FAQs

1. Who are these tools for?

The platform is designed for:

Foreign policy analysts
Academic researchers
Journalists
Students of international relations
Anyone interested in geopolitical discourse who may not speak the original language of the source material

2. What value does this tool provide?

Our platform's value lies in its ability to:

Provide large volumes of diplomatic speech content ready for rigorous analysis, avoiding gathering by hand.
Offering out-of-the-box visualization tools for exploration.
Provide datasets pre-analyzed with text analysis techniques encouraging new ways of thinking about diplomatic communication.

3. How should this platform be used (and not used)?

This platform is intended as a research and exploratory tool. It is designed to provide quantitatively sound, but not definitive interpretations. Users should combine these tools with contextual knowledge and additional sources.

4. Where does the data come from?

All content is sourced from the Russian and Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs' official websites. We built web scrapers to collect speeches and related metadata.

5. Do you translate the speeches?

No. We use official English translations published by government sources when available.

6. What are the limitations of the data?

Limitations include incomplete archival availability, reliance on official translations that may differ in emphasis, conflicting encoding structures, and our nascent web scraping/text analysis skills. Inaccuracies may be present.

7. Can I download or reuse the data?

Yes. You are welcome to download a sample of our dataset for research, academic or exploratory analysis.

Please cite the Geopolitical Speech Lab if you use the data in publications or projects.