Following 9/11: George W. Bush Discursive Re-Articulation of American Social Identity

Abstract: Utilizing a poststructuralist and neo-Gramscian meta-theoretical framework as the leading tool,this study aims at conceptualizing the discursive re-articulation of American social identity in George W. Bush's post-9/11 oratory. In response to the identity confusion that I contend September 11 has materialized in American subjects, the argument is made that his speeches have been the vocal proponent of a neoconservative discursive formation offering a hegemonic project to overcome this uncertainty; which entailed the attempt to alter American "objectivity", and to recreate the American "self" through the use of social antagonisms. Covering the ten days following the September 11 incidents, Bush’s selected speeches related to national security and foreign policy are evaluated through Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's discourse theory to be able to emphasize how they represent and discursively reconstruct American social identities. The analysis suggests that the ideological incentive of this neoconservative discursive formation has involved the endorsement of an American nation "at war", "under God", and "of capitalist/liberal democratic values"; as well as elements of selflegitimation, in the words of George W. Bush.