Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Political Science, 2006. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-122).

The colonial formation and imagination of the Canadian nation and its citizenry has historically been rooted in processes of racial inclusion and exclusion. This thesis considers the ways in which the historical exclusionary process of citizenship manifests within today’s “War on Terror” through the language of national security. The analysis focuses on the discourses of two former Conservative bills: Bill C-24 – Strengthening the Canadian Citizenship Act and Bill C-51 – Anti-terrorism Act. Mobilized through a critical race perspective, my thesis documents first, the narratives that are told, and second, the discursive strategies that are used, to construct those deserving and undeserving of inclusion. My findings demonstrate that the ideal nation and its ideal citizens, who are deserving of inclusion within the nation, are fundamentally constructed in Whiteness. Meanwhile, the threatening ‘Other’, who is to be excluded and expelled from the nation, is imagined as a racialized Muslim, Arab and brown terrorist in the “War on Terror”. By examining their respective parliamentary debates, my research reveals how the political discourses utilized in both bills uphold the racial exclusionary mechanisms of citizenship. As such, my research speaks to the evolving relationship between citizenship, national security, surveillance, and securitization by demonstrating how citizenship is used as a tool within the broader security regime of the state to fight the “War on Terror”.

This thesis explores representation of the Iraq War in selected Anglo-American and Iraqi novels, examining how several authors have employed this theme in their narratives. The featured novelists are chosen from many writers who focus their efforts and their writing on this conflict. Criterion for selection included offering a critique of the diverse perspectives from which the conflict was perceived, the texts‘ engagement with the political conundrums underpinning war and its approach, how such fiction engages with a contemporary audience and what perspective are deployed to do so. Their public visibility provides the basis of one interpretative strand of the thesis. This study also explores and conceptualises how this conflict has entered the cultural consciousness and to what degree the novels fictionalise the conflict as their main subject, and assesses through which thematic emphases. The texts chosen and to be analysed are pivotal to our understanding of contemporary Iraq and its recent history. It will be argued that the thematic content of these texts contextualise modern war‘s multiple effects within not only the fictional textual world, but as well as their imaginative characters these representations become part of the experience at least vicariously of the audiences who read them. The texts discussed in subsequent chapters are either originally written in, or translated into English (for publication), and therefore all available in English, one major criterion of textual selection. It is interesting to examine the theme of the Iraq War and the historical and pragmatic vein and cultural point of reference from which authors write and has come to dominate the discourse of some contemporary novelists. The goal is to critically explore how the war has become a focal point and the framework of their narratives. The thesis will attempt to analyse how such novels depict the effects of political violence and why they are drawn to powerfully articulate the gruelling reality and experience of those fictionally engaged by and/or affected by it. It will be proposed that novels of and about this conflict are essential to study, understand, and engage with because of the content and the message they attempt to convey which is so crucial to understanding contemporary faultiness in socio-cultural histories, and the critical themes they utilize in writing and the dynamics through which they fictionalize their stories. Such fictional representations of this war serve an important societal, cultural, aesthetic and symbolic function. Thus the study encapsulates how novels of and about the Iraq War reveal and recapture the physical, psychological, and interpersonal losses that are felt by the civilians and military alike.

Esta pesquisa de Mestrado, sob a forma de dois artigos distintos, mapeia articulações da ameaça terrorista que possam sugerir a macrossecuritização da Guerra ao Terror na América do Sul, nos discursos dos presidentes de Brasil, Colômbia e Venezuela na Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas (2002-2006). Com base na Teoria das Securitizações da Escola de Copenhague e na Análise Crítica do Discurso de vertente anglo-saxã, identificam-se as estratégias linguísticas e o encadeamento argumentativo da securitização do terrorismo no ato de fala. Conclui-se que, no nível discursivo, Colômbia e Venezuela macrossecuritizaram a Guerra ao Terror, instrumentalizando o terrorismo para justificar as ações dos Governos Uribe e Chávez , enquanto o Governo Lula absorve o terrorismo ao combate à fome. / This Master\'s research, in the form of two separate articles, maps the articulation of the terrorist threat that might suggest a macrosecuritisation of the \"War on Terror\" in South America, in the speeches of presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela in the United Nations General Assembly (2002 -2006). Based on the Theory of Securitisation of the Copenhagen School and Critical Analysis of the Anglo-Saxon Critical Discourse Analysis, it identifies the linguistic strategies and argumentative textual chaining of terrorism securitisation in the speech act. We conclude that, in the discursive level, Colombia and Venezuela have macrosecutirised the War on Terror, using terrorism to justify the actions of Uribe and Chavez governments, while the Lula embodies the danger of terrorism to its anti-hunger program.

Post-structuralist IR has often treated foreign policy/security discourses and their effects on policy through a “representational model”, i.e. how one dominant representation makes possible particular policy outcomes. However, in a longitudinal analysis, where the concern with “outcome” is already about continuity/change, this model is restricting and must be replaced by a model integrating multiple voices and contestations, and looking for non-linear mechanisms of long-term constraints. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is, first, to develop a theoretical-analytical framework suitable for an explicit interest in contestations and tracing constraints; and second, in an illustrative-explorative study, to apply such relational-dialogical framework to “war on terror” in the US and the UK (2001-2012). Bakhtinian Dialogism occupies an important status in the framework; therefore, a broader aim is to demonstrate how a “dialogical turn” inspired by the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin and his circle would enrich debate. Developments of the past decade – increased anti-war critique, change of governments in the US and the UK, and protracted withdrawal – provide new grounds for a longitudinal inquiry into “war on terror”. Moving beyond the question how “war on terror” was initially constructed and legitimised, scholarly attention must focus on a longitudinal inquiry into why “war on terror” endured. In this respect, the formidable deconstructions of official discourses by anti-war critique have received marginal attention in IR. The empirical part explores how critical discourses have contested the official narratives; how the latter have engaged with them as well as with moderate deliberative critique, and to what effect for continuity/change, to understand whether and how successive governments in the US and the UK have been discursively constrained (bound) in their attempts to change policy. Without claiming to be a comprehensive explanation, it locates and interprets patterns and logics within the discursive exchanges, delineating potential routes contributing to constraints and hence continuation. Thus, on the one hand, destabilising critique was shattering the foundations of the official “war on terror” narratives without fully re-inscribing the dislocated space with new imaginings, thus inviting official representatives to re-claim such space. On the other hand, deliberative voices were pushing for the realisation of the promises inherent in the official discourse, demanding “winning” the (albeit “mistaken”) war, thus inviting for continued engagement.

This study examines how the media construct the identities of the Other by creating various ‘us’ versus ‘them’ positions (Othering) when covering non-violence-based intercultural conflicts in Arab and Western news media. Othering in this study is understood as an umbrella concept that in general terms refers to the discursive process of constructing and positioning the Self and the Other into separate identities of an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’ This process is analysed using a mixed method approach. A content analysis is used to map the data, and then a closer examination of the discourse is conducted using a qualitative approach inspired by critical discourse analysis. Two empirical studies are conducted based on this analysis: 1) the case of the Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda’s publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed in 2007 and 2) the media coverage of the headscarf ban in French state schools in 2004. This study also employs Galtung’s Peace Journalism model as a frame of reference in the conclusions to discuss how this model could contribute, if applied in journalistic texts, to more balanced constructions of intercultural conflicts. The results show that Othering is a central discursive practice that is commonly adopted in both Arab and Western media coverage of non-violent intercultural conflicts, but it appears in different forms. Many of the previous studies have devoted considerable attention to rather conventional dichotomous constructions of Eastern and Western Others. The present study, in contrast, brings to the fore more non-conventional constructions and, while recognizing the occurrence of the conventional constructions, goes beyond these binary oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Variations in the types of identity constructions found in my study can be attributed to the mode of the article, the actors/voices included, the media affiliations and the topic and its overall contextualization. The different types of identity constructions in the media coverage may bring about a less black and white understanding of an event and help bring forth a more nuanced picture of what is going on and who is doing what in a conflict situation. Their occurrence in the media can possibly be linked to a new vision of a global society that does not necessarily constitute homogenous groups with the same characteristics, but rather is more consistent with a hybrid identity. This research is timely, as with the recent arrival of large groups of migrants from the Middle East, the ‘fear of Islam,’ and the right wing propaganda regarding Muslims as a threat is increasing. Islamophobia can be seen as a new form of racism used by elites to serve particular agendas. If media practitioners applied a more critical awareness in their writings so as not to reproduce culturally rooted stereotypes, which can inflame conflicts between people and nations, we might see less hostility against migrants and achieve a less racist world.

The 'special relationship' between the United States and the United Kingdom has existed since the beginning of the 1940s. During the Second World War, a strong alliance emerged that was based on a defense policy against a common enemy and a shared value principle. Throughout the Cold War, the special relationship evolved from a weakening of mutual relations in 1960s and 1970s to a renewed rapprochement in 1980s, mainly because of the shared opinions of the U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. After the geopolitical changes in 1989 a debate developed over the future of their special relationship. The question was whether (or in what form) the transatlantic alliance will continue to remain. The 9/11 terrorist attacks upon the United States gave the answer to this question and provided the impetus for renewed mutual British-American relations. Immediately after the attacks, the United Kingdom expressed its full support for the US-led fight against terrorism and followed the United States first into Afghanistan and later into Iraq. However, both President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were strongly criticized that their war engagement, particularly in relation to the war in Iraq, had been unlawful and was based on false evidence supporting the...

V Praze, dne 25. července 2013 ………………………………… Abstract The main focus of this thesis is the phenomenon of private military companies and their deployment in situations of armed conflict conducted under the auspices of the so-called "War on Terrorism". The aim is to provide the reader with an introductory insight into this issue, describe specific activities of private military companies during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to answer research questions about their positive or negative contribution to the overall results of these conflicts and the possible impact on civil-military relations. The main thesis of this work is that the performance of these companies can not be categorically evaluated because it is different from case to case. There are, however, some general trends which can be traced in regard to "War on Terrorism". They mainly relate to the lack of efficient state control of private military companies and their conduct. The work is divided into several parts. The first deals with the historical development of conducting military operations with the help of non-state financially motivated actors. This section is intended to create a framework for a better understanding of the issues examined. The second part is devoted to theoretical classification of private military companies and...

The continued use of weaponized drones in the War on Terror has stirred up a heated debate, both in the scholarly and academic world, and there is still no conclusive empirical evidence to suggest that they are effective. As such, there ought to be factors other than efficacy that impact the decision-making process. One factor that may play a significant part in how policy makers deliberate over high stakes decisions is what cognitive theorists refer to as analogical reasoning - relating the present to the past and using this comparison as a guideline in the decision-making process. This study analyzes historical analogies used in public speeches and remarks by U.S. President Barack Obama to ascertain if there is evidence to suggest that analogical reasoning has been part of the decision-making progress when it comes to drones, or if analogies mostly serve as a strategic tool to convey messages to the intended recipients. The findings suggest that in this instance, the analogies in relation to drones were used primarily in a strategic manner, but that cognitive analogical reasoning likely has been part of previous decisions in the War on Terror.

This research is concerned with Pakistan¿s participation in the US-led `war on terror¿ in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. The study seeks to explain how Pakistan¿s state practice in the aftermath of 9/11 was normalised and made possible. In explaining the state practice, the study draws on a constructivist conceptual framework; which is further enhanced by incorporating key theoretical insights from critical realism. In the first instance, the study proposes that Pakistan¿s participation in the `war on terror¿, seen as a set of actions and practices, was an outcome of a specific domestic political discourse. This discourse enabled and legitimised the state¿s alliance with the US and its abandonment of the Taliban regime. Secondly, the study is concerned with explaining why the particular discourse emerged in the shape and form that it did. In this context, the argument is that a depth `critical realist¿ ontological inquiry can reveal underlying and enduring global and domestic social structural contexts, and traces of agential influence as connected to the discourse. Consequently, this study conceptualises Pakistan¿s actions in the context of the `war on terror¿ as emerging from a multi-causal complex in which discourse, structure and agency are complicit. The study represents a departure from realist readings that emphasise a mono-causal relationship between the US and Pakistan. Instead, this research uses a synthesis of critical realism and constructivism to add a fresh perspective in terms of how we may conceptualise Pakistan¿s political practice in this instance.