• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.75-116
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• 2021

This study argues that scholars lack an adequate conceptualization of the strategic use of social media framing by Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) during crises. As a theoretical starting point, this article employs the concept of soft disempowerment to suggest that MFAs may use online framing to limit an adversary's range of possible actions during a crisis by depicting that adversary as violating norms and values deemed desirable by the international community. Next, the article introduces the concept of mutually assured delegitimization (MAD), which suggests that actors may call into question one another's adherence with certain norms and values during crises, which results in the mutual depletion of soft power resources. Importantly, this article proposes a novel, methodological approach for the analysis of individual tweets during crises. To illustrate its methodological and conceptual innovations, the study analyzes tweets published by the MFAs of the United States (US) and Russia during the Crimea crisis and demonstrates that both MFAs used Twitter to negatively frame each other by calling their morals into question, which resulted in MAD.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.27-59
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• 2023

This study aims to serve as a critical comparison of the currently controversial 'new cold war' discourse. It took three triggers for the 'new cold war' discourse to emerge as a major issue in the media and academia and to have real political impact. With the launch of China's 'Belt and Road' project and Russia's annexation of Crimea leading to the 'Ukraine crisis,' the 'new cold war' discourse has begun to take shape. Trump's U.S.-China trade spat has brought the 'new cold war' debate to the forefront. The 'new cold war' debate is currently being intensified by the Biden administration's framing of "democracy versus authoritarianism" and Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Currently, there is no consensus among scholars on whether the controversial 'new cold war' is a new version, or a continuation of the historically defined concept of the Cold War. The term 'New Cold War' is less of an analytical concept and more of a topical term that has yet to achieve analytical status, let alone a theoretical validation and systematization, and the related debate remains at the level of assertion or discourse. Through this comparative analysis, I will argue that the ongoing discourse of the 'New Cold War' does not have the instrumental explanatory power to analyze the transitional phenomena of the world order today.