مجلة المفكر
Volume 18, Numéro 1, Pages 709-726
2023-06-15

Religion And Ideology: A Critical Analysis Of George W. Bush’s Discourse In The Post-9/11 Era

Authors : Metidji Amira . Daoudi Frid .

Abstract

At the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, former President George W. Bush delivered a number of speeches. By employing religious discourse, he provided a global context in which Americans could accept a set of foreign policy agendas. In this regard, the aim of this paper is, first, to show that the president’s religiously based discourse implies reference to the myth of the chosen nation, revealing the main underlying assumptions of it. Second, this study tries to unearth the ideological impetus within the president’s discourse while considering its tight connection with United States foreign policy in the post-9/11 era. To this end, the paper draws on Fairclough’s framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The findings reveal that there are related premises of the chosen nation myth, and ideological components embedded within President Bush’s religious discourse involving the endorsement of the United States as the world hegemon.

Keywords

Discourse ; Religion ; Ideology ; President Bush ; The myth of the chosen nation