Soft power Studies

Narrative Politics and Revolutionary Diplomacy: A Comparative Inquiry into Soft Power in Contemporary Revolutions

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Hosseinali Mehrnia

Department of Islamic Studies, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract
Soft power, understood as the capacity to persuade and attract, plays a decisive role in the survival and transnational influence of revolutions. This study seeks to examine the mechanisms of soft power in contemporary revolutions—namely the French, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian revolutions—by addressing the following question: how have these revolutions reproduced their normative appeal at the transnational level through “narrative politics” and “revolutionary diplomacy”? Employing a comparative method and a historical-sociological approach, the article argues that revolutionary soft power is not merely the product of material instruments, but rather the outcome of revolutionary systems’ ability to formulate a “liberatory narrative” and project it through revolutionary diplomacy. The findings demonstrate that, despite differences in ideological foundations, all four revolutions have been able to create a basis for non-coercive influence by drawing on symbolism, identity construction, and the presentation of an “alternative to the existing order.” Nevertheless, differences in the nature of these narratives—secular-modern versus religious-civilizational—have resulted in variation in the durability and scope of acceptance of their soft power. Ultimately, the article shows that revolutionary diplomacy, as the driving force of narrative politics, connects the internal values of a revolution with transnational public opinion, and that the continuity of such soft power depends on the effectiveness of reproducing and updating these narratives

Keywords

Soft power
narrative politics
revolutionary diplomacy
contemporary revolutions
transnational influence
identity construction
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