Strategic Culture as a Logonomic System: Towards a Social Semiotic

Model of Cultural Constraints in International Relations

Ivan Fomin

HSE University, Russia;

MGIMO University, Russia;
Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, Russia.

fomin.i@gmail.com

The article seeks to contribute to building a conceptual interface between the

disciplines of (social) semiotics and international relations by theorizing strategic
culture as a semiotic concept. The study reconsiders the notion of strategic culture
using fundamental categories of social semiotics which allow systematize and
instrumentalize this notion while preserving its broad scope. Strategic culture is
redefined as a logonomic system that constrains meaningful behaviour and
communication in strategic affairs. Such social semiotic reconceptualization makes it
possible to apply the principle of multimodality and the Peircean systematics of signs
and interpretants in the studies of strategic culture. This approach helps to clarify
some problematic aspects in the studies of strategic culture by suggesting that
strategic cultures are conveyed and reproduced by sets of multimodal logonomic
signs. Those strategic-cultural signs involve diverse semiotic modes and produce
three distinct kinds of interpretants (initial interpretants (meanings), dynamical
interpretants (actions), and final interpretants (habits)). The proposed approach
allows to transcend the existing controversy about how culture-as-ideas, culture-as-
artifacts, and culture-as-behaviour are related to each other in strategic culture.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

The category of strategic culture was originally introduced in the discipline of
international relations (IR) in late 1970s. Since then, it has become a popular term
that is used in order to refer to the fact that the actions that are performed by
international actors in strategic affairs tend to be culturally constrained, in a sense
that for each culture those actions follow particular sets of patterns that are relatively
stable and distinct from the patterns inherent in other cultures. In contemporary
international studies, the notion of strategic culture is often defined in quasi-semiotic
ways, with references to “intersubjective systems of symbols” (Lock 2010, 697),
“languages”, “argumentation structures”, and “metaphors” (Alastair Iain Johnston
1995, 46). However, those conceptualizations often turn out to be problematic, due
to unresolved questions about how culture-as-artefacts, culture-as-ideas, and
culture-as-behaviour are related to each other in strategic cultures.
The goal of this study is to systematically theorize strategic culture as a semiotic
concept. In particular, I attempt to develop a semiotic reconceptualization of the
notion of strategic culture that would help to tackle the existing conceptual issues
inherent in this notion, clarify the modes of existence of strategic culture, and
theorize how cultural, behavioural, and communicative elements fit into it. My
attempt to semiotically reconceptualize strategic culture primarily leverages
sociosemiotic theory regarding logonomic systems (R. Hodge and Kress 1988, 4)
and multimodality (Kress 2010), as well as Ivan Fomin’s model of logonomic sign
that synthesises Social Semiotics and Peircean theory of signs (I. Fomin in press;
2020a).
In essence, I suggest to define strategic culture as a logonomic system and theorize
how the distinction of various sociosemiotic modes as well as Peircean classification
of signs and interpretants can be applied to strategic-cultural signs. Overall, I seek to
find sociosemiotic categories that can be helpful in guiding the analysis of strategic
cultures and discuss how the proposed framework is relevant in the context of
existing definitional and theoretical problems inherent in the studies of strategic
cultures.
I suggest that the semiotic model of strategic culture that is developed in this article
is important not only as a potent research instrument, but also as an integrative
concept that can become one of the key elements in the conceptual interface
between the disciplines of semiotics and international relations, as well as, more
generally, between semiotics and social sciences. In general, the framework that I
am developing here is intended as attempt to contribute to a broader project of
semiotic social science, building on the fundamental concepts concerning the
relation between the social and the semiotic, formulated by Max Weber (Weber
1985, 542; 1978, 4), Ferdinand de Saussure (Saussure 1995, 33), Charles Morris
(Morris 1938, 2), Ludwig Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein 1999, §19-23), M.A.C. Halliday
(Michael A. K. Halliday 1978, 4), and Yuri Lotman (I. M. Lotman 1975, 25–26; 1976,
292–93; Yu. M. Lotman and Piatigorsky 1978, 233; Пятигорский and Лотман 2004,
434). Moreover, this article is designed as a contribution to the growing corpus of
more recent studies that seek to bridge semiotic analysis with the broader toolkit of
social research, in various versions of social semiotics1 (e.g.: Heiskala 2003;

1In this article, I use both capitalized and non-capitalized versions of the term Social Semiotics in
order to distinguish between the Bob Hodge and Gunther Kress’s framework of Social Semiotics (R.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Randviir 2004; S. T. Zolyan 2018), political semiotics (e.g.: Ilyin 2016a; Makarychev
and Yatsyk 2018; Selg and Ventsel 2020; Ильин and Фомин 2016), and IR
semiotics2 (e.g.: Drieschova 2017).
The article consists of nine sections. In the first, I present a brief overview of
developments in social semiotics, political semiotics, and IR semiotics. In the second
and third, I review various conceptual frameworks that exist in the studies strategic
cultures and discuss some of the main definitional and theoretical problems that are
associated with this notion. In the fourth section, I demonstrate that the concept of
strategic culture is in fact often defined in international relations in a quasi-semiotic
way and then, in section five, propose my own, explicitly semiotic, conceptualization
for this term. In the sixth section, I demonstrate how the category of multimodality
can be helpful in resolving some of the existing conceptual difficulties inherent in the
studies of strategic cultures. In the seventh and eighth, I explain how the Peircean
triads of icon-index-symbol and initial-dynamical-final interpretant can be used in the
models of strategic-cultural semiosis.

1 Social semiotics, political semiotics, IR semiotics

The approach to the studies of strategic culture that I am suggesting in this article is
intended to be a contribution to the corpus of research that seeks to integrate the
toolkit of semiotic analysis into the methodological apparatus of social studies. More
specifically, it is an attempt to add another building block into the conceptual
interface between semiotic studies and political science, or, even more specifically,
between semiotics and IR. So in this section I will present a brief overview of the
theories and concepts that can be considered as parts of such interface or at least
as noteworthy steps towards developing it.
Generally, an important starting point for my study is the idea that, in its very
foundations, social science is a semiotic discipline. At least, this is something what
Max Weber, one of the fathers of contemporary sociology, seemingly implies, as in

Hodge and Kress 1988) and broader set of studies in social semiotics. In this respect, I generally
follow the principle formulated by Hodge: “‘Social semiotics’ can refer to two related but distinct
entities. ‘Social semiotics’ without capitals is a broad, heterogeneous orientation within semiotics,
straddling many other areas of inquiry concerned, in some way, with the social dimensions of
meaning in any media of communication, its production, interpretation and circulation, and its
implications in social processes, as cause or effect. ‘Social Semiotics’ with capitals is a
distinguishable school in linguistics and semiotics which specifically addresses these issues” (B.
Hodge n.d.).
2 It is tempting, convenient, and seemingly appropriate to use here the label “IR semiotics”, however I
want to remind here a precaution formulated by Anti Randviir who argued against fragmenting
semiotics “into extremely minute fields that hardly can be regarded as independent disciplines”
(Randviir 2004, 43). Even though I believe that IR semiotics can potentially become a large field of
semiotic studies, I assume that it cannot and should not be separated from the broader domains of
political semiotics, social semiotics, and general semiotics. In fact, the whole point of introducing and
promoting semiotic analysis in international studies as well as in other social sciences is not in
splitting semiotics into numerous subdisciplines, but rather in using the unifying potential of semiotic
toolkit in order to integrate them (Morris 1938, 2; I. Fomin 2018; Ильин and Фомин 2016). Thus, I am
talking here about “IR semiotics” not to emphasize its fundamental distinctiveness from other
applications of semiotics, but rather to highlight the mediating role of semiotic concepts and principles,
as they are applicable across various disciplines, including IR.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

