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POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2014

doi: 10.1111/1478-9302.12058

Elites in Action: Change and Continuity in

Strategic Culture
Pietro Pirani
Wilfrid Laurier University

The aim of this review article is to explore some theoretical issues regarding the role played by elites in the change
and continuity of a country’s strategic culture. Despite the growing interest in the issue of strategic culture and
change, current approaches still show some noteworthy shortcomings, particularly related to the role played by
elites during the process. Based on Ann Swidler’s works on culture, this article suggests that, contrary to the idea
shared by many in strategic-cultural studies, who believe that strategic action is a conscious activity, a strategic act
need not be entirely explicit and conscious.

Keywords: strategic culture; Ann Swidler; practice; elites; change

The proposition that culture influences a country’s security policies is accepted by many
political scientists (Greathouse, 2010; Zaman, 2009); however, questions remain on how
culture changes and under which circumstances. Since its first articulations (Gray, 1981;
1986; Snyder, 1977), the literature on strategic culture has been ambiguous on the
relationship between culture and change. The reason for this uncertainty is twofold. To
begin with, epistemological and methodological considerations leave many wondering if
culture can be fully understood in the first place, never mind change and continuity.
Some scholars have argued that culture cannot be entirely comprehended because it is
too complex and dynamic and, as a result, the possibilities to establish conditions for
continuity and change are minimal (Kolodziej, 2005, pp. 359–61; Murden, 2005, p. 540).
Others have instead highlighted how cultural theories have an ‘open ontology’, which
makes it very difficult to identify conditions under which change and continuity would
occur (Hopf, 2000, p. 371). Still others have argued the problem can be ascribed to the
lack of unanimity on the notion of ‘culture’ itself. Not only is the literature unable to
come out with a common definition, but more importantly different conceptions of
culture lead scholars to diverging views of cultural dynamics, including change (Hudson,
1997, pp. 2–3).
The second problem is related to the fact that the synthetic literature on strategic
culture (synthetic in that it offers a general and comprehensive account of its origins and
formation) has largely overlooked the issue of change. The most influential group of
scholars in strategic culture theory, which emerged in the 1990s and was labelled by its
most representative member, Alastair Iain Johnston (1995), as the ‘third generation’, was
fundamentally interested in proving continuity – not change – in culture (Duffield, 1998;
Johnston, 1995; Katzenstein, 1996; Kier, 1997; Legro, 1995; Rosen, 1996). This is
certainly not to suggest that third-generation scholars ignored the possibility that culture
could change. On the contrary, they were aware of it, although the possibility that
culture could actually change was perceived mainly as a sporadic phenomenon triggered
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2 PIETRO PIRANI

by exceptional events (Berger, 1998a, p. 18; Duffield, 1999, p. 770). Working on the
premises of external-shock theory, changes in a country’s strategic culture would have
occurred when the challenges brought by the international system, through wars, revo-
lutions and economic crises, would have had such an impact on existing beliefs as to
undermine past historical narratives and force the construction of new ones (Berger,
1998a, pp. 17–8; Duffield, 1998, p. 23).
In recent years, however, the necessity to address the relationship between culture and
change has become pivotal to strategic studies. Countries whose foreign policy had been
mostly explained in cultural terms have adopted initiatives that can hardly fit into the old
theoretical mould. For example, since the end of the Second World War, German
foreign policy has been mostly explicated in cultural terms (Baumann and Hellmann,
2001; Harnisch and Maull, 2001; Maull, 2000). However, recent controversial decisions
taken by the German government, such as the ones to participate in the war in Kosovo
in 1999 or to deploy ground forces to Afghanistan in 2001, only to deny support to the
United States in Iraq in 2003 and to NATO in Libya in 2011, have prompted experts in
the field to question whether Germany should still be described as a civilian power or,
rather, as a country embarked on a process of ‘normalization’ of its foreign relations
(Maull, 2006; Oppermann, 2012; Schweers, 2008). As a result, an increasing number of
scholars have focused their attention on how culture changes and under which conditions
change occurs over a shorter time frame.

