At a scholarly roundtable hosted by Fekrat Media in Tehran, A’tefeh Sadeqi, Fatemeh Raigani, and A’tefeh Khademi examined how Western “narrative governance” shapes political and cultural discourses in the Global South—particularly through the figure of the woman. The discussion explored how women are strategically positioned as emotional, symbolic, and mobilizing subjects in broader projects of soft power and social engineering.
Narrative Governance: A Shift From Managing Societies to Managing Minds
Opening the session, A’tefeh Khademi thanked the organizers before outlining her analytical view of “narrative governance” in contemporary Western policymaking.
She argued that Western governments have gradually shifted from conventional social management toward subtle, cognitive steering:
The goal is no longer simply to administer society, but to shape the public in such a way that people voluntarily align themselves with the dominant political values.
In this new model, the emphasis falls on soft power tools—storytelling, meaning-making, and the cultivation of collective mindsets.
Khademi described narrative governance as the capacity to construct and control the stories that define a society’s collective memory. When a community’s shared mental world is synchronized with the aims of a political system, overt coercion becomes largely unnecessary.
From Israel to Sudan: Winning the Story, Not the Battlefield
She then connected this framework to recent developments in the region:
Following the 12-day Iran-Israel war, she argued, Israeli strategists doubled down on narrative warfare rather than conventional confrontation. Phrases such as “Iran, the global threat” gained traction precisely because of concerted storytelling across international media.
According to Khademi, a similar pattern now appears in Sudan, where Western actors are treating the country as a laboratory for narrative-driven social engineering. In these projects, women are deliberately chosen as central subjects of soft power.
Why Women? The Ideal Subject of Narrative Politics
Khademi explained that, through a Western lens, women serve as emotionally resonant and culturally persuasive symbols—figures through whom global audiences easily empathize.
A’tefeh Sadeqi expanded on this point, describing the attributes of women who are typically elevated in such projects:
- They are framed as victims of government, religion, or tradition.
- They are young, educated, and visually aligned with modern lifestyles.
- They appear independent of financial or political networks.
Such profiles make them particularly effective for constructing emotionally charged political narratives.
A Designed Pathway: How the “Ideal Woman” Is Manufactured
Sadeqi emphasized that this process is neither spontaneous nor neutral—it follows a structured pipeline:
- Identifying a suitable subject
- Analyzing her in think-tank settings
- Media amplification
- Providing scholarships, fellowships, or international awards
- Publishing books and articles about her
- Finally presenting her as a global symbol of women’s liberation
Sadeqi described this as a systematic engineering of narrative subjects.
Women’s Social Networks as Engines of Story Distribution
She noted that women’s naturally wide social networks, coupled with higher emotional intelligence, make them powerful distributors of narratives—especially in the digital sphere. Western institutions have recognized and optimized this potential through media frameworks and online infrastructures.
Soft Power Ecosystems in the West vs. Institutional Gaps in the East
The session concluded with A’tefeh Khademi, who argued that Western countries have developed a comprehensive soft power ecosystem—an interconnected network of NGOs, funding sources, media platforms, foundations, and digital channels that can legitimize or delegitimize political actors.
Within this network, women become active agents in social movements precisely because they are embedded in a globalized structure designed to guide public consciousness.
In contrast, she argued, Eastern and Islamic societies lack a theoretical and institutional foundation capable of countering such influence.
Khademi stressed that the problem is not the absence of focus on women’s issues, but the absence of discourse-building institutions capable of generating independent worldviews and soft power systems.
She noted that the Iranian Islamic Revolution contains the cultural and civilizational resources needed for such an ecosystem—yet Western narrative strategies seek to prevent its emergence by shaping global perceptions.
Conclusion
The roundtable “Sudan and the Domino Effect of Women’s Leadership Projects” concluded with a shared emphasis:
Narrative governance and the strategic subject-making of women have become central instruments of Western cultural and political influence in the East.
Participants stressed the urgent need for homegrown soft-power institutions within the Islamic world to avoid passive absorption into externally crafted narratives.
Reported by: Mahta Sanei
From: jahanbanou