Analytical Dimension 2: Myths as Different Forms of Narrative

The notions of ‘myth’ in works of IPA are manifold, yet most of them treat myths as specific forms of narratives or stories (for an exemption see Yanow 1992). These narratives then are the specific patterns that structure a discourse.

According to the Dictionary of Discourse Analysis, ‘myth’ refers to stereotype narratives, chivalric stories, and founding stories alike (Wrana et al. 2014, 276). What these definitions have in common is how myths are characterised by narrative structures. ‘Fundamentally, narrative story-telling reveals or conveys an experience structured as a sequence of events or occurrences (e.g., beginning, middle, and ending) through which individuals relate their experiences to one another’ (Fischer and Gottweis 2012b, 12-13). This emplotment is both chronological and more or less explicitly causal. Narratives provide orientation, identity, distancing, justification, and coping (Wrana et al. 2014, 276). It is the power of narrative to link different elements, events, or agents and thereby limit the set of plausible political action (Gadinger et al. 2014, 25). When it comes to problematisation, narratives are central. Neustadt und May (1986, 274) suggest: ‘Don’t ask “What’s the problem?,” ask “What’s the story?” That way you’ll find out what the problem really is.’ The choice of a beginning for a problem-setting story can already be an act of politics. In the portrayal of a conflict, for instance, the choice of a starting point of events decides what to include in the ‘total account of blame and revenge’ (Koschorke quoted by Gadinger et al. 2014, 12). Political narratives and myths simplify by relating otherwise disparate events, creating specific constellations of actors—protagonists and antagonists in particular—and thereby portray a certain kind of action as the right one (Gronau and Nonhoff 2011, 4).

Hein-Kirchner (quoted in Elter and Kohler 2015, 395) distinguishes political myths-as-narratives according to their content into individual, event-related, spatial, and temporal myths.

Individual myths personalise history; they attribute a certain event to a single person. This is common for the foundation of a social movement, a certain heroic deed, or sacrifice. When charged with a key moral message, a myth becomes a fable—a story that tells of the overcoming of a problem by heroic intervention that results in a happy ending. ‘By presenting policy actors with actions that find their resolution in a desired set of outcomes, such fables also offer them a place within the story, requiring, as well as justifying, their intervention’ (Cornwall et al. 2007, 6).³ Myths relating to an event mark a certain incident as turning point or caesura. ‘D-Day’ and ‘Sarajevo 1914’ are just two of the many examples of such event-related myths in international politics.⁴ Spatial myths relate to places and territories but also to intangible boundaries. Naming a specific place, such as ‘The West’ in American history, implies an entire story. Naming ‘The West’ in world history evokes quite a different story, but one which is very powerful no less.⁵ Temporal myths focus on certain eras that are credited with outstanding positive or negative economic, cultural, or political developments, for instance, ‘the Golden 1920s’, ‘the Age of Enlightenment’ (Elter and Kohler 2015, 395) or ‘the Cold War’. These categories of myths can overlap or complement each other. They are conveyed by all sorts of media, be it in political speeches, literature, film, or writings, during memorial days, and so forth.

One of the most prominent forms of political myth is myth as founding or origin story. Myths and narratives have been described as structuring principles of discourse. According to Lyotard, narration has the function of providing legitimacy. Whereas narratives look for legitimation in the future, myths look for legitimation in a primal founding act (Viehover 2004, 234). Elter and Kohler (2015, 394) equate political myths with emotionalised collective narratives that interpret history in a selective and stereotypical manner.

Rhetoric instruments to be found in myths are exaggeration, glorification, and repetition. Authors in the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis have analysed how myths in media and schoolbooks help dealing with a traumatic past, how myths hide fractures, civil war atrocities, and conflicts (Wodak and Meyer 2009, 20).

Myth in this understanding is always an account of a ‘creation’; it relates how something began to be. In referring to these myths, groups are united with a primordial time. This is not to shed light on a past event, but on the present. According to this notion of ‘myth’, myths are stories told by societies or groups to design a specific picture of their imagined past (Beer 2014, 8). Again, this need not be limited to national identity or domestic policymaking. As stated above, it has been argued that the limited amount of acceptance of the European Union could be attributed to a lack of shared myths that could justify political decisions in a pre-political way. On the other hand, the German-French reconciliation and end to ‘hereditary enmity’ following WWII has become a strong origin story to constitute this special cooperation as ‘twin engine’ or ‘core countries’ of European integration.

This second dimension—what kind of form a myth has—is closely related to the last dimension, which directs attention to the question of what myths do.

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Source: Bliesemann de Guevara Berit. Myth and Narrative in International Politics. Palgrave Macmillan,2016. — 329 p.. 2016

Analytical Dimension 2: Myths as Different Forms of Narrative

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