This book analyzes three types of data—presidential speeches, U.S. media discourse, and focus group interviews—to provide a longitudinal and holistic study of the formation, circulation, and contestation of the Bush administration’s narrative about the ‘war on terror.’ The narrative, which forwards a powerful set of assumptions and explanations about America’s response to terrorism since September 11, 2001, acts as a type of discursive formation that sustains, in Foucault’s terms, a ‘regime of truth.’ It places boundaries around what can meaningfully be said and understood about the subject. A ... More

This book analyzes three types of data—presidential speeches, U.S. media discourse, and focus group interviews—to provide a longitudinal and holistic study of the formation, circulation, and contestation of the Bush administration’s narrative about the ‘war on terror.’ The narrative, which forwards a powerful set of assumptions and explanations about America’s response to terrorism since September 11, 2001, acts as a type of discursive formation that sustains, in Foucault’s terms, a ‘regime of truth.’ It places boundaries around what can meaningfully be said and understood about the subject. As the analysis illustrates, even as social actors resist the narrative and the policy it entails, they appropriate its language to be listened to and understood. While this often works to reproduce and strengthen the narrative, discourse is inevitably reshaped as it enters into new contexts. This recontextualization, therefore, leaves open the possibility for the introduction of new meanings; and therein rests the potential for resistance and social transformation. Thus, the book places a large emphasis on the intertextual process whereby prior discourse is re-presented—i.e. reanimated and reshaped—across different settings. It is argued that applying ideas on intertextuality to the analysis of political discourse is central to understanding the way micro-level discursive action contributes to the circulation—and even the contestation—of macro-level cultural narratives like the Bush ‘War on Terror’ Narrative.