Change and Continuity in Strategic Culture: A Critical Review

There exist in the literature a number of approaches to cultural change. Some scholars
have suggested that culture shocks may be more frequent than previously allowed
(Dueck, 2005; Lantis, 2002a; 2002b; O’Reilly, 2013). Jeffrey Lantis provides the most
detailed analysis: he argues that changes in political culture may occur when ‘strategic
cultural dilemmas’ arise – that is, when external shocks ‘fundamentally challenge existing
beliefs and undermine past historical narratives’. Under such circumstances ‘foreign policy
behaviour may break the traditional bounds of strategic cultural orientations when
primary tenets of strategic thought directly conflict with one another’. Strategic cultural
dilemmas may be resolved by changes in the national security policies and ‘the recon-
struction of embedded historical narratives’ (Lantis, 2002a, pp. 111–2). What differenti-
ates Lantis from previous external shock theorists is that external shocks in his
interpretation are not determined by unique moments in time prompted by major
historical events. External shocks can also be the product of changes of less magnitude in
geopolitical situations that, nevertheless, put a country’s strategic culture under pressure
and eventually lead its strategic policies to deep transformations.
Other researchers have tried to relax the cultural determinism shown by external-shock
theories and stressed the dynamic aspects of culture (Bloomfield, 2012; Dalgaard-Nielsen,
2006; Longhurst, 2004; McCraw, 2011). They criticize monolithic and static conceptions
of culture previously developed and propose instead a more dynamic vision. For Kerry
Longhurst and Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, culture can be better described as being composed
of different layers of ideas and beliefs, which in turn are subject to various levels of
resistance to change. These levels of beliefs organized in concentric circles include ideas
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ELITES IN ACTION 3

