a synonym for discourse, rhetoric or anything 'said, written, viewed or heard' (Spencer 2016, 2). Moreover, some of the most comprehensive research to date on the role of narratives in IR has focused primarily on the links between domestic narratives and foreign policy (Browning 2008;Krebs 2015;Spencer 2016). Such research has argued that narratives matter to IR because they are performative and enable certain foreign policies.…”

“…However, in recent decades, disciplines such as political science, psychology, legal theory, gender studies, social work, organizational theory, anthropology and medical sociology have all quietly appropriated narrative as a concept and theory. In the past ten years, IR scholars have also increasingly adopted the concept (Browning 2008;Suganami 2008;Wibben 2010;Gustafsson 2011;Hagstr€ om 2012;Miskimmon et al 2014;Krebs 2015;Spencer 2016), although early adopters had appeared already in the 1990s (Ringmar 1996a;1996b;Suganami 1999).…”

“When the Battle's Lost and Won:” Narratives of Peace in the Afghanistan Film A War

“…"Storytelling" is not only one of the oldest cultural practices we might know, but it is also a necessary part of communication in our everyday life. 15 According to research in social and cultural sciences, narratives consist of at least four elements 16 : (1) Narratives require actions, that is, subjects doing something and subjects saying something; (2) Narratives need to be told by someone, that is, people use narratives to construe their live world and to make sense of their reality; (3) Narratives entail sequential, relational orders of actions and events and sometimes the story told is arranged in chronological order or refers to a cause-effect relationship; (4) Narratives are always based on stories of particular actors, actions, and events, but they never tell the whole story. As narratives necessarily conceal many things, they reduce complexity by selection.…”