Affect in the Czech Narrative of "Russian Hybrid Warfare"
Jakub Eberle and Jan Daniel recently published their article "Putin, You Suck": Affective Sticking Points in the Czech Narrative on "Russian Hybrid Warfare" in the prestigious Political Psychology journal. Together, they examine a dominant Czech narrative of "Russian Hybrid Warfare," placing emphasis on the role of identity.
The articles focuses on how one of the many possible narratives about the threat of “Russian hybrid war” succeeded in the Czech environment. The authors examine the blending of narratives and emotions in the Czech debate on Russia and analyze texts, social networks and a broader debate on Czech identity. They come to a conclusion that the conservative narrative about Russia as a threat to civilization succeeded as well due to being able to make use of a number of motives that have a strong emotive charge in Czech society, such as the question of Czech belonging to the West or the historical traumas of 1939 and 1968.
You can find the article here.
This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation under the number 19-12081S.
About the authors:
Jakub Eberle, Ph.D. is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and the Head of the Centre for European Integration; his main fields of interest include critical theories of International Relations and discourse theory and methodology.
Jan Daniel, Ph.D. is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and his main fields of interest include interpretative approaches in International Relations and security studies and Middle East politics.