Power as visibility: conceptualizing the changing nature of influence in international relations

Abstract

This thesis propounds a new definition of power and influence in international relations and a conceptual framework of power’s translation into influence. First, this thesis defines power as being or rendering something (in)visible, and influence as changing one's narrative of world politics. Visibility is being socially relevant and mattering to others, and it is operationalized as an actor's frequency of being seen by an audience. Second, this thesis draws a framework for the analysis of the power and influence of international actors on audiences. The methodology is extracted from the operationalization of the components of visibility in the proposed framework of analysis. The power as visibility framework is applied to the case of comparing Erdoğan's power and influence over the mass audience in Türkiye and the Western European elite audience in 2008 and 2020. The material examined by the thesis consists of official speeches and popular culture media. Finally, the thesis concludes with a discussion of the alternative explanations and power as visibility framework.