Storytelling in international relations

Thinktanks connect to the public because they tell stories. Scholars behind academic paywalls don’t.

International relations (IR) prides itself on complexity. Theorists build elaborate models. Graduate students master obscure jargon. Journals publish 30-page articles that few outside the discipline will ever read. It’s all very serious. But if the goal is to actually change policy — if the hope is to influence the people who make decisions about war, peace, and everything in between — then the whole enterprise starts to look like exhaustive and pointless wankery.

Because policymakers, as it turns out, don’t want your multi-level models or epistemological debates. They want something simple. They want a story. One that tells them who’s good, who’s bad, what went wrong, and how to fix it. And they’re not wrong. Stories stick. Data doesn’t. Narrative wins. Every time.

Take The Ugly American — a blunt, semi-fictional expose of U.S. diplomatic failure in So…