“Putin, You Suck”: Affective Sticking Points in the Czech Narrative on “Russian Hybrid Warfare”

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F48546054%3A_____%2F19%3AN0000029" target="_blank" >RIV/48546054:_____/19:N0000029 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12609" target="_blank" >https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12609</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pops.12609" target="_blank" >10.1111/pops.12609</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

“Putin, You Suck”: Affective Sticking Points in the Czech Narrative on “Russian Hybrid Warfare”

Original language description

Using the case of the Czech narrative on “Russian hybrid warfare” (RHW), this article contributes to the broader question of why narratives succeed. Building on Lacanian psychoanalysis, narrative scholarship, and affect/emotions research in International Relations, we suggest that narrative success is facilitated also by two interrelated factors: embedding in broader cultural contexts and the ability to incorporate and reproduce collectively circulating affects. We develop a methodological framework for encircling unobservable affects within discourse via “sticking points”—linguistic phenomena infused with affective investment. We outline three categories of sticking points—valued signifiers, fantasies, and biographical narratives. Utilizing the approach in our case study, we focus on a narrative based around the notion that Russia waged a “hybrid war” against “the West” and that this should be faced with quasi‐military measures, which was successful in changing the language of Czech national security. We show that this narrative incorporated a range of sticking points, which contributed to its relative success. It utilized valued signifiers, such as “the West,” “the Kremlin,” “agents,” and “occupation,” weaved them together into a fantasy of a threat to the nation's “Western” identity, and intertwined this with the biographical narratives of history as a lens for world politics and East/West geopolitics.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA19-12081S" target="_blank" >GA19-12081S: Transforming Security in the Age of Uncertainty: Understanding the Rise of Hybrid Warfare in the Czech Republic</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

ISSN

0162895X

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

40

Issue of the periodical within the volume

6

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

15

Pages from-to

1267-1281

UT code for WoS article

000473751800001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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