his account of “basic sociological terms” he suggests that the aim of sociology
consists in the interpretive understanding of subjectively meaningful behavior (Weber
1985, 542; 1978, 4). Conversely, semiotics can be argued to be a discipline that is
fundamentally a part of social sciences3. At least, this is something we can deduce
from how Ferdinand de Saussure defines sémiologie as a discipline that studies "the
life of signs within society" and is a part social psychology (Saussure 1995, 33).
Furthermore, Charles W. Morris, another key semiotic theorist, noted that the
common property of the subjects of all humanities and social sciences is that their
subjects are inherently semiotic (Morris 1938, 2).
Many other prominent thinkers also put efforts into theorizing how semiotic forms
and social forms relate to each other. In particular, a significant breakthrough in this
respect was made by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who formulated a fundamental argument
about the association between "language-games" (semiotic forms) and "forms of life"
(Wittgenstein 1999, §19-23). Moreover, John Austin’s and John Searle’s accounts of
how “performative” language forms function as forms of social action were also
especially important in this respect (Austin 1962; Searle 1989). Furthermore, in the
20th century, many semiotic and quasi-semiotic concepts were imported to social
studies due to the impact of some popular structuralist and (post)-structuralist
thinkers. Broadly speaking, those thinkers often referred to the Saussurean agenda
of studying “the life of signs within society” (e.g.: Barthes 1957; Foucault 1966).
Moreover, they inspired various approaches to critical discourse analysis that are
now common in social and political studies (e.g.: Caldas-Coulthard and Coulthard
1996; Wodak and Meyer 2001).
A more explicit attempt of bridge the semiotic and the social was made by M. A. C.
Halliday who tried to go beyond merely juxtaposing linguistic and social phenomena
and theorized language and society are an inseparable unity of the mutually
supplementing entities (Michael A. K. Halliday 1978, 4). Later, Halliday’s ideas were
developed and reinterpreted by Bob Hodge and Gunther Kress in their project of
Social Semiotics (R. Hodge and Kress 1988), in which they argued that the
convergence of social and semiotic is not limited exclusively to language, but
relevant for all the modes of human semiosis. Simultaneously (yet independently),
an alternative tradition of social semiotic research was developed in the Tartu-
Moscow School. In particular, Yuri Lotman and Aleksandr Pyatigorsky, quite similarly
to M. A. C. Halliday (and to J. R. Firth (cit. ex: Michael A. K. Halliday 1978, 4)),
argued that “the function of a text is defined as its social role, its capacity to serve
certain demands of the community which creates the text” (Yu. M. Lotman and
Piatigorsky 1978, 233; Пятигорский and Лотман 2004, 434). Furthermore, as (S.
Zolyan 2017) shows, Tartu-Moscow School’s theorists also developed an original
social semiotic approach, focusing on the semiotics of socially regularized behavior
(Pyatigorski and Ouspenski 1967, 28; I. M. Lotman 1975, 25–26; 1976, 292–93;
Chernov 1967; S. Zolyan and Chernov 1977). Moreover, some of more recent
semiotic projects also attempted to systematically develop social-semiotic theoretical
frameworks (see, for example, Risto Heiskala’s “semiotic sociology” and “semiotic

3 Here, of course, one also should discuss what we mean by social. The most extreme position in this
respect was probably formulated by Bob Hodge who argues that any process in which participants
(not necessarily humans) share meanings is a social one (B. Hodge 2019).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

institutionalism” (Heiskala 2003; 2007; 2014), Anti Randviir’s sociosemiotic approach
of culture (Randviir 2004), and Suren Zolyan’s synthetic transdisciplinary approach
to social semiotics (S. T. Zolyan 2018; S. Zolyan 2019))4.
As to the interface between semiotics and political studies, today it is still largely
underdeveloped. In fact, according to Wolfgang Drechsler, political science is the
discipline that was “particularly little” touched by semiotic thinking (Drechsler 2009,
73–74). For the most part, the elements of semiotic toolkit in political studies is
limited to quasi-semiotic post-structuralist ideas and discourse-oriented approaches
to text analysis (e.g.: Chilton 2004; Fairclough 2003; Fairclough and Fairclough
2012; van Dijk 1997; Wodak 2009). As to more systematic attempts to develop a
particular integrated framework that would bridge the political and the semiotic, those
are very rare. One especially remarkable exception is Peeter Selg and Andreas
Ventsel’s project of “political semiotics” that was developed a framework for
“relational political analysis”, synthesizing Yuri Lotman’s semiotics with Ernesto
Laclau’s theory of discourse and hegemony (Selg and Ventsel 2020). Another
noteworthy example of political-semiotic synthesis is the project of Andrey
Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk whose intention was to find a new language for
political analysis by importing the elements of Yuri Lotman's cultural semiotics and in
particular his conceptualization of the boundary into the context of contemporary
political science and political philosophy (Makarychev and Yatsyk 2018).
In the discipline of international relations, the situation is quite similar to that of
political science in general. The only nuance here is that many of the concepts and
principles that can be considered “quasi-semiotic” often appear in IR under the label
of constructivism. In particular, Alexander Wendt develops his constuctivist “social
theory of international politics”, explicitly drawing from symbolic interactionism
(Wendt 2003, 143) that, in turn, can be seen as “primitive sociological semiotics” that
emerged in American sociology (Maccannell 1976, 99). Furthermore, in many
respects Wendt’s account of constitutive relations resonates with Selg and Ventsel’s
relational political semiotics (Selg and Ventsel 2020, 20–22). As to explicit
references to semiotics in IR, one can find those in some of the postmodernist
approaches to world politics (e.g.: Der Derian 1989; Fortin 1989; Gregory 1989;
Hurwitz 1989; Luke 1989; Rubenstein 1989; Shapiro 1989).
For the most part, IR studies allude to (post)-structuralist sémiologie, while
references to Peircean semiotics are seemingly much less common. A notable
exception is this respect is Alena Drieschova’s work (Drieschova 2017), in which she
proposes to use Peircean semiotics in order to bridge the material-ideational divide
in IR scholarship. Her central argument emphasizes that for Peircean semiotics
signs can both appear as material things and practices in the material world
(therefore they can “underlie material constraints” as well as “limit and enable the
possibilities for action upon the world”) and, simultaneously, convey particular ideas
(Drieschova 2017, 33).
Overall, when it comes to the convergence between semiotic and social studies, the
progress as well as the agenda for future efforts can be imagined as the dynamics of

4For more extensive and detailed reviews of various schools, branches, and currents of social
semiotics see (Cobley and Randviir 2009; I. Fomin 2020b; I. V. Fomin and Ilyin 2019).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

two “frontiers” that are “the frontier of sociosemiotic material” and “the frontier of
sociosemiotic methodology” (I. Fomin 2020b, 34, 40–41). According to Ivan Fomin,
the “frontier of sociosemiotic material” refers to how semiotics progresses in
extending its scope by broadening the range of materials which are considered as
objects of sociosemiotic research, while the “frontier of sociosemiotic methodology”
represents the progress of how semiotic tools are integrated with other
methodologies of social studies.
In this article, my will attempt to develop a sociosemiotic approach to strategic
culture and thereby, hopefully, contribute to moving forward the “frontier of
sociosemiotic methodology”.

2 What is strategic culture?

So, what exactly do IR scholars mean when they talk of strategic cultures?
Originally, this term was introduced by Jack Snyder in his 1977 RAND Corporation
report “The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations”
(Snyder 1977). In that report, he used these words in order to refer to particular
cognitive and behavioural patterns that appear as a result of socialization and
characterize particular national approach to strategic thinking:
Strategic culture can be defined as the sum total of ideals, conditional
emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behavior that members of the
national strategic community have acquired though instruction or imitation and
share with each other with regard to nuclear strategy (Snyder 1977, 8).
Snyder suggested that strategic culture, as a particular “set of general beliefs,
attitudes and behavioral patterns”, transmitted in the process of socialization,
achieves “a state of semipermanence” and, thus, emerges “on the level of 'culture'
rather than mere 'policy'”, providing “perceptual lens” through which the international
affairs are perceived (Snyder 1977, v). In particular, Snyder argued that the Soviet
approach to strategic thinking can be seen as a unique “strategic culture”, appearing
as a result of socialization into a particular “Soviet mode of strategic thinking”
(Snyder 1977, v).
Later, Snyder emphasized that his intention was not to advance explanations that
would refer to some broadly conceived differences between “traditional cultures”
(e.g. “between traditional Russian and Western cultures”) or “political cultures” (e.g.
“between Leninist and liberal political cultures”) (Snyder 1990, 4). Furthermore, in
many respects, Snyder explicitly warned against cultural explanations of political
behaviour, stressing that his original idea of strategic culture was supposed to
highlight not the distinctiveness of national cultures in general, but rather the
persistence of particular strategic approaches (“once a distinctive approach to
strategy takes hold, it tends to persist despite changes in the circumstances that
gave rise to it, through processes of socialization and institutionalization and through
the role of strategic concepts in legitimating these social arrangements” (Snyder
1990, 4)).
Eventually, the concept of strategic culture became an important tool for those IR
scholars who suggested that neorealist models of international relations are not
always accurate, as those models tend to overlook the inertia of behavioural and

