While repetition is widely recognized as a key mechanism in shaping cultural knowledge, its role in the formation of misinformation and conspiracy theories remains underexplored. This article examines Russian conspiracism by investigating the role of text reuse in the formation and dissemination of a conspiracy theory within text-based media. Drawing on a corpus of Russian-language websites and newspapers, we identify a prominent cluster that repeatedly promotes claims about an ancient Russian civilization and a multi-generational cover-up. Using a mixed-methods approach, we contextualize these websites and analyze their life cycles, loose interconnectedness, and “patriotic” profiles. The conspiracy theory examined in this case study circulated exclusively online, with the digital environment of the Runet accelerating its diffusion and entrenchment. Our findings of text reuse highlight the salience of lead-in introductions in shaping and reinforcing these narratives.
This article provides a pilot bimodal analysis of 20 texts in Russian and their accompanying AI-generated images (RuAI) from the RIA-Novosti news channel, totalling 16,650 words. The major goal of the study was to determine whether ChatGPT can provide this analysis of highly ideologically and culturally diverse texts and images under human supervision. The selected texts and images, spanning from April to May 2024, focused on the war in Ukraine and the involvement of Western countries. The qualitative analysis was conducted using ChatGPT 4.0 for discourse analysis tasks, including theme and subtheme identification and symbolism interpretation in the images vis-à-vis the texts they illustrate. The results indicate that ChatGPT 4.0 can successfully serve as a qualitative discourse analysis tool of texts in languages other than English. However, some limitations of ChatGPT analysis have been noted, such as a generic rather than specific identification of themes and subthemes. While ChatGPT successfully identified symbolism in AI-generated images, some minor details were overlooked due to insufficient exposure to Russian cultural and historical contexts. The article also suggests the emergence of a new bimodal genre in political propaganda—articles accompanied by AI-generated images that enhance the message. Although there are issues with the ambiguity and repetitiveness of some imagery, AI has the potential to be a significant tool in political propaganda as well as in discourse analysis.
The sanctions regime imposed upon Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was modified and reached hitherto unimagined levels after the Russian full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022. This article covers the Norwegian debate on academic sanctions, how the government’s statements are mirrored in the discourse of university rectors and pro-sanction academics, and how this pro-sanction discourse is opposed by academics articulating an anti-sanction discourse. Employing Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, this article argues that this conflict manifests in a discursive struggle where the soul of the university and academic freedom are at stake. While the issue of academic sanctions has been studied in detail by numerous scholars in recent years, the literature tends to focus upon the strategic and normative value, or lack thereof, of sanctions in specific cases. This study moves beyond these important issues by exploring what these discourses for and against sanctions mean for university autonomy and academic freedom, by exploring the discourses and their socially constructive capacities.The pro-sanction discourse defines the university as also having political functions, necessitating sanctions, whereas the anti-sanction discourse defines the university in a more autonomous fashion. Keywords: Discourse analysis, sanctions, new cold war, Russia, Norway
North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 1999 intervention in Kosovo (Operation Allied Force) remains one of the most contested episodes in the post–Cold War order, exposing the tension between the United Nations (UN) Charter’s prohibition on force and the moral imperative to prevent mass atrocity. Conducted without explicit Security Council authorization, it triggered enduring disputes over legality, legitimacy, and sovereignty. This article reassesses Kosovo’s role in the evolution of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), arguing that Kosovo was neither a legal precedent nor a replicable model but a constitutive rupture that reshaped—without resolving—the dilemmas of human protection. Using legal analysis, normative theory, and comparative case study, the article situates Kosovo within competing interpretations of humanitarian intervention and compares it with Libya (2011), the first explicitly authorized R2P operation. It shows that authorization did not eliminate legitimacy crises: Kosovo and Libya reveal distinct post-intervention failures—prolonged internationalization without political closure in Kosovo, and mandate expansion followed by collapse in Libya. The article further argues that Kosovo’s post-1999 stabilization was paired with a deferral of final-status settlement, producing a durable frozen conflict, and that this unresolved ambiguity has enabled the strategic misuse of the “Kosovo precedent,” notably in Russian discourse on Ukraine. Kosovo’s legacy, therefore, lies less in establishing a right to intervene than in illustrating the systemic risks that arise when coercive protection is decoupled from legal clarity and timely political settlement. Keywords: NATO, Kosovo, ethnic cleansing, humanitarian intervention, United Nations, Yugoslavia.
This paper assesses the extent to which the EU’s development cooperation activities contribute to diffusion of its norm of sustainable development (environment) to Vietnam. In the post-Cold War era, EU normative influence has largely operated through technical assistance, financial instruments, policy dialogue, and capacity-building programs directed at developing countries. By analyzing key programming documents and aid instruments, the study demonstrates that environmental sustainability is not merely rhetorical but systematically mainstreamed into the EU’s cooperation frameworks in Vietnam. The paper further investigates how these normative expectations interact with Vietnam’s domestic priorities, assessing the degree to which EU-driven initiatives have informed policy agendas, institutional practices, and governance approaches within the recipient state. Through this dual assessment of EU intentions and Vietnam’s strategic responses, the article provides insights into the nature of EU normative power in Southeast Asia, the mechanisms enabling or constraining norm localization, and the EU’s evolving post-crisis image in its engagement with Vietnam—a former colony of an EU Member State. The findings suggest that norm diffusion has occurred, albeit selectively and pragmatically, shaped by Vietnam’s developmental concerns and policy autonomy. Acknowledgement and funding Some parts of the paper are based on the unpublished Phd thesis entitled “Analysing Normative Power Europe through Trade and Development Cooperation Policies towards Vietnam” undertaken at Sant’Anna University (Italy) and Ghent University (Belgium). We would also like to thank the Vietnamese Ministry of Education & Training for their support, under the research grant B.2023-SP2-07.
