Abstract
The groundbreaking tragedy that took place in New York on September 11, 2001, left the world in a state of awe and shock in the following days and weeks. The two passenger planes that were rammed into the Twin Towers and the ensuing ones in Washington and Pennsylvania created fear, but also a need for understanding and explanations. This dissertation s focal point is the presumably complex mix of politics and religion in International Relations (IR), and it seeks to amplify whether the notion is explained satisfactory in existing theories of political science or if we are in need to refine them so as to include religion as a variable.
This dissertation seeks to analyses the presence of religion in American security policy discourse in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, until the US launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The focusing is on the output from the Bush Presidency in front of the military strike. That is, President Bush s statements and speeches in the period. The speeches are analysed through the lenses of two significant theories in IR, constructivism and realism.
Constructivism and realism amplify different aspects and assumptions founded on diverging philosophical underpinnings to IR.
Constructivists understand religion ideologically, as a guide or reference point that may influence worldviews, identities and the cognitive understanding of reality of policymakers.Religion can be understood pragmatically from a realist perception, as being used by policy makers in a realpolitik fashion, to achieve policy goals. In this sense religion may be interest based and used to legitimize policy.
This thesis seeks to investigate the assumption that religion has an impact on international policy. The promise of liberalism in the inter war period, its positive outlook of human nature, and belief in international institutions (IO) where brought to an end with World War II. Still, realist theory with its hard power politics is the legit child of the same war, and as the Cold War became more heavily entrenched it gave rise to structural realism. Now in the post Cold War era and with the events on September 11, the question that arises is whether the old theories still can be applied? Have recent events on the global scene created a vacuum for a new understanding of IR? The policy of the Bush Presidency can be seen as inhabiting both idealism and traditional hard power politics. Therefore, this study will apply, respectively constructivist and realist theory, when analysing the Presidents speeches.
The nature of religion and the empirical case have certain implications and limitations for the study. It is impossible to decide the de facto impact of religious beliefs on policy decisions or read the minds of policy makers which would be the only way to discover their true motivation for policy decisions (Fox and Sandler 2004:31). The focus is on the personal cognitive understanding and inter-subjectivity of policymakers. This dissertation argues that constructivism and its main principles are the most adequate and suitable to explain the presence of religion in President Bush s speeches. Realist theory has since World War II been the dominating paradigm in IR. New expanding empirical facts suggests that realists are ill equipped to understand the role of religion in US security policy rhetoric. The study seeks to amplify whether the notion is explained satisfactory in existing theories of political science or if we are in need of a new paradigm in IR theory that includes religion as a variable.
A rejection of theories of political science or a disregarding of the methods of research that have been developed during the twentieth century is not sought. Rather, an inclusion in the understanding and research of IR of the various manifestations of religions and their influence, on the range of social and political phenomena that the discipline of IR seeks to explain.
The combination of religious presence in American society, the idealistic tradition in foreign policy and the power capabilities of the US, in combination with the personal Christian worldview of President Bush, and the neo-conservative and straussian influence of the Bush Administration, suggests that religion is an important factor when explaining the American response to the September 11 attacks.
We live in a social world, with values, desires, aspirations, passions, and perceptions as well as a material world of tangible and observable facts, figures, and calculations. Social constructivism recognizes that knowledge in the social world of IR must include these aspects as well as the material. Thereby focusing on what have been neglected in the realist framework for many years, the way norms and identities are socially constructed and more importantly that they influence preferences and interests of policy makers. Even so, the thesis shown that the presumption that all realist theorists does not relate to soft-power values is somewhat flawed.
It is argued in the study, both theoretically and empirically, that religion can define preferences and interests of policy makers in such a way that it should be given more attention. Both constructivist and realist theory have been criticized for not being able to fully grasp the impact of faith in international politics. This may partly have to do with the theories philosophical framework, i.e. the categorisation and paradigms derived from western modernity from where they analyse reality. But it also may partly be explained with the nature of religion, which makes the causal relationship between faith and behaviour ultimately non-verifiable. Empirically, as is shown in the study, religion surfaced in the Bush Presidency, i.e. in the speeches of the President. The study argues that the theoretical premises of constructivism opens for religious notions in analysis, and further suggests that faith and ultimately religious notions may influence policy behaviour.
Religion is an independent variable that can have a potent influence on people s behaviour above and beyond its use as a power resource. In this notion, the strains of realist theory that does not consider soft values are severely flawed.