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

cognitive patterns, assuming that the behaviour of states can be explained by the
distribution of their material capabilities in inherently “anarchic” international system.
The concept of strategic culture turned out to be useful as it allowed to grasp the
influence of ideational factors that were overlooked. Furthermore, it gave impetus to
an extensive discussion on the problem of ethnocentrism in IR. In particular, in 1970-
1980s this discussion evolved mostly around the issues of dissimilarity in the
patterns of behaviour between the US and the USSR (Snyder 1977; Klein 1988;
Jacobsen 1990; Alastair Iain Johnston 1995; Anand V. 2020, 5).
One of the key authors who contributed to that discussion was Ken Booth, who in
1979 published a book Strategy and Ethnocentrism. In that book, he thoroughly
explored the problem of “cultural distortions” in international relations, claiming that
since there is no clear dividing line between image and reality, “the reality of our
strategic world is inextricably interconnected with our manner of conceiving it” (Booth
2014, 9). Booth also developed his own definition of strategic culture, which was
different from the one suggested by Snyder. In particular, Booth’s definition mostly
emphasized not the permanence of strategic approaches, but rather the cultural
distinctiveness of “national characters” or “national styles” (Booth 2014, 9–19). Booth
also significantly broadened the scope of the notion of strategic culture, including in it
a wide range of diverse cultural phenomena, not limiting it to persistent approaches
of strategic thinking and behaviour with regard to nuclear weapons. According to his
quite loose definition:
The concept of strategic culture refers to a nation's traditions, values, attitudes,
patterns of behaviour, habits, symbols, achievements and particular ways of
adapting to the environment and solving problems with respect to the threat or
use of force. […] A strategic culture is persistent over time, but neither
particular elements nor a particular culture as a whole are immutable.
Nevertheless, those elements together or in part deserving to be called 'cultural'
do tend to outlast all but major changes in military technology, domestic
arrangements or the international environment (Booth 1990, 121).
The scope of the strategic culture was broadened even further by David Jones who
argued that “Snyder's discussion was narrowly focused on an assumed 'nuclear
strategic culture' and virtually ignored other issues” (Jones 1990, 36). In his own
model, Jones theorized an extensive set of various elements “that interact to
constitute any national culture, be it strategic or otherwise”. In particular, Jones
mentioned “the nature and geography of the state, the ethnic culture of its founding
people, and the latter's subsequent history” as the primary elements of strategic
culture, followed by derivative secondary factors, such as social-economic system,
governmental-administrative system, and technological base. Finally, those social-
economic and administrative factors inform the military-political institutions of the
state, as well as its national goals, style of diplomacy and military strategy (Jones
1990, 37).

3 Problems with strategic culture

Even though the concept of strategic culture was a significant step forward in the
development of international studies, indicating some of the shortcomings of
neorealist theories and allowing to account for ideational factors that inform strategic

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

political actions, it also turned out to be in itself quite problematic. As Edward Lock
puts it, “while the notion of strategic culture clearly holds some intuitive appeal for
scholars of strategic studies, it remains at best a contested concept and
incomprehensible one” (Lock 2010, 685–86).
Similarly to the mother-concept of culture, the notion of strategic culture turned into a
“semantic monstrocity” (Kelley 1996, 101), emerging as a poorly structured bricolage
of multifarious entities. Some of the definitional issues that are inherent in this
composite concept are evident, for example, in the Ken Booth’s definition that was
cited above. According to it, the scope of strategic culture encompasses diverse
components, such as ideational forms (“values” and “attitudes”), behavioural forms
(“patterns of behavior”), semiotic forms (“symbols”), as well as systems of rules
(“habits” and “traditions”). Furthermore, even though David Jones multi-level model
of constituting elements of strategic culture can be seen as an attempt to better
structure the building blocks of this concept, instead it rather stretches the
conceptual scope even further, as “technology, geography, organizational culture
and traditions, historical strategic practices, political culture, national character,
political psychology, ideology, and even international system structure” are all
considered relevant inputs into the strategic culture (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995, 37–
38), making this notion extremely unwieldy and amorphous.
One of the most problematic junctures in the concept of the strategic culture is the
relation between its behavioural and ideational aspects (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995;
Gray 1999; Lock 2010). In particular, as Alastair Iain Johnston argued, there exist at
least three distinct approaches (“generations”) in the studies of strategic culture that
quite noticeably differ in how they conceptualize of strategic culture and especially in
how they theorize the relation between strategic culture and strategic action. In
particular, the “first generation” approaches (which emerged in the early 1980s)
implied that a certain type of strategic culture consistently leads to a certain type of
strategic behaviour (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995, 37–38). (For example, the
American strategic culture, distinct from the Soviet strategic culture, made the United
States incapable of fighting and winning a nuclear war.) So, the strategic culture was
seen mostly as a cause of strategic behaviour, as well as a part of it.
In contrast, the “second generation” theories (which appeared in the mid-1980s)
emphasized that “there is a vast difference between what leaders think or say they
are doing and the deeper motives for what in fact they do”. So, the “second
generation” approaches saw strategic culture mostly as “a tool of political hegemony
in the realm of strategic decision-making” (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995, 39). For
example, according to Bradley Klein, strategic culture “involves the ways in which the
state can legitimately use violence against putative enemies”, as well as, more
broadly, “widely available orientations to violence”. A nation's strategic culture
“emerges from a web of international practices” that “constrains the range of
activities comprising the political economy of domestic society”, establishing the
constrained range within which decision-makers arrive at policies (Klein 1988, 136).
Finally, the “third generation” approaches to strategic culture (which emerged in the
1990s) did not diverge significantly from the “first generation” in their basic
conceptualizations of strategic culture, as they also tend to explore how strategic
culture “presents decision-makers with limited range of options”. However, they differ

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

from the “first generation” when it comes to the sources of strategic culture, less
emphasizing not its deep historic roots and seeing it mostly as a product of recent
practice and experience and connecting it to “military culture”, “political-military
culture” or “organizational culture” (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995, 41–42).
Furthermore, the “third generation” definitions of strategic culture, “for the most part,
explicitly exclude behavior as an element” (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995, 41).
So, overall, the divergences and confusion that exist in the studies of strategic
culture largely attributed to the unresolved question of how culture-as-ideas, culture-
as-artifacts, and culture-as-behaviour are related to each other and which of those
elements should be included into the strategic culture (Lock 2017).

4 Quasi-semiotic conceptualizations of strategic culture

As IR theorists seek to resolve the existing confusion regarding the notion of
strategic culture, they sometimes suggest definitions that conceptualize it if not in
semiotic, but at least in crypto- or quasi-semiotic terms. For example, David Haglund
in his discussion of strategic culture (Haglund 2004, 485) explicitly refers to the
semiotic definition of culture, formulated by William Sewell, according to which
culture is “the semiotic dimension of human social practice in general” (Sewell 1999,
48). Furthermore, Alastair Iain Johnston, one of the most prominent theorists of
strategic culture, defined it in essentially semiotic way, as “a system of symbols”,
“languages” and “metaphors”:
Strategic culture is an integrated “system of symbols (e.g., argumentation
structures, languages, analogies, metaphors) which acts to establish pervasive
and long-lasting strategic preferences by formulating concepts of the role and
efficacy of military force in interstate political affairs, and by clothing these
conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the strategic preferences seem
uniquely realistic and efficacious” (Alastair Iain Johnston 1995, 46).
Here, Johnston explicitly followed the template of Clifford Geertz’s definition of
religion5, so one can assume that he also shared Geertz’s understanding of
“symbols”, seeing them as any ”construable signs” (Geertz 1973, 14), as “perceptible
forms, concrete embodiments of ideas, attitudes, judgments, longings, or beliefs”
(Geertz 1973, 91). Thus, in essence, Johnston defines strategic culture as a sign
system that informs strategic preferences.
Moreover, Johnston’s discussion of the “language of strategic culture” strongly
resonates with social semiotic models of language, which tend to understand
language as “a product of the social process” that “is as it is because of the functions
it has evolved to serve in people's lives” (M. A. K Halliday 1979, 1, 4). In particular,
Johnston argues that élites create the “official language” of strategic culture, which
“excludes alternative strategies, undermines challenges to their authority, mobilizes
support and otherwise upholds their hegemony in the decision process” (Alastair Iain

