Legitimization of armed intervention through Western media narratives: 2000-2022, the period of instrumentalization of the Responsibility to Protect Concept

The article studies the evolution of the narrative of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P, Responsibility to Protect, RP) concept through the prism of armed intervention cases. This paper is a logical continuation of the article “Legitimizing armed intervention by means of Western media narratives: dominant narratives during the emergence of the Responsibility to Protect concept, 1990s”. The first article outlined the theoretical component and the process of formation of the R2P concept in the last decade of the XX century, as well as the research methodology. In the current article the authors test the conclusions drawn in the first paper on the basis of the most covered interventions in the international media. Using the most covered cases of armed interventions by Western and non-Western countries, the authors analyze the differences in the use of human rights narratives and analyze the differences in media support for armed interventions. Using a content analysis of the 10 most covered interventions for their endorsement by Western media, the hypothesis of using the R2P narrative as a legitimization for armed interventions by Western countries only and ignoring it in cases of interventions by non-Western states is tested. The 10 most covered intervention cases include 6 interventions by non-Western countries and 4 interventions by Western countries. The hypothesis of instrumentalisation of the R2P concept from 2000, i.e. after the end of the active concept formation phase, to 2022, is also tested using the data. The authors conclude that on the data under consideration, the Western media justify the armed interventions of Western countries and delegitimize the interventions of non-Western countries. Furthermore, the concept of R2P is used both to legitimize Western interventions and to delegitimize non-Western interventions. In legitimizing armed intervention, the R2P concept is often used in combination with rationalist narratives of defending international security and supporting democracy.