Producing "Satellite States":Narrative Construction And Image Projection Against Eastern Europe By The U.S. Government(1947-1956)

Image projection is a classic research field of international political psychology and an important form of international interaction.Existing research focuses on the interpretation of images by decision-makers in transnational interaction,the constructive role of image in formation of misperception and role of image construction as a mechanism of domestic mobilization.Relevant literature has not reached consensus of analytical level,linkage between international and domestic political systems,and there are still differences in rational assumptions about image constructors.These shortcomings have limited interpretation of certain historical issues and the in-depth study of principle contemporary strategic issues.In international politics,image projection mainly influences target actors,third-party actors and projectors.The research on the projector itself,mainly the process of image proj ection decision-making and mechanism of domestic norms diffusion,is the weakest,but it is of vital importance academically.Based on relevant theories of international political cognitive psychology and political system analysis,the essay attempts to incorporate the domestic political structure and diplomatic decision-making process into a unified analytical framework.The essay places emphasis on the elite-mass interaction model of the domestic political system and the process of information flow in the diplomatic decision-making system.Decision-makers are assumed as bound-rationalists,whose image construction against others is influenced by factors such as the source,choice,combination and proportion of information in the bureaucratic organization.After the competition between ideas and their selection within decision-making group,the cognition of mainstream decision-makers is then output through policy making,promoting the ideas-shaping of other political elites and the public,and signaling other international actors.The proliferation of norms is conducive to eliminating the resistance in this policy process and ensuring the relative stability of the policy within a certain period of time.The author illustrates the necessity to include research on narrative as one factor in the image projection analysis system.As a cognitive schema with a clear structure,narrative simultaneously shapes the concept of information audience in two ways:"cold"and "hot" cognition.On the one hand,narrative matters in policy process through organizing the pattern of decision-making,to enable decision-makers to build simple and stable belief systems,even leads to cognitive closure in diplomatic decision-making,and then shapes ideas by public agenda setting.On the other hand,the transportation effect of the narrative can enable its audience to obtain moral identification and activate their emotional response with national identity.At present,the narrative research of international politics focuses on the analysis of macro-level identity,lacking research at the micro and mid-level.The author points that in many processes such as the narrative information transmission of bureaucratic organizations,the narrative construction and diffusion of decision-makers,and the construction of other people's imagery,narratives are transmissive in different levels of political information interaction.Narrative research in political psychology and other disciplines are worth referring to analyze international crisis management,diplomatic decision-making process,and national strategy construction.The author attempts to use the image projection analysis framework that emphasizes narrative factors to summarize the mechanism and outline the process of narrative image projections against Eastern Europe by U.S.in the early Cold War period.After the end of World War ?,the U.S.government began to adopt the "satellite state" narrative as a reference to the Eastern European socialist countries.This concept includes complex value judgment and policy frameworks.On the one hand,it was a form of psychological warfare against relevant countries.On the other hand,national identity was successfully reshaped through the construction of security threat.The image projection process against "satellites" began with the narrative construction by decision-makers.In existing historical archives,the intelligence for the Eastern European region works with an obvious linguistic organization,leading to differentiation of policy framework among policy makers,including "bystander""rescue" and "adversary" narratives.The narrative competition dominated the evolution of United States,strategy against Eastern Europe at the early stage of Cold War.Still in the same process,the official narrative shaped the American public'perception on Eastern European politics and reshaped the self-ethical identity of the U.S.heroic image in the Cold War world system,influencing the moves of other international actors as well.This case shows the importance of narrative construction in information transmission,ideas shaping and image projection within the foreign decision-making process.