5According to Geertz, “a religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful,
pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general
order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the
moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.) as a starting point” (Geertz 1973, 90).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Johnston 1995, 57). Those who use this system of signs “are recognized by others,
not just themselves, as competent and legitimate authorities”.
Similarly, Edward Lock, another prominent expert in the studies of strategic cultures,
also defined strategic culture in quasi-semiotic terms, arguing that strategic culture
“can be thought as an intersubjective system of symbols that makes possible political
action related to strategic affairs”. Moreover, he emphasized that strategic culture
“constrains and enables the communicative practices that are central to the politics
of strategy” (Lock 2010, 697). It is by “constraining and enabling” the political
communication that strategic cultures constitute certain strategic behaviours and
identities as possible and meaningful (Lock 2010, 685, 698).
Thus, the existing conceptualizations of strategic culture imply that strategic cultures
are systems of signs that constrain and enable political communication and political
action related to strategic affairs. Importantly, in this respect, these definitions
converge with the conceptualizations of a more general semiotic notion that is the
notion of logonomic system (i.e. a system of signs that both constrains and enables
social semiosis).

5 Strategic culture as a logonomic system

So, the term that is central for my attempt to reconceptualize the notion of strategic
culture is the category of logonomic system, which was originally introduced by Bob
Hodge and Gunther Kress in their seminal book Social Semiotics (R. Hodge and
Kress 1988, 4). According to Hodge and Kress’s definition, logonomic systems are
sets of “rules prescribing the conditions of production and reception of meanings;
which specify who can claim to initiate (produce, communicate) or know (receive,
understand) about what topics under what circumstances and with what modalities
(how, when, why)”. Importantly, Hodge and Kress also mentioned that any
“logonomic system is itself a set of messages” (R. Hodge and Kress 1988, 4). Thus,
there always exist particular “logonomic signs” (I. Fomin 2019, 334; in press; 2020a)
through which the logonomic rules are conveyed, actualized, and reproduced. Those
signs are socially devised constraints that restrict multimodal semiosis in particular
social settings.
Even though Hodge and Kress did not develop the concept of logonomic systems in
much detail, it can in fact be seen as one of the central constructs for the whole
project of social semiotics. In particular, as Mikhail Ilyin and Ivan Fomin argue, what
makes logonomic systems especially important in this respect is that they function as
interface structures through which forms of behaviour, forms of semiosis, and forms
of cognition are integrated (Ilyin 2020, 16; I. Fomin 2020b, 38; I. V. Fomin and Ilyin
2019, 129–30).
I suggest that strategic culture can be redefined as one of the cases of logonomic
systems, as strategic cultures are logonomic systems that constrain social semiosis
in strategic affairs. They emerge as sets of rules that prescribe who can produce and
receive what signs under what circumstances. Furthermore, one can also distinguish
a particular kind of logonomic signs that can be called strategic-cultural signs. Those
strategic-cultural signs are logonomic signs that constrain meaningful behaviour and
communication in strategic affairs.

10

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

In general, the semiotic reconceptualization of strategic culture is productive in many
aspects. In particular, the introduction of semiotic categories can help to structure,
guide, and systematize the analyses of strategic cultures. Furthermore, the proposed
reconceptualization allows to relax, if not resolve, some of the existing issues that
are inherent in the current IR theories on the topic. In particular, the semiotic
approach to strategic culture allows to deal with the question of where strategic
culture may be said to exist and how culture-as-ideas, culture-as-artifacts, and
culture-as-behaviour are related to each other in it. (As I will try to show in the
following sections, the social semiotic category of multimodality as well as Peircean
classification of signs can be quite helpful in overcoming the existing confusion
around these questions.)
The development of semiotic theory of strategic culture is also productive from the
point of view of broader interdisciplinary context, as it will help to bridge international
studies and (social) semiotics. Moreover, the suggested redefinition of strategic
culture provides an opportunity to use the category of logonomic system as a
mediating concept that allows relating strategic culture to other similar categories of
political and sociological analysis, such as the category of institution, discursive
practice, and construct (I. Fomin in press; 2020a).

6 Multimodal vehicles of strategic culture

One of the main aspects in which the apparatus of social semiotics can be useful for
the studies of strategic culture is that strategic culture can be defined as a system of
multimodal logonomic signs. What makes the category of multimodality helpful here
is that it allows to both preserve the existing broad scope of the concept of
logonomic system, but, at the same time, provides a framework that helps to theorize
this multifaceted phenomenon in a more consistent way. In particular, the category of
multimodality assumes that social meanings are conveyed in and across different
modes. Thus, strategic culture, understood as a multimodal system, can be modeled
to encompass all sorts of cultural constraints that in some way prescribe particular
forms of social semiosis in strategic affairs, while the vehicles that convey those
prescriptions can be systematically analysed into distinct modes6.
To a large extent, strategic culture relies on the mode of written, printed or otherwise
visually displayed sign vehicles of natural languages. In particular, basic doctrinal
documents which shape countries’ security and foreign policy and contribute to the
(re)production of particular strategic-cultural patterns are conveyed primarily in
printed textual form (e.g., Estonian National Security Concept and National Defense
Strategy (Atmante, Kaljurand, and Jermalavičius 2019)). At the same time, the
vehicles of strategic culture are by no means limited to these documents, as
strategic-cultural constraints can emerge from various other written texts as well. For
example, they can be conveyed through historical military texts (e.g.: Alastair I.
Johnston 1995), school textbooks (e.g.: Qazi 2020), novels (e.g.: Hopf 2009), mass
media reports (e.g.: Meyer 2006, 78–111), etc.

6Modes are defined here as “socially shaped and culturally given resources for making meaning”
(Kress 2010, 79).

11

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Spoken text can often be a vehicle of the logonomic signs that constitute strategic
cultures too. Moreover, it is not necessarily limited to the speeches delivered by
national leaders, foreign ministry or security officials, as other genres of talk also can
be important in this respect. For example, jokes, proverbs, legends, fables,
anecdotes, and other orally conveyed narratives (e.g.: Gerami 2018, 76, 103; Hopf
2009, 286; Johnson and Maines 2018, 43; Svyatets 2018) also contribute to the
socialization of the political élites and thereby inform their behaviour in strategic
affairs.
Furthermore, texts in various other modes, such as audial, visual, and performed
artefacts, can also be theorized as logonomic signs in strategic cultures. In
particular, there can be songs (e.g.: Ben-Ephraim 2020, 150, 153), paintings (e.g.:
Evans 2006, 22), maps (e.g.: S. Smith 2018, 239), flags (e.g.: Giles 2009, 99),
cinema films (e.g.: Kondrótová 2020; Svyatets 2018), photographs (e.g.: Giles 2018,
148; S. Smith 2018, 239), video games (Svyatets 2018), monumental sculptures
(e.g.: Danns 2014, 71–72), and holiday celebrations (Makarychev 2016) that all
produce cultural constrains for strategic actions and decisions.
Fundamentally, the multimodal social semiotic account of strategic culture helps to
alleviate the tension between the strategic-culture-as-ideas and strategic-culture-as-
artifacts perspectives, as it assumes that strategic culture is a set of logonomic
signs, in which particular artefacts function as multimodal sign vehicles
(representamens) that convey and (re)produce particular strategic-cultural ideas as
their interpretants. In other words, the ideas-of-strategic-culture are multimodally
represented by the artefacts-of-strategic-culture. So, the category of multimodality
turns out to be useful here, due to the fact that it does not limit in any way a potential
range of forms of cultural phenomena that can be considered as strategic-cultural
artefacts, but provides a framework which helps to distinguish between different
(elements of) artefacts based on the differentiation of social semiotic modes.
Furthermore, the semiotic reconceptualization of strategic culture provides an
opportunity to resolve the question of how behavioural patterns as parts of strategic
culture relate to its other aspects. In particular, introducing social semiotic
perspective allows to transcend the dichotomy between strategic-culture-as-artefacts
and strategic-culture-as-behaviour, as, ultimately, embodied meaningful behaviour is
just another set of semiotic modes that are not fundamentally different from all other
modes.
In fact, the semiotic model of strategic culture that includes meaningful behaviour as
a form of semiosis can be seen as a special case of a more general sociosemiotic
approach that theorizes meaningful actions as instances of meaning-making. In
particular, it resonates with the Tartu-Moscow School’s semiotic accounts of
regularized behavior (Pyatigorski and Ouspenski 1967, 28; I. M. Lotman 1975, 25–
26; 1976, 292–93; Chernov 1967; S. Zolyan and Chernov 1977; S. Zolyan 2017;
2019; S. T. Zolyan 2018; Randviir 2004, 40, 56–59, 72) as well as with Mikhail Ilyin’s
approach to multimodal analysis of political performatives (Ilyin 2016b; 2016a).
Moreover, in a similar way, the convergence between sociological models of
intentional acts and semiotic models of meaning-making is theorized in detail in Risto
Heiskala’s project of “semiotic sociology” (Heiskala 2003; 2014).

