Nuffield Foundation grant: Study of Iraq civilian casualty reporting

The NPCU has received a Nuffield Foundation small grant for a project, ‘Comparing British and International Civilian Casualties: Mining the Iraq Body Count’. The project is a collaboration with Prof. John Sloboda and colleagues at Iraq Body Count, beginning in February 2010.

As conflict in Iraq continues to claim civilian casualties, the project compares total information about civilian casualties available in the global media infrastructure per se with casualty information reported in different national media, and seeks to explain why such information is filtered differently in particular countries and cultures.

For more information please contact Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk.

Trafigura and twitter

Trafigura must have known their attempt to stop The Guardian reporting Parliamentary questions about their oil dumping in the Ivory Coast would soon be exposed on twitter -- as it has been today -- so what is their real reason for getting the injunction? Are they naive or is something else going on?

By Ben O'Loughlin

Power and the imagination

Before 9/11 we had Independence Day. Before 7/7 we had the BBC “what if London was attacked” documentary. Now, a few weeks after I posted about the movie Angels and Demons, featuring terrorists removing anti-matter material from the Cern Large Hadron Collider for nefarious purposes, someone working at Cern has been arrested for having links to Al-Qaeda.

Anything that can be imagined to happen will happen, so to govern is to imagine. Government must be as visionary as the devil. On occasion, what movie directors imagine then happens. What if it is the case too that what governments imagine might happen will happen? This has become an ethical dilemma for policymakers. Governments imagine worst case scenarios because they are responsible for preventing them, and you can't prevent what you can't foresee. Does this mean worst case scenarios will happen? Is it more responsible not to imagine, not to foresee? But what if something happens that's worse than the worst case scenarios policymakers foresee - a failure of imagination? Policymakers' own imaginations have become a source of insecurity to them, and possibly to us.

By Ben O'Loughlin

The jihadist style-journey: Germany’s election and after

A video-letter from a purported al-Qaida soldier calling on Germany to end its military involvement in Afghanistan has heightened security concerns in the country before and after the election. But it is Bekkay Harrach's "western" appearance as much as his message that deserves scrutiny, say Mina Al-Lami & Ben O'Loughlin. 

Read today's article on openDemocracy here.

By Ben O'Loughlin.

Announcement: Strategic Narratives panels at the 2010 ISA Annual Convention

A strategic narrative is a narrative forged by a state with the express purpose of influencing the foreign policy behavior of other actors. This communicative work is particularly critical in periods of transition in the international system when challengers to hegemonic powers emerge, such as the challenge of China, India and the EU to the existing US-led world order. Over the past 12 months a research programme on strategic narratives has been initiated by the NPCU, Centre for European Politics at Royal Holloway, and Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex. This programme has been recognised by the International Studies Association, which will host two panels on the theme on Saturday 20 February 2010 at the ISA Annual Convention in New Orleans. The first panel presents recent studies of the strategic narrative work undertaken by major powers (and some non-state actors). The second brings together leading figures with experience of policy, media and academia for a roundtable discussion on the ‘battle for influence’ in international affairs.

 

Research Panel: Identity, Persuasion and Strategic Narratives (10.30am)

Papers:

  • Laura Roselle: Communicating Strategic Narratives: Constructing the Post-Cold War International System
  • Alister Miskimmon: The European Security Strategy as a Strategic Narrative: Projecting European Union influence?
  • Karin Fierke: The Body as Strategic Narrative: Self Sacrifice and Power in International Relations
  • Cristina Archetti: Constructing the Al-Qaida Narrative: Media and Communication in the Radicalization process
  • Ben O'Loughlin: Media Diplomacy, Non-Linear Narratives and Digital Emergence
  • Discussant: Andreas Antoniades, University of Sussex

 

Roundtable: The Battle for Influence: Great Powers in the 21st Century (3.45pm)

Participants:

  • Parag Khanna, New America Foundation
  • Philip Seib, University of Southern California
  • Jeffrey Legro, University of Virginia
  • Laura Roselle, Elon University
  • Fabio Petito, University of Sussex
  • Ben O'Loughlin, NPCU
  • Alister Miskimmon, Royal Holloway, University of London

 

For further information please contact Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk.