Text-as-data in international relations: current debates over text analysis in international relations studies

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.26650/siyasal.2025.34.1615063

This review explores recent advancements in the study of international relations by focusing on text as a data source. Once a primary resource, texts have regained prominence with the rise of computational tools, offering new analysis opportunities. This review highlights the importance of communication, newspapers, speeches, and even social media in understanding human behavior and interactions among states. These textual sources not only provide insights into leaders’ reputation, resolve, and psychological traits but also contribute to detecting policy agendas and studying diplomatic outcomes. Improvements in methods such as big data analysis and machine learning have transformed how scholars build and analyze observational data in international relations. By revisiting key developments and applications, this review provides an overview of how texts are being used across various fields, including gathering event data, understanding foreign-policy agendas, particularly in international organizations, and detecting leader signals through platforms like Twitter. This assessment also addresses the growing significance of integrating these novel methods into future research and highlights the potential of text-based studies to shape the future of the discipline, offering scholars improved tools for analyzing complex global interactions and uncovering patterns in international relations.