12

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

7 Icons–indices–symbols and other Peircean triads in strategic cultures
The proposed social semiotic reconceptualization of strategic culture can become
even more systematic, if we add Charles Peirce’s classification of signs to it. In
particular, due to the fact that logonomic signs work as any other signs, all the
fundamental distinctions of Peircean sign systematics can be applied to the
strategic-cultural signs. So, one can differentiate strategic-cultural qualisigns (mere
qualities of appearance [CP 8.334] (Peirce 1958) that cannot actually function as
signs, but are analytically distinguishable in any semiosis [EP 2:291] (Peirce 1998)),
strategic-cultural sinsigns (signs that appear as actually existent artefacts, things or
events), and strategic-cultural legisigns (habits that enable particular artefacts, things
or events work as strategic-cultural sinsigns).
Moreover, strategic-cultural signs, being logonomic signs, can actually work as such
only inasmuch as they function as arguments (delomes) [CP 2.95, 4.538] (Peirce
1932; 1933), i.e., inasmuch as they represent their interpretant as “conclusion” [CP
2.95] (Peirce 1932). In other words, strategic-cultural signs are necessarily strategic-
cultural delomes that represent general strategic-cultural rules leading to
conclusions about strategic behaviour. However, one can also analyse them into
rhemes, i.e. “mere blank forms” for assertions [CP 4.354] (Peirce 1933), such as, for
example, “______ is a threat”, “______ is a democracy”, “______ are our friends”, “______
crosses the red line”, “______ is ours”, as well as into dicisigns, i.e. actually asserted
as propositions [CP 2.252] (Peirce 1932), e.g.: “China is a threat”, “Ukraine is a
democracy”, “Democracies are our friends”, “Enlargement of NATO crosses the red
line”, or “Crimea is ours”.
Finally, based on the different relationships between strategic-cultural sign vehicles
and their objects, one can distinguish strategic-cultural signs that are iconic,
indexical, or symbolic. This distinction is especially productive as it allows
differentiating not only among diverse modes through which the logonomic rules of
strategic culture are conveyed but also between different fundamental principles of
how a prescribed pattern of behaviour is represented by a vehicle of strategic-
cultural sign. Peircean theory of signs suggests that those prescribed behavioural
patterns can be represented iconically (by virtue of similarity between the strategic-
cultural sign vehicles and the prescribed behavioural forms), indexically (by virtue of
physical connection between them), or symbolically (by virtue of convention).
Some types of iconic strategic-cultural signs, such as paintings or cinema films were
already mentioned above. However, importantly, more complex iconic semiotic
entities are also crucial for the functioning of strategic cultures. In particular, in some
strategic-cultural signs, verbal historical narratives can be involved in second-level
iconic semiosis. They function this way due to the fact that all logonomic signs
generally function as two-level semiotic structures (I. Fomin in press; 2020a), similar
to Roland Barthes’s myths and Yuri Lotman’s representational verbal signs (obrazes
(“images”) and simvols (“symbols“)) (I. M. Lotman 1998; 1999; 1977; 1990). Thus, in
strategic-cultural signs both verbal and non-verbal signs can appear as sign vehicles
for secondary-order iconic semiosis (for example, see (Lantis 2009, 40–41; Tomes
2014) on the role of myths in strategic cultures).
It is also important to note that particular instances of meaningful behaviour can
themselves also work as vehicles for second-level iconic strategic-cultural signs. In

13

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

particular, past behaviour in strategic affairs can function as a sign vehicle that
iconically represents how one should behave in strategic affairs in the future. Thus, it
is partially due to such iconic logonomic semioses that strategic cultures persist.
Furthermore, it is not only the Self’s patterns of behaviour that can work this way as
iconic sign vehicles and thereby be reproduced in strategic cultures, but also the
patterns of behaviour of the Others that can also be copied due to demonstration
effect.
As to indexical logonomic signs, these signs sometimes are probably less obvious in
strategic cultures, but are nevertheless also very common and impactful. In
particular, geographical constraints that inform the patterns of strategic behaviour of
international actors often function as indexical signs (e.g.: Ermarth 2009, 86; Lantis
2009, 40). Even though seas, mountains, plains, and rivers are not themselves
cultural artefacts, when they appear in the discourse of strategic affairs they are
already culturally semiotised and thus function not only as parts of humans’
biological umwelt, but also as indexical constraints that are culturally meaningful in a
particular community.
Moreover, other examples of indexical semiosis in strategic cultures that can be
found in the cases when a particular entity constrains countries’ behaviour in
strategic affairs due to its direct physical effect or geographical proximity. The
strategic-cultural signs of this kind are particularly noticeable in the situations, when
the indexical constraints are not combined with symbolic ones. For example, in the
cases of disputed international borders, the material barriers, walls, barbed wires,
and Czech hedgehogs inform the strategic behaviour of the actors by actually
physically restricting it. Similarly, acts of violence and other meaningful uses of force
can also function as strategic-cultural signs that are based on indexical semiosis.
Finally, symbolic strategic-cultural signs are also very common. In particular, as I
mentioned above, various verbal texts, such as national security strategies, military
doctrines, and defense policy documents as well as novels, anecdotes, and poems
symbolically prescribe particular patters of strategic behaviour, using conventional
signs of natural languages. Similarly, international treaties also inform how states
behave by explicitly symbolically conveying particular restrictions concerning who
can do what under what circumstances.

8 Initial, dynamical, and final interpretants in strategic cultures

One more Peircean triad that is especially important for the semiotic account of
strategic cultures is the triad distinguishing among different kinds of interpretants.
According to Peirce, there are three “things which may properly be regarded as the
Interpretant” [ILS 285] (Peirce 2014), these things being (1) the initial (immediate7)
interpretant, which is “the meaning of the sign” [CP 4.536] (Peirce 1933), i.e.
the ”determination of the consciousness” produced by a sign, (2) the dynamical
interpretant, which is “the actual event that some signs by virtue of really acting as

7 Peirce’s conceptualizations of immediate interpretant vary, so immediate interpretant and initial

interpretant cannot always be treated as full synonyms. However, for example, the immediate
interpretant as it is defined in [CP 4.536] (Peirce 1933) is somewhat close to what is called initial
interpretant in [ILS 285] (Peirce 2014).

14

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

such bring about”, and (3) the final interpretant, which is the “Habit in the production
of which the function of the Sign, as such, is exhausted” [ILS 285] (Peirce 2014).
The categories of dynamical interpretant and final interpretant are crucial not only for
the strategic-cultural signs, but for the model of logonomic signs in general” (I. Fomin
in press; 2020a). The mechanism of how logonomic signs prescribe the production
of specific signs in specific circumstances can be theorized as a process in which
particular acts of semiosis appear as the “actual events” that are produced by
logonomic signs as those signs’ dynamical interpretants. In fact, as Peirce himself
explains the category of dynamical interpretant, he essentially speaks of a logonomic
process, in which a particular (logonomic) sign prescribes a particular form of
meaningful behaviour: “For instance, let the sign be a military word or command.
Then the instant action of the whole rank of men addressed will be the Dynamical
Interpretant, as I call it” [ILS 285] (Peirce 2014). As one can notice, the “actual event”
mentioned by Peirce as a dynamical interpretant is not a mere material occurrence,
but is itself an act of semiosis, a meaningful action. Similarly, the Habits
(re)produced by logonomic signs as their final interpretants can be habits of semiosis
(i.e., internalized logonomic rules). So, overall, logonomic signs can be theorized as
signs in which other signs appear as dynamical interpretants and in which habits of
semiosis emerge as final interpretants.
If we transpose this principle upon the strategic-cultural signs, we can model those
signs as signs in which sign vehicles also produce three distinct kinds of
interpretants: initial, dynamical, and final ones. The initial interpretants of strategic-
cultural signs appear as the mental effects of those sign vehicles, i.e. as their
meanings, while the dynamical interpretants of those signs are the acts of
meaningful strategic behaviour that happen in strategic affairs as a result of the
prescription conveyed by those signs. Furthermore, the final interpretants of
strategic-cultural signs are the patterns of strategic behaviour that are (re)produced
as habits due to the effect of those signs8.
As we introduce the Peircean triad of interpretants, it opens an opportunity to
fundamentally reconceptualize the model of strategic culture. In particular, it allows
moving from strategic culture that is imagined as a hodgepodge of ideas, artefacts,
actions, and habits to a model that theorizes it as a complex yet structured semiotic
entity in which multimodal sign vehicles convey ideas (i.e., initial interpretants),
instigate actions (i.e., dynamical interpretants), and (re)produce habits (i.e., final
interpretants). Moreover, this approach also helps to transcend the existing
definitional and theoretical debates about strategic culture by refocusing the
analytical perspective from rather useless and confusing distinction between
substantially contrasted “culture-as-artifacts" and “culture-as-behaviour” to clearer
relationally defined distinction of sign vehicles and their dynamical interpretants9.

8 In his account of logonomic signs, Ivan Fomin (I. Fomin in press; 2020a) argues that the production
of their dynamical and final interpretants are correspondingly related to the aspects of diversification
and stabilization that are theorized by Kalevi Kull in his general model of sign systems evolution (Kull
2014, 492). So, strategic-cultural rules as well as all logonomic rules in general can be argued to
function as stabilizing mechanisms in the processes of sociosemiotic evolution.
9 In this respect, the suggested framework resonates with the “relational political analysis” developed
in Selg and Ventsel’s political semiotics (Selg and Ventsel 2020) as well as with Drieschova’a ideas

15

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Importantly, the latter distinction implies that behaviour patterns can work as both
sign vehicles and dynamical interpretants, as well as artefacts can also function as
both.

9 Conclusion
Summing up, in this study I attempted to theorize how the semiotic categories of
logonomic system and logonomic sign can be used to reconceptualize the notion of
strategic culture. I demonstrated that even though today this notion is rather
problematic, the ways in which it is defined hint that it can be regarded as a quasi-
semiotic conceptual tool. So, my idea in this article was to systematically reconsider
this concept based on the fundamental categories of social semiotics which allow to
systematize and instrumentalize this concept while preserving its broad scope.
In essence, I suggest to redefine strategic cultures as logonomic systems that
constrain meaningful behaviour and communication in strategic affairs. Such social
semiotic reconceptualization makes it possible to use Peircean semiotic
nomenclature and the social semiotic principle of multimodality in the models of
strategic culture. These categories and principles help to clarify some problematic
aspects in the studies of strategic culture, account for important distinctions among
various elements and forms of strategic cultures, and discover some categories and
principles that can guide the studies of this phenomenon. In particular, one can
theorize that strategic cultures are conveyed and reproduced by sets of multimodal
logomonic signs. In Peirce’s terms, those strategic-cultural signs produce actions
and messages in strategic affairs (as dynamical interpretants) and reproduce
strategic-cultural habits (as final interpretants).
Importantly, the suggested social semiotic approach allows to transcend the existing
controversy about how culture-as-ideas, culture-as-artifacts, and culture-as-
behaviour are related to each other in strategic culture. In particular, the social
semiotic vision of strategic culture makes it possible to transform this conceptual
problem into an empirically solvable task that consists in analyzing how the sign
vehicles from diverse semiotic modes are used in strategic-cultural signs and how
those signs produce three different kinds of interpretants (initial interpretants
(meanings), dynamical interpretants (actions), and final interpretants (habits)).
So, the tension that appears in the IR debates on whether the strategic culture exists
in ideas, artefacts, or behaviour thereby becomes more relaxed due to the fact that
semiotics does not contrast ideas, artefacts, behaviour, but rather assumes that both
artefacts and behaviour patterns are vehicles that carry ideas. Moreover, artefacts
and behaviour patterns can be considered as artefacts and actions only inasmuch as
they carry the ideas. Conversely, ideas are rarely considered in semiotics as
something detached from vehicles that carry them. So, ultimately, the extremely
broad scope of the category of strategic culture as well as its heterogeneity that
sometimes seem problematic in the context of international studies can be
transformed into a potent methodological asset when seen through the cenoscopic
lens of semiotics.

about the capacity of Peircean semiotics to “bridge the material-ideational divide in IR scholarship”
(Drieschova 2017)

16

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

The suggested model resonates with other similar theories in social semiotics,
political semiotics, and IR semiotics. In particular, it complements and specifies
Tartu-Moscow School’s ideas about the semiotics of regularized behavior
(Pyatigorski and Ouspenski 1967, 28; I. M. Lotman 1975, 25–26; 1976, 292–93;
Chernov 1967; S. Zolyan and Chernov 1977; S. Zolyan 2017; 2019; S. T. Zolyan
2018; Randviir 2004, 40, 56–59, 72), Mikhail Ilyin’s approach to analysis of
multimodal political performatives (Ilyin 2016b; 2016a), and Risto Heiskala’s
arguments on the affinity between sociological models of intentional acts and
semiotic models of meaning-making (Heiskala 2003; 2014). It also resonates with
the ambition of Selg and Ventsel’s political semiotics to become a theoretical and a
methodological framework for political analysis that is relationalist, rather than
substantialist (Selg and Ventsel 2020), as well as with Drieschova’a ideas about the
potential of Peircean semiotics to establish the “interconnectivity between material
reality and the ideational realm” and thereby to help in transcending the material-
ideational divide in the studies of international relations (Drieschova 2017, 60).
More generally, the framework that is developed in this article demonstrates that the
categories of logonomic system and logonomic sign are helpful not only as effective
instruments of social semiotic analysis, but are also important as potent elements of
interdisciplinary conceptual interfaces that integrate the toolkits of semiotics and
social studies. Thereby they help to realize the potential of both these fields, moving
forward the frontier of sociosemiotic methodology.

Funding: This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant
Number: 20-78-10159).

References

Anand V. 2020. “Revisiting the Discourse on Strategic Culture: An Assessment of the

Conceptual Debates.” Strategic Analysis 44 (3): 193–207.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2020.1787684.
Atmante, Kristīne, Riina Kaljurand, and Tomas Jermalavičius. 2019. “Strategic Cultures of the
Baltic States.” In Strategic Culture in Russia’s Neighborhood: Change and Continuity
in an in-between Space, edited by Hanna Smith and Katalin Miklóssy, 53–82.
Lanham ; Boulder ; New York ; London: Lexington Books.
Austin, John Langshaw. 1962. How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures
Delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Ben-Ephraim, Shaiel. 2020. “From Strategic Narrative to Strategic Culture: Labor Zionism and
the Roots of Israeli Strategic Culture.” Comparative Strategy 39 (2): 145–61.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2020.1718988.

