Small-State Nation Branding under Crisis: Cambodia's Legitimacy Narratives during the Cambodia-Thailand Border Conflict

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how Cambodia’s legitimacy is communicated and negotiated through nation-branding-related foreign policy communication during the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict. The study treats foreign policy communication during crisis as a nation-branding site through which states project image, values, and narratives of rightful action. While nation branding is often viewed as a strategic projection of coherent and favorable nation images, this study questions how far such assumption holds for a small state operating under crisis conditions and asymmetrical visibility. In such a context, the issue is not only how the state presents itself, but whether its conduct is recognized as appropriate and justified, thereby making legitimacy central to this inquiry. Drawing on Entman’s framing theory and Bourdieu’s symbolic power and recognition, this thesis approaches legitimacy as a communicative and relational process, using government statements, media reports, and foreign government responses. In official communication, Cambodia's legitimacy narratives were articulated through patterned self-positioning as a defensive, lawful, responsible, peaceful, cooperative, and institution-seeking state. These frames contribute to Cambodia’s projected national image as a rightful state by linking its position to symbolic resources such as legality, sovereignty, victimhood, and peaceful settlement. However, this projected image does not remain fully under state control; as it circulates in the contemporary communicative environment, certain elements are amplified while others are negotiated and contested. The thesis therefore extends nation branding scholarship by showing that small-state nation branding during crisis depends not only on coherent projection, but also on whether the narratives attached to it are recognized, neutralized, or challenged by external actors.