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Imagining Terror in an Era of Globalization: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Construction of Terrorism after 9/11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2009

Catherine V. Scott
Catherine V. Scott
Affiliation:
Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA. E-mail: cscott@agnesscott.edu
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Abstract

Many analyses of U.S. foreign policy after September 11 have rested upon readings of the U.S. as a traditional imperialist power. In so doing, the constructions of Al Qaeda as a decentralized corporation and a virtual network are often ignored. Corporate and network constructions place less stress on conventional threats to the nation-state and instead portray terrorism in distinctively post-Fordist terms. This in turn helps explain the short-lived and partial patriotic responses to the terrorist attacks, as well as the contradictory place of race in portrayals of the threat facing the U.S. Together these discourses point to new ways of thinking about U.S. nationalism and terrorism in the twenty-first century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 579 - 590
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

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