Narrating success and failure: Congressional debates on the ‘Iran nuclear deal’
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Author | Kai Oppermann,Alexander Spencer |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066117743561 |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066117743561
European Journal of
International Relations
2018, Vol. 24(2) 268 –292
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066117743561
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Narrating success and failure:
Congressional debates on the
‘Iran nuclear deal’
Kai Oppermann
University of Sussex, UK
Alexander Spencer
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany
Abstract
This article applies a method of narrative analysis to investigate the discursive contestation
over the ‘Iran nuclear deal’ in the US. Specifically, it explores the struggle in the US
Congress between narratives constituting the deal as a US foreign policy success or
failure. The article argues that foreign policy successes and failures are socially constructed
through narratives and suggests how narrative analysis as a discourse-analytical method
can be employed to trace discursive contests about such constructions. Based on insights
from literary studies and narratology, it shows that stories of failures and successes follow
similar structures and include a number of key elements, including: a particular setting;
a negative/positive characterization of individual and collective decision-makers; and an
emplotment of success or failure through the attribution of credit/blame and responsibility.
The article foregrounds the importance of how stories are told as an explanation for the
dominance or marginality of narratives in political discourse.
Keywords
Failure, Iran nuclear deal, narrative, success, US
Introduction
Whether the 2015 ‘Iran nuclear deal’ is a success or failure is open to contestation. The
bargain at the heart of this agreement is that Iran gives up, limits or converts parts of its
Corresponding author:
Alexander Spencer, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Zschokkestr. 32, Magdeburg, 39104,
Germany.
Email: alexander.spencer@ovgu.de
743561EJT0010.1177/1354066117743561European Journal of International RelationsOppermann and Spencer
research-article2017
Article
Oppermann and Spencer 269
nuclear activities and agrees to put these activities under a monitoring and verification
regime led by the International Atomic Energy Agency in return for relief from interna-
tional sanctions related to its nuclear programme (see MacFarlane, 2015). On an objective
level, some may argue that it is too early to judge the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
(plus Germany) (the P5+1) and Iran. Whether or not the deal will achieve the key objec-
tive of the P5+1 to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by peaceful means will
only become clear in the longer term, perhaps not before the current agreement runs out
after 15 years. The political debate, however, on whether the nuclear deal should be seen
as a success or failure is already in full swing. While some observers, including Donald
Trump, criticize the agreement as ‘a bad deal that sets a dangerous precedent’ (LoBianco
and Tatum, 2015), the Obama administration pitched it as ‘a very good deal’ that repre-
sents the ‘strongest non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated’ (Obama, 2015a).
Against the backdrop of such contrasting views, the article traces the discursive con-
testation around the nuclear agreement in the US Congress and thereby contributes to
three separate fields of scholarship and debate. First, it advances the literature on (for-
eign) policy failures (see, e.g., Bovens and ‘t Hart, 1996; Janis, 1982; Roselle, 2006;
Walker and Malici, 2011) and successes (see, e.g., Hutchings and Suri, 2015; McConnell,
2011) in Public Policy and International Relations (IR). Specifically, it takes the ‘middle
ground’ between ‘objectivist’ and purely ‘relativist’ perspectives on the topic. On the one
hand, the article argues against a foundationalist tradition that has long been dominant in
policy studies (Marsh and McConnell, 2010: 567), which understands policy failures and
successes as objective facts that can be independently identified and verified. In contrast,
the article follows a constructivist critique that sees ‘success’ and ‘failure’ not as inherent
attributes of policy, but as judgements about policy (Oppermann and Spencer, 2016).
Whether policies come to be seen as failures or successes depends on the meaning
imbued to them in political discourse and is the result of discursive contestation. At the
same time, the article rejects purely relativist accounts for which success and failure are
completely ‘in the eye of the beholder’ (McConnell, 2010: 351). Rather, it suggests that
claims of success or failure are more powerful if they involve certain discursive elements
that make for convincing stories of success or failure. Specifically, our argument is that
policy successes and failures are constructed through narratives that follow a particular
structure. The contestation over whether policies should be seen as failures or successes,
in turn, plays out as a discursive struggle between narratives and counter-narratives that
are similar in structure but different in content.
Second, the article adds to the growing literature on narrative analysis in IR by sug-
gesting a heuristic means of ordering the analysis of ‘narratives’. While the concept of a
‘narrative’ has been used extensively in IR, this has often simply been used as a synonym
for discourse or rhetoric and has frequently ignored many of the advances made in the
home turf of narrative analysis, namely, Literary Studies and Narratology (Roberts, 2006;
Suganami, 2008). Based on the insights in these fields, the article holds that a narrative
is made up of three essential elements that help structure and provide a heuristic order for
the empirical analysis by focusing on: (1) a setting (the location or surrounding environ-
ment in which the narrative is set); (2) characterization (a description of the actors
involved); and (3) emplotment (the way in which setting, characters and events
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