۱.
Over the past century, the United Kingdom has transitioned through various international roles, from a global superpower during its imperial era to a key partner within the European Union. Brexit, however, has triggered what many scholars describe as a foreign policy ‘identity crisis’. This paper challenges this conventional narrative by applying an ontological security framework to investigate how EU membership and the European integration process themselves represented an identity crisis for many Britons. The analysis explores the emotional motives behind Brexit by examining how Euroscepticism, combined with a desire to reclaim Britain’s ‘islandness’ identity, contributed to the decision to leave the European Union. Employing a thematic narrative analysis, the research examines the interaction between identity-based motivations and broader political and historical contexts to reveal new understandings of the multifaceted factors driving Brexit and its enduring effects. By investigating ontological security concepts such as existential threat, continuity disruption, and the restoration of narrative identity, the paper argues that EU integration itself, rather than Brexit, was perceived by many as the principal threat to Britain’s biographical narrative and national identity. These insights contribute to understanding how identity-based anxieties influence major political decisions and carry implications for policymaking and EU–UK relations moving forward.
۲.
Following the crash of the Iranian Air Force helicopter near the village of Uzi on 19 May 2024, which caused the decease of the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and seven other politicians and crew members, a vast number of news articles, commentaries, and papers were published worldwide, reflecting various reactions to the incident. This event serves as a boundary-making moment both in the surface structure—narrating an event—and in the deep structure—drawing an in-group/out-group divide with the president as the representative of a conservative discourse. The present study attempts to examine how Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash has been represented in the NOW corpus (approximately 19.2 billion words). Inspired by Baker’s (2004) framework of corpus-assisted analysis, as well as Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory (2001) and Van Dijk’s Ideological Square (2009), the analysis of this event’s representation was conducted using the Keynes parameter and semantic categorization based on a detailed reading of concordance lines. Corpus-based categorization serves as a tool to articulate the semiotic system of the Western worldview toward this incident. The data ultimately reveal a dual representation of the event. On one hand, it narrates reactions from various actors, including the Islamic Republic’s allies and enemies; on the other, at a deeper level, it guides the audience toward an other-making contemplation, producing three types of other-makings based on Raisi’s different positions as a judge, president, and religious figure. This discourse revolves around a nodal point of binary representation—good versus evil—centered on the late president, with categories such as alliance, conspiracy theories, transformation from death to salvation, leadership aspirations, hardline stance, public (il)legitimacy, brutal judge, suppressor president, and unconfirmed cleric, which foreground the negative other more than the positive self.
۳.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involved a combination of hard and soft power measures, with geopolitical representations strategically employed to justify violations of international law. Despite their significance for understanding Russia’s regional actions, academic literature has mainly underexplored geopolitical representations. This paper aims to address this gap and answer to the following questions: (1) how did Russia use geopolitical narrations to justify the war against Ukraine, and (2) why did Russian geopolitical representations fail to achieve the aims? The research hypothesis is that 'the purpose of geopolitical narratives of perceived threats from Ukraine was to receive internal support and legitimize the war form the point of view of International Laws'. The research findings suggest that Russia’s initial military intervention was primarily based on a geopolitical narrative portraying Ukraine as an immediate threat through the alleged presence of Nazis, which served as a pretext to justify military action. In reality, this narrative was also used to retain Ukraine as a buffer zone against NATO expansion. This paper examines how geopolitical representations have influenced Russia’s foreign policy and its implications for regional security, and shows how they have been used to justify and sustain Russia’s military actions against Ukraine.
۴.
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris brought together 195 countries to reach an agreement. Regardless of the environmental issues discussed and agreed in the conference, what seems significant is the global role that France played as the conference hosting nation. The country managed to promote itself as "the" eligible place among many European cities to host the conference, creating a diplomatic prestige for itself, provoking new environmental ambitions worldwide and presenting Paris as the home city, whose name is attached to the agreement forever. Yet, environmental issues have not always been a driving force for diplomatic efforts and public policy initiatives in France. Indeed, environmental protection grew to appear in the national agenda throughout decades and developed as a notion worthy of political and diplomatic attention in a long-term process, the study of which is noticeable in the European context. Utilizing Issue Ownership and Green Soft Power theories, the research employs Theory-Testing Process Tracing method to analyze France’s environmental contributions resulting in its leader role in the Paris Agreement. Ultimately, this study seeks to illuminate how environmental concerns gained public and political attention in the French society and politics, leading to the country's position in the agreement process. The author argues that an interplay of domestic and external factors let France present itself as a responsible actor in environmental affairs, strengthen its soft power on the international stage, and reinforce both national policy and international influence on the issue of the agreement.
۵.
