Ben O’Loughlin has published a new article, The visual politics of the Iran deal: narrative, image and verification. The article is in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, co-authored with Alister Miskimmon. In it, the authors argue that leaders in Iran and the US made deliberate attempts to orchestrate a shared narrative that it would suit all sides to reach a deal for Iran to have nuclear power and the international community to monitor Iran’s facilities. However, there was much visual evidence of efforts by Iran or by those against Iran to paint Iran in a good or bad light, respectively. Why? For an actor in international relations to be trusted by others, there should be visual evidence that they are behaving as others would desire. To have a credible identity requires others to “see” your character, and international relations provides a lot of each character or country to see. Despite these difficulties, the authors illustrate how Iran, the US and other leading powers agreed a deal.

The article should stimulate readers to think about how narrative and visuality are linked, and how actors try to do this strategically to build a positive impression of themselves, or, sometimes, a negative impression of others. Foreign policy involves some careful communication.

Ben is grateful to the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Bologna, where much of this research was conducted in 2016 while Ben was Visiting Professor there.