Methods of Analysis of Strategic Cultures

The aim of the article is to reveal the intention of “strategic culture”, which has a significant cognitive potential for studying the political course of the main players in the modern world. In modern-day Russia, the study of this phenomenon is characterized by inconsistency and ambiguity, which has disorienting consequences and makes it difficult to use the concept to identify political phenomena and processes. The situation is further complicated by the lack of clarity about what a political strategy is. The article gives the author’s vision of the strategy and reveals how the strategic culture is determined by the historical past of the nation, including its military experience. Therefore, the concept of “strategic culture” refers to the dependence of the subject’s political behavior on their perception of security. This perception is determined by the historical experience of the use of military force and the attitude towards it. Therefore, in practice, strategic culture is expressed in preferences when choosing ways and means of the subject’s response to changes in the environment.

The comprehension of a specific strategic culture is complicated by the fact that, while existing and being insufficiently studied and explained, it can be perceived as an irrational phenomenon. Understanding the strategic culture requires the perception of value meanings, symbols, and motives of political players. It leads to increased requirements for the choice of methodology and research methods. The study of strategic culture and related phenomena involves the complex use of applied and specific methods. Among them, discourse analysis and content analysis, cross-cultural, semantic and semiotic analysis, study of documents, analysis of performance results should be singled out.

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