Framing Russia : A Comparative Case Study of Public Opinion’s Influence on Foreign Policy in Zambia and Tanzania

Sammanfattning: Previous research has found that voting behavior in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) can be an expression of ideological alignment or distancing from the Western or non-Western bloc. This paper investigates whether the domestic attitude towards Russia influenced the voting behavior of Zambia and Tanzania, voting on resolutions in UNGA condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 respectively. While Tanzania abstained in both votes, Zambia abstained in 2014 and voted in favor of the resolution in 2022.  Taking departure in framing theory, I seek to identify frames of Russia in Zambia and Tanzania in the two-year periods before each vote, to answer the question if a shift in public opinion can explain, or at least coincide, with their foreign policy choices. By conducting a qualitative text analysis of articles in national newspapers, I identify five different frames of Russia. The study finds that there was a shift in media framings in both Zambia and Tanzania, indicating that public opinion could explain why Zambia, but not Tanzania, changed their position. However, the study cannot conclude whether the change originated in public opinion or somewhere else, thus leaving the question of whether shifts in public opinion explain the foreign policy decision unanswered.