and values that progressively, moving from the core to the periphery, become less
fundamental for a given culture and more prone to change (Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2006, p.
13; Longhurst, 2004, p. 17). Where the two scholars differ, however, is under which
conditions change would actually occur. Longhurst (2004, pp. 18–19) mostly highlights
the impact that structural changes, both domestically and internationally, have on culture;
Dalgaard-Nielsen (2006, p. 11) instead looks for situations that enhance political entre-
preneurship as a way for individual actors to alter culture.
David McCraw (2011) and Alan Bloomfield (2012) conceptualize culture as the
aggregation of different subcultures which coexist within a political community and
define its ‘strategic situation’ (Bloomfield, 2012, p. 452). These subcultures represent
different technical, social and material facets of the same strategic culture. What keeps all
these different cultural traits together is a common understanding of whom to trust or
not to trust, based on the friend/foe nexus. A country may have different ways to deal
with a crisis through the adoption of different policies or the employment of different
tools; however, what remains constant is the understanding of which countries are on
your side and which countries should be distrusted. To clarify this concept, Bloomfield
(2012) brings the example of Australia, a country that has witnessed major changes in its
foreign policy in the last twenty years. Although Australia has reviewed its position
toward China both strategically and economically, these changes have not come at the
expense of the relationship with the United States. On the contrary, Bloomfield notices
how, if the relationship between Australia and the United States is still very special, it is
because of a common political substratum rooted in common liberal, capitalist and
democratic values shared by both countries. The same cannot be said for China. The
historical and political divide has nourished a different relationship between China and
Australia, which has been ‘managed according to different, more business-like dynamics’
(Bloomfield, 2012, p. 452).
Finally, some others have adopted a constructivist approach and focused on the effect
of norms to explain change and continuity in strategic culture (Barnett, 1999; Giegerich,
2006; Meyer, 2006; Sandholtz, 2008). Christoph Meyer (2006), for example, investigates
whether strategic norms and beliefs held in different European countries have become
more similar since 1989, and explores the implications this evolution has had on the
viability of a common European Security and Defense Policy. According to Meyer,
European national strategic cultures, although distinct, have been subject to common
learning mechanisms, which effectively modified some key norms underpinning national
strategic cultures. The participation of civilians and military personnel from different
European countries in Common and Security Defense Policy (CSDP) initiatives and
training services and exercises on EU structures and committees contributed to this
convergence, which in turn has opened opportunities for a more solid European
cooperation on defense issues.
Despite this growing interest in the issue of strategic culture and change, current
approaches still show some noteworthy shortcomings, particularly related to the role
played by elites during the process. Most studies consider a country’s strategic culture as
a collective patrimony, but they also see elites as the arbiters who ultimately decide how
and in which direction culture will change (Berger, 1998b, p. 328; Dalgaard-Nielsen,
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2006, p. 342; Duffield, 1998, pp. 34–5; Lantis, 2002b, p. 107; Longhurst, 2004, pp.
21–2). Proximity to the leadership, in terms of both physical vicinity to the decision-
making process and legal authority, allows the members of the elite to confer legitimacy
to their ideas and play a crucial role in directing change (Farrell, 2001, p. 83). Cultural
theorists start from the assumption that culture in the form of narratives is not simply
imposed upon, but rather constructed by the participants themselves. Elite actors are
portrayed as ‘users of culture’ or ‘norm entrepreneurs’, able to ‘choose when and where
to consciously move beyond previous boundaries of acceptability in foreign policy
behaviour’ (Lantis, 2002b, p. 107; for similar conclusions, see also Farrell (2005, p. 452)
and Lantis and Charlton (2011, p. 295)). Likewise, Olivier Schmitt (2012, p. 59) asserts
that when political leaders are forced to choose between participating and not partici-
pating in a military operation, they ‘consciously use facets of their own strategic culture
to legitimate a decision’. The most puzzling element in the current literature, however,
is the portrayal of this process by cultural analysts. Nouns, such as ‘interests’ and
‘invention’, and verbs, such as ‘to construct’, ‘to recast’ and ‘to create’, are used by
cultural analysts to characterize the entire process, reminding the reader that cultural
change is ultimately a self-conscious activity.
How can we talk of cultural influence if elites are able to consciously manipulate its
evolution? If values and beliefs embedded in a society are considered to be constraining
forces for state behavior since they determine the perception of the world, the
assessment of threats, and the available options to counter them, how can the elites
detach themselves from these beliefs and decide to change them? Jeff Goodwin and
James Jasper (2004) highlight this contradiction. Although their critique is part of an
ongoing debate among social-movement theorists, their findings can be extended to
strategic cultural studies as well. The American scholars argue that it is a contradiction
in terms to talk about both ‘cultural influence’ and ‘framing’ because, most of the time,
culture constrains and enables collective actions ‘in ways unrecognized by actors them-
selves. ... Identities are logically prior to the strategic pursuit of interests; a group or
individual must know who they are before they can know what interests they have’
(Goodwin and Jasper, 2004, pp. 24–5). Translated in International Relations terms, the
question is not whether elite actors need to stand outside their culture in order to
become aware of conflicts within the dominant norms and beliefs, or of conflicts
arising from new situations and challenges. Rather, as pointed out by Goodwin and
Jasper (1999, p. 49), the issue is that, by incorporating and privileging ‘frame analysis as
the preferred form, much less only form, of cultural inquiry’ for the study of strategic
culture, scholars ignore ‘the ways in which culture shapes framing processes as well as
political opportunities’ (Benford and Snow, 2000, p. 629). By not providing a more
detailed analysis of the relationship between culture and framing, strategic cultural
literature risks leaving open the question of whether the rationale driving the elite is
somehow rooted in the cultural setting or whether it is determined by factors exog-
enous to culture. If the latter were the case, this would undermine the explanatory
power of cultural theories and, instead, it would confirm theories (such as those steeped
in realism) that claim to explain change in strictly non-cultural terms (Desch, 1998,
p. 166; see also Dyson, 2008).
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ELITES IN ACTION 5

