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`9/11 changed everything': an intertextual analysis of the Bush Doctrine

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY, OHIO, USA

This article presents an intra- and inter-textual analysis of the `Bush Doctrine,' the security strategy response to 9/11 which sanctions a policy of preventive war. Using Thibault's (1991) framework of `critical, intertextual analysis,' I examine the Doctrine synchronically as it is articulated in the 2002 `National Security Strategy.' This analysis demonstrates the disjuncture created in NSS02 and the key discursive formations that underlie the Doctrine and link it to its earlier articulation in post-Cold War documents. I then examine the Doctrine diachronically by situating it within the context of these earlier texts and demonstrate the paradigmatic choices and linguistic transformations that occur across each document's security strategy. I argue that post-Cold War and post-9/11 security discourses comprise an intertextual system that has been suppressed by articulations of post-9/11 discourses. Within this system, 9/11 serves as the legitimating device that enabled the Bush Administration to sanction a security policy designed to maintain US global supremacy.

Key Words: 9/11 • Bush Doctrine • disjunction • intertextuality • legitimation • preemptive defense • preventive war • recontextualization • thematic formation

Discourse & Society, Vol. 20, No. 2, 195-222 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926508099002


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