New Institutionalism in Security Studies (NIISS)
Title: New Institutionalism in Security Studies (NIISS)
DNr: SNIC 2021/22-611
Project Type: SNIC Small Compute
Principal Investigator: Tamir Libel <tamir.libel@fhs.se>
Affiliation: Swedish Defence University\Försvarshögskolan
Duration: 2021-10-01 – 2022-10-01
Classification: 50601
Keywords:

Abstract

The aim of the New Institutionalism in Security Studies (NISS) project is to advanced the development of falsifiable theoretical models and large-scale rigorous comparative research designs that use computational methods for security studies drawing upon the new institutionalism literature. In spite of the high relevance of new institutionalism literature to many of the core issues of security studies, the fields have been mostly separated. The principle investigator of the NIISS project, has shown in a series of recent articles that re-formulation of two popular concepts in the security studies field - strategic culture and professional military education - as new institutionalist one and how computational social science methods could be used to enable large-scale comparative research designs. Building on these studies, the NISS project is perceived as a series of proof-of-concepts studies, i.e. each project is intended to result in a paper, which demonstrate the value of integrating new institutionalist theory, comparative rigorous research design and computational methods for data collection and analysis in advancing the field of security studies. The one year project will include the collection, pre-processing and preparation of two datasets concerning military education organisations and generals using Wikidata and Wikipedia APIs, as well as the testing of new falsifiable theoretical models of strategic culture and military education using quantitative text analysis methods. References Libel, T. (2020). Rethinking strategic culture: A computational (social science) discursive-institutionalist approach. Journal of Strategic Studies, 43(5), 686-709. Libel, T. (2020). Strategic culture as a (discursive) institution: a proposal for falsifiable theoretical model with computational operationalization. Defence Studies, 20(4), 353-372.