Culture as a Practice
Why did the literature fail so spectacularly in capturing this crucial aspect of the
strategic-cultural change process? To begin with, as Bloomfield (2012, p. 438; emphasis
in original) points out, most strategic-cultural models have been ‘conceptualized too
coherently: [they] contain no contradictory elements, complicating the task of explaining
occasional instances of aberrant strategic behaviour’. As a result, when these moments of
incurrence happen, to paraphrase Carl Schmitt (2005, p. 39), ‘some [scholars] introduce
[elites] in their work by a mental short circuit, just as certain metaphysicians misuse the
name of God’. In many strategic-cultural models, elites thus intervene as a deus ex machina
every time there is the need to make sense of certain changes in security policy that the
theory cannot explain. Moreover, this understanding of the role carved out for elites in
the literature and conceptualized in the syntagma ‘users of culture’ is based on a
misinterpretation of the original term. Therefore, only by reflecting upon the theoretical
context in which this term was originated is it possible to draw a new relationship
between elites and culture and grasp the degree to which elites comprehend reality and
interact with it.
The concept ‘users of culture’ is borrowed from a 1986 study by American sociologist
Ann Swidler. In her article and subsequent studies, Swidler (1986; 2001a; 2001b) draws
a new relationship between culture and action around the notion of bipolar formulation
of cultural influence. The American scholar discerns between settled and unsettled
periods. This distinction, which is at the core of Swidler’s understanding of cultural
influence, is introduced ‘to differentiate situations in which new strategies of action are
being developed and tried out (unsettled) from situations in which people are operating
within established strategies of action (settled)’ (Swidler, 2001a, p. 89). Swidler’s goal is
not therefore to determine if culture is shaped by ideas and beliefs individuals have in
their minds or by structural constraints, nor is it to establish when cultures move from a
settled to an unsettled phase; rather, it is to show that practices, by carrying a meaning
in themselves, ‘not only organize the world – they are also the raw materials that
comprise it’ (Adler and Pouliot, 2011b, p. 15).
In settled periods (or periods of social continuity), ‘culture is intimately integrated with
action; it is here that we are tempted to see values as organizing and anchoring patterns
of action, ... since culture and structural circumstances seem to reinforce each other’
(Swidler, 2001b, p. 278). Swidler notices how this mutual reinforcement is so pro-
nounced that it becomes difficult to differentiate between culture and structural circum-
stances. The fact that it is difficult to detect the influence of culture on action does not
mean that culture is ineffectual. In settled periods, Swidler argues, culture’s influence is
not visible because it does not impose a unified pattern of actions. Individuals and groups
act as if they were independent actors to the point that their behavior is mostly
inconsistent with the values that they claim to profess. This inconsistency allows indi-
viduals to sustain multiple capacities for action with the effect of further weakening the
apparent connection between culture and action (Swidler, 2001a, p. 104).
In reality, culture in settled periods influences action in two different ways. First, it
limits the range of resources individuals and groups have at their disposal to construct
strategies of action (Swidler, 2001a, p. 104). The author uses the term ‘strategy’ to
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6 PIETRO PIRANI

indicate a general way to organize action and not a conscious, planned activity.
Individuals do not develop elaborate and systematic plans of action from scratch; they
always start from some ‘pre-fabricated links’, which incorporates habits, moods and
views of the world. This set of resources, made of symbols, rituals and stories, is the
‘toolkit’ that individuals use to construct their strategies. However, since the set of
resources is not infinite, individual capacity to construct strategies of action is also
limited (Swidler, 2001b, p. 277). Second, culture in settled times influences action
because by limiting the way they can construct their strategies, individuals internalize
these habits and beliefs while cementing the strategies of action that are generated. As
Swidler (2001a, p. 104) points out, ‘constructing ... strategies of action means appro-
priating cultural elements’.
In contrast, the dynamic vision of culture forcefully manifests itself in unsettled periods
when culture is seen as a facilitator for new lines of action. If culture is invisible in settled
periods, in moments of social rupture it is visible and appears as a fragmented entity
formed by multiple lines of action in competition. Thus, when cultural ideals seem to
crumble, ideologies, as ‘explicitly, articulated, highly organized meaning systems’, come
forward and battle for dominance. In unsettled times, the influence of ideologies on
individuals’ behavior is strong because they provide unified answers, though not perfectly
consistent, to ‘questions of how human beings should live’ (Swidler, 2001b, pp. 278–9).
Though ideologies equip individuals with new patterns of action in moments of rupture,
their influence is not deep – at least initially. Ideologies may have suppressed other lines
of actions, but their existence still depends ‘on tradition and common sense’ as they have
not become part of ‘taken-for-granted areas of daily life’ (Swidler, 2001a, pp. 99–101).
Only when ideologies are able to make claims on the quotidian routine of individuals can
they be considered established.
Contrary to the idea shared by many in strategic-cultural studies who believe that
strategic action is a conscious activity, this second reading of Swidler’s works suggests that
a strategic act need not be entirely explicit and conscious. For Swidler, individuals can
consciously adopt a strategy without thinking about it. What occurs is that ‘individual
personalities and organizational cultures come to embody certain strategic choices, which
then disappear – for a while – from explicit contemplation’ (Jasper, 2006, p. 5, emphasis
in the original). For this reason, Swidler (1986, p. 276, emphasis in the original)
concludes that we can claim cultural continuity and stability even in the case of changing
ideas because ‘what endures is the way action is organized, not its ends’. As she points out,
it is possible to detect culture’s influence on action at the very moment individuals are
reluctant to abandon established strategies of action despite the fact that change would
allow them to take advantage of new structural opportunities. Such hesitancy is deter-
mined ‘not because [individuals] cling to cultural ends, but because they are reluctant to
discard familiar strategies of action for which they already have the cultural equipment’
(Swidler, 2001a, p. 105, emphasis in the original).

