The war/crime narrative and fear content in leader rhetoric about terrorism

The rhetoric used by the leaders of Western democracies about terrorism has attracted considerable attention in political commentary and political science in recent times. A great deal of that attention has been focused on the leaders of the English-speaking Western democracies that have been embroiled in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last decade. The implicit (sometimes explicit) understanding of political rhetoric is that it is designed to advance a leader’s political agenda. That is, by framing arguments in particular ways political leaders are seeking to convince audiences to support their political program (eg. by voting for candidates endorsed by the leader at the next election, endorsing the policies advocated by that leader in opinion polls or other forms of political action). There has, of course, been a trenchant critique of the approach taken by recent Western leaders in the War on Terror. We will address this in more detail below but the core of this critique is that the rhetorical strategies adopted by Western leaders are duplicitous and even undemocratic (Lawrence 2006). The leaders are presented as fear mongers (Altheide, 2003; Jackson, 2005; Lawrence, 2006), and, following Hermann and Chomsky (1988), popular consent for their programs is said to be manufactured. In order to understand the rhetoric of the leaders and the criticism of that rhetoric, we think it is helpful to take a step back to consider the very specific military and political problem that terrorism presents to Western leaders in the 21st century.