Strategic culture as a (discursive) institution: a proposal for falsifiable theoretical model with computational operationalization

ABSTRACT

In spite of theoretical and methodological diversity, the three generations of the strategic culture literature failed to overcome the main challenge of the approach – to account for change in behavior – due to two fallacies: Conceptualizing strategic culture as homogenous on the national level and continuous on the temporal level. However, the recent emergence of fourth generation in the literature offers prospects for overcoming them. The article presents a new, falsifiable theoretical model that pursues this aim. Thus, it begins with discussion of the promise and pitfalls of the fourth generation. Next, the alignment of strategic culture with new institutionalism is explored. This is followed by an introduction of discursive institutionalism and its potential for advancing the fourth-generation theory building. Then, a new falsifiable fourth-generation discursive-institutionalist strategic culture model is presented. The concluding section discusses the operationalization of the model via network analysis using social data science methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic culture
• international relations theory
• social data science
• computational social science
• discursive institutionalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The basis for this paper was developed during a Beatriu de Pinos fellowship at IBEI and financed via a Marie Curie COFUND grant by the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca [2014 BP_B 00147 (AGAUR)]. The author would like to express his gratitude to Vanessa Hubl for valuable comments and advice on various earlier drafts of this paper.

2. It’s noteworthy that Snyder included “emotional responses” in his original definition of strategic culture, i.e. recognizing that strategic culture is not only about rationality (Snyder 1977, 8 in Longhurst 2018, 8).

3. These methods are also known as social data science methods. For a short overview and discussion of this field, as well as its implications on security studies, see 2017, XX–XX).

4. Despite some efforts to extend the concept of strategic studies to non-state (e.g. Long 2009; Shultz 2012) and transnational actors (e.g. Belt 2006; Matlary 2006; Norheim-Martinsen 2011), the literature is predominantly state-centered.

5. Despite their theoretical divergences, the vast majority of strategic culture studies were conducted using qualitative research methods.

6. Strategic subcultures and the competition between them were integral to the original conceptualization of strategic culture, see Snyder (1977). In terms of an analytical approach, Snyder was interested “in the production of different national strategic policies that emerged from the distinctive cultures and subcultures of militaries … other professional elites concerned with the development of strategy … and national political authorities” rather than in “alleged cultural differences that characterized nations as a whole” (Jack Snyder, personal communication, 20 December 2017). This set him apart not only from most first-generation literature but also from Gray-inspired studies within third generation literature (see below).

7. A hegemonic position is defined hereby as “dominant, constituting for many an unquestioned ‘common sense’ and marginalizing alternative understanding” (Krebs and Lobasz 2007, 411–412).

8. Johnston also noted that “Snyder [the ‘founding father’ of the field] does recognize the possibility that different subcultures can undergird competitive strategic preferences” (Johnston 1995, 38, footnote 12, as well as Snyder 1977).

9. In analytical terms, there can actually be two types of change in relation to strategic culture. First, there can be a change in strategic culture, for example, due to strategic subcultural competition ending in the replacement of the hegemonic strategic subculture. Second, very rarely, there can be a change of strategic culture when the entire political system of a state is (often forcefully) replaced. For example, the end of World War II and the Allies’ occupation of West Germany resulted in a change of German strategic culture (Berger 1998). Regretfully, these distinctions are hardly, if ever, made in literature, and most of the discussions in literature concerning change and strategic culture refer implicitly to the first type. The main exception is the recent study of Longhurst (2018, 18). The terms “change in strategic culture” and “change of strategic culture” are equivalent to (and more precise than) her respective terms of “fine-tuning” and “fundamental” (change) of strategic culture.

10. To large degree this was due to his effort to present an implementable approach at the expense of building an explicit and falsifiable theory (Alan Bloomfield, personal communication, 21 May 2020).

11. The author is grateful for Bloomfield for discussing this point at length. The presentation of strategic subcultural actors as unitary ones was made consciously derived from the need to frame them in an operationalisable terms (Alan Bloomfield, personal communication, 21 May 2020). As will be demonstrated below, recent advances in social network analysis theory and methods provide a way to extend significantly both the boundaries of defining and analysing strategic subcultural actors.

12. When developing his concept of strategic culture, Snyder was influenced by works on institutionalism that preceded the emergence of New Institutionalism. He especially attributed importance in this regard to studies by Graham Allison, Hebert Simon, John Steinbruner and Philip Selznick. He only became engaged with new institutionalist literature later (Jack Snyder, personal communication, 20 December 2017).

13. Since few, if any, strategic culture studies made use of rational-choice theory, the third main new institutionalist school – rational choice institutionalism – is excluded from the current discussion. However, there are interesting opportunities for future study of the potential relevance and operationalization of rational choice approaches, in general, and rational choice institutionalism in particular, to the study of strategic culture.

14. This crucial ontological difference was recognised explicitly in a number of studies, written mostly from post-structuralist perspectives, that embarked on bridging and integrating the approaches. See, for example, (Panizza and Miorelli 2013; Jacobs 2019). Overall, they seems to fall short of achieving this due to the incommensurability of the conflicted ontologies.

15. Critical juncture is defined hereby as: “In institutional critical junctures are characterized by a situation in which (that is, economic, cultural, ideological, organizational) influences on political action are significantly relaxed for a relatively short two main consequences: the range of plausible choices political actors expands substantially and the consequences of their decisions for the outcome of interest are potentially much more momentous” (Capoccia and Kelemen 2007, 341–369).

16. This definition combines several definitions quoted by Schmidt (2008, 313–314) and Johnston (1995, 45–46). Parts of these definitions are quoted verbatim.

17. This definition draws from and paraphrases Snyder’s definition of strategic culture in Snyder (1977, 10).

18. Although the literature on strategic subcultures places the emphasis on competition, it is reasonable to assume that actors of different subcultures, despite their rivalry, often collaborate, if only to overcome or balance others.

19. Critical juncture is defined hereby as: “In institutional critical junctures are characterized by a situation in which (that is, economic, cultural, ideological, organizational) influences on political action are significantly relaxed for a relatively short two main consequences: the range of plausible choices political actors expands substantially and the consequences of their decisions for the outcome of interest are potentially much more momentous” (Capoccia and Kelemen 2007, 341–369).

20. Tthe election of President Trump marks a clear break with the ideational foundation and security commitments of both Democratic and Republican post-Cold War administrations (Burke 2017).

21. The concept of alliance is defined hereby as: ““explicit agreement among states in the realm of national security in which the partners promise mutual assistance in the form of a substantial contribution of resources in the case of a certain contingency the arising of which is uncertain” (Bergsmann 2001, 21).

22. This is still the case in spite of the emergence of alternative data sources. See: (Waltman et al. 2018).

23. Meta-data is defined hereby as: “extra-textual information associated with each text provides additional information about the texts, their sources, and the circumstances of their production, beyond their textual content” (Benoit and Herzog 2016, 6).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca [2014 BP_B 00147 (AGAUR)].

Notes on contributors

Tamir Libel

Tamir Libel is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bamberg. Previously, he was a Beatriu de Pinós Research Fellow at the Barcelona Institute of International Relations (IBEI) and a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin (UCD). His work focuses on the intersection of security studies and civil-military relations with social data science methods. He has published on these topics in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Defence Studies, Security and Defense Analysis and the RUSI Journal. His book European Military Culture and Security Governance: Soldiers, Scholars and National Defence Universities was published by Routledge (2016)