Hcss report

Possess
Ontology ‘Is’
The Power
that You
Project
The Power
that You
Profess
The Power
that Others
Perceive
Behavior ‘Use’
Rhetoric ‘Say’
Perception ‘Feel’
‘objective’ assertiveness

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STRATEGIC MONITOR 2014
projects and the power it professes – we define as ‘objective’ assertiveness, as in 
those cases where a country demonstrably changes its behavior or rhetoric. And the 
way in which any action or rhetoric (even if it has not changed) is perceived by third 
countries, we define as ‘subjective’ assertiveness.
This study differentiates between two types of assertiveness: ‘objective’ and 
‘subjective’. We define ‘objective’ assertiveness as any increase in at least one of 
the following two aspects of ‘power’: the power an actor manifests through its 
actions (factual assertiveness) and the power it rhetorically claims to possess 
(rhetorical assertiveness). Under ‘subjective assertiveness’ we understand 
situations where an actor is perceived by others – whether or not based on 
objectively observable realities – to have increased its either factual or rhetorical 
assertiveness.
In this report, we focus our attention on the two middle ‘objective’ pillars as shown in 
Figure 2.8: the rhetorical and the factual types of assertiveness. We recognize that 
this excludes an important dimension of assertiveness, which like so many other 
things, lies very much in the eye of the beholder. But as previously mentioned, one of 
the main goals for this report was to develop ways to get a better evidentiary grip on 
the phenomenon of assertiveness, which is why we decided to start with those 
elements that at least some evidence can be found for.
2.4 Research Design
The ambition of this study is to extend both the scope (beyond anecdotal cherry-
picking) and the time coverage (looking back more than just a few months or years) of 
the evidence base that can be used to assess countries’ assertiveness. In order to 
analyze both the rhetorical and the behavioral dimensions of China’s and Russia’s 
alleged assertiveness, we used different sources, methods and tools. These will be 
briefly introduced.
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For the analysis of the