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Constructing civilisations: Embedding and reproducing the ‘Muslim world’ in American foreign policy practices and institutions since 9/11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2014

GREGORIO BETTIZA
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Abstract

Since 11 September 2001, the ‘Muslim world’ has become a novel religio-culturally defined civilisational frame of reference around which American foreign policy has been partly reoriented and reorganised. In parallel, the ‘Muslim world’, is increasingly becoming, at this historical juncture, a civilisational social fact in international politics by being progressively embedded in, and enacted onto the world by, American foreign policy discourses, institutions, practices, and processes of self-other recognition. This article theoretically understands and explains the causes and consequences of these changes through an engagement with the emerging post-essentialist civilisational analysis turn in International Relations (IR). In particular, the article furthers a constructivist civilisational politics approach that is theoretically, empirically, and methodologically oriented towards recovering and explaining how actors are interpreting, constructing, and reproducing – in this case through particular American foreign policy changes – an international society where intra- and inter-civilisational relations ‘matter’.

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Articles
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Review of International Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 575 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2014 

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References

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30 Bettiza, ‘Civilizational analysis’.

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76 For instance, Elliot Abrams, who in Bush's National Security Council (NSC) held key senior advisory positions on democracy promotion and the Middle East, has repeatedly argued that the ‘struggle against Islamic extremism is a battle of ideas as well as a military and police activity’. For Abrams, focusing on ‘fighting terrorist attacks’ is not sufficient to win this war, America needs to ‘[fight] Islamic extremism’ more broadly. Elliott Abrams, ‘The Citizen of the World Presidency’, available at: {http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-citizen-of-the-world-presidency-1} accessed 20 October 2013.

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79 See {http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4785065.stm} accessed 20 October 2013.

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82 Thomas Carothers, ‘Democracy: Terrorism's uncertain antidote’, Current History (2003), pp. 403–6, 403.

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86 GAO, ‘U.S. Public Diplomacy: Interagency Coordination Efforts Hampered by the Lack of a National Communication Strategy’ (Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), 2005).

87 Ibid.

88 PCC, ‘U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication’ (Washington: Communication and Public Diplomacy Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC), 2007), p. 3.

89 Ibid.

90 See Amr, ‘The opportunity’.

91 ‘A U.S. ear in the Muslim world’, Asia Times, available at: {http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GK02Aa01.html} accessed 20 October 2013.

92 David E. Kaplan, ‘Of Jihad Networks and the War of Ideas’, available at: {http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060622/22natsec.htm} accessed 20 October 2013; David. E. Kaplan, ‘Hearts, Minds, and Dollars: In an Unseen Front in the War on Terrorism, America is Spending Millions … To Change the Very Face of Islam’, available at: {http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050425/25roots_print.htm} accessed 20 October 2013.

93 Lynch, ‘Rhetoric and reality’, p. 15.

94 See {http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/20/obama-seeks-appropriate-balance-in-fighting-terror/?page=all} accessed 20 October 2013.

95 Emily Pease, ‘U.S. Efforts to Reform Education in the Middle East’, available at: {http://yonseijournal.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/p23_1.pdf} accessed 20 October 2013, pp. 8, 15.

96 Amr, ‘The opportunity’, p. 8.

97 William Inboden, ‘Personal communication’, phone conversation, 29 June 2011. Inboden was Senior Director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council during the second Bush administration.

98 Al-Qaeda based much of its ideological appeal on a clash of civilisation narrative and an essentialisation of the West opposing Islam and Muslims. See, among many, Kepel, Gilles and Ghazaleh, Pascale, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: the Future of the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

99 See {http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SpecialIs} accessed 20 October 2013.

100 See {www.brookings.edu/about/projects/islamic-world/us-islamic-world-forums} accessed 20 October 2013.

101 John L. Esposito, ‘It's the policy, stupid: Political Islam and US foreign policy’, Harvard International Review (2 May 2007).

102 See {http://www.pewglobal.org/2006/06/22/the-great-divide-how-westerners-and-muslims-view-each-other} accessed 20 October 2013.

103 Ahmed, Journey, p. 6. See, also, Forst and Ahmed, After Terror.

104 See fn. 67.

105 Obama, Barak, ‘Renewing American leadership’, Foreign Affairs, 86 (2007), pp. 2–16 Google Scholar.

106 On Obama's priorities see Amr, ‘The opportunity’, p. 7.

107 For a detailed comparison of Obama's strategy and the report see R S. Zaharna, ‘Obama, U.S. public iplomacy and the Islamic world’, Word Politics Review, available at: {http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/3450/obama-u-s-public-diplomacy-and-the-islamic-world} accessed 20 October 2013.

108 ‘A New Era of Partnerships: Report of Recommendations to the President’, President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Washington, DC (2010), pp. 69–93.

109 During his childhood Obama lived in Indonesia, he would often describe his Kenyan father as ‘Muslim’.

110 Before Cairo, Obama had also made similar conciliatory overtures towards a category of people and states singularly identified with their religious identity as Muslim and supposed shared beliefs in Islam. For instance during his inaugural address, in an early interview to Arab TV channels, and during a state visit in Turkey. For instance during his inaugural address, in an early interview to Arab TV channels, and during a state visit in Turkey.

111 Obama, ‘President Obama Addresses Muslim World’, speech, Cairo, 2009.

112 NSS, ‘The National Security Strategy’ (2010), available at: {http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf} accessed 20 October 2013, pp. 19–22.

113 Lynch, ‘Rhetoric and reality’, pp. 18–20.

114 {http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/155334.pdf} accessed 20 October 2013.

115 Meaning someone who has memorised the Quran.

116 {http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/02/13/president-obama-addresses-us-islamic-world-forum} accessed 20 October 2013.

117 See Andrea Elliott, ‘White House quietly courts Muslims in U.S.’, The New York Times, available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/us/politics/19muslim.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&} accessed 20 October 2013.

118 {http://www.state.gov/p/io/142790.htm} accessed 20 October 2013.

119 Lynch, ‘Rhetoric and reality’, p. 19.

120 {http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/05/introducing-rashad-hussain} accessed 20 October 2013.

121 {http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10JAKARTA159.html} accessed 20 October 2013.

122 Lynch, ‘Rhetoric and reality’, p. 20.

123 See also Olivier Roy and Justin Vaisse, ‘How to win Islam over’, The New York Times, available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21roy.html} accessed 20 October 2013.

124 Farah Pandith, ‘Plenary Session Roundtable: Perspectives on Muslim Engagement featuring Farah Pandith’, US Relations with the Muslim World: One Year After Cairo Conference, Washington, DC 2010, available at: {http://www.usip.org/events/us-relations-the-muslim-world-one-year-after-cairo} accessed 20 October 2013.

125 This article does not claim that all American debates about how to respond to 9/11 were framed along civilisational lines. Nor that the entirety of America's response to the attacks of 9/11 and its Middle Eastern foreign policy have been influenced by civilisational-in-the-plural discourses. What has been shown, hopefully successfully, is that that these discourses have become an authoritative source of American foreign policy thinking and practice following the events of 9/11.