17

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Booth, Ken. 1990. “The Concept of Strategic Culture Affirmed.” In Strategic Power:
USA/USSR, edited by Carl G. Jacobsen, 121–28. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20574-5_8.
———. 2014. Strategy and Ethnocentrism (Routledge Revivals). London: Routledge.
Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen Rosa, and Malcolm Coulthard, eds. 1996. Texts and Practices:
Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London ; New York: Routledge.
Chernov, Igor’. 1967. “O semiotike zapretov (predvaritel’noe soobshchenie) [Semiotic
Aspects of Interdiction].” Sign Systems Studies 3: 45–59.
Chilton, Paul A. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
http://www.myilibrary.com?id=7575.
Cobley, Paul, and Anti Randviir. 2009. “Introduction: What Is Sociosemiotics?” Semiotica
2009 (173): 1–39. https://doi.org/10.1515/SEMI.2009.001.
Danns, George K. 2014. “The Impact of Identity, Ethnicity and Class on Guyana’s Strategic
Culture.” American International Journal of Contemporary Research 4 (11): 65–77.
http://www.aijcrnet.com/journals/Vol_4_No_11_November_2014/8.pdf.
Der Derian, James. 1989. “Spy versus Spy: The Intertextual Power of International Intrigue.”
In International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, 163–
87. Issues in World Politics Series. Lexington, Mass.: New York: Lexington Books.
Dijk, Teun A. van. 1997. “What Is Political Discourse Analysis?” Belgian Journal of Linguistics
11 (1): 11–52. https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.11.03dij.
Drechsler, Wolfgang. 2009. “Political Semiotics” 2009 (173): 73–97.
https://doi.org/10.1515/SEMI.2009.003.
Drieschova, Alena. 2017. “Peirce’s Semeiotics: A Methodology for Bridging the Material–
Ideational Divide in IR Scholarship.” International Theory 9 (1): 33–66.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971916000233.
Ermarth, Fritz W. 2009. “Russian Strategic Culture in Flux: Back to the Future?” In Strategic
Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into
Comparative National Security Policymaking, edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M.
Kartchner, and Jeffrey A. Larsen, 85–96. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and
Policies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618305_6.
Evans, Michael. 2006. “Island-Consciousness and Australian Strategic Culture.” The Institute
of Public Affairs Review: A Quarterly Review of Politics and Public Affairs 58 (2): 21–
23. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/agispt.20062603.
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research.
Routledge.
Fairclough, Norman, and Isabela Fairclough. 2012. Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for
Advanced Students. New York: Routledge.
Fomin, Ivan. 2018. “Transdisciplinary Potential of Semiotics for Discourse Studies: Political
Studies’ Perspective.” In Discourse Linguistics and Beyond, II: Current approaches in
Eastern Europe:45–52. Berlin: Sprachlit : De-iure-pl.
———. 2019. “Memes, Genes, and Signs: Semiotics in the Conceptual Interface of
Evolutionary Biology and Memetics.” Semiotica 2019 (230): 327–40.
https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2018-0016.
———. 2020a. “Logonomic Signs As Three-Phase Constraints of Multimodal Social
Semiosis.” SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3888692. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research
Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3888692.

18

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

———. 2020b. “Sociosemiotic Frontiers. Achievements, Challenges, and Prospects of
Converging Semiotic and Social.” Linguistic Frontiers 3 (2): 34–43.
https://doi.org/10.2478/lf-2020-0012.
———. in press. “Logonomic Signs as Three-Phase Constraints of Multimodal Social
Semiosis.” Semiotica.
Fomin, Ivan V., and Mikhail V. Ilyin. 2019. “Social semiotics: Paths towards integrating social
and semiotic knowledge.” Sotsiologicheskiy Zhurnal = Sociological Journal 25 (4):
123–41. https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2019.25.4.6822.
Fortin, Alfred J. 1989. “Notes on a Terrorist Text: A Critical Use of Roland Barthes’ Textual
Analysis in the Interpretation of Political Meaning.” In International/Intertextual
Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, 189–206. Lexington, Mass:
Lexington Books.
Foucault, M. 1966. Les mots et les choses: une archéologie des sciences humaines. Paris:
Gallimard.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic
Books.
Gerami, Nima. 2018. “Iran’s Strategic Culture: Implications for Nuclear Policy.” In Crossing
Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear Decisionmaking,
edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M. Kartchner, and Marilyn J. Maines, 61–108.
Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Cham: Springer International
Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72670-0_3.
Giles, Gregory F. 2009. “Continuity and Change in Israel’s Strategic Culture.” In Strategic
Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into
Comparative National Security Policymaking, edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M.
Kartchner, and Jeffrey A. Larsen, 97–116. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and
Policies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618305_7.
———. 2018. “Israeli Strategic Culture and the Iran ‘Preemption Scare’ of 2009–2013.” In
Crossing Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear
Decisionmaking, edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M. Kartchner, and Marilyn J.
Maines, 141–72. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Cham: Springer
International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72670-0_5.
Gray, Colin S. 1999. “Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes
Back.” Review of International Studies 25 (1): 49–69.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20097575.
Gregory, Donna U. 1989. “Foreword.” In International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern
Readings of World Politics, edited by James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro, xiii–
xxi. Issues in World Politics Series. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books.
Haglund, David G. 2004. “What Good Is Strategic Culture?: A Modest Defence of an
Immodest Concept.” International Journal 59 (3): 479–502.
https://doi.org/10.1177/002070200405900302.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1979. Language as Social Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, Michael A. K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of
Language and Meaning. London: Arnold.
Heiskala, Risto. 2003. Society as Semiosis: Neostructuralist Theory of Culture and Society.
Studies in Sociology, v. 2. Frankfurt am Main ; New York: Peter Lang.

19

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

———. 2007. “Economy and Society: From Parsons through Habermas to Semiotic
Institutionalism.” Social Science Information 46 (2): 243–72.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018407076648.
———. 2014. “Toward Semiotic Sociology: A Synthesis of Semiology, Semiotics and
Phenomenological Sociology.” Social Science Information 53 (1): 35–53.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018413509434.
Hodge, Bob. 2019. Multimodal Linguistics and Social Research. Social Semiotics and
Interdisciplinarity: New Approaches to Research across Humanities and the Social
Sciences: A Series of Lectures by Bob Hodge [at HSE University]. Moscow.
———. n.d. “Social Semiotics.” In Semiotics Encyclopedia Online, edited by Paul Bouissac.
Toronto: University of Toronto. Accessed September 2, 2020.
http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/semiotics/dse/S/social_semiotics.html#.
Hodge, Robert, and Gunther R. Kress. 1988. Social Semiotics. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University
Press.
Hopf, Ted. 2009. “Identity Relations and the Sino-Soviet Split.” In Measuring Identity: A
Guide for Social Scientists, edited by Alastair Iain Johnston, Rawi Abdelal, Rose
McDermott, and Yoshiko M. Herrera, 279–315. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511810909.011.
Hurwitz, Roger. 1989. “Strategic and Social Fictions in the Prisoner’s Dilemma.” In Der
Derian/Shapiro, 113–34. Issues in World Politics Series. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington
Books.
Ilyin, Mikhail. 2016a. “What can give analysis of performatives?” Political Science (RU) 2016
(4): 262–70. https://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=27685874.
———. 2016b. “Идеи и практика: мультимодальный анализ политических
перформативов.” Political Science (RU) 2016 (4): 261.
https://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=27685874.
———. 2020. “Emergence and Advancement of Basic Human Capacities.” Linguistic
Frontiers 3 (2): 3–20. https://doi.org/10.2478/lf-2020-0010.
Jacobsen, Carl G., ed. 1990. Strategic Power: USA/USSR. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20574-5_8.
Johnson, Jeannie L., and Marilyn J. Maines. 2018. “The Cultural Topography Analytic
Framework.” In Crossing Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into
Nuclear Decisionmaking, edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M. Kartchner, and
Marilyn J. Maines, 29–60. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Cham:
Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72670-0_2.
Johnston, Alastair I. 1995. Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese
History. Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton, N.J:
Princeton University Press.
Johnston, Alastair Iain. 1995. “Thinking about Strategic Culture.” International Security 19
(4): 32–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/2539119.
Jones, David R. 1990. “Soviet Strategic Culture.” In Strategic Power: USA/USSR, edited by
Carl G. Jacobsen. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
349-20574-5_8.
Kelley, Donald R. 1996. “The Old Cultural History.” History of the Human Sciences 9 (3): 101–
26. https://doi.org/10.1177/095269519600900305.

20

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Klein, Bradley S. 1988. “Hegemony and Strategic Culture: American Power Projection and
Alliance Defence Politics.” Review of International Studies 14 (2): 133–48.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20097137.
Kondrótová, Katarína. 2020. “American Ways of War and Strategic Culture: A Reflection in
Domestic and Foreign Cinematography.” Diplomová práce, Univerzita Karlova.
https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/116347.
Kress, Gunther R. 2010. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary
Communication. London; New York: Routledge.
http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=465511.
Kull, Kalevi. 2014. “Towards a Theory of Evolution of Semiotic Systems.” Chinese Semiotic
Studies 10 (3): 485–95. https://doi.org/10.1515/css-2014-0039.
Lantis, Jeffrey S. 2009. “Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism.” In Strategic
Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into
Comparative National Security Policymaking, edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M.
Kartchner, and Jeffrey A. Larsen, 33–52. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and
Policies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618305_3.
Lock, Edward. 2010. “Refining Strategic Culture: Return of the Second Generation.” Review
of International Studies 36 (3): 685–708.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210510000276.
———. 2017. “Strategic Culture Theory: What, Why, and How.” In Oxford Research
Encyclopedia of Politics, by Edward Lock. Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.320.
Lotman, Iurii Mikhailovich. 1975. “Dekabrist v Povsednevnoi Zhizni (Bytovoe Povedenie Kak
Istoriko-Psikhologicheskaia Kategoriia).” In Literaturnoe Nasledie Dekabristov, edited
by V.G. Bazanov and V.E. Vatsuro, 25–74. Leningrad: Nauka: Leningradskoe
otdelenie.
———. 1976. “Bytovoe povedenie i tipologiia kul’tury v Rossii XVIII v.” In Kul’turnoe nasledie
Drevnei Rusi. Istoki. Stanovlenie. Traditsii, edited by Vasilii Grigor’evich Bazanov,
292–97. Moscow: Nauka.
———. 1998. “Slovesnyi Izobrazitel’nyi Znak (Obraz).” In Ob Iskusstve, 65–66. Saint
Petersburg: Iskusstvo—SPB.
———. 1999. “Simvol v sisteme kul’tury.” In Vnutri mysliashchikh mirov. Chelovek — tekst
— semiosfera — istoriia, 146–60. Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury.
Lotman, Jurij. 1977. “The Representational Verbal Sign (Image).” In The Structure of the
Artistic Text, translated by Gail Lenhoff and Ronald Vroon, 55–56. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan.
Lotman, Yu. M., and A. M. Piatigorsky. 1978. “Text and Function.” Translated by Ann
Shukman. New Literary History 9 (2): 233–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/468572.
Lotman, Yuri M. 1990. “The Symbol in the Cultural System.” In Universe of the Mind: A
Semiotic Theory of Culture, by Yuri M. Lotman, translated by Ann Shukman, 102–11.
London; New York: Tauris.
Luke, Timothy W. 1989. “‘What’s Wrong with Deterrence?’ A Semiotic Interpretation of
National Security Policy.” In International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern
Readings of World Politics, 207–30. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books.
Maccannell, Dean. 1976. “THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ‘SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM’” 16 (2):
99–114. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1976.16.2.99.

21

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Makarychev, Andrey. 2016. “Russian (in)Security: Cultures, Meanings and Contexts.” London
School of Economics ; Security in Transition.
http://www.securityintransition.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/12/WorkingPaper_Makarychev.pdf.
Makarychev, Andrey, and Alexandra Yatsyk. 2018. Lotman’s Cultural Semiotics and the
Political. London ; New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Meyer, Christoph O. 2006. The Quest for a European Strategic Culture: Changing Norms on
Security and Defence in the European Union. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
http://site.ebrary.com/id/10486328.
Morris, Charles. 1938. Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Foundations of the Unity of
Science (Volumes I-II of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science), Volume I,
Number 2. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.
Peirce, Charles S. 1932. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. II: Elements of
Logic. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
———. 1933. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. IV: The Simplest
Mathematics. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
———. 1958. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. VIII: Reviews,
Correspondence, and Bibliography. Edited by Arthur W. Burks. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
———. 1998. The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, Volume 2 (1893-1913).
Edited by Peirce Edition Project, Nathan Houser, Jonathan R. Eller, Albert C Lewis,
André De Tienne, Cathy L. Clark, and D. Bront Davis. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
———. 2014. Illustrations of the Logic of Science. Edited by Cornelis de Waal. Chicago: Open
Court.
Pyatigorski, Alexandr, and Boris Ouspenski. 1967. “Personological Classification as a
Semiotic Problem.” Sign Systems Studies 3: 7–29.
Qazi, M. Habib. 2020. “Exploring Links between National Education and Students’ Militaristic
National Identity Constructions – a Case Study of Pakistani State Schools in
Islamabad.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 52 (4): 516–32.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2020.1755997.
Randviir, Anti. 2004. Mapping the World: Towards a Sociosemiotic Approach to Culture.
Saarbrücken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
Rubenstein, Diane. 1989. “Hate Boat: Greenpeace, National Identity and Nuclear
Crisiticism.” In International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World
Politics. Issues in World Politics Series. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.
Searle, John R. 1989. “How Performatives Work.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12 (5): 535–58.
Selg, Peeter, and Andreas Ventsel. 2020. Introducing Relational Political Analysis: Political
Semiotics as a Theory and Method. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48780-5.
Sewell, William H., Jr. 1999. “The Concept(s) of Culture.” In Beyond the Cultural Turn: New
Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, 35–61. University of California Press
Berkeley, CA. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520216792/beyond-the-cultural-
turn.

22

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Shapiro, Michael J. 1989. “Representing World Politics: The Sport/War Intertext.” In
International/Intertextual Relations, 69–96. Issues in World Politics Series. Lexington,
Mass.: Lexington Books.
Smith, Shane. 2018. “North Korea’s Strategic Culture and Its Evolving Nuclear Strategy.” In
Crossing Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear
Decisionmaking, edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M. Kartchner, and Marilyn J.
Maines, 227–50. Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Cham: Springer
International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72670-0_8.
Snyder, Jack. 1977. “The Soviet Strategic Culture. Implications for Limited Nuclear
Operations.” RAND Corporation.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R2154.pdf.
———. 1990. “The Concept of Strategic Culture: Caveat Emptor.” In Strategic Power:
USA/USSR, edited by Carl G. Jacobsen, 3–9. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20574-5_1.
Svyatets, Ekaterina. 2018. “Ukraine’s Nuclear Culture: Past, Present, Future.” In Crossing
Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear Decisionmaking,
edited by Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry M. Kartchner, and Marilyn J. Maines, 199–226.
Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies. Cham: Springer International
Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72670-0_7.
Tomes, Robert R. 2014. “American Exceptionalism in the Twenty-First Century.” Survival 56
(1): 27–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2014.882150.
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Edited by
Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1985. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul
Siebeck).
Wendt, Alexander. 2003. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York:
Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612183.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1999. Philosophical Investigations = Philosophische Untersuchungen.
Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. 2nd ed., Repr. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.
Wodak, Ruth. 2009. The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan UK.
http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9780230233683.
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer, eds. 2001. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis.
London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: SAGE Publications.
https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857028020.
Zolyan, Suren. 2017. “Juri Lotman and Social Semiotics: Paths for New Research.” Matica
Srpska Journal of Slavic Studies 92: 123–50.
———. 2019. “General Sociolinguistics, Social Semiotics and Semiotics of Culture – Ex
Pluribus Unum?” Sign Systems Studies 47 (3–4): 400–419.
Zolyan, Suren, and Igor’ Chernov. 1977. “O strukture iazyka opisaniia povedeniia [About the
structure of the language of behaviour description].” Sign Systems Studies 8: 151–63.
Zolyan, Suren Tigranovich. 2018. “The Problem of Meaning in Social Semiotics: Max Weber
Today.” Slovo.Ru: Baltijskij Accent 9 (4): 27–42.
Ильин, Михаил Васильевич, and Иван Владленович Фомин. 2016. “И смысл, и мера.
Семиотика в пространстве современной науки [Meaning and measure. Semiotics
in the space of modern science].” Политическая наука [Political Science (RU)], no.
3: 30–46. http://inion.ru/site/assets/files/3520/smysl_i_mera.pdf.

23

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673

Пятигорский, Александр Моисеевич, and Юрий Михайлович Лотман. 2004. “Текст и
функция.” In Семиосфера, by Юрий Михайлович Лотман, 434–41. Искусство-СПБ.

24

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3966673