The non-narrative hegemon? : The use of strategic narratives by the Trump administration

Abstract: This thesis contrasts the theory of strategic narratives by Miskimmon, O’Loughlin and Roselle, which posits that all states form and project strategic narratives, with an argument made by Anderson that the U.S. President Donald Trump has abandoned the use of political narratives. The aim of the thesis is to determine if or to what extent the Trump administration projects strategic narratives. In order to do this, an analytical framework is constructed based on Miskimmon et al.´s theory. This framework analyzes texts found in speeches, Tweets and official documents from U.S. state sources in two consecutive steps. First, themes relating to international politics are identified based on what repeats itself across texts. Second, texts relating to these themes are analyzed in order to determine if they can be considered narratives. The results of the analysis show that the majority of the analyzed texts can be classified as narratives. Based on this, the conclusion drawn in the thesis is that the Trump administration has not abandoned the use of strategic narratives.