Strategic interaction: Distrust and cooperation in US-China relations

<p>International cooperation is generally thought to be made possible, or at least enhanced, by a relationship of trust between nations. This proposition is examined with a particular focus on US-China relations, and proceeds through a critique of various models of cooperation that works to expose the limits imposed by the assumption of a causal relationship between trust and cooperation. A concept of strategic interaction is developed on the basis of analysis of values and interests, asymmetric exchange and distrust, and is offered as an alternative to grand strategic narratives for understanding the strategic behaviour of states.</p>

Strategic interaction: Distrust and cooperation in US-China relations

<p>International cooperation is generally thought to be made possible, or at least enhanced, by a relationship of trust between nations. This proposition is examined with a particular focus on US-China relations, and proceeds through a critique of various models of cooperation that works to expose the limits imposed by the assumption of a causal relationship between trust and cooperation. A concept of strategic interaction is developed on the basis of analysis of values and interests, asymmetric exchange and distrust, and is offered as an alternative to grand strategic narratives for understanding the strategic behaviour of states.</p>

Re-Defining Borders Online: Russia’s Strategic Narrative on Internet Sovereignty

Over the past decades, internet governance has developed in a tug-of-war between the democratic, transnational nature of the web, and attempts by national governments to put cyberspace under control. Recently, the idea of digital sovereignty has started to increasingly gain more supporters among nation states. This article is a case study on the Russian concept of a “sovereign internet.” In 2019, the so-called law on sustainable internet marked a new milestone in the development of RuNet. Drawing on document analysis and expert interviews, I reconstruct Russia’s strategic narrative on internet sovereignty and its evolution over time. I identify the main factors that have shaped the Russian concept of sovereignty, including domestic politics, the economy, international relations, and the historical trajectory of the Russian segment of the internet. The article places the Russian case in a global context and discusses the importance of strategic narratives of digital sovereignty for the future of internet governance.

Visions of Europe in Crisis: Strategic narratives and their alternatives in Russian state and independent media coverage of the 2015-16 ‘Refugee Crisis’

What stories do states tell about themselves and their neighbours, and how are these narratives challenged? This study takes the case of the European ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015-2016, a period of hostile relations between Russia and the European Union, to examine the vision of Europe disseminated by Russian state-controlled media, and the alternative offered by independent media. It analyses 609 news reports on the ‘refugee crisis’ from state-controlled broadcaster Channel One and 181 news pieces from the independent web-based outlet TV Rain. Adopting the strategic narrative framework proposed by Miskimmon, O’Loughlin and Roselle (2013), this study both provides new detail on the narratives found on Russian state-controlled media, and asks the previously unresearched question: how do independent media outlets react to the dominant narratives seen on state broadcasters? It uses a grounded theory approach to elaborate new findings on the behaviour of independent media. The importance of independent media has traditionally been understood in terms of its ability to hold government to account, but the findings of this study suggest independent media can also act as a watchdog and corrective to state-controlled media. This study thus contributes to the literature on both strategic narratives, and media theory.

The Influence of the ‘Tomos Narrative’ as a Part of the Ukrainian National and Strategic Narrative

One of the most prominent parts of the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election was the mediatized topic of achieving Ukrainian church independence, and its symbol, the tomos document received from the Ecumenical Patriarch in January 2019. This process was a part of incumbent president Petro Poroshenko’s electoral campaign. Narrative analysis of this topic showed that it had a structure similar to that of classic Hollywood plots. It is unlike most other media narratives present in the information space. We prove that this topic had a major influence on its audience: media attention to the topic of Tomos was found to be closely correlated to Google search data associated with the ‘tomos’ search term and with electoral support for Poroshenko. However, this narrative`s audience was limited to the patriotic electorate, thus Poroshenko did not win the election. Nevertheless, the Tomos story became so influential that it can be considered a part of national and strategic narratives.