Venus in arms

  • Home
  • About
    • Fabrizio Coticchia
    • Francesco N. Moro
  • Publications
  • Research
  • Links
  • Contacts

Effective strategic narratives? Italian public opinion and military operations in Iraq, Libya, and Lebanon

20 May 2015 by ViA 1 Comment

Oddly enough, in the new Italian White Paper there are no references to the concept of strategic narratives. On the contrary, many official documents and statements by decision makers have recently emphasized the role played by strategic narratives to enhance the perceived legitimacy of military operations.

Venus in Arms has already addressed the concept of “strategic narratives”, defined by Freedman as: “compelling storylines which can explain events convincingly and from which inferences can be drawn”

Today, we are pleased to present the new paper by Fabrizio Coticchia: “Effective strategic narratives? Italian public opinion and military operations in Iraq, Libya, and Lebanon” (here, gated). The paper has been published in the first issue of the new Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica. IPSR/RISP (now published by Cambridge University Press) provides three fully English-language issues per year. Here additional info on the Journal.

Here below the abstract of the paper:

Public attitudes are greatly shaped by the cohesiveness of the strategic narratives crafted by policy-makers in framing the national involvement in war. The literature has recently devoted growing attention toward the features that define successful strategic narratives, such as a consistent set of objectives, convincing cause–effect chains, as well as credible promises of success. This paper provides an original framework for ‘effective strategic narratives’ for the case of Italy. The military operations undertaken by Italian armed forces in Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya represent the cases through which the framework is assessed. Drawing on content and discourse analysis of political debates and data provided by public opinion surveys, this paper explores the nature of the strategic narratives and their effectiveness.

The author has already addressed the issue of narratives, public opinion and Italian military operations, locking at the case of Afghanistan (here)

The current paper presents two main implications.

First, strategic narratives should not be realistic, but rather compelling. A certain ambiguity of the storyline could be sometimes inevitable due to the gap between long-established values (such as peace or humanitarianism, which are very difficult to modify) and a risky military environment, where those beliefs may appears as extraneous. In these cases, an integrated communication strategy, aimed at preparing the public opinion and avoiding counter-productive rosy pictures, could be crucial to avoid a collapse of approval towards the intervention.

Second, as already tested by literature, casualty aversion per se does not determine the fall of public support. However, mounting insecurity on the ground requires greater flexibility of the narrative to adapt and transform. In this case, a negative narrative dominance (i.e., a more persuasive counter-narrative) could play a fundamental role in hindering the plot’s effectiveness.

ViA will provide additional posts in the near future regarding strategic narratives and other security issues (e.g., the F35). Stay tuned.

 

Share Button

Filed Under: Contemporary warfare, Italian military operations abroad, Italian Strategy and Doctrine Tagged With: Iraq, Italy, Lebanon, Libro Bianco, Libya, Public opinion, Strategic narratives

Comments

  1. cialis Polecane lektury says

    20 July 2015 at 10:59

    What’s up, yes this post is in fact fastidious and I have learned lot of things from it on the topic of blogging.
    thanks.

    Feel free to surf to my web page – cialis Polecane lektury

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

code

Authors

Fabrizio Coticchia Profile Image I work on contemporary warfare, public opinion and military operations, Italian and European strategic culture (if there is such a thing...) More.
Francesco N. Moro Profile Image I work on organizations that change (or try to). Currently, I conduct research on armed forces in Europe and on mafias moving in “non-traditional” areas. More.

Tags cloud

Anything in here will be replaced on browsers that support the canvas element

  • Iraq
  • Afghanistan
  • Italy
  • ISIS
  • Libya
  • Difesa
  • Military Transformation
  • NATO
  • Libro Bianco
  • Italian Defense
  • ISIL
  • Defense
  • Syria
  • F35
  • Libia

Categories

  • Contemporary warfare
  • Defense in Europe
  • Italian military operations abroad
  • Italian Strategy and Doctrine
  • Pop-defense (Mos Eisley)
  • uncategorized
  • Venus in Arms
  • War by other names

Archives

Recent Posts

  • From enthusiasm to retreat: Italy and military missions abroad after the Cold War
  • “Peaceful legislatures? Parliaments and military interventions after the Cold War: Insights from Germany and Italy”
  • Difesa e missioni militari: necessario un dibattito pubblico nel Paese
  • A new database: “The Parliamentary Deployment Votes Database (PDVD)”
  • Book Launch: “The Handbook of European Defense Policies and Armed Forces”

Categories

  • Contemporary warfare
  • Defense in Europe
  • Italian military operations abroad
  • Italian Strategy and Doctrine
  • Pop-defense (Mos Eisley)
  • uncategorized
  • Venus in Arms
  • War by other names

Tags

Afghanistan China Clint Eastwood Conflicts Cybersecurity Defense Difesa Drones EU F-35 F35 Foreign Fighters Foreign Policy Foreign Policy Analysis Genova Guerra Intelligence Iraq ISA ISIL ISIS Israel Italian Defense Italian foreign policy Italy Libia Libro Bianco Libya Military Transformation Missioni militari NATO Obama Pinotti Putin Renzi Russia Security SGRI SISP Star Wars Strategic narratives Syria Terrorism Ukraine crisis US defense policy

twitter

Tweets di @ViA_blog

Copyright © 2021 · eleven40 Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies