The Meaning of the Global War on Terror in Post-9/11 U.S. Presidential Discourse
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2017 Never Forget: The Meaning of the Global War on Terror in Post-9/ 11 U.S. Presidential Discourse Landon Shane Bevier University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Criminology Commons Recommended Citation Bevier, Landon Shane, "Never Forget: The Meaning of the Global War on Terror in Post-9/11 U.S. Presidential Discourse. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2017. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4734 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Landon Shane Bevier entitled "Never Forget: The Meaning of the Global War on Terror in Post-9/11 U.S. Presidential Discourse." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Sociology. Michelle Brown, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Lois Presser, Harry Dahms, Patrick Grzanka, Roger Murphy Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Never Forget: The Meaning of the Global War on Terror in Post-9/11 U.S. Presidential Discourse A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Landon Shane Bevier December 2017 ABSTRACT Framed by cultural criminology, this project examines the discursive construction of the U.S. state and the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in 190 public speeches and statements made by U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Whereas cultural criminology's focus on the politics of meaning and transgression in deviant subcultures is often criticized for glorifying deviance and ignoring real harm (O'Brien 2005; Hall and Winlow 2007), this project instead uses the framework to analyze the cultural practices of the state in regard to the waging of war. A key contribution of this work is thus the development of a cultural criminology of the state. Through a deep reading of the cultural narratives driving U.S. Presidential discourse from September 11, 2001 - February 18, 2015, this dissertation asks: Through what narrative does ongoing, global warfare make sense? In what story does the torture of human beings seem necessary? How does the state construct a symbolic universe in which its material violence is justified? This project further contributes to a growing body of literature addressing state criminality. Using a constitutive conceptualization of crime (Henry and Milovanovic 1996) and narrative (Presser 2009), this study positions state discourse itself as criminogenic, as it constructs a totalizing narrative that encourages violence toward dehumanized others and justifies perpetual global warfare as a necessary means of achieving peace. With the state established as a potential criminal actor, it uses a distinctly cultural approach to expand the motivational framework used to analyze state criminality. It accomplishes this first by looking at state violence through an expressive rather than purely instrumental lens and connecting the transgression of U.S. ideals to national identity and ontological insecurity. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ......................................................................... 10 Conceptualizing Culture ........................................................................................................... 10 Theoretical Lineage .................................................................................................................. 14 Social Problem Framing ........................................................................................................... 19 Additional Concepts Relevant to A Cultural Criminology of the State .................................... 24 Ontological Insecurity ........................................................................................................... 25 Totalizing Narratives & Cultural Essentialisms ................................................................... 27 State Fantasy ......................................................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER III LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................... 33 Conceptualizing the State ......................................................................................................... 33 Conceptualizing State Crime .................................................................................................... 39 A Constitutive Conceptualization ............................................................................................. 46 Criminology and the GWOT .................................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER IV RESEARCH METHODS ..................................................................................... 53 Discourse ................................................................................................................................... 57 Discourse Analysis .................................................................................................................... 61 Data Collection ......................................................................................................................... 64 Analytic Procedures .................................................................................................................. 67 CHAPTER V ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................ 74 Bush Era I: National Trauma .................................................................................................... 75 Tragedy as Opportunity ........................................................................................................ 79 Destiny Manifests ................................................................................................................. 81 Bush Era II: The Iraq Threat ..................................................................................................... 82 Isolation of Blame ................................................................................................................. 84 Expansion of Victim Category .............................................................................................. 85 A Terrible Line Would Be Crossed ...................................................................................... 87 The Threat Gathering Against Us ......................................................................................... 88 Bush Era III: Defending the War .............................................................................................. 92 Bush Era IV: Tools of War ....................................................................................................... 97 The Patriot Act ...................................................................................................................... 99 Terrorist Surveillance Program ........................................................................................... 100 A Separate Program ............................................................................................................ 102 Bush Era V: Moral Clarity ...................................................................................................... 106 Barack Obama Presidential Discourse .................................................................................... 110 Diagnostic Frame ................................................................................................................ 110 Motivational Frame ............................................................................................................. 114 Prognostic Frame ................................................................................................................ 118 CHAPTER VI TOWARD A CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY OF THE STATE ....................... 125 Defining Features of A Cultural Criminology of the State ..................................................... 127 CHAPTER VII CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................... 139 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 145 APPENDIXES ............................................................................................................................ 156 iii VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………165 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. National Trauma by George W. Bush Presidential Era ………………………..76 Figure 2. Expansion of Victim Category by George W. Bush Presidential Era …………83