Routledge Handbook of Strategic Culture

29 Strategic Culture Scholarship A User’s Guide to the Cultural Topography Methodology

Jeannie L. Johnson

DOI: 10.4324/9781003010302-33

Introduction

The Cultural Topography (CTops) methodology has been introduced and described in a number of different works: first in an article in Studies in Intelligence in 2011, and then as a research approach in two 2018 volumes examining state-based nuclear decisionmaking and military culture, respectively.¹ The purpose of this chapter is to provide a clear step-by-step guide for executing a Cultural Mapping Exercise (CME) – the basic building block of CTops research – as a method within the field of strategic culture and to point scholars and practitioners to existing literature that supplies additional ...