Historical narrative as the foundation of strategic culture: A case study of the Republic of Serbia

The paper underscores the central importance of historical narrative as the foundation of strategic culture. The incorporation of constructivist theoretical premises has driven the evolution of strategic culture studies. Beyond expanding the scope of the concept—from military strategy to national security policy—the key contribution of this theoretical convergence lies in recognising identity as a fundamental ideational factor and a core analytical dimension of strategic culture. Anchored in the assumptions of moderate constructivism, the concept of strategic culture centres on the causal relationship between ideational factors (i.e., identity, norms, values, and ideas) and national security policy. Situating strategic culture within the constructivist research program makes it possible to treat historical narrative as its ideational foundation. Accordingly, the central hypothesis of this paper implies that historical narrative constitutes the ideational foundation of the strategic culture of the Republic of Serbia. That is, the historical narrative encompasses the key ideas, beliefs, values, and norms relevant to national security policy. The testing of this hypothesis is carried out through a case study of Serbia’s strategic culture, based on an analysis of the institutionalised historical narrative. By applying qualitative content analysis, history textbooks are examined as a referential basis of the historical narrative. The primary objective of the research is to identify the ideational factors of the Republic of Serbia’s strategic culture across four analytical dimensions: identity, values, norms, and worldview. The identity dimension is defined as a nation’s self-understanding, its national character, and the way it perceives its regional and global roles. The values dimension is determined as the set of key national and state interests. The norms dimension encompasses the legitimate means of pursuing national and state interests. Finally, the dimension of worldview reflects the perception of other actors in international politics through the categories of friends and enemies. The research’s temporal scope spans the 1990s to the present. The analysis of the historical narrative enabled the identification of the ideational factors that underpin the core dimensions of the strategic culture of the Republic of Serbia. Based on the extracted ideational factors of Serbia’s strategic culture, it can be concluded that there is a high degree of mutual coherence among them. In this regard, the identity dimension emerges as the cornerstone of strategic culture and of all other analytical dimensions. Specifically, the remaining dimensions are shaped by national self-understanding and the traits of the Serbian national character. The ideas, beliefs, values, norms, and representations inherent in the identity dimension are manifested through key national and state interests, the legitimate means of pursuing them, and perceptions of other states and actors in international politics. This research thus confirms the theoretical premises that regard historical narrative as the foundation of strategic culture.