Rhetorical frames: a strategy of governmental power in international negotiations

Power comes not only as conventional Compulsory Power but also as Institutional, Structural, or Productive Power. We focus on under-explored Productive Power (the ability to produce and give meaning to social identities and capacities through discursive processes and practices) and the related strategy of rhetorical framing (using particular words or terms to characterise an issue and imply appropriate actions in line with that characterisation). Spotlighting the strategy’s dual offensive/defensive utility and relatively low resource requirements, we expect the strategy of rhetorical framing (and counter-framing) to be: (1) prevalent in inter-governmental negotiations, and (2) used even by conventionally ‘very weak’ states. Employing text analysis on over 5000 observations from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) negotiation transcripts between 1995 and 2020, we confirm that states ‘weak’ in Compulsory Power are nevertheless wielding Productive Power and its related strategy of rhetorical framing. Whilst conventionally strong states emphasise a Reciprocation Frame (mutual concessions between states), conventionally weak states emphasise a Redistribution Frame (one-way concessions from some states to other states). Such findings make two important contributions: we exhibit the mechanics of an under-explored type of power and show what happens in international institutions when no single rhetorical frame dominates.