Conclusion
An analysis of Swidler’s theory of culture has been pertinent to our discussion on two
grounds. First, it has addressed the same methodological and epistemological fallacies we
© 2014 The Author. Political Studies Review © 2014 Political Studies Association
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ELITES IN ACTION 7

have identified in current approaches to change and continuity in the literature. A theory
based on strategies understood as practices (Schatzki et al., 2001) offers a way to overcome
the controversy regarding determinism in strategic cultural studies because it does not
consider culture as a single real object, but rather as a shared practice composed by
individual habits. A culture is thus sustained not by individuals who share the same habits,
but by independent actors who repeatedly ‘modify their habituated individual responses
as they interact with others, in order to sustain a shared practice’ (Barnes, 2001, p. 24).
Moreover, a re-conceptualization of Swidler’s concept of ‘users of culture’ can also
contribute to the ongoing debate about the role that practice plays in International
Relations theory. In recent years, in fact, a heterogeneous group of scholars has turned
to practices to explain a wide range of issues in international politics from diplomacy to
foreign policy and security (Adler, 2005; Adler and Pouliot, 2011a; Adler-Nissen, 2012;
Huysmans, 2006; Jackson, 2008; Neumann, 2002; Pouliot, 2010; Williams, 2007).
Although this literature highlights many aspects of Swidler’s writings and recognizes her
contribution to the development of practice theory (Adler and Pouliot, 2011b), it is quite
silent on other features of her model, such as the way culture influences action in settled
and unsettled periods.
Second, practice theory reconciles the dichotomy between idea and actor, epitomized
in strategic cultural studies by the image of the self-conscious elite, by describing culture
as resulting from the combination of two elements: practice, which is the way social
actors engage each other in action, and discourse that represents the system in which signs
acquire meaning and value only when they are interpreted in relation to each other
(Swidler, 2001a, pp. 74–5). As a result, practice theory allows us to overcome the
problematic relationship between culture and action. Culture is not treated as something
abstract, which may lead to subjective analyses regarding people’s behavior. Rather
‘cultural practices are action, action organized according to some more or less visible
logic, which the analyst need only describe’ (Swidler, 2001a, p. 76). This is important in
strategic cultural studies because it mitigates the claims made by those who believe that
constructivism at large has excluded the political from its analysis by focusing on the
normative aspect of culture (Zehfuss, 2002). Moreover, because practice theory shifts the
attention from the abstract to the concrete (practices) sphere, the link between culture
and action is strengthened (Swidler, 1986, pp. 76–7). The possibility to establish a
stronger correlation between culture and action is pivotal for strategic-cultural theorists
because it allows them to solve the problem raised by Johnston (1999, p. 520) regarding
the need to reconcile the ontological and epistemological point of view of the empirical
research with the belief that social realities are constructed.
(Accepted: 29 March 2014)
About the Author
Pietro Pirani teaches in the Global Studies Department and Political Science Department at Wilfrid Laurier
University. He has also held appointments at the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor and
McMaster University. He has published in Modern Italy and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, and
is currently writing a book on strategic culture, economic sanctions and war. Pietro Pirani, Department of Global
Studies and Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5;
email: ppirani@wlu.ca
© 2014 The Author. Political Studies Review © 2014 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2014
8 PIETRO PIRANI

Note
I am greatly indebted to Trish Riehl who helped me edit a first version of this article, and I am grateful to the two anonymous
reviewers of Political Studies Review for their insightful comments.

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