Global supply chains, initially designed to enhance production efficiency and reduce costs through geographically dispersed networks, have evolved into complex global value chains (GVCs) characterized by deep interdependencies among countries and industries. According to Economic Interdependence Theory, higher levels of mutual economic dependence can influence both cooperation and systemic vulnerability, which are often underestimated—especially amid escalating geopolitical tensions. This study examines the resilience of global value chains by analyzing the structural positions of the US and China between 2012 and 2020. Using OECD Inter-Country Input-Output tables and a social network analysis (SNA) framework, it evaluates the network positions of 45 industries across 76 economies (excluding services), through three weighted centrality measures: degree, betweenness, and PageRank. These metrics allow us to (1) measure the degree of bilateral interdependence, (2) evaluate structural resilience to supply disruptions, and (3) uncover network-driven asymmetries in global economic power. Results indicate that China has significantly enhanced its resilience by diversifying industrial connections and expanding its structural centrality, thereby reducing vulnerability to external shocks. In contrast, while the United States remains integral to high-value nodes, its network position is more concentrated, which may expose it to greater risks under conditions of disruption or fragmentation.
۶.
Gender inequality remains a pressing global issue, with international organisations emphasising the urgent need to resolve it. India, as part of the worldwide community, has aligned with this imperative by integrating gender-responsive policies into its development frameworks. The Five-Year Plans (FYPs) of India have historically shaped the nation’s development trajectory, with the 12th FYP (2012–2017) marking a significant shift by explicitly prioritizing gender-responsive policies in key sectors. This study employs qualitative content analysis to study the representation and inclusion of women in the 12th FYP, using the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Gender Inequality Index (GII) as an analytical framework. The GII evaluates gender disparities across three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation. This research identifies progress and persistent gaps in India’s gender-responsive policies by analysing policy language, budgetary allocations, and implementation outcomes. Applying the Capability Approach as a theoretical lens, this study reveals that while the 12th FYP has expanded resources for women in health, education, and the labour market, persistent barriers in social norms, security, and decision-making opportunities continue to limit their real freedoms to convert these resources into meaningful life choices. The findings emphasise that true empowerment requires not only policy provisions, but also institutional reforms to dismantle structural inequalities.
۷.
This study examines how news headlines about the October 7, 2023, Gaza crisis employ linguistic structures to convey predetermined framing and reinforce power dynamics. Drawing on Information Structure Theory and the analytical framework of information packing theory, a corpus of 50 headlines from major international outlets (The New York Times, Reuters, CNN, AP, BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera) published between October 2023 and July 2025 was analyzed using qualitative discourse analysis. Information Structure Theory examines how speakers and writers organize and highlight pieces of information in sentences, such as what is presented as known or new, important or backgrounded, to guide the listener or reader’s attention and interpretation. The study investigates how syntactic and grammatical choices frame events, highlight causes, assign or obscure responsibility, and shape readers’ interpretations and thematic focus. Findings reveal that headlines systematically manipulate information structures to achieve pragmatic effects. Here, foregrounding (preposing) emphasizes key actors or consequences; postposing constructions activate presuppositions and dramatize urgency; passive voice, inversion, and interrogatives obscure responsibility and subtly assign or obscure blame; also, expansion constructions (relative clauses, appositives, and parentheticals) enrich context and amplify humanitarian or emotional dimensions. Overall, the study shows that linguistic choices function as pragmatic tools for managing discourse, framing narratives, and influencing perceptions of accountability. These results underscore the ideological and power dynamics embedded in news production and highlight the importance of analyzing information structures to understand how media discourse shapes public understanding and meaning.
۸.
This study examines Russia’s strategic culture in West Asia and its implications for bilateral relations with Iran from the post-Soviet period (1991) to recent developments in 2025. Employing a qualitative framework rooted in strategic culture analysis, the research demonstrates that Russia’s approach toward Iran is shaped by pragmatic opportunism, historical experience, and a desire to maintain regional influence without overcommitting militarily. Findings reveal that Moscow engages with Tehran episodically, balancing cooperation against shared threats with strategic caution to preserve flexibility in relations with other regional actors, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Brief episodes such as the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, the Syrian crisis, and the ongoing war in Ukraine illustrate how Russia mediates, condemns actions diplomatically, and selectively coordinates with Iran without offering binding security guarantees. The study identifies a persistent divergence in perceptions: Russia often views Iran as a secondary, conditional partner, whereas Tehran expects collaboration on an equal footing. Despite these differences, mutual interests in regional stability, energy cooperation, and strategic depth create occasions for tactical alignment, particularly under external pressures. Overall, the results demonstrate that the Russia–Iran relationship is conditional, adaptive, and strategically ambiguous, with cooperation shaped less by ideological convergence and more by pragmatic calculations. By situating these interactions within the framework of strategic culture, the study provides a nuanced understanding of the limits and possibilities of Russia–Iran engagement in West Asia, highlighting how historical legacies, geopolitical constraints, and contemporary crises collectively define a partnership that is influential yet inherently fragile.
