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During the Northern War (1700-1721), the Russian government had to make great efforts to strengthen the anti-Swedish coalition. Peter the Great developed a broad foreign network of state representatives: employees of the diplomatic corps (envoys, ministers, residents, agents, etc.), trade commissioners, and correspondents. Peter the Great himself, his Cabinet, and the foreign policy department (Posolsky Prikaz, Collegia Inostrannykh Del) controlled these agents of influence. Peter’s diplomats fought for symbolic capital by taking part in official negotiations and unofficial meetings, in diplomatic and court ceremonies, in gift-exchanging, and organizing various festivities. This capital then was converted into the international prestige of the ruler, his title, honor, glory, and position in the hierarchy of European rulers. Considerable attention was paid to promptly inform Western partners about events in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy. Russian information policy emphasized the news that can strengthen Russia’s international prestige: dynastic, diplomatic, and military successes, political reforms, and court celebrations. The article examines the practice of news dissemination through Russian diplomatic missions and foreign diplomatic representatives in Russia. The practice reduced the negative effect of the spread of unofficial information, fake news, and false rumors. The war continued in the pages of print media. To limit the dissemination of information damaging Russia’s prestige, Russian diplomats began to use the same instruments of influence (newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets), which European diplomats used at that time: various methods of pressure and bribery, propaganda, and censorship. The successes of Russian diplomacy have led to the strengthening of Russia’s international prestige and contributed to creating a positive image of the country abroad. The Russian government transferred the gained experience into domestic policy. Peter the Great also demanded fighting against “reprehensible” information about “the person of his majesty, or his troops, as well as his state.”

Abstract Using a neoclassical realist model, this paper builds an analytical model to understand how countries are able to change or adjust their security and foreign policies. The article analyzes Japan’s foreign and security policies under the Shinzo Abe government, exploring how the Japanese government’s internal and international propaganda on Chinese maritime assertiveness and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands issue influenced the government’s capacity to mobilize resources in order to transform security policies and legitimize Japan’s military role in the Asia Pacific.

This article proposes to use the concept of “cosmopolitan cinematic margins” to analyse the paradoxical meeting of the cosmopolitan meaning and discourses of Ciro Guerra’s Colombian films and the spatial restrictions and immobility of the rural and remote places in which they are set. Such areas as seen on screen are usually interpreted by urban audiences as exotic locations, independently of their actual distance from cities. The article explores how films that, at first sight, show images of marginal and remote places like the Colombian Amazonian Jungle, when inserted into a global context—such as the hierarchical system of international film festivals—become symbols of cosmopolitan cinematic margins, and represent a country in the global spaces that legitimise the importance of that country’s film production. The cosmopolitan cinematic margins in the films of Guerra are then strategically situated in environments of global mobility and international prestige.