STRATEEGILINE NARRATIIV: PEHME JÕU UUS KÄSITLUS

STRATEGIC NARRATIVE: A NEW MEANS TO UNDERSTAND SOFT POWER

Abstract

Soft power in its current, widely understood form has become a straitjacket for those trying to understand power and communication in international affairs. Analyses of soft power overwhelmingly focus on soft power ‘assets’ or capabilities and on ways to wield them, not the ways how influence does or does not take place. It has become a catch-all term that has lost explanatory power, just as hard power once did. The authors argue that the concept of strategic narrative gives us intellectual purchase on the complexities of international politics today, especially with regard to how influence works in a new media environment. They believe that media and war studies would benefit if more attention was being